In June and July, I applied for a new role at work.

The application process took about 3 weeks, which in retrospect is not that long, but at the time it felt grueling. Submitting my CV and cover letter was a fairly easy step. The intermediate step was completing a project in three parts that took me about the equivalent of two full work days, taking up evenings and most of an entire weekend. And then there were two interviews.

I absolutely hate interviewing, either because of or leading me to be not very good at them. I’m not a bullshitter. I don’t spin. I answer the question as it’s asked, without finding in it the opportunity to say what I really want to say or thinking about why it’s being asked and the answer I’m supposed to give.

I did better this year than when I applied for the same role last year, but I had stiffer competition this time and I was not selected.

The feedback I received was insightful and valuable, up to a point. It’s a global role, and I readily admit that I presented with a North America-centric focus. It’s a project-based role, and I lack specific project experience. Those are things that I can improve on. It was also given to me that I am detail-oriented to the point of compromising productivity. I will never apologize for producing qualitative over quantitative work. That part left me feeling disillusioned and dejected over the whole experience.

About 10 days later, another opportunity presented itself. My team is co-located in Portland, Dublin, and Singapore. My equivalent team members in Singapore were both going on maternity leave, creating a gap not only in coverage of the role but also in availability of someone to train a team member being promoted into the role.

I couldn’t apply fast enough, and the feedback I’d received on the previous application could not have more seamlessly applied here. Working from Singapore would provide me with the opportunity to gain a more global perspective within our team, and because of the training component, I would gain project experience as well.

The idea was for two team members, one each from Portland and Dublin, to go to Singapore for consecutive four-week stints. For 5 days, I was the only one from the North America team to apply, until another application came in at the last minute from someone who had also applied for the project role. One of us was going to be disappointed again.

Another week passed, and I got the good news today — I’m going to Singapore! There was a lot of hiring and shuffling going on in Dublin, and through those circumstances, I ended up filling both four-week slots. Holy shit, I’m going to live in Singapore!

I have traveled for 5 weeks, moving from city to city and country to country. And I have traveled for work, staying in one place for only a week or so.

This is going to be a whole new kind of travel.