Philly,
Someday in between Winter & Fall,
brief intimate moments before sunset,
I realized the smell of old books
and petrichor dancing in the air;
then somewhere along the windswept paths
of Locust walk,
I stopped short in my tracks —
felt an intense moment of euphoria
and almost decided to stay forever.
The story begins with me leaving Singapore for Philadelphia near the end of the hot, sweltering summer in August 2012 for a yearlong Entrepreneurship-focused exchange program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Wait, actually, let’s backtrack to the glorious summer of 2011; it’s important to go a little back to understand my story better. I’d spent that summer in New York, taking writing classes at New York University. The news and journalism industry have always compelled me in a very profound way, and while I was pursuing a Business major, I knew that journalism would always be something that would linger at the back of my mind, and would gnaw at me till I really tried it for myself. I wanted to find a way to combine them both, or if they were mutually exclusive, I wanted to see which one I was going to pursue.
And I’d heard so much about the Big Apple and I wanted to see it for myself; the city where the citizens of the world converged; the city in America that wasn’t quite an accurate representation of America; the city where misfits called home (there’s a misfit in everyone).
I knew I couldn’t pursue journalism in a country with a government-controlled media. Also, a nation that was economically successful, disaster-free and over-protected by the government. As a middle-child born into a stereotypical upper middle-class Asian family, I wasn’t going through any said “real world pains” that could potentially mellow me into a better writer. Perspective-wise, I felt myopic and was hungry for more. I was in thirsty-need to broaden my perspectives. I couldn’t stick to status quo.
I applied to NYU on my own accord, without going through NUS’s IRO; and then in May, I was truly in New York by myself. And it was exactly how I thought an exchange program should be structured. Not flying zillions of miles to spend 24/7 in a foreign country with your fellow countrymen. Rather ironic.
Beyond the dazzling city of bright lights, New York, or more specifically, Lower Manhattan, was my city of ‘firsts’. It was the first time I was in The City, the first time traveling as a vagabond, the first time sampling American tertiary education, the first time I woke up psyched for classes, the first time I was devastated to leave a city, and finally, at the end of the summer, the first, and the last time I looked back as the cab bounded down the highway to the JFK airport and I saw the Manhattan skyline diminishing bits by bits until finally, the vehicle turned a sharp corner and all I had left of New York were shards of memories of my summer.
For three months, I’d scoured every corner of Lower Manhattan. I remember talking to Holocaust survivors in the subway, I remember Matt and Michael and the guitars, I remember getting lost in Brooklyn and spending the last of my money on ice cream, I remember sitting in a café in Williamsburg and hearing Neutral Milk Hotel for the first time… and at the end of July, my departure from New York felt abrupt, surreal, unnatural, and I felt that I had unfinished business in the East Coast. I remember assuring myself that I’d be back, and reassuring myself I’d be back soon enough. And a year later, I was back in the East Coast – only this time, not New York, but Philadelphia.
Post-Manhattan, the world tilted slightly. Manhattan had provided me with a different outlook in life, but in retrospect, “it’s not an adult life if your parents still pay for your (iPhone).”
I hadn’t really gotten the full-blown Manhattan experience – suffering from youth unemployment for half a year because you just can’t land that job at the New Yorker, and finally succumbing to earning minimum wage at the neighbourhood burrito chain and then going home at the end of a long taco-filled day to the shoebox apartment you share with three strangers at the dodgy side of Queens (because you couldn’t afford that apartment in Manhattan), and attempting to write that memoir about your unique life story and sometimes feeling so raw and alone in one of the most densely populated cities in the world.
I wanted to go back to validate my hasty assumption that a summer exchange in New York City was as glorified an experience as making a living there. Also, the deep appreciation for the American culture I’d developed throughout a lifetime of exposure to Western media was blown up with my visit to New York. Everyone I’d come across was passionate about something – whether politics, environment, art, or entrepreneurship – I wanted to go back and develop a deeper understanding of what exactly it was that made Americans tick; and hopefully apply it back to the Singapore context. I applied to the NOC program, got accepted in April, and by August, I was back in the East Coast, but only this time, in Philadelphia.
I was surprised how different Philly was from New York, probably because both are East Coast cities following the grid system. When I first stepped foot in Philly, it was the hot, unforgiving summer of August 2012. My first thought was wondering how I was going to survive the next 12 months – spend more weekends in New York?
The acute difference between my New York and my Philadelphia experiences was that in New York, I took writing classes, but the curriculum was pretty casual. But in Philly I was in a dual-track program: interning for a startup company and taking Entrepreneurship classes.
Furthermore, for the previous summer, I had traveled alone to Manhattan, but this time, I had traveled to Philly with a group of Singaporeans, who were in the same program as I was; I was semi-accountable to them and fully accountable to NUS. In a lot of ways, I didn’t have the huge bout of liberty I had in New York. There was a certain level of social pressure – both good and bad.
It took me a while to fall in love with Philly because I’d been expecting some version of Manhattan and was feeling strong status quo bias. Aesthetically, Philly was pretty accurately described in the Bruce Springsteen’s song, Streets of Philadelphia, where he described it as ‘Wasting Away’ and ‘Black and whispering as the rain’. Philly’s University City, where I resided, when I first arrived, was just about dead. Because Penn students generally intern in New York or DC or LA during the summer, the streets were pretty sparse, and that’s when you start noticing the raw grittiness of the city. But today, (cliché alert!) Philadelphia is perfect in her own imperfections.
Under the NOC dual-track yearlong program, I interned at Shenandoah Studio, a game development company that specializes in bringing traditional boardgames onto iOS platforms, took Engineering Entrepreneurship classes at the University of Pennsylvania, and wrote for Penn’s daily independent student-run newspapers, The Daily Pennsylvanian. Occasionally, I’d travel, though it wasn’t high on my Bucket List. I felt like I’d done the touristy thing the summer before, and I was looking for something else other than taking pictures with tourist landmarks across the country.
I worked 32-40 hours a week. Shenandoah Studio’s flagship game, Battle of the Bulge, was launched in December ‘12 on the Apple App Store and it was my Christmas of iOS. Bulge is based on the bloodiest American battle in World War II – not a dieting game; a deep strategy game that’s considered a novelty in the iOS wargaming category.
Bulge was a hit success in its niche category of war strategy boardgames. Despite my non-involvement in the technical aspect of the business, it was an incredibly encouraging experience, to witness an indie success firsthand (most indie companies flop and perish).
At Shenandoah, I always felt like I was entering a new world as I walked into the office in the mornings (almost like Dorothy entering the colo(u)rful land of Oz). It was a strong, wonderful feeling that washed through me each time I walked through the front doors – it never got old.
It’s the everyday conversations we have in the office – that goes beyond Shenandoah’s niche of strategy wargames, to incorporate a broad range of subjects ranging from Baseball to God. I think a lot of making a place fun to work is in the little day-to-day stuff. Being willing to joke around at the office, not being afraid to show your sense of humor, and not being afraid that the casualness of the office interactions will lead to complacency.
And will that make a game company any less credible than say, a nuts and bolts manufacturer? I think the discipline sort of comes in over a longer period because I still wake up in the mornings psyched to get to work, and know that I’ll miss the guys an insane amount when I’m back in Singapore. When CEO, Eric, started the studio, he wanted to create a studio where employees felt comfortable enough to take a day off for their sick kid but when they were there, they would give in their 110%.
Over the past year at Shenandoah, I have learnt the true meaning of indie, and learnt that it’s okay to be indie. But noted that there’s a fine line between being indie and being completely laid back and floozy. Indie comes from the word “independent”. It means that Shenandoah Studio is not part of any major game publishers, which gives them complete liberty to create their own games. Being indie means going all out to pursue your passions, and at times staying nonchalant even if naysayers aplenty.
When I wasn’t working, I was studying. At Penn, I was learning from students younger and more capable than I was.
The Daily Pennsylvanian’s Editor-in-Chief is Jennifer Sun, a rising senior at the Wharton School of Business and an aspiring journalist. Jen said it is at these intersections – in her case, the crossroads of Business and Journalism – where she believes innovation occurs. Despite the sunset nature of the journalism industry, with once-behemoth media empires facing bankruptcy and ceasing operations, Jen still wants to soldier down this path and revolutionize and revive the world of journalism – I’m sure she will. This summer, she’s in New York City doing a product development internship at Forbes.
My stint at the Daily Pennsylvanian has reinforced my desire to become a journalist.
Over the year, through the stories I have covered for the DP, I have heard heartfelt tributes to American heartland rocker, Bruce Springsteen, interviewed Kinko’s founder, Paul Orfalea, attended Undergraduate Research Symposiums, drawn parallels between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Apartheid, and listened to poetry slams about love and the Latino identity.
Through my diverse experiences (it was the only way), I have learned to handle personal setbacks better, have become a better listener, and have quit trying to dabble with a zillion and one things and am learning to focus on making a few things good.
NOC is not a typical study abroad program, which are often sad excuses for college students to spend taxpayer’s money to become tourists. These days, study abroad has been oversold to college students as an experience that will open their eyes to cross-cultural interactions and a whole nother perspective of life – but today, most students pay tens of thousands of dollars, fly across half the globe, to blitz through Europe with their fellow exchange students. NOC goes a step further. It extracts students from their comfort zones and immerses them straight into the heart of another place through its work-study program.
In the process of writing this almost post-mortem article, I’m taking a fond trip down memory lane, and reminiscing all the precious golden memories I’ve formed over the past year. I have had my fair share of euphoria and brief interjections of first world disappointments, which have only served to make me bounce back stronger.
Days far into the distant future, I’ll be sure to take fond trips down memory lane and reminisce the precious golden days of Philadelphia, of Shenandoah Studio, of Penn, and of all the beautiful people I’ve met and have helped me grown as I passed through this city. As Alice said of her Adventures in Wonderland, “I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then.”
In 2011, dazzled by the bright lights, Manhattan had lifted me off the ground but Philadelphia yanked me back to Earth in 2013, just to a better spot than I was before. I’ll be back in Singapore soon, back with the humidity, and the family, and equipped with the “battle scars” of my year in Philadelphia. It’s been quite a year, and my perspectives have shifted again; as I’m sure they will continue to do so in the years to come. I can’t wait to see how the rest of the story unfolds.