Back in 2007, when I applied to graduate schools in the United States, nothing could beat the excitement of handing over my applications to FedEx, clinging to the receipts with precious tracking numbers, and checking them a hundred times a day until I got confirmation that the packages had indeed arrived at my dream schools-all within the three business days they had promised.
KATHMANDU, JUNE 14
Back in 2007, when I applied to graduate schools in the United States, nothing could beat the excitement of handing over my applications to FedEx, clinging to the receipts with precious tracking numbers, and checking them a hundred times a day until I got confirmation that the packages had indeed arrived at my dream schools-all within the three business days they had promised.
A few months later, it was UPS that brought me the offer letter from MIT, transforming my destiny from a rural girl in China into a truly global citizen. I had never been on an airplane out of my homeland before my flight to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Two years ago in 2019, life brought me to the World Bank office in Sri Lanka, near the Port of Colombo, one of the 20 most well-connected ports in the world.
Watching a busy port at work can be endlessly fascinating. It still gives me a thrill to see the giant ships glide by, laden with containers carrying cargo from halfway across the world, including, recently. It's logistics that made it all happen.
A version of this article appears in the print on June 15, 2021, of The Himalayan Times.
