Internship briefing!

Today, in my Chinese Society class, which is taught by Meng Laoshi, a. k. a. Harrison, who, incidentally, is also our Program Facilitator, Professor Meng talked a bit about the internships that he had been organizing for us. We had not been given very much information about them to date; Dr. Kaup had only asked our preferences back at Furman and vaguely mentioned them. Anyway, today, we got a finalized list of five choices, and we each chose our location. I, of course, chose to work as a proofreader and editor of the English section of the Suzhou Daily, the local newspaper. Little did I know that my internship there would actually begin today...

At the end of class, Harrison mentioned to Stephanie (the other FIC girl who will have the same position as I) and I very casually that we would go this afternoon to meet our editor. No big deal, right? Right, except that, sooner than expected, we were off to Shizi Street to meet our boss and discuss our job, which starts TOMORROW!

Basically, I know very little right now: our boss, Ms. Yang, speaks good English...sometimes. For instance, she could describe the newspaper very well, but when I asked her whether or not there was a dress code, she told me that I could help with interviews if English skills were needed. Hm...from what I can gather, Stephanie and I will go to work in the Suzhou Daily building (Free Spirits: it’s not USA Today, but it is rather classy) on Thursday afternoons for an hour or two. We will take turns each week either proofreading a page with local news in English or editing a different English page. Though the newspaper comes out daily, the special English section, which has grown in the past four years from one to four pages, comes out on Mondays. We are also allowed to contribute to the paper, for which we will be compensated, assuming that our writing is published. (The rest of our job is for no pay.) We will get our own ID pass to get into the building and then report to a cubicle on the second floor next to Mrs. Yuan’s and her assistant, Carrie’s, cubicles.

I am so freaking excited.

Stay tuned!