Check it out

I've been spending lots of time at work lately updating the Foodies magazine website (to which the title is a link.) On it, you'll find a link to Living Abroad magazine, which I also work on. I'll put this website in the Links sidebar, too! Enjoy!

Gearing Up!

After what proved to be a much more arduous assignment than I had anticipated, I am getting into bed a bit later than I had hoped in order to gear up for...*fanfare* MY FIRST REAL WEEK!

Yes, yes, I realize that it is Monday night. But for now, at least, I have Mondays off - let's hope it stays this way for the term.

Anyway, I start training at work tomorrow promptly at 9 a.m., and my day will continue at The Media Company until it is time to attend Dr. O'Rourke's class. Apparently, since we live in a "palace," as he put it, there is some sort of shindig here afterward. We shall see.

The rest of my week will be filled with more internship training and work, Scottish Culture and Society, and Wine Studies. (Brilliant class choices for the term, eh?) I'll keep you updated...

An Interview?

Well, I had my make-up "interview" this morning. I actually arrived a few minutes late after getting lost more than once (it looked really different in the morning than it had at dusk!), but no one seemed to notice. I'll be sure to be prompt from now on, just in case!

Interestingly enough, I'm pretty sure that my total time in the building was about ten minutes. Also, I do not recall being asked a single question until the inevitable, "Do you have any questions?" So...it wasn't quite what I was expecting.

This is not all bad, however. Instead of a nerve-wracking Q&A session, Sue and Caroline (my bosses) took turns going over my workload and expectations that they would have of me. They seemed very eager to have some extra help and said that maintaining the website would be one of my main duties but that I would also get to do some writing and work with photography. All of this would be further explained to me, they said, in training next week.

Basically, the place I work, The Media Company, has three magazines: Foodies Edinburgh, Foodies London, and Living Abroad. I'm going to get to do a bit of work on both. My first impression of the workplace is that it seems to be a pretty fun and casual yet efficient atmosphere. I'm excited to get my schedule worked out and get started!

My Morning

It's been on for all of thirty minutes. Let me just tell you my series of recent events:

Per usual, I woke up; went back to sleep because my sleeping mind convinced my awake, sane mind that I could stay in bed longer; then jumped out of bed with no time to spare. As I freaked out about making it to my scheduled internship interview in time whilst struggling to not wake up the rest of the flat, I discovered that the dress that I had planned to wear to said interview is missing - whether this is stuffed in a weird corner of my supposedly-empty suitcases, sitting on my bed at home, or just unpacked into a different drawer, I cannot confirm. Anyway, after I got ready very quickly, I rushed out the door - oh, wait: no, I didn't rush out the door, because I COULDN'T GET OUT THE DOOR. It has been told to me that my flatmates experienced some problems with this on the second day, but I slept through them. I spent a good 5-10 minutes locking and unlocking various of our no less than FOUR locks before resorting to waking someone up :( and asking. When I finally got out the door, I had barely enough time to make it to my interview at the appointed time, let alone any earlier, so I called my contact person, Sue (whom I've never met).

It turns out that Sue wasn't in, after all. All's well that end's well, I suppose, so my interview is rescheduled for Friday morning. I promptly turned 180 degrees and headed back to my flat, where everyone was still sleeping. I changed out of my work clothes and came down to read and update my blog - I don't know any other morning-worthy activities, since I don't spend my waking hours during this time.

I'm Studying Away...Again!

I've been admitted to Furman's Spring in Edinburgh program for 2011, and I have decided to accept!

I will spend early January through late April living in an apartment in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland while attending two classes at Edinburgh Napier University and participating in an internship - hopefully in the press, but more details are forthcoming.

There are about fifteen of us from Furman who will be traveling to the U.K. together - including two other Kappas! We plant to take three or four group trips, and we will have class taught by Furman's Dr. O'Rourke one night per week. Personally, I hope to travel a lot on the weekends - and also to get to know Edinburgh, of course. I'm a fan of day trips, and I'm a fan of cheap airfare, so we will see what I can make of it! I'm also interested in traveling a bit around Europe after the official program ends - any tips?

I will definitely be posting more about this in the future, as the departure date draws closer. We have meetings every few weeks to take care of paperwork and business things; I'm very excited to begin the course selection process and event planning. Until then - SAN FRANCISCO (check out my other new blog post.) :)

By the way, which travel guide would y'all recommend?

“Oh, I’m the Intern”

Well, today was my first day on the job.

I LOVED IT!

Instead of reporting to the Suzhou Daily office between 1:30 and 2, as we had decided yesterday, right after class, I received a call from Ms. Yang inviting us to an English interview this afternoon. (It’s a good thing that this was invitation was given over the phone; if it had been in person, I very likely would have awkwardly jumped into our boss’s arms.) Obviously, I accepted on mine and Stephanie’s behalf, so we met Ms. Yang outside the building at 12:30 and walked about 15 more minutes to a hotel, the interview site.

Our subject was a Finnish man of about 60 who has lived in Suzhou for almost 11 years and regularly reaches out to the community through volunteering and teaching English. He has become somewhat of a local celebrity through various tasks he has completed.

Today, Stephanie and I took notes as Ms. Yang translated for her colleague, who had a short interview with him; we then watched him participate in a judging panel of a skills contest at said hotel. Then, we went back to the office and, before proofreading a page of the Suzhou Review, WROTE A STORY ON HIM TO BE PUBLISHED ON PAGE TWO OF THE REVIEW ON MONDAY!!! Ahhhhh...I love my job! I’ll try to post the finalized story once it comes out.

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!