“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!