Sunday, June 29, 2008

New Facebook Photo Album

For pictures of Stonehenge, see updates to my last photo album, entitled "The Life and Times of..."
For pictures of Bath, see the album "The Wife of Bath." Or copy and paste this link: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044964&l=a4fd3&id=63802126

Friday, June 27, 2008

Thoughts on London Culture

Bear in mind that I've only been here 2 weeks and that generalizations about whole groups of people are never entirely accurate.

The British Reserve
Also known as "the stiff upper lip" by some. It's a well-known stereotype that British people are difficult to get to know or even grouchy. In contrast, there is also the "merry England" charm idea. Bill Bryson (as quoted on my Facebook wall by Laura Jones) wrote:
"And [London] has more congenial small things -- incidental civilities, you might call them -- than any other city I know: cheery red mailboxes, drivers who actually stop for you at pedestrian crossings, lovely forgotten churches with wonderful names like St. Andrew by the Wardrobe and St. Giles Cripplegate.... What other great city would trouble to put blue plaques on houses to let you know what famous person once lived there, or warn you to look left or right before stepping off the curb? I'll tell you. None."

I think both of these ideas are true to some extent. London truly is a charming city, as big cities go. Its "incidental civilities" like look left/right signs or quaint names truly are endearing (and I mean that in a very NON-condescending way). But those who expect London to have small town charm will be sorely disappointed. Make no mistake about it: London is a large cosmopolitan city with petty crime and stuck-up, hurried individuals, just like New York or Paris or any other big city. It's relatively clean compared to most cities, but one can still find trash and rancid smells. And Bryson is wrong on one point: You WILL get smashed like a bug if you cross the street at the wrong time. Pedestrians do not have the right-of-way. (But then again, jaywalking is completely legal here. You just have to be aware of what's going on around you.)

The idea of the British people being unfriendly, however, I do have a problem with. It's true that you could be standing with a confused expression on your face, looking at a map in every possible direction, and more than likely, no one will stop to offer you any help. However, the minute you ask someone for help, more than likely they will stop and have a conversation with you about where you need to go. They may even say, "Oh, I'm going that way myself. We can get on the Tube together." You just have to break through the cultural reserve. And it's true that it's "every man for himself" getting on the Tube. But I really don't think that makes Londoners mean. It's just the way Tube culture has developed. (It would be pretty impossible to get everyone on the train in time if everyone hesitated, afraid of offending someone by going in front of them...Possibly that's why Minnesota has never developed a similar system, haha.) Anyways, all of this to say that London culture is a far cry from "Minnesota nice," but I think the people are equally good-hearted.

Food

The days of British food being bland are long gone. It's very possible to get any type of food you could want here. At the same time, there are some noticeable differences. For example, sandwiches frequently have rocket on them (funny spinach that looks like dandelion leaves). The sandwich I ate today had "comfy onion marmalade" on it, which was actually incredibly tasty! They are also less squeamish about their seafood. The first night I was here, they served us prawns, which look like large shrimp WITH FACES. I was too jet-lagged to gather up enough energy to try to eat one. Today, however, I decided to be brave and eat some creepy seafood. I ate an appetizer of fish with actual scales on it. I normally love trying new food, but I really was freaked out by this fish! But I put some lemon juice on it and actually ate the whole thing. It was pretty good, especially if you made a point not to look at it. It was a little spongy/rubbery and very fishy, but I liked the taste of it. I think I was like one of five (out of 135) people to actually eat one. England also has a lot of European gourmet cheeses, and my old boss at Goodlife even thought that we don't have much cheese in America, just because we don't have fancy runny cheeses. Call me a Philistine with an unrefined palate, but I still maintain that Wisconsin cheddar cheese is the Platonic ideal of cheese.

Monarchy

In America, we sort of gently laugh at England for clinging to its monarchic system, when the queen is "just a figurehead." However, I think that is a terrible way to look at it. When I toured the Tower of London and went to see the crown jewels, there was a room with little wooden thrones, each one emblazoned with the name of an English monarch from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II (current queen). When I saw this unbroken line (except for the two decade period of Oliver Cromwell's reign), it really hit me: ENGLAND STILL HAS A MONARCH. And because of it, they are connected to their history and the mythology of their nation in a way that America isn't. Yes, we have a chain of presidents but it really isn't the same, just like the prime ministers in England don't have the same associations that the queen does. And another thing that I think is really interesting is that the British can denigrate the policies of the prime minister and Parliament but still sing, "God save the queen!" and really mean it. (Not that everyone does, I'm sure, but I've definitely met people who do still find meaning and patriotism in it.) In America, we don't sing songs about our presidents; we only sing about vague ideals like freedom and justice. And I'm certainly not trying to denigrate ideals, of course! It's just that we have no personification of all that our country is supposed to be, a person whom we can look to and uphold and honor even if we are upset with our government.

Anyways, these are just a few of my random thoughts about all things British. Feel free to disagree because, as I said, these are just my perceptions after a couple weeks here.

The Next Chapter in the Saga

My broad fan base has requested that I update the blog because they can't sleep at night waiting to hear what happened in this crucial turning point of my story. (Okay, one person, namely Ann Gullman, requested an update and I may have embellished how much she wanted an update.)

But anyways, quitting at Goodlife actually went surprisingly well. I wanted to be both honest and civil, and I think that aim was achieved. Both Brooke and Sara (and, of course, myself) were shocked at how well my boss took it. I stayed until lunchtime and then I practiced taking the Tube down to Anthem Press. It's also an office that looks like a flat, but it is much more organized and up-to-date technologically than Goodlife. Not to mention it has a much nicer staff and much worthier goals (the advancement of ideas and the betterment of people's minds).

The specific job I'll be doing is not INCREDIBLY interesting, but that's completely fine! I am basically in charge of conducting research for a guidebook about the best parks and gardens in Europe. Anthem Press is creating its own series of thematically-oriented guidebooks (they've done operahouses/music venues and art galleries/museums so far). It's a lot of tedious Google searching, but at the end of the day, I will actually be credited in a published book! So that is incredibly exciting! Plus I love researching travel options (though it's a lot more fun when you believe you'll actually be visiting the places).

This morning, I went to a World History conference to help sell and promote Anthem's world history titles. It was really slow, but it was still fun for me to feel like I was on the inside of a publishing convention. :-) I got to check in and say, "I'm Jessi. I'm here with Anthem Press." I also felt at home amongst the book publishing crowd. They are the type of people more interested in books and ideas than clothes or money. Interestingly enough, the conference was run by Americans, so there were quite a few American-speaking individuals there. It was funny because there was supposed to be both tea and coffee, but only the tea came out at first. Everyone flocked to the hot beverages table, but when the Americans found out that only tea was available at that time, they all said disappointedly, "Oh." Truth be told, I was a little disappointed too. I do really like English tea, but coffee is still my first love when it comes to hot caffeinated beverages. I, however, drank a cup of tea despite all my fellow Americans rejecting it. (I drank a cup of coffee later. Two caffeinated beverages are better than one!)

Besides getting a new internship, I have also visited the Tate Modern (just for a short time because it's free and I can go back) and Kellie and I went to Wimbledon! One of her friends (not from our program) is interning there, and she managed to get us free grounds passes. That means that we couldn't go to centre court to see the bigwigs, but we still got to see a really good match between two of the "lesser bigwigs." It was just really fun to be at a world-class event, and I think tennis is really good as far as sports go. It's kind of the chess of sports.

Anyways, I never know how to conclude my blog posts (which is possibly why I just keep going on and on, haha.) So...THE END.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Would You Like Some Cheese With that Whine?

I just want to register a quick complaint. Not any of my faithful blog readers, of course, but other people in the outside world seem to have difficulty grasping how terrible my internship at Goodlife was/is. Brooke and I both feel that people don't understand what it's like. You can tell all the stories you want and express all the unhappiness and stress you can, but people think you're just whining. Lots of managers are like that, they seem to say. You're not going to have a perfect job when you're just an intern. Yes. Obviously. I have had crappy jobs before that I've hated but I have never in my life quit a job after just a few days simply because I didn't particularly like it. In fact, I've almost always quit jobs after I've worked at them the amount of time I thought I would (the summer, the school year, whatever). And usually whenever I quit, my boss/manager requests multiple times that I stay and tells me that I can come back any time. So I'm not entirely unexperienced with working, and I'm usually considered a very good worker with a very good attitude. (Sorry if I'm sounding prideful; I need to work on that, I guess.) So it's just really frustrating when people here think that I'm just whining and that my job really can't be that bad and that I probably just didn't know what to expect, etc. So as I said, it's none of you, but it does matter to me that you understand because I want SOMEONE to understand and not think I'm crazy. It really is bad enough to get a new placement, I promise. I know what's an acceptable amount of stress and negative work environment and horrible co-workers and mundane jobs and disorganized systems and what is over the line. This place is over the line.

BRILLIANT!

As the Brits would say, I have BRILLIANT news! I just received word that Anthem Press has decided to hire me as an intern for the remainder of my time in London! I am so unbelievably excited to get out of working at Goodlife and to start working at a wonderful book publishing company!

Work today was particularly horrid. You know how Miranda Priestly (from The Devil Wears Prada) always tells her assistants to do things but they have no idea what she means and she refuses to answer questions but gets really angry if things aren't done properly? Well, my boss at Goodlife is pretty much exactly that way. For example, today she was quite adamant that I find an email from "Thomas C---" and I searched all throughout every folder I could think of on the editor.goodlifemedia email address. Then I told her I couldn't find any emails from Thomas, and she said, "Well, maybe it's on another computer." So I asked Brooke to look on her computer's email, and she couldn't find it. I finally asked Noreen if she knew where I might find the email, and she explained generally what the email was about, and I was like, "Oh, I know that email! I read it this morning!" I went back to the computer I was using, and the email was not from anyone named Thomas C---. It was from a gentleman with an Italian-sounding name who had published two ads in our last issue of Goodlife Magazine, one of which was for a company called Thomas C---. So I was just supposed to know that, apparently. My boss was also in a particularly foul mood, yelling at everyone and even throwing pens. She told me that she's had dogs who are brighter than one of my co-workers and she said that Brooke (and, by extension, all interns) are "not important" while Brooke was in the room.

Two good things did happen at work today though. First of all, Brooke and I decided to take the Tube down one stop to West Fulham and eat lunch there. We ate at a pub with personality called The Slug. They had Wimbledon on in the background, and we got to see a little bit of Venus Williams playing. Our food took way longer to get there than we thought it would. Then we had to wait over 20 minutes for our train back to West Brompton station (where we get out for Goodlife) because, as the announcer kept saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, we are experiencing severe delays on the District line." In England, everyone gets really long lunch breaks (usually an hour minimum). We were gone for an hour and a half or so! Normally, of course this would really stress me out. But my internship is so stressful that I didn't even care. Suffering a little disapproval for being late from lunch is nothing because if we got back on time, we'd be suffering disapproval for something else.

The other good thing that happened today was that I got to meet a real British lord! I know throughout this whole internship I've been like, "I don't care about wealthy or elite people; they're just the same as other people." Which is true, of course. But meeeting a real British lord who is, in Ilana's words, "not just a lord but a really good person," was really fun. When he met me, he did one of those European handshakes and kiss on the cheek things, which I think is great. Just the fact that he is a British lord reminds me of Mr Darcy or Aragorn or something.

But anyways, I am just so glad to be done with that horrible internship and to be starting a new and exciting one! The only thing that's bad is that Brooke hasn't gotten another placement yet because my new one came around really quickly. It would be so awful to go to Goodlife alone, especially when I'm sure she'll have to endure pointed questions about my leaving. So I REALLY hope that she gets a new placement soon too!

Monday, June 23, 2008

Hope on the Horizon

My meeting with Stefan last night went really well! Brooke and I felt that he really listened and was willing to help. He is currently trying to help both of us get new internship placements. I am in the process of applying for an internship with Anthem Press. They are an academic book publishing house that puts out books on literature, history, politics, travel, etc. In short, it sounds absolutely perfect! I really wanted a book publishing internship this summer so that I could figure out if I'd rather pursue book publishing or magazine publishing (I'd had an online magazine internship last spring). Obviously, the topics are right up my alley.

I'm supposed to take an hour-long "test" before they decide if they're interested in hiring me. They will email me a short project which will show whether I have the ability to gather and communicate information accurately, concisely, and clearly. Hopefully I will do a really good job on this!

This press wasn't one of the options during my initial internship search last spring. They just recently emailed Stefan and asked if there would be any publishing interns who would be interested in working there. Stefan originally told them that the program had already started and that all the interns had already been placed. But at the meeting yesterday, he thought maybe I'd be interested in trying to work there. I don't want to presume to know the mind of God, but it seems like it could be a "God thing."

Sunday, June 22, 2008

War and Peace

This morning I went to the American Church in London. I was a little bit hesitant to go to the "American" Church when I want to experience British-ness to its fullest. But I also want to get to know some more people on this trip, and there were two other young women going to this church this morning. It actually turned out to be really good! I felt at home right away; I couldn't believe how good it felt just to go to church! The songs are pretty traditional, which is interesting because I've never really experienced that before. The message today (preached by a woman, which I was excited about) was really good. It was about Peter's vision of unclean animals coming down on the sheet and how God shakes us out of our comfort zones and teaches us to follow him through uncomfortable changes. The songs we sang were all about God's faithfulness and his changelessness. It was exactly the type of service I needed after this past week.

There aren't a TON of people who go to this church, which is also fun for me because I've never really gone to a small church. Brittney (one of the other girls from my program) and I went out to eat with the pastor who preached, the senior pastor, his wife, and his son. That was really exciting to get to do! (The other girl who had come actually had to leave early to go somewhere else.) While walking to church, Brittney, Jessica (the third girl), and I talked about how it's frustrating to try to have deeper conversations with people on this trip. Most of them want to go to pubs and clubs, and those atmospheres aren't exactly conducive to good conversation. After the service, Brittney and I talked about trying to start a "Religious Discussion Group" where anyone who is interested in spiritual issues, no matter what their belief system (even if they don't have one currently) can come and talk. We're just hoping for open and genuine conversation. We'll see if anyone else is interested.

After lunch, I went to the Cabinet War Rooms and Winston Churchill Museum. They're in Westminster (the neighborhood of Parliament and Westminster Abbey). The war rooms are still furnished exactly as they were in 1940, when they were used as Churchill's secret wartime headquarters during WWII. Recently, I've been very aware of and moved by war. At the dude ranch, I met someone in the Marines who reminded me of the good that has come out of the Iraq War, and her passion for what she does and for protecting the country she loves were very admirable to me. When I came here, I saw a permanent demonstration against the Iraq War that reminded me of the senselessness and anguish of any war and how this war is possibly even more so that way than some others. This group has been camped out near Parliament for years, and their passion and conviction are also admirable to me. When I went to the crypt in St Paul's Cathedral, there were a ton of memorials to people who had died in war. One in particular read: "IN HONOUR OF THE SOUTH ATLANTIC TASK FORCE AND TO THE ABIDING MEMORY OF ALL THOSE WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES ~ APRIL - JUNE 1982." Beneath the plaque were flowers placed there by the soldiers' loved ones. This literally made me cry (okay, I wasn't blubbering like an idiot) because there were so many names of people I'd never even heard of. In fact, I don't even know anything about the South Atlantic Task Force. I guess it just makes me so sad that so many nameless (to history) people have died in war, fighting for stupid things that schoolchildren will be bored learning about. But then, these people weren't nameless and faceless; they were beloved by those who placed flowers at the only grave they'll ever have. And then the Churchill Museum reminded me that, as much as I would like to be a gung-ho pacifist, I can't, at least not completely. Churchill was branded a warmonger by some who just wanted to keep appeasing Hitler, but I think almost everyone now agrees that Hitler absolutely had to be stopped--and he had to be stopped by force. Bonhoeffer believed that there was no such thing as just violence, but he was a part of a team that planned to assassinate Hitler. He thought it wasn't right but it was necessary.

Later tonight, I'm meeting with my internship advisor to discuss my terrible internship situation and to see what my options are. Basically, I want a new placement. Never in my life have I quit a job after only a few days just because I didn't like it, but this one is just horrible. I hate it, and I don't think I can handle going back there! Plus, I am going into thousands of dollars of debt for this trip, so it had better be a good experience. Hopefully the meeting will go well, and something will be solved.

More Facebook Pictures 2

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044594&l=ad367&id=63802126

Thursday, June 19, 2008

Can Dreams Come True?

Over the past few months, I've been thinking about the notion of dreams coming true and whether that's even possible. (I promise, this blog is not going to be quite as pessimistic as it's sounding right now.) In a journal entry from my trip to the dude ranch, I wrote about Reading Lolita in Tehran, the book I was reading at the time:

"In the section on The Great Gatsby, Nafisi talks a lot about the loss of dreams and how that relates to Iran and her own experiences. She imagines her current self talking to her younger self about the dreams and ideals that would be shattered when they were seen too closely. In some ways and on a very small scale, this trip [the dude ranch trip] has been like that...If I could have told my younger self that a dude ranch vacation would not be pure magic but that it would involve sore muscles, sunburn, feeling a little patronized by the staff, being out of my element, etc., I highly doubt I could have convinced my younger self...I didn't need to experience going too far physically with a guy, getting drunk, or doing drugs to believe that they weren't worth it. But no one would have been able to tell me that my dreams may not be worth all I thought they were."

The dude ranch trip was a fulfillment of my dearest childhood dream and this current England trip is a fulfillment of my dearest college dream. Well, my dearest save one: to graduate with highest honors and a bunch of other academic/professional accolades. That dream was also fulfilled. And yet...the reality of living these dreams was not what I thought it would be.

I was exhausted all throughout my last week of college. Even though it was filled with awards ceremonies and fun banquets and walking down an aisle with several stupid strips of ribbon that I nearly killed myself to win, reality was always present. And what is reality filled with? The details and dirtiness of life that we forget about in our dreams. Socially awkward moments, feet aching and sweating in high heels, feeling insecure about an outfit or bad hair day, realizing your name is about to be called and then thirty seconds later it's all over.

I read a book last year called Stumbling on Happiness, and the author Daniel Gilbert says exactly that: When people imagine a particularly wonderful future, they are never as happy as they expected to be when the dream is fulfilled. Why? Because when they imagined the fulfillment of the dream, they neglected to imagine all the little annoyances that would also be occurring. But at the same time, when a particularly negative dream (a nightmare) is fulfilled, people end up being a lot less depressed and destroyed than they thought they would be. They can carry on because life also contains little moments of normalcy and joy even in the midst of the worst situations.

The whole of my England trip is, I suspect, a good dream that has been fulfilled with some unexpected problems. The internship portion of my trip, however, is more like a nightmare that has been fulfilled. However, that means that there will also be some "silver linings." I suppose the trick is to purposefully notice and remember those moments. And I don't mean I should naively focus only on those happy moments and ignore the difficulties; I don't believe in that. But in order to do an "unbiased" survey of my own life, I cannot weight the negative moments more heavily than the positive ones.

In any case, I'll move on from the philosophizing of this blog post to discuss my day today. Very briefly, since this post is already a zillion miles long. It was slightly better today, but not much. My boss couldn't believe I didn't know what Ivana Trump looked like and said that I obviously had not been keeping up with my world events. (This was a humorous part of the day, not a difficult or negative part...until a bit later, I guess.) Apparently Ivana is marrying a man about twenty years younger than she is, and apparently this has been all over TV. I would just like to add that yesterday my boss referred to Tony Blair as the current prime minister of England. :-)

Anyways, she wanted me to do this PhotoShop project, which was boring but a lot better than some of the things I was doing yesterday. I just had to do the same mind-numbing sequence to about 80 pictures that were taken at a party she attended yesterday. Ivana Trump was there, so that's why we were discussing her. I did as many as I could in the time I had left at the office (and I even stayed a half hour late!) but I only got about 30 done because the computer was U-N-B-E-L-I-E-V-A-B-L-Y slow. My boss, who was out for the afternoon, called to ask me how the project was going because she needed the pictures by tonight. I told her about the computer problems, and she said, "Oh well, just do the ones with Ivana in them; those are the ones I need." So I repeated that I didn't know what she looked like, and I asked what she had been wearing that day. She said, "A white suit." I said okay and then realized that about half the women had white suits. So I asked my extremely nice co-worker Sara who Ivana was, and we finally figured it out. Unfortunately, there were 10-15 of Ivana and I hadn't done a single one! Sara graciously offered to take care of it for me since it was past time for me to leave. I felt bad, but I agreed because I REALLY wanted to get out of there. I left an apologetic note for my boss (who sometimes gets ridiculously upset if people don't finish things that they were supposed to finish). I'm actually a bit more worried that Sara won't be able to finish it and then my boss will take it out on her (because she always takes things out on her, which I think is so ridiculous).

I was feeling annoyed about my internship, once again. After dinner, however, I decided to enjoy the fact that I'm in London. Even though all the sights close between 4:30 and 6:30, I realized that they can't exactly take down the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge, even if the exhibitions and tours are closed. (They do, however, feel the need to perform some construction/restoration on the Tower of London even though it has withstood battles and hundreds of years.) This visit was a lot of fun, probably the most fun I've had since arriving in London. I was so tired and jet-lagged until about yesterday that I almost didn't want to do anything. Fortunately, I have now gotten over that and I'm ready to do and see everything I can. After going to the Tower Bridge, I went to King's Cross Station to visit the sign for Platform 9 3/4 (of Harry Potter fame, for the poor deprived souls who don't know). I think that's a good picture to include, considering that this is a strangely appropriate blend of fiction (dreams) and reality. Hence, we have come full circle.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Second Round of Facebook Pictures

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044328&l=1cc5a&id=63802126

The Devil (Wearing Prada) is in the Details


How do I put this delicately? My internship makes me want to run away to Scotland. First of all, it's not even a real publishing internship! The two magazines Goodlife Media produces contain NO content that wasn't paid for by companies who want advertising. The so-called restaurant and cultural event "reviews" aren't real reviews; they're advertising! I knew when I accepted this internship that I'm not really into fashion and elite wealthy culture, but I really thought it was at least a respectable magazine (even if it was in an unrespectable--in my opinion--field of journalism).

Worse yet, I'm not even working on the magazines! Goodlife is also a public relations and events planning group, and right now they are absorbed in planning their two illustrious parties. So Brooke (the other intern) and I spent all day calling and inviting wealthy snobs to these frivolous events. And now we come to the crux of the horror of my internship. I could sink into blissful ignorance of the pointlessness and frivolity of my internship and I could even forget the fact that I am planning events instead of writing and editing...IF and only if the working environment was something I could handle. If things were organized and I felt that I was accomplishing something and things were coming together, I could handle almost anything.

However, I have never in my entire life seen anything as disorganized as Goodlife Media. You would think that a company that enjoys hob-nobbing with the uppercrust would at least have a basic database of contacts with email addresses, postal addresses, and phone numbers. Believe it or not, they don't. They had a very specific--but impossible to decipher--idea about which patricians should be allowed to come to each event and which VVIPs we simply had to entice to grace us with their presence. This messy, partially handwritten, partially computerized, list had next to no phone numbers or email addresses on it. And yet they kept telling me, "Call these people! We must get these people to come!" To which I would respond, "Which event should I invite them to, or are we inviting them to both?" Alanna: "Uh, I don't remember" or "Don't you see? The pink dot? That means the July 8th event!" And then, "Well, Alanna, I would love to call yet another busy person who thinks he/she is God's gift to humanity just because he/she has money, but sadly there is no phone number here. How shall I get around that obstacle?"

It was awful! Chaos makes me seasick, no joke. And calling snobby people when I don't have any idea of what I'm supposed to say is also terrible. I wouldn't mind doing that if I felt competent and well-informed because then I can act professional and think on my feet, etc. But in an environment in which Alanna comes running, talking loudly, and searching on my computer WHILE I AM ON THE PHONE WITH A VIP, I just about crack.

One person I talked to on the phone (after making me wait for several minutes while finishing up a conversation with another one of his well-endowed acquaintances without even the standard unfelt apology) said, "Well, I'd be interested in coming, but I've received invitations from your office before. They've called and said they would email me an official invitation but they never followed up properly." I said, "Well, we'll be sure to get you an invitation this time." (Even though it's not like I could really be sure of that, since I had witnessed firsthand the upheaval of Goodlife.) And I asked whether he would rather have it by post or by email. He said that he'd asked for emails from us before with less than satisfactory results, so we'd better send him the invitation by post. (I should have been able to enjoy the moment because it came naturally to me to say "post" instead of "mail" or "snail mail," but I could not because of the circumstance.)

I expected my internship to be challenging, and I expected it to be in a fast-paced environment. But I thought the chaos would be organized chaos and I thought the fast pace would be running efficiently towards a goal.

Brooke and I were ranting about our internship while walking back to our Tube stop and we weren't paying very much attention while crossing the street. (Believe me, you CANNOT do that in London if you want to stay alive.) We almost got run over by a van that was NOT slowing down! The best part of my day was going out to lunch with her and getting a very English meal of eggs on toast. (Hence the picture in this post.)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Going Up the Apple and Pears


Today was my first day interning with Goodlife Media, a publishing company that puts out two magazines (The Goodlife Magazine and London Hotel). It's also a public relations and events planning company, and it has a lot of contacts with the wealthy and elite people of London.

I was, of course, a little nervous for my first day. I really hate first days of anything because everything is so unknown and chaotic. But I felt exhilarated when I was taking the Tube to work because it really hit me that I was going to work at a magazine in London!

My first day was pretty good. The office is really small with only a few employees, which I like because then I'll get to do more things than if I worked for a larger organization. My boss is a little bit quirky and a little bit bi-polar. She's usually really sweet and upbeat, but she got really mad at one of the other workers today for a seemingly ridiculous reason.

I started out the day by editing a letter that they were sending out to high class jewellers, inviting them to participate in an upcoming party hosted by Goodlife. I was surprised at how badly written it was, but that made my changes look really good, I guess. My boss dictated some stuff to me, but her wording was really awkward and unnecessarily lengthy. At first, I thought she might get annoyed if I "fixed" the things she had me write verbatim, but fortunately she liked my changes. I also wrote a few 50-word book review blurbs based off of back covers and publishers' comments. I will be communicating with clients, so I did a little bit with emailing today. And of course, quite a bit of the day was spent in training and orientation.

There's one other intern from my program working at Goodlife Media. Her name is Brooke, and she is also interested in writing and editing. She was a journalism major in college. It's really nice to have someone else to compare notes with.

Goodlife generally seems like a nice, friendly place to work. I had three cups of tea today because my boss kept asking if I wanted one, and I was like, "Sure." There's also a kitchen in the office, and one of my co-workers had made a lot of Indian food, so she shared it with everyone else (which was nice because then I didn't have to spend any money on lunch today). And at the end of the day, my boss let us try on these designer hats that probably cost more than half the clothes I own combined. That was a lot of fun though.

This evening, I officially got my passport and blue card checked out by BUNAC, so I am set to work for up to six months. Even though I knew I had gotten the correct passport stamp at immigration, it was still a relief to have that all settled because otherwise I would have had to leave the UK immediately and re-enter (which is extremely expensive and time-consuming). At this meeting tonight, we also had a "cultural seminar" to explain a few things about British culture that we might not have known. I didn't find it particularly informative, but I did enjoy hearing about Cockney rhyming slang. The title of my post, "going up the apple and pears," means "going up the stairs." I chose it because it reminded me of "moving up in the world," which is how I felt when I was riding the Tube to work this morning.

Cheers!

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Facebook Pictures!

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2044205&l=0bf16&id=63802126
Click on this link to view my first England photo album on Facebook. I'll be updating it frequently, probably when I update this blog. I'll give the links to new photo albums as I create them.

Fun Activities


Despite all the busyness of the past day and a half, I have managed to do some fun things. Last night, a few of us went out to a pub near Piccadilly Circus. I had a half-size alcoholic cider, which actually tasted pretty good. It was the first drink I actually managed to finish! (It was only my third drink ever, in case there's anyone who's reading this blog who doesn't already know that I haven't drunk much alcohol before.) It was fun to experience a genuine British pub!

Today, after the big orientation, my roommate Kellie and I went to Regent's Park. It's beautiful and very peaceful, even though it's filled with people. At first, I thought it was just peaceful because everyone's there to have a good time. But places like malls, amusement parks, and state fairs are also filled with people who are generally trying to have a good time. I didn't come to any conclusions, but I also haven't really thought about it very much. Maybe it's just because everyone's there to having a RELAXING good time and not just any type of good time. Or maybe it's just because there are beautiful gardens, ducks, swans, trees, and a lake around.

Tomorrow I'm planning to explore the city some more and probably buy a few more necessities that I haven't found yet. I don't start work until Tuesday morning, so the only thing I have to be sure to do tomorrow is practicing riding the Tube (the Underground, subway) to work.

Welcome to London!

After months of planning and hours of travelling, I am finally here in London! I got here around 2pm London time on Saturday (yesterday), and I've spent almost the entire time moving in, going to orientations, shopping for necessities (like the proper converter to plug in my computer), and figuring out a bit about how my life will be working for the next eight weeks.

I have actually been a little overwhelmed. I didn't expect to be because I've travelled to Europe before, and England was by far the easiest place to navigate (primarily because everyone speaks English but also because the culture is most similar to American culture). So I thought anyone who talks about having culture shock when going to England must be pretty sheltered. But there actually was a little bit of that for me. For example, I had to throw away my full tube of toothpaste at the Minneapolis airport because my bag was over 50 pounds, and I didn't know where I could find toothpaste here. It's not like England has Target stores! It's a lot more difficult to move to a place like England than it is to just travel around it. And I do feel like I've moved in here; I unpacked all my stuff just like I always did for college.

Even more overwhelming than the "culture shock," however, is meeting a ton of new people at once. When I was at the dude ranch in Colorado, I had a blast getting to know two young women about my age and the rest of the guests at the ranch. It's much easier for me to get to know a few people at a time and to be able to have good conversations with them than it is for me to be thrown into a situation where there are over a hundred people all milling around and meeting one another. Not that I am unable to deal with situations like the latter, obviously; it's not my "cup of tea."

I'm also getting nervous about starting a new job! I'm excited to have such an interesting position, but it's always a bit difficult to start a new job just because everything is so unknown. I'll be doing a publishing/editing/writing internship with Goodlife Media, a company that produces two magazines: London Hotel and Goodlife Magazine. The first magazine is placed in every 4- and 5-star hotel in the London area and is therefore geared toward tourists. The other one is delivered to wealthy West End London residents. I'm really excited to get to learn how a print magazine is produced, but the topic (wealthy, elite culture) would not have been my first choice. However, it should be really fun to get to learn more about the uppercrust's lifestyle that I would probably never get to experience otherwise.

Of course, I don't want to sound like I am complaining or upset in this blog post. Yes, things have been a bit harder than I expected. Dreams, when fulfilled, are always more nitty gritty than they were when they were just whisps of hope. I am so grateful for this opportunity, and I can't wait to drink it all in!

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Bij de nieuwe Blogger is voor toegang tot je blogs een Google-account vereist.

I'm in the Amsterdam airport, on a layover to London!!! (The flight was out of the way, but also cheaper for some odd reason.) I bought 30 minutes of wireless internet time because I'm too exhausted to read for the whole layover without falling asleep. You know how it is on airplanes: No matter how tired you are, it's impossible to find anything resembling a comfortable position. At least for those of us who travel economically with all the rest of the commonfolk.

Well, I will be in touch as more exciting things happen!