Success in internship = boring blog posts. Also, a few more brownies and a theological discussion about fruit...

I feel a bit like a failure. Well, let me qualify that—I feel a bit like a failure in blogging after the success of my post last week announcing the publication of my very own feature article (which, Hilary said she could probably bump to seven pages—that's a lot of pages) compared to the minimal viewing of my post yesterday. And I have to admit, the one yesterday was not that exciting, although I did get more comments than usual (more meaning I got 3 whole comments), which made me very happy. But I can't blame you guys for not being enthused about yesterday's post because I wasn't even enthused about it—and I wrote it! To be honest, I was kind of struggling for things to write about, and as a result the post was also a bit short, not to mention lacking in some of the flair that my other posts have had. I was sitting on my bed tonight racking my brain about what to write about and how to make it interesting, and I was also trying to diagnose why my post yesterday left me feeling sort of flat. Then it hit me. I'm actually getting good at what I'm doing. How boring is that?

See, I'm starting to learn more and keep myself busy at the magazine, which minimizes by confusion and uncertainty about life in general. In addition, I'm also getting to know (and really like) everyone in the office, so instead of being excited about having one friend when Practical Horseman got a new intern, I have an office full of friends. Equus even got a new intern this week and I completely neglected to mention it yesterday. Just goes to show how I am no longer quite as starved for friendship and human interaction. I've also mastered eating, which may seem like a relatively simple task that I probably should have had a firm grasp on before I graduated from a high chair, but even the basics like eating lunch/dinner had been a struggle, and they no longer are for the most part. I've gotten good at packing food for the week and then I've also managed to score regular meals at times, like our end of the world lunch at work yesterday, and then tonight a friend made me dinner, which I will address shortly. But the moral of the story about my struggles with food is that while they can still be an adventure every now and then, I've mostly mastered that problem. I no longer eat in the corner at work while nobody is watching and hope they don't notice my awkwardness (although I did sneak a piece of leftover cake today). I know where virtually everything is in the office, and I've even learned to successfully fight with the copier without looking like a moron. Now when it randomly jams on me, I know how to open it up, yank out the paper, and then restart it. I'm not sure that that is the proper way to fix the problem (actually, I'm sure it isn't because I was mildly scolded by the copier-fixing man yesterday), but it gets the job done and I no longer stand there staring at it stupidly when it stops working. I even showed the other intern today how to properly make copies in color. Sweet success. So as far as fun and awkward stories, I'm starting to run low. I've even learned how to outsmart my GPS and I drove into the city tonight without having a single argument with it (I mostly just ignored it and used my own directions, but kept in on in case I missed a turn or got lost). The problem with this new level of proficiency is that I'm not that creative, and unless there are major mishaps in my day-to-day life, I'm completely at a loss on what to write about. I'm going to have to magically become more creative if I ever want to be good at this editing thing.

So today I put in a furious eight hours of work. I've been very swamped pulling together all of the pieces for my feature article, and yesterday, for the first time since I started the internship, I actually felt a little overwhelmed. Usually I can take my time and I often run out of things to do, but as of yesterday I hadn't started compiling any of my interviews and I still had several more to do. In addition to that, I had to do some office work making copies and sending articles requested by a reader and I had to do some revisions to my book review I wrote that required me to do some more reading in the book. To make time even tighter, I have less than three weeks before the internship is over and this Friday I'm going with the magazine to a show, so I thought I needed to get a lot done before I left the office today. So this morning I worked furiously, banged out the copies and the revisions to the book review first so that I could focus on my article. I actually kept up a pretty good pace, and it felt like as soon as I was finished going through one interview, I would receive a new interview in my email inbox. It was almost like clockwork. I took a break to sit in on a meeting where the editors along with some of our people from the publishers were thinking of ways to gain information about our readership so that we can start to understand our audience a little better. In magazines, it's all about the readers. The most important thing you can do is understand who picks up your magazine and reads it every month and getting this information will forever be the concern of every magazine staff. So that was an interesting learning experience for me to hear the concerns they had and how to solve them. One of the women at the meeting who was there from the publisher's remembered me as the girl who knocked over the desk and made a really loud noise a few weeks ago while the head of the company was having his yearly meeting with the Practical Horseman staff. So that was embarrassing. I will forever be the intern who knocked over a desk.

After the meeting, I continued at my furious pace. However, this plan backfired in a few different ways. Efficiency is great, but then I got done around 3:30ish and handed off what I had to Hilary for her to go over it. Then I suddenly realized I had nothing to do while she was looking over my stuff. This small panic increased when we discovered that the horse show tomorrow doesn't start until 1:00p.m. (we thought it started at 8:00 a.m.), which means that I will have to come into the office tomorrow morning and work a few hours before leaving for the show. So, because I was so efficient and prepared to have everything done by tonight because I was planning on being at a show all day tomorrow, I now have nothing to do. Well, I'm sure there will be more things that can be done tomorrow (at least I hope...). The problem is that I can't ask for too many new assignments because I'm not at the magazine much longer and I need to make sure I have time to finish my feature article. It's a very delicate balancing act.

Tonight I got to visit my good friend Nicole who just moved to DC with her husband a month ago. She is a great cook and graciously offered to have me over for dinner! And for anyone who has ever been to Tucanos, she made those cheese balls that you can get there. They were so delicious!! I offered to bring dessert, so I brought some of my crazy brownies that I had set aside from the batch I brought for the work part yesterday. They were a hit. I also brought a quart of Rita's water ice because there is one right by my office and I figured (correctly) that as newcomers to the east cost, Nicole and her husband Daniel probably had not been introduced to water ice. Water ice, and especially Rita's, is a staple of Philadelphia. Sometimes people have heard of Italian Ice, and it's the same thing, but water ice is the popular name for those "in the know," or at least in the Philadelphia area. It's basically like a really delicious slushy. And while we were enjoying our slushies, we brought up Harry and David pairs, which then launched a discussion about the fruit from the Tree of Life because I mentioned how I was convinced that the fruit on the tree were Harry and David pairs. Nicole was totally with me, but Daniel was less convinced. We then explored all the possible fruits it could have been using the details in the scriptures and then had a theological debate about how there is no way the fruit could have been a coconut. If you would like to hear more about this topic, you should keep your eyes out because I think we have to write a book about it now. It was pretty funny and I think that we decided the fruit was either a Harry and David pair or Heaven Fruit, which we are not sure exactly what it is because it's only in heaven.

Well, it's very late and I still need to go to the office tomorrow morning. I usually try to get there around 8:30, but since I'm low on things to do I think I might sneak in an extra half hour of sleep and roll in around 9. Hopefully tomorrow I will have some great pictures of me in action at this horse show for your viewing pleasure!

Fire, Brimstone, Lightening Bolts, Special Brownies, and, of course, a little bit of work

Each month, all the editors in my office (that means all the ones from Dressage Today, Practical Horseman, Equus, and the design staff) have an office lunch, and each month they pick a different theme. This month, they decided the theme would be the end of the world, in recognition of the end of the world on May 21. Now, it might seem a little bizarre to have an "end of the world" party scheduled for AFTER when the world was going to end, but the editors felt pretty confident that we would all still be around after May 21, so it was really no problem. Everyone in the office brought something that they would like to eat at the end of the world. I brought the most incredible brownies that have a bag and a half of Rolos, one cup of dark chocolate chips, and a chopped up Ghiardelli bar inside of them. And yes, when the world ends, I want those to be the last brownies I eat. We had everything from maraschino cherries to hot dogs and sauerkraut. Needless to say, it was a very interesting combination for lunch. But my favorite part was that Hilary (DT's Senior Editor) decided that she would decorate by hanging paper lightening bolts from the ceiling and taping them to the table and chairs. She chose lightening bolts because she didn't know what brimstone looked like (so we decided to Google fire and brimstone so that's the phrase that still appears in my google search bar at the top of my computer screen...). They were some pretty ghetto decorations, but they made me laugh. We had a great hour eating, chatting, and laughing. I got some especially good laughs when I said that the brownies had a TON of special things in them, which obviously translated to mean "special" brownies, not brownies with tons of chocolate (and if you don't know what I mean by "special" brownies, well, then you should probably repeat public high school).

I also made a lot of progress today on my feature article! I've been working furiously on finding people to interview and going through information from the interviews I've already completed. I spent half of my day just in my email. The rest of my time in the office was spent researching people on the internet, compiling and transcribing interviews, and discussing the direction and details of the article with Hilary. She is very good at what she does and I get a lot of ideas and information during our brainstorming sessions together. I hope to be as savvy as her someday with coming up with ideas for articles. I've been so eager to learn and master everything about working on the magazine in one fell swoop, but I'm starting to realize that even as hard as I try, it's a skill that can only learned with time and practice and a lot of mistakes. Again, this is where patience would be a very useful virtue, one that I struggle with above all else. I always want results NOW, and I'm willing to work ridiculously hard to get them. However, somethings just take time and I'm not going to be the perfect editor all at once, even if I do get pretty close... Just joking ;) I promise, I'm still far from it. I think this is one of the things that makes spanning the gap between college and the real world so difficult. See, I've mastered college. I finally understand how to be a student, I've gotten the 4.0, and I've mastered the system. As a result, I'm feeling pretty confident in my abilities. But the truth is, I know I've got to humble myself a bit if I am going to learn more and make the transition to the real world, because the real world is different and I just don't fully understand how it works yet. But I'm certainly trying to learn! And tomorrow, I'm going to keep on learning.

Drumroll please.......

So today I'm super tired, so I'm going to keep this short because I see bedtime in the very near future, never mind that it's only 7:30... You have to understand because this week my mom was out of town, which means that I got to be "mom" on Monday and Tuesday to my three younger siblings who are still at home. This may sound easy, but I promise you, it's totally not. Let's pull out our timeline again.

7:15 a.m. Wake up Emma for school

7:20 Feed Emma and and self, brush Emma's hair.

7:30 Wash and dress self

7:45 Make sure Emma has everything for school

7:50 Take Emma and puppies out to the bus stop.

7:59 Emma's bus finally comes

8:00 Wait for puppies to pee.

8:05 Still waiting.

8:06 Puppies finally pee!

8:07 Give puppies treat

8:10 Start work

9:30 Stop work, leave to take Caleb to rehab appt.

10:00-12:00 Caleb at rehab, me working in the waiting area.

12:15 p.m. Arrive at Wegmans :)

12:23 Eat delicious Wegman's chinese food (and maybe a few other foods)

12:45 Leave Wegmans

1:10 Arrive at home

1:15 Work some more

3:15 PANIC. Discover Caleb has to be at play practice and Eli needs to be picked up at school—both at 3:30.

3:29 Drop off Caleb and friend at play practice

3:34 Pick up Eli at school

3:35 Race home to beat Emma's bus

3:47 FAIL. Missed Emma's bus by 2 minutes. The one day it had to come early. Luckily, I left her a note that she found on the kitchen counter, so she was not scarred for life by coming home to an empty house.

3:50 Work some more

5:25 Finish work

5:26 Frantically try to put marinating chicken meat and vegetables on kabob skewers

5:43 Put kabobs in fridge.

5:45 Pile everyone in the van to take Eli to saxophone lesson

6:00 Play Monopoly Deal with Emma in the van while we wait for Eli to finish lesson. Caleb and friend find us after their play practice.

6:45 Arrive back at home

6:46 Try to pull together dinner as fast as possible

6:47 Realize there is no propane in the gas tank to start the grill

6:50 Dad arrives home.

6:55 Dad goes to Sears to refill propane tank.

7:20 Dad finally arrives home with propane tank. Let the grilling commence. Eat some chocolate covered raisins to keep from fainting

7:45 Finally time to eat dinner.

8:15 Fullness and exhaustion hit. Realize that I still need to pack for DC :(

8:30 Packing, laundry, various miscellaneous tasks.

10:30 p.m. Finally, bedtime.

So that was my day yesterday. My blood pressure rises just typing out my ridiculously day. And then I woke up at 5:15 this morning, drove three hours to the office, and worked a 7 hour day. So yes, a I think I might be entitled to my tiredness.

Anyways, I need to get to the point. I've got some SERIOUSLY EXCITING NEWS!!!!! Get ready....... (drum rolllll).....

I'M PUBLISHING A FEATURE ARTICLE FOR THE MAGAZINE!

Yes, that's right! Remember how I told you the other day about how the senior editor asked me what I would like to write about in the magazine? Well, I wrote about something awesome, and she thought it was a great idea! So they are going to publish it as one of their FEATURE articles in either the November or December issue of the magazine!!! WAHOOOOO! So not only am I finally going to be a published author (one of my new year's resolutions, by the way), but I will be a published author BEFORE I graduate college, and it is going to be one of their main feature articles! They only do about 3 a month, and they are usually about 6 pages long! I get my own 6 pages in an international magazine!!! This is way cooler than them using my title for one of the feature articles next month...

In case you can't tell, I'm a little bit excited. I've known about it since Friday, but I've literally been either too crazy busy or too exhausted to tell the world about it. Crazy, right? I've told just a handful of people so far, but really not many. And now you know my crazy cool news!

Today I worked on my feature article some more: I'm trying to pull together a couple of interviews to include. I also transcribed an interview for our editor, made a zillion copies of the entries for our Project Centerline contest, and worked on a book review that I'm doing.

And now I'm very tired. I think my mattress is calling my name :) Lllindsayyyyyyy....

Some Fun Photos from my DC Adventures Today

lindsaybrown203's photostream on Flickr.

Some more awesome writing assignments, one heck of a lot of traffic, a couple friends, and a few historic landmarks.

Today was an exciting day. I slept in just a tad this morning (about 10 minutes longer than usual), so I got to the office about, well, 10-ish minutes later than I usually get in. Lucky for me, my internship isn't paying me a dime and I was actually still in the office before the rest of the editors. And I left after them today as well, and I let almost an hour earlier than I usually do... Much of the usual went on today at the magazine. I worked on one of my new assignments and gave it back to the editor, who was thoroughly stunned because she had given me the project with the idea that it will take me the larger part of this week and next. Goodness, do they think I'm retarded or do they just not understand how fast college students can get work done? In my world, the faster I can get my work done, the more free time I have. I'm not exactly sure that same principle always applies in the business world, at least not from what I've seen. They are expected to fill 9-5 and they don't feel much of a fire to get things done quickly. I had a similar experience last week when the managing editor gave me an assignment and it took me less than half the time she thought it would. The only problem with my efficiency is that I keep running out of things to do... I'm literally begging all 3 of the editors for more assignments on an almost daily basis. If I didn't keep bugging them constantly, I'd be stuck twiddling my thumbs all day. Today I even took my time and got distracted a bit, but I still finished more than what I'd been assigned.

I also continued to work on some of the pieces that I got to choose the topic. However, this story ends sort of tragically. I finished the one article I was working on and since I'm waiting for more feedback on that one, I started a second. I finished this one near the end of the day, but part way through writing it I realized I'd saved it in the wrong spot, so I dragged a copy from its current location to my desktop, and then finished writing. Afterward, I saved the document and then deleted the one that I had accidentally saved to the server. The trash bin said that the action would permanently delete my file, but I clicked OK feeling I was safe because of the copy on my desktop. I was wrong. It turns out that my finished copy saved only to the location on the server, and the one on my desktop was the partially finished draft that I had when I dragged a copy to my desktop. I lost 2/3 of my article. I almost cried. So tomorrow, I get to go back and rewrite the majority of my article that I accidentally deleted—not looking forward to that.

I left the office about 45 minutes earlier than usual because I went to meet my friend Jamie and his sister Laura in DC for the evening. I knew it would take me a while to get into the city because of the ridiculous traffic in this area, but I must admit that I was pretty unaware that you could take what should be a 37-minute drive according to Google Maps and turn it into a nail-biting, hair-wrenching, 75 minute ordeal—turns out, you can! But I have to admit that once my car was successfully parked in a beautiful, end parking spot on Jefferson Ave that was completely FREE so long as I kept it there under 3 hours and stepped out onto the National Mall with the 70-degree weather and sunny blue skies, I think the drive was almost worth it. It was supposed to rain this afternoon, but it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day with the most perfect temperature. It was pretty much like heaven. When I met up with Jamie and Laura, we headed over to the Natural History Museum where I discovered what I would have looked like as a Neanderthal. And for your viewing pleasure, I've provided the picture below.

It's pretty spectacular. Let's just say, I'm glad I was born about 3 million years after some of our early ancestors, because I just don't think that the receding hairline would have been a very flattering look for me.

After I got this horrifying picture made up, I saw a giant squid that was not completely submerged in its preservation juices (why he wasn't completely im-

mersed, I don't know), a few dinosaurs, and lot of really big, really expensive diamonds and rare gems. When the Natural History Museum kicked us out, we took a nice stroll to the Washington Monument and contemplated the best escape route should the monument start to fall over or crumble to the ground. All in all, it was a pretty great day, and it was nice to get out of Gaithersburg and see some of the amazing places around me. Even though the traffic stinks, it is so beautiful around here. This is a picture I took when I stopped at a "scenic overlook" on my drive home two weeks ago. All in all, this has been an amazing experience and a pretty fun week. And tomorrow, it's back home again for a relaxing weekend.

I forgot my PJs—AGAIN.

So last night, instead of waiting until about 10 p.m., I started packing my bags for DC before dinner. By 9:45, I was in bed and the majority of my belongings were already packed neatly inside the car. I had even left myself a little note in the bathroom with a few lingering items that I wanted to be sure I didn't leave behind in the morning. I was feeling rather self-congratulatory at this point, and I even bragged to my mom about my preparedness. I even had all my meals planned out and packed for my time away. For the first time in 4 weeks, I was going to leave the house on time—and I wasn't going to forget anything.

I know now that pride is a sin. I left the house this morning more or less on time, feeling confident that I had packed the things I needed, and I arrived at the office in under 3 hours—an all-time record. I was doing pretty good. This feeling of confidence sustained me throughout the day. It wasn't until I left the office and opened my suitcase at the house I'm staying at that I realized I didn't pack any pajamas. I had put my favorite pair in the wash yesterday, and because I didn't need to pack any of the other clothes in that load of laundry, I forgot completely forgot to pack the PJs. Now, anyone who has ever roomed with me can tell you that as soon as I come home for the day, I immediately change into sweats or Pjs. The reason for this is twofold: (1) I wear my jeans multiple times between washings and if I take them off sooner, they have a decreased time to get dirty and/or stretched out, and (2) I like to be comfy. So after I finished eating the leftovers I had packed for dinner, my heart sunk as I realized that I didn't remember packing my Pjs, and that fear was confirmed when I unzipped my bag and discovered with was PJ-less. Luckily, I overpacked in almost every other way possible, and I had tossed a pair of exercise pants in my bag (just in case I felt the urge to get in shape, an urge which hasn't presented itself even remotely in the 4 weeks I've been coming down here). The work out pants are very similar to my PJs, and I had also packed an extra t-shirt that I knew when I packed it that I wouldn't wear it to the office but decided to pack it anyway—thank goodness.

Aside from the realization of my omission of sleepwear, my day went very well. Like I mentioned before, I managed to make it to the office in record time—under 3 hours, and that included filling up on gas! I even almost decided to do the drive without the help of my often-confused, semi-helpful GPS (although I decided to give it one more week). My new friend (intern, Rachel) was again at the office and she greeted me in her usual sun-shiny way, which made me feel happy to be there.

I got to do more indexing today (yay—not) but I finished that in record time as well. I then received a few more projects, including an editing assignment, a photo-downloading assignment (which ended up being somewhat stressful), and a new writing assignment. Today the senior editor asked me what topics I would like to write about for the magazine. I must say, I was taken a little off-guard. In fact, I was pretty speechless, which very rarely ever happens to me. What did I want to write about? Oh man. There were so many possibilities, that literally, my mind went blank, and to tell you the truth, I looked kind of stupid. She suggested I brainstorm a couple of topic ideas and then discuss them with her to flush them out for ideas. She encouraged me to write about stuff that I knew all about, stuff that came easily to me and that I didn't need to do hardly any research on. She wanted the pieces to be slightly more conversational. I brainstormed a bit, ran some ideas by her, and then wrote one of the articles. I liked it, but I'm not sure yet what she thought of it, so I'm waiting for some of her feedback. Tomorrow I'm going to work on a couple more of those ideas.

So in my belated post, I talked about how I did my first real editing last week, and how I came up with a new title for that one article. Well, I looked at the InDesign documents for the July issue and it looks like my title is going to stick! I'm not sure if much else of my editing stuck (actually, I was a little annoyed to see that a lot of it didn't) but they like the title! And it's going to be on the cover of our July issue! Hooray! I know it may seem like a relatively small victory, but for me it's kind of a big deal. It will be the first time that something I came up with will be in print that thousands of people will read. Now I just need to get my byline...

I also was invited to attend my first event with the magazine staff! On June 3 the Young Horse Trials are being held at Morven Park, which is an international horse park in Leesburg, VA, only a 30-minute drive from the office. So today the senior editor asked me if I would be around that day so I could go with them :) I have no idea what we are going to do all day or if we plan on covering the event in the magazine, but I do know that it will be an entire day at a horse not as a rider, not as a spectator, but as a member of the press. It sounds pretty good to me! I'll make sure to take pictures when I go.

Belated Update: Blogger status is "unavailable." To me, that translates to "unacceptable." Also, real editing and a new friend!

I must first apologize for this belated blog post. I can honestly say that it wasn't my fault—it was blogger's. It goes like this:

I am finally getting roped into this blogging thing. I can say that at first, I was a bit of skeptic. I just didn't understand the need for a blog if I already have a facebook, and after a few failed attempts at blogging, I started to think it was not really for me. However, since I'm in college I thought it was only right to give it the good old college try—I decided to try blogging one more time while I was doing my internship, mostly so that I would have a journal of sorts for myself when I was finished. Then last Thursday night, I got home from my internship and had had such a great day that I was very excited to blog all about it, but to my intense disappointment, blogger said it was "currently unavailable" when I typed in the URL address. I couldn't believe it–once I'd finally decided I couldn't make it another minute without blogging, the blogger site decided to be "unavailable," whatever that means. And blogger was "currently unavailable" all night long. Can you believe it? In vain, I frantically checked the website about every 3-10 minutes for about 4 hours. A little pathetic, I'm aware.

So anyway, that is the reason that this post is somewhat belated. And unfortunately, I'm pretty sure this entry will not be as vibrant as it would have been if I had written it the day of like I'd planned because the memories have a had a few days to sit and get dusty in my brain. But last Thursday was a great day! On Wednesday, I mentioned that we had a new intern. And on Thursday, we officially became friends! Her name is Rachel, so if you read about a Rachel in future blog posts, that’s probably who I’m talking about. We had a nice chat on Thursday and she is super nice. She is from South Carolina, at least her parents live there and she goes to college down there, but her family moved around her senior year in high school from Spokane Washington! I told her that I had a lot of Spokane friends, so that was a fun connection. But she is living with some family friends as well while she is doing the internship so she also doesn’t know anyone or anything in the area. We are in the same boat! So she said that we would have to be friends and hang out in the evenings after work. And that’s how I made a new friend! It was pretty great.

I also got my first real editing assignment on Thursday. It’s crazy how I could be in my third week of my editing internship and not have edited anything yet. I guess that’s why editing is so exciting because it encompasses so many different things. But the head editor came up to me near the end of the day and asked me to read through one of their feature articles that they are going to run in the July issue because the other editors were having trouble with a good head and deck for the article (the head is the title, and the deck is the brief, catchy explanation of the article just below the title). I read through the article in what was supposed to be a relatively simple assignment, but I discovered that I was having the same difficulty coming up with a good title. I then realized that the main problem was not the title, but the organization and focus of the article—it was a mess! It was hard to come up with a good title because the different parts of the article were wandering in focus. I mentioned the problem and my proposed solution to the editor, and she told me she thought I was right and asked if I would mind making the changes myself. I was thrilled, of course, to have my first real editing assignment. Together, the editor and I (her name is Patty) brainstormed a bit about titles and I came up with something truly brilliant (and sort of deep—but then that’s the English major in me). I can’t tell you what it is yet, and we will just have to wait until the July issue is published to see if the title ends up sticking. I think it just might. I also added a bit to the article, so I’m kind of hoping for a byline, which would be so cool because this is one of the big feature articles. I’ll keep you posted about what happens with the piece.

I got the chance to do some more real editing again on Friday. I JUST LOVE EDITING. I really do. It is just so exciting and there are so many possibilities. Words are fun. All in all, it was a pretty great week. I hope this week ends up being just as good.

I’m sorry if this post was a little more boring than usual, but again, I think we can blame blogger. Cross your fingers that blogger isn’t down at all this week. I’m just not sure I could handle it again!