They are not super exciting, but here they are.
Reference Books.
This is my workstation with my beautiful Mac with the giant screen. Happiness.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Day 3: The SWOT Analysis (not to be confused with SWAT Analysis...). Oh, yeah it's bridLE not bridAL. FINALLY.
Day 3 was another day of successes, so, on the whole, I think I would call Week 1 a success. I got nearly 8 hours of sleep again last night, although I think an entire semester's worth of sleep deprivation + the extra sleep deprivation of finals week + sleep deprivation from moving out of one apartment and into another + waking up at 5 to drive to MD = tiredness has finally caught up with me, and I'm ready to give in. Again, I had high hopes of getting to bed early tonight, but once again I was thwarted in my effort. So here I am at 11:30, finishing my post, and tomorrow morning, I'm sleeping in, baby!
So today I participated in a SWOT analysis meeting. SWOT is an acronym that stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The strengths and weaknesses are things that are internal to the magazine, and opportunities and threats are external things that could be beneficial or harmful to the magazine. The magazine staff does the SWOT analysis once a year and presents the list the publisher/owner of the magazine in their annual meeting. So together with the senior and managing editors, we met together and discusses the state of the magazine. Well, mostly THEY discussed and I listened, although I did input my ideas and suggestions at times. It was pretty interesting. And thus, I was inducted into the SWOT team.
I had another funny moment today, and, no, it wasn't involving food (although I did have a bit of a food FAIL—whatever you may think, microwavable noodles are NEVER a good idea, especially Pad Thai noodles. . . . Mistake). I walked by the managing editor on the way back from the bathroom and she was on the phone and I overheard part of her conversion and got the shocking realization that I'm NOT in Kansas anymore—or rather, I'm not in PROVO anymore. She was talking to someone and asked if the bridles had come in yet. After spending the last 8 months in Provo (actually, I've really been there for the greater part of 4 years now), my mind initially jumped to bridALS, and I wondered who was getting married, but I was confused because I was sure the managing editor didn't have kids old enough to be getting married. About a half second later, I realized my blunder and figured out that, of course, she was talking about bridLES! Hello, I'm working at a horse magazine! The sad thing is that, even after spending 3 strait days talking about nothing but horses, my mind still jumps strait to bridals and not bridles. Now that's just sad. Although, after I realized my error, I was so thrilled that for once, people were talking about horses and not weddings! This is my kind of place.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
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Day 2: The Rolodex Makes Me Feel Powerful. Also, struggle with food.
As luck would have it, Day 2 was equally as successful as Day 1, if not more so. And my morning schedule was considerably more pleasant than the day before. Today I woke up at 7:15—*miracle*. It felt pretty much like magic, and because I woke up feeling so magical, I felt more ready to take on the day.
So I arrived at the office this morning around 8:20—my initial goal was 8:00, but, probably because they aren't paying me a dime, my internship doesn't really care what time I come in and leave each day, so I thought 8:20 was pretty dedicated when I for sure could have showed up at 9:00 and no one would have cared. I got right to work on the subject index of all the back issues so I could get the boring stuff out of the way while I was still high on the magical feeling of adequate sleep. Next, I compiled copies of all the articles a famous rider has written for the magazine, which is where I made my greatest discovery of the day. Let me share a brief background: The rider's name is Courtney King-Dye who competed for the US Olympic Dressage Team and is an incredible rider. However, last year she took a really bad fall on her horse when she wasn't wearing a helmet and ended up in a coma. She is slowly recovering, but will probably never be able to ride again. Instead, she now spends a lot of time writing articles and columns for the magazine, and she was looking to create an archive for herself of all the articles. So I was asked to compile hard copies of all the articles, put them in an envelope, and mail them to Courtney's house. Once I had gathered all the articles, I placed them in a giant manilla folder, and then I opened... the ROLODEX. Ok, so its not a physical Rolodex because, since we are a technologically-minded society, tiny address cards on a rotating file are not necessary so we just keep all of the addresses in an Excel file on the computer, but the concept is the same. To every horse lover and dressage enthusiast, this is the Rolodex to end all Rolodexes. In fact, when referring to this Rolodex, we would use a capital T and label it "The Rolodex." This Rolodex contains all of the addresses, phone numbers, and emails of all the top dressage riders and experts in the WORLD. Anyone who is anyone in the world of dressage and who may ever need to be reached or referenced by the magazine, which is the expert word in the sport of dressage, can be found (with all of their contact information) inside this very Rolodex.
So I casually opened the file and found Courtney King-Dye's address, wrote it on a Dressage Today return address mailing label, and tried to pretend like I couldn't feel the power emanating for the world's most magical spreadsheet. It's no big deal really, I just know where all of the top professionals, olympians, and experts in the sport of dressage live. Yes, I really am this cool.
In addition to stalking all of my favorite dressage athletes (just kidding, I promise I'm not abusing the awesomeness of The Rolodex), I spent much of my afternoon researching the history of horse breeds in England, which was actually pretty interesting. And when I wasn't doing that, I was eating.
Let me tell you my dilemma with food. Two nights a week while I'm doing my internship, I stay with a family who, until yesterday, I had never met before, but who we know remotely through a family friend. Not wanting to inconvenience them or impose on their time or resources, I've decided to be completely self-sufficient while I'm here, including providing all my own meals. However, I don't want to take up too much room in their fridge or have to use their kitchen to cook, and it's a little awkward always making my food and then eating it all by myself in their kitchen. So I've decided to solve this problem by eating all my meals at my internship, starting today. This is also an interesting feat because there is no lunch/break room area with a table, so I eat at my desk while doing research and try (in vain) not to spill crumbs all over my computer and floor and try to look as natural and as comfortable as possible with my bizarre eating arrangement. So I stated my day with a Tastykake at my computer, interrupted my afternoon with some Crab and Corn Chowder that I picked up at Trader Joe's, and then finished my day with my leftover burrito from Chipotle, which was my dinner last night. The Tastykake was not much of a problem, and the soup turned out to be a pretty low-mess, low-embarrassment food, even though it decided to bubble over and leak all over the inside of the microwave and drew much attention to itself because it smelled strongly of seafood (luckily the attention was positive, which doesn't always happen due to many people's bias's against seafood). No, the real problem was the leftover burrito, the contents of which were much too abundant to fit properly inside the tortilla. Luckily, I decided not to undertake the burrito challenge until after many of the people in the office had gone home, or the experience might have been that much more humiliating. The contents kept overflowing and spilling out onto my napkin, and with every bite, the burrito become more difficult to hold onto. So there I was, awkwardly hunched over my computer desk, picking up rouge beans that escaped into my lap or onto the floor and trying to keep the picture of myself out of the visible range of the offices around me. The experience was awkward enough without an audience. In the end, I managed to conquer the burrito, finishing the entire thing with only a few loose beans and rice morsels. I just hope the janitor does a really good vacuum under my desk tonight....
So I arrived at the office this morning around 8:20—my initial goal was 8:00, but, probably because they aren't paying me a dime, my internship doesn't really care what time I come in and leave each day, so I thought 8:20 was pretty dedicated when I for sure could have showed up at 9:00 and no one would have cared. I got right to work on the subject index of all the back issues so I could get the boring stuff out of the way while I was still high on the magical feeling of adequate sleep. Next, I compiled copies of all the articles a famous rider has written for the magazine, which is where I made my greatest discovery of the day. Let me share a brief background: The rider's name is Courtney King-Dye who competed for the US Olympic Dressage Team and is an incredible rider. However, last year she took a really bad fall on her horse when she wasn't wearing a helmet and ended up in a coma. She is slowly recovering, but will probably never be able to ride again. Instead, she now spends a lot of time writing articles and columns for the magazine, and she was looking to create an archive for herself of all the articles. So I was asked to compile hard copies of all the articles, put them in an envelope, and mail them to Courtney's house. Once I had gathered all the articles, I placed them in a giant manilla folder, and then I opened... the ROLODEX. Ok, so its not a physical Rolodex because, since we are a technologically-minded society, tiny address cards on a rotating file are not necessary so we just keep all of the addresses in an Excel file on the computer, but the concept is the same. To every horse lover and dressage enthusiast, this is the Rolodex to end all Rolodexes. In fact, when referring to this Rolodex, we would use a capital T and label it "The Rolodex." This Rolodex contains all of the addresses, phone numbers, and emails of all the top dressage riders and experts in the WORLD. Anyone who is anyone in the world of dressage and who may ever need to be reached or referenced by the magazine, which is the expert word in the sport of dressage, can be found (with all of their contact information) inside this very Rolodex.
So I casually opened the file and found Courtney King-Dye's address, wrote it on a Dressage Today return address mailing label, and tried to pretend like I couldn't feel the power emanating for the world's most magical spreadsheet. It's no big deal really, I just know where all of the top professionals, olympians, and experts in the sport of dressage live. Yes, I really am this cool.
In addition to stalking all of my favorite dressage athletes (just kidding, I promise I'm not abusing the awesomeness of The Rolodex), I spent much of my afternoon researching the history of horse breeds in England, which was actually pretty interesting. And when I wasn't doing that, I was eating.
Let me tell you my dilemma with food. Two nights a week while I'm doing my internship, I stay with a family who, until yesterday, I had never met before, but who we know remotely through a family friend. Not wanting to inconvenience them or impose on their time or resources, I've decided to be completely self-sufficient while I'm here, including providing all my own meals. However, I don't want to take up too much room in their fridge or have to use their kitchen to cook, and it's a little awkward always making my food and then eating it all by myself in their kitchen. So I've decided to solve this problem by eating all my meals at my internship, starting today. This is also an interesting feat because there is no lunch/break room area with a table, so I eat at my desk while doing research and try (in vain) not to spill crumbs all over my computer and floor and try to look as natural and as comfortable as possible with my bizarre eating arrangement. So I stated my day with a Tastykake at my computer, interrupted my afternoon with some Crab and Corn Chowder that I picked up at Trader Joe's, and then finished my day with my leftover burrito from Chipotle, which was my dinner last night. The Tastykake was not much of a problem, and the soup turned out to be a pretty low-mess, low-embarrassment food, even though it decided to bubble over and leak all over the inside of the microwave and drew much attention to itself because it smelled strongly of seafood (luckily the attention was positive, which doesn't always happen due to many people's bias's against seafood). No, the real problem was the leftover burrito, the contents of which were much too abundant to fit properly inside the tortilla. Luckily, I decided not to undertake the burrito challenge until after many of the people in the office had gone home, or the experience might have been that much more humiliating. The contents kept overflowing and spilling out onto my napkin, and with every bite, the burrito become more difficult to hold onto. So there I was, awkwardly hunched over my computer desk, picking up rouge beans that escaped into my lap or onto the floor and trying to keep the picture of myself out of the visible range of the offices around me. The experience was awkward enough without an audience. In the end, I managed to conquer the burrito, finishing the entire thing with only a few loose beans and rice morsels. I just hope the janitor does a really good vacuum under my desk tonight....
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Day 1: Success!
Sometime back in February, I landed an editing internship with a horse magazine called Dressage Today. I started Dressage lessons when I was about 14 or 15, and I spent many hours of my high school career reading the magazine. I always knew that I wanted horses in my life, but I thought I would have to give up riding to a certain extent in college to dedicate myself to my studies. I wanted to incorporate both riding and school, but I figured that I should focus on school and get a degree so that someday I could afford to do horses on the side. But when I decided I wanted to go into magazine editing, my dream of incorporating my professional life with my horse life started to become a reality. I emailed Dressage Today, willingly offered my expertise in exchange for the opportunity of a lifetime, and they were happy to accept my help.
Today was Day 1! Let me provide a brief outline of what my day looked like. Actually, I should maybe start with the day before today, just so you can fully grasp the scope of today.
Yesterday:
7:00 a.m. Wake up
10:30 a.m. Leave house to run approx 547 errands
5:00 p.m. Arrive at home to make pizza dough for dinner
5:30–7:00 p.m. Run more errands
7:00-8:00 p.m. Make and eat dinner
8:00–8:30 Breathe
8:30 Realization that I don't have clean clothes or anything sensible to wear to internship
8:30-11:00 Laundry and Packing
11:00 Bedtime routine + journal chronicling of night before internship
11:30 attempt to sleep
Today:
12:15 a.m. Actual time of sleep
12:15–5:00 a.m. Worrying about waking up in time for internship/restless night's sleep
5:00–6:15 a.m. Wake up, dress, forget hairbrush, belt, PJs, leave for internship
6:15-9:45 a.m. Driving and traffic
9:45 Arrive at destination! Thank you Magellan!
9:50 Locate office, realize that no one remembered I was starting my internship today. Hmm, FAIL.
10:00 Decide that managing editor is very nice and I will forgive them for not knowing I was coming
10:30 started logging topics from back issues
11:00 Assigned first article! Wahoo I'm a real equine journalist!
2:30 Finally eat Wawa hoagie that has gotten warm in my car despite the ice packs I wedged it between.
4:30 Leave office
4:45 Arrive at host family's house. Graciously greeted
5:20–8:00 p.m. Drive around Gaithersburg aimlessly, do some shopping, pick up items I forgot at home (i.e. hairbrushes), eat some Chipotle
8:00–9:30 Facebooking (of course)
9:30–10:30 Talk to mom on phone, decide that I should start studying for the GRE even though I'm running on 4 hours of sleep
10:30 p.m. Realization that I have to blog about my internship and starting tomorrow is out of the question. Must start now and keep eyelids open with tape or superglue because blogging must get done.
So that's pretty much my last 36 hours in a nutshell. I'm not totally sure how/why I'm still awake. I should have gone to bed 2 hours ago. But my first day as an editing intern for Dressage Today was so much better than I ever could have dreamed! I get to literally eat, sleep, breathe horses for the next 2 months as my job. That's all I do and talk about all day. Pretty great, right? I think so. The only thing better would be some sleep. I think I'm going to fix that right now...
10:56 p.m. Finished writing blog. Decided to go to bed.
Today was Day 1! Let me provide a brief outline of what my day looked like. Actually, I should maybe start with the day before today, just so you can fully grasp the scope of today.
Yesterday:
7:00 a.m. Wake up
10:30 a.m. Leave house to run approx 547 errands
5:00 p.m. Arrive at home to make pizza dough for dinner
5:30–7:00 p.m. Run more errands
7:00-8:00 p.m. Make and eat dinner
8:00–8:30 Breathe
8:30 Realization that I don't have clean clothes or anything sensible to wear to internship
8:30-11:00 Laundry and Packing
11:00 Bedtime routine + journal chronicling of night before internship
11:30 attempt to sleep
Today:
12:15 a.m. Actual time of sleep
12:15–5:00 a.m. Worrying about waking up in time for internship/restless night's sleep
5:00–6:15 a.m. Wake up, dress, forget hairbrush, belt, PJs, leave for internship
6:15-9:45 a.m. Driving and traffic
9:45 Arrive at destination! Thank you Magellan!
9:50 Locate office, realize that no one remembered I was starting my internship today. Hmm, FAIL.
10:00 Decide that managing editor is very nice and I will forgive them for not knowing I was coming
10:30 started logging topics from back issues
11:00 Assigned first article! Wahoo I'm a real equine journalist!
2:30 Finally eat Wawa hoagie that has gotten warm in my car despite the ice packs I wedged it between.
4:30 Leave office
4:45 Arrive at host family's house. Graciously greeted
5:20–8:00 p.m. Drive around Gaithersburg aimlessly, do some shopping, pick up items I forgot at home (i.e. hairbrushes), eat some Chipotle
8:00–9:30 Facebooking (of course)
9:30–10:30 Talk to mom on phone, decide that I should start studying for the GRE even though I'm running on 4 hours of sleep
10:30 p.m. Realization that I have to blog about my internship and starting tomorrow is out of the question. Must start now and keep eyelids open with tape or superglue because blogging must get done.
So that's pretty much my last 36 hours in a nutshell. I'm not totally sure how/why I'm still awake. I should have gone to bed 2 hours ago. But my first day as an editing intern for Dressage Today was so much better than I ever could have dreamed! I get to literally eat, sleep, breathe horses for the next 2 months as my job. That's all I do and talk about all day. Pretty great, right? I think so. The only thing better would be some sleep. I think I'm going to fix that right now...
10:56 p.m. Finished writing blog. Decided to go to bed.
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