I do believe I have yet to inform you all of my internship. So…here we go:
I wake up around 5:30am, somehow apply make-up, get clothes on, and eat breakfast in a comatose-state. I make my way to the subway where I pile into a car along with all the other morning-commuters.
I’d like to stop and take note as to how compact Asian people are and can be. It is like they have collapsible ribcages. I am smooshed in the middle of the car, with no room to move AT ALL, like, I don’t even need anything to hold onto when the subway car starts and stops because all the other people around me absorb the sudden jolts. Then, the car doors open, and MORE PEOPLE GET IN. I feel a slight increase in pressure, and I question the amount of available oxygen surrounding me. I close my eyes and pray to all goodness that there are not more people wanting to get on at the next stop. My prayers have yet to be answered.
After performing moves a contortionist would be proud of, I exit the subway car and make my way to the bus stop. I then wait for the bus to arrive, hop on and enjoy a ride full of honking, sudden stops, random yelling and questionable driving maneuvers. After I see my life flash before my eyes several hundred times, I finally arrive at my destination. The time is now 9am.
I follow the green brick road until it leads me into work (you have to walk on the green path, no matter where you go. It hugs the buildings and makes you take about five minutes to clear a distance of 100 feet due to all the zigzagging, but it was recently created because some machinery decided to run over a worker…woopsies) and head up the stairs to turn on my computer.
So that is how my day starts, and it ends the same way but in reverse order. Now then, for what happens at work:
Dear everyone, I am not a contract lawyer. I do not know how to ensure a company’s rights are properly protected. I am not a real person yet. I do not have a degree which proclaims that I successfully attended classes for four years, thus translating into my only credible skill- that I can attend work regularly as well. Yet, everyone at my internship seems to believe that because English is my native language, I know everything.
So you can grasp what I do each day I am there, let me briefly mention how my first day at work went: Oh hi! Yup, I know English. Yup, I can tell that you don’t. I guess I can help teach your IS Department English as well. Oh…you want me to read over this 30 page contract? Well…okay. You want me to ensure your intellectual property rights are protected? …sure…because you don't need a professional to do that or anything...you want me to meet with Microsoft’s lawyers? Eh…what. Oh dear…oh deary me.
And that was all before lunch.
Ah, yes- Lunchtime. So, I follow the green-brick road to the cafeteria, where I put my badge over this little scanner, it beeps meaning “you have successfully earned a lunch today.” I then watch as a lunch lady takes a metal tray from a stack, and smacks 5 different blobs of “food”, one fish head, and some rice onto it, and hands it back to me. I steal a banana and a tea and sit down. Little to be said, I eat about 2 of the 5 blobs, none of the meats, and a little of the rice.
Periodically, when I look up I have the pleasure of noticing practically everyone else's eyes staring at me. Yes, white girl eat food. I keep my banana for the bus ride back when I will inevitably feel like passing out due to hunger.
Back to my work area, where the day proceeds in an equally spastic manner as before lunch, where everyone assumes I can do just about anything as long as English is involved.
. . .
So…that’s my internship. A whole lot of English teaching, and a heck of a lot of editing formal documents, and between 4 and 5 hours of commuting each day. Yup.
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