It's been a while, this might be a long one.
So I got the internship. I made my way to Gloria Jean’s (the Starbucks of Australia) to meet my supervisor for the interview on Friday. It was the first time I rode Australian transportation by myself, and I made it there in one piece. That morning I had a paper due and toes to polish before I headed to Edgecliff station. I slipped into my peep-toe flats and only polished the two toes I could see, ran to edit and turn in my paper, and power walked like a New Yorker to the train station. I got there 5mins early. I waited with my $4 tea in hand and Jenny walked in. We had a nice conversation instead of an intimidating interview. She used to live in New York, and a friend of hers even lived by TYWLS (my high school). Her daughter is an actress, really big in Australia, and is about to graduate from HS. Then we talked about work. International Women’s Day is a big deal for Women of Women, and they are prepping for an event in March. A lot of the tasks she described that I’d be doing I’m familiar with from preparing for events at Comedy Central. I explained to her how getting credit at Wheaton is like pulling teeth, so I have to have proof that I did real work. She was more than happy to let me write cover pieces or blurbs that she’d edit and post online.
The rest of the weekend I went to the markets around the city. Some of the booths are cheap, which is always good for me! But some booths are out of their mind if they think I’m really going to spend $50 on hand-me-downs. Being cheap, I didn’t buy anything. Eventually I’ll go back and treat myself though.
So I got the internship. I made my way to Gloria Jean’s (the Starbucks of Australia) to meet my supervisor for the interview on Friday. It was the first time I rode Australian transportation by myself, and I made it there in one piece. That morning I had a paper due and toes to polish before I headed to Edgecliff station. I slipped into my peep-toe flats and only polished the two toes I could see, ran to edit and turn in my paper, and power walked like a New Yorker to the train station. I got there 5mins early. I waited with my $4 tea in hand and Jenny walked in. We had a nice conversation instead of an intimidating interview. She used to live in New York, and a friend of hers even lived by TYWLS (my high school). Her daughter is an actress, really big in Australia, and is about to graduate from HS. Then we talked about work. International Women’s Day is a big deal for Women of Women, and they are prepping for an event in March. A lot of the tasks she described that I’d be doing I’m familiar with from preparing for events at Comedy Central. I explained to her how getting credit at Wheaton is like pulling teeth, so I have to have proof that I did real work. She was more than happy to let me write cover pieces or blurbs that she’d edit and post online.
The rest of the weekend I went to the markets around the city. Some of the booths are cheap, which is always good for me! But some booths are out of their mind if they think I’m really going to spend $50 on hand-me-downs. Being cheap, I didn’t buy anything. Eventually I’ll go back and treat myself though.
Sunday I went abseiling in the Blue Mountains. It’s a mountain range in West Sydney about 2 hours by train from where I’m staying. The train to get there is like the Commuter Rail (for my New England people) or the Metro North (for the Tri-state people). Abseiling is basically jumping off of cliffs. Yes, I had no clue. We had a harness, helmet, ropes, cables, the whole nine. First we started out with the small ones 5m, 15m and 30m (convert the meters to feet) so they could teach us how to use the rope and straighten out our legs. Then we hit the big stuff, like the Super Jump (I don't know how high up that one was).
Yesterday I had a meeting with one of the directors of a program called Yalari. It's a non-profit organization that provides Aboriginals kids with full-tuition scholarships to top boarding schools all around Australia. Sound familiar?
I told him all about Posse and TYWLS. I got his contact information from the professor of my Aboriginal Studies class. I told my professor that Sydney Uni turned me down for their mentoring program because I'm not a student there, and she immediately gave me his number. I could get used to this networking thing. I told the director about my interest in mentoring while I'm here. I want to meet people, not just be a tourist. He said he was looking for a mentor for a group of girls that go to Abbotsleigh boarding school for girls in North Sydney. They're in grades 7-9 and some have mixed feelings about being in boarding school away from home. Abbotsleigh is a ritzy school, and pretty white to be honest. He said they would really like me (I hope so) and being a black girl they would be able to relate to me more than anything. I might be able to go to the school this Friday to meet them, and then make trips once a week.
The rest of this week is BIG. A bunch of assignments are due, my Birthday (Thursday), for those of you that forgot J, and field trip to Melbourne from Sunday to Wednesday.
Peace for now
No comments:
Post a Comment