Don't ask. It's pretty much a traditional greeting in ah, LilJohnTown. Anyways, today I am exhausted, despite having sat in an office all day. I suppose nervous tension can be quite wearing (apparently in the neck department - mine is KILLING me! But this may have just been from the half hour my head spent between my knees on Saturday. Le sigh).
I woke up at 9 today, since my paper doesn't start work until 10am, as any good newspaper should. Bliss! Had an overly-waxed apple, packed my bag with my lead-like computer and headed across the bridge to meet my co-intern Sarah early for a take away coffee and a quick read of the paper in preparation. I should have learnt by now that Jakarta doesn't suffer plans: when we got to the mall - yes, we work in Semanggi, that blasted mall I've been complaining about spending too much time in; oh irony, you fell beast! - it was closed! Apparently things in Indonesia don't open before 10am? Anyway, Dunkin Donuts, that bastion of Western values, was, so we got our coffee there (not great but okay) and headed up when the doors finally opened. We were shown to our desks and had our own little Macs installed (saweet) and were told to play around on them until 11 (can do) when we met our mentor, let us call him Dave, for libel/visa regulation reasons. Anyway Dave is American and AWESOME - he seems like a cool, onto it guy, and likes terrible puns so I'm down with the Man. He went through our story ideas, and I felt a wee bit ashamed at my airy topics compared with Sarah's well-researched, well-thought out ideas but he approved some of mine, so that was a good start. Then we had a meeting about our special section that the newspaper produces with the interns every year - this year is a bit daunting, but I shall keep it underwraps until production time, in case any shark-like journos are reading this...
At any rate, I was signed up to do some articles for THAT, and then we met with the features team and ran ideas past THEM. I once again was outshone (SIGH) as Sarah was ON FIRE (our other intern, Ben, being ill today, poor guy) but got a few ideas pushed through including one I'm terrified about doing - a feature investigating a loophole in the Pornography Law here mentioned by a lecturer, who said the loophole allowed ownership of child pornography, which is pretty disturbing. To make matters worse, an updated schedule of the features desk was sent through that has my ideas on them - so it's all set in concrete now! Time to woman up and be a real journalist, I guess.
After that it was more research, looking up contacts/emailing people, meeting some people around the office (everyone seems really lovely and helpful - one guy helpfully told me a better translation sight than Google Translate (not difficult) and another obligingly took my unwitting coffee order (ay caramba, I'M the intern!) and Helena's mentor, from another magazine entirely, looked up and gave me some contacts for a story - what a guy!), planning tomorrow and basically, filling in time until home time, since I don't have any contacts replying at the mo and no scheduled interviews. Tomorrow I will have to get onto ringing/meeting people and negotiating their English/my Bahasa.
As it is, I rounded off the day doing a bit of extra shopping in the mall - I needed a diary and I decided I wanted a shoulder bag, so I'd look more professional and less like I was going to school. Then it was home for a dinner of beans, snow peas, cherry tomatoes and tuna in balsamic vinegar and garlic sauce. It's nice, but not great (unsurprisingly) - I'm trying to make things I don't have to cook, since we don't own any pots and pans, but with loads of veges = quite difficult! Might have to give gado-gado a go....
There is a bit more to say about the office and the beggar children on our street who are frankly just capitalizing on my general guilt complex, the crazy toothless old man who grabs my arm when I walk past and proposes to Helena, but I am tired and my neck ACHES so until tomorrow, maties, wish me luck!
LESSONS LEARNT 18:
- Journalism is a pretty mint career, just so long as my stories pan out and don't get ripped to shreds by the subs
- My office is full of pretty darn nice people
- Sore necks are the WORST
- Nasi Goreng loses its appeal after the fifth time you've eaten it
- So does tuna!
- Jake Gyllenhaal doesn't. Ever.
You've eaten Jake Gyllenhaal 5 times? i love you, Alex, but really. I'm sorry abut your neck. I'd give you a neck rub if you hadn't ABANDONED NZ FOR INDONESIA. Good luck with your journalismo! Sounds exciting and scary. You'll do fine! You'll do awesome.
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