On the job. . .

We have all established by now that if I handle any life-changing event the way most normal people would -- with careful preparation -- then something is not right. So it is not at all surprising -- in fact, expected -- that I showed up to my first day at my much cherised and hard-won internship without my work authorization document.

Well, the truth is that it hadn't arrived, although the government agency's web site stated very positively that my application had been approved. In any case, I was starting on June 5, so off I went to my first day, armed with the print out stating that I had been approved and my passport -- but no authorization document, none the less. I needn't have worried. Because everyhing was fine. They didn't even ask me for it until the second day. When they did ask, I managed to convince them that I would get it any day now and avert any uncomfortable escortage to the door.

But anyway, I have been at my internship for three days now. And in that time, I have gone to meetings galore -- meetings about the front of the magazine, the back of the magazine, the middle of the magazine, the international section, art meetings, photo meetings. I have two wonderful editors, who bend over backwards to include me in everything -- even unexpectedly introducing me to the editor-in-chief, which left me a tad speechless -- I'm sure I made a great first impression with that.

When I am not accompanying my editors to meetings, I've been editing some columns and readers' comments and looking at stories in various stages of production to see how they change throughout the process.

Of course, every intern feverishly wants to be writing at least for the magazine's web site, if not for the print version, and I am no different. So, when I received an invite to an event that seemed like it might be of interest to the magazine, I suggested to my editor that I might write it up. He kindly declined, informing me that it was too small to cover, even on the web site, but encouraged me to pitch my own story ideas. So now, I'm going to be racking my brains, and engaging in fits of panic as I try to come up with suitable ideas that will earn me more than an incredulous laugh when I pitch them. Any ideas are most welcome!

But in the meantime, I'll keep going to more meetings and doing more editing and immersing myself in the mag -- and sucking up to the boss man!