This was my first week back from break. I won't lie, it was rather difficult to go from a week of total relaxation and siestas to having to working eight hours a day and waking up before 9:30 AM. Luckily I love my internship and the people there, making the transition much easier.
I was in the office alone until about 11 AM reading design articles and finding material for our twitter page. We're over 100 followers and last I checked it was 130. My goal is to reach 200 before I go or at the very least be the #1 followed UK design firm tweeter. Completely doable. After Patrick came into the office and go settle, we went to lunch out at Exmouth Market. It's a really unique place. All the restaurants on the street set up tents and sell quick to go lunches for around 5 quid (pounds, the equivalent to the US phrase "bucks"). I hope to take my mom there when she comes. Apparently Thursday through Friday, it's really popular and all the best restaurants set up, but since it was a Monday there was only about seven. We got some risotto and it was delicious.
I learned a lot about Patrick on Monday. It turns out he is an American with dual citizenship in the UK. I never would have guessed just given the fact that he has a British accent and went to college in the UK. We talked a lot about British culture. I learned that in London, people do celebrate the fourth of July. Who would have thunk it?! I never would have guessed. He was interested to know what I was studying in my Contemporary British Culture class. Needless to say, Monday was eye opening. We ended the day with a brainstorm about Earth Day (April 22nd) and what sort of social media/PR campaign we could pull off for tdg. I got really excited because I get to use my video editing skills a bit.
On Tuesday, Patrick and I started the day at a DBA (Design Business Association) meeting about how to make you website useful from a new business perspective. It was interesting, but not really earth shattering in its content. As we walked back to our office I had to ask Patrick his opinion on a dilemma I was having. I remember how he once told me that Paris and Rome were his favorite cities, and my Mom was interested in visiting one of those cities while she was over in London. He had me describe her interests, and said that without a doubt, Paris is where we should go. When we got back to the office, I set my sights on finding suitable content for our Earth Day campaign. That took me the better part of the rest of the day. At 5 Suni, Patrick and I went over to the Clerkenwell Kitchen and shared a bottle of Campaign to celebrate my new position, Suni's safe return from a wedding in Italy, and Patrick's new flat purchase. It was all fun and the perfect way to end my work week.
I didn't want to get up on Wednesday. Starting back at my internship had been easy enough, but my mood was not so welcoming towards class. In advertising we were given our final assignments; a 3500 word essay describing how I would conduct an advertising campaign. May I stress how freaking long a 3500 word essay is?! That's about 15 pages. I have never written an academic paper over 10 pages before in my life. This is going to be a struggle, I can tell. I wore my glasses that day because my contacts were irritating that morning, and my teacher made a funny comment. He said I shouldn't wear glasses because they make me look too serious, whatever that means.
During the second half of the class we watched a short film about how to navigate a multicultural team. There was a character form the US, Italy, England, Germany, India, Japan and Egypt. It was hysterical in how stereotypical all the characters were portrayed. The American in particular was hard to watch. It sort of brought more light to the idea that the rest of the world isn't as fond of us as we would like to think. There was one part I thought was a little weird when the British guy made fun of Americans for saying "Have a nice day". I'm not sure why that is phrase to be made fun of. Art class was held in the National Gallery again. This time we looked at more impressionist works. I saw some really famous Monet, Renoir, and Manet paintings. It was really cool.
In todays Contemporary British Culture class we talked about religion in the UK. I found our seminar group had a very interesting discussion. It's funny to see how much more religious the US is over the UK. Stats say it all. Only 25% of the UK associate with a religion and 60% of the US does. Food for thought.
Tomorrow we go to Canterbury to see the famous cathedral and walk around for a bit. I'll take a lot of pictures and hopefully get some video to share. That's all for now. You are all caught up. Take care.
Pip Pip Cheerio!
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