Saturday, May 9, 2009

Ahh... a moment of relief

Well, 3,930 words later, I am DONE with my paper for my online class -- finished a whole HOUR before the deadline... pretty impressive... unfortunately I spent most of the last week and a half working on it and wishing I was outside, as it has been beautiful in Sydney. But now that I'm done with that essay I get to... start the next one... this one is due tomorrow though, so I just have to work fast and it'll be over with. It is a comparison of the way Americans and Australians treat immigrants, so hopefully it will be pretty interesting to write, and I'm pretty much guaranteed an A in the class, so there's not too much pressure...
The internship this week was mostly boring, but on Wednesday, things picked up. I got to go to a breakfast launch for Playstation with Rhiannon and we had free yummy food, got free 4 gb jump drives, and enjoyed a morning out of the office. When I got back, I finished up an article, learned how to update part of the website (because when Rhiannon leaves in a week, I'll essentially be taking over her job), and then at about 3:00, she asked if I'd be willing to do an interview that afternoon with Michael Lawrence, producer of the most popular Australian doco (film lingo for documentary) - Bra Boys about the surfer gangs of Marourba Beach. He and his team recently partnered with VAS entertainment, the biggest action-sport film producers, based in L.A. I didn't feel that great, but it didn't seem like it was going to be that big of a deal, so I said sure, and started whipping up some questions. Dov (our publisher) kept forwarding me emails from his agent with updates about when we could do the interview and how, and then all of a sudden, around 4:30, she said, actually let's switch it to 5:15 so that the entire team can be in on it on conference call. Eek! All of a sudden I was going to be managing an interview with 3 people on speaker phone, with not that great of questions and a head cold. After I calmed down, I did a bit more research, added some questions, and made the call. It went really well (despite me dropping the iPod recording device about 5 minutes in and having it disconnect... minor glitch) and I think I'll be able to write a pretty good article about it. I have to pitch the idea to the publisher on Monday so they can decide whether it should just be for the website or whether it will go in the mag (publishing lingo for magazine ;-)). I can't believe I only have 12 days left at the internship (9 of those without Rhiannon :-().
On Friday, I took a break from working on my essay to head into the city to meet my friend Maxine who was visiting from Melbourne. I met she and two of her friends in Darling Harbour, grabbed some Thai take-away and grabbed a seat at the Darling Harbour's 21st Anniversary spectacular... I made up that name, but it was something like that. We weren't sure what to expect, but we weren't disappointed. When the show started at 7:15 (keep in mind it's pitch-black by then now that it's getting to be winter), four jet skis zoomed out from under the bridge and started shooting out fire and then fireworks, all weaving around each other.
(These are the four jet skis, shooting out fireworks.)

There was quite a long fireworks show, some launched from the jetskis, some from the land, all of it fantastic.

After the show, we sat on the steps for a while and chatted, and then I had to head back home to finish up my essay.
Tomorrow is Mother's Day and our host mom gets back from Kansas, so that will be fun. We are going to get her flowers and a card. Also, a Brazilian girl is moving into the homestay tomorrow, so Isabel and I have to move out of our room tonight. But for Isabel, it will just be two nights, because she is leaving to go back to Spain on Monday, and then I move to Glebe on Saturday! Busy week ahead!!!

1 comment:

Julia said...

Wow can't believe you move to Glebe already - time flies!