Some days as an intern are clearly going to be better than others. There are days at TAC where I feel so involved, like when I get to see a story I wrote/edited on the website or when I get to march the Toytoy protest dance in front of the Convention Center in downtown Cape Town. And then there are days like today and yesterday where I feel like an actual intern, at the bottom of the food chain. We don’t need to talk about it too much because I’m almost over it, but basically I just printed allllll day yesterday. A thousand pages of printing. Not even exaggerating. You know how I know I’m not exaggerating? Because then today, I had to count the thousand pages after I’d printed and organized them into a packet. I get it, it’s helpful, I’m doing work that will make more important people’s lives easier. But really? Days like this make me determined to do something exciting with my life, and I’m also going to need a job where someone else can do the busy work because God knows that if I had to do something like that for the rest of my life it would be bad news. So I guess I learned something these past two days, I need serious credentials. Great, so I guess between an mph and a phd in public health, I’m looking at getting out of school at the age of 30, at which time I will be too old to get married and too old to have kids. Ok, over-the-top. But given how bored work like this can make me, it’d totally be worth it. And I could always adopt.
Ok back on track for SA… I finished printing the packet, counting the pages, organizing it for mass printing, called 3 different printers 30 different times because apparently there is a 50 step process to printing out packets. Did you know that you need to specify not only page number, but double sided or single sided? Spiral or flat binding? Color or black and white? When do you need it by? How many copies? Colored paper inserts? Will you provide those, or else it’ll be extra. GOOD GOD. It’s not that difficult. But everything here seems to take way longer than it should. It’s over, I’m over it. The packet has been put together, printer ready. I did my job. Hopefully I did it well. Otherwise I’m an idiot.
In other news…
Our group is a little ill. And by a little I mean that 4 out of 8 of us have some sort of illness or another. I think three of us have already made it to a doctor in the three weeks we’ve been here and another one has had to miss work for couple days. That may be a DukeEngage record. No worries, I’m doing fine. I’ve got a bit of a head cold but I bought these drugs here (like medical drugs) from a pharmacy (yes it was a real pharmacy) that are miracle drugs, I swear. They’re probably way stronger than the cold medicines in the States, but they worked! I’m feeling better already! Hopefully we’ll all be healthy soon enough because otherwise this is just going to turn into a vicious circle of us being so close we share everything, including our sicknesses. I guess the weather doesn’t really help either. It is so rainy and windy here, which translates into cold. Each night I feel like the roof of our B&B is going to fly off. I sit up in bed a little scared, I’m not gonna lie. I don’t like the sound of a tsunami on the other side of the door to my room. A nice thunderstorm is ok, but I’d rather not feel like a tree is going to fall through the window at any given moment. Good think Lauren is there to take care of me at night J. I do hope the weather becomes nice again though, it’s much easier to do things when you’re not worried about blowing away in the wind.
Ukuthula,
Lynn
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