One Week Left!
It is currently Friday, and I am sitting at my boss's desk, covering her phone line...but generally I am being quite idle. It is shocking to realize that I have only 3 days of work left...where has my summer gone!?
It is currently Friday, and I am sitting at my boss's desk, covering her phone line...but generally I am being quite idle. It is shocking to realize that I have only 3 days of work left...where has my summer gone!?
That is the name of the Interview sponsored event that took place in New York City (West Chelsea to be precise) on Wednesday, August 1st. I was lucky enough to work this event as an official greeter of guests.
Since all of my CELS money went toward living in the city...I have no steady cash flow. As I said before, it is all flowing in one direction: away from my bank account. So, on the weekends, I go back home to Fairfield where I can sleep, eat, and live for free.
This was my best weekend of the summer by far...it doesn't take much to please me. Just give me some sunshine, free music, and the last installment in the Harry Potter series...and I'm golden.
So after a long vacation (10 days) from work, I returned last week and was immediately met with an onslaught of projects and duties. And it felt amazing.
I do not have time to do a full-fledged posting right now as I am sitting at work (on a Friday mind you when almost everyone flees New York City) and I am surrounded with projects galore.
After my embarrassing ticket fiasco on Tuesday evening, I was worried that the week was shot. But there have been some exciting developments on the internship front, including a quasi "promotion" and a chance to talk to the head of the advertising department.
Continue reading "Call and Answer: Some Happenings at Work" »
Never trust a scalper. A ticket scalper that is.
I love entertainment. Music, film, television, magazines...I live to be distracted! Last Tuesday, my boss, Marie, asked me if I wanted free tickets to see the play "Frost/Nixon." I later found out (through google) that the play is about a famous series of interviews that took place in the late 1970s between Richard Nixon and David Frost, a British talk show host. The reason these interviews are so famous is because it is the first time Richard Nixon ever publicly recognized his involvment in Watergate and publicly apologized for what he had done.
Continue reading "Putting On The Ritz: The Tony Award Winning Play "Frost/Nixon"" »
So before I launched into my entire internship search history, I was on the subway heading to Interview for my first day. I had been to the office before, and I couldn't wait to be inside again.
Strangely enough, I was not nervous. I boarded the subway self-assured because with Arcade Fire playing on my headphones, I figured I could do anything. I headed downtown to 575 Broadway (on the corner of Prince Street) to the offices of Interview Magazine.
The thing is, I am ALWAYS nervous. It's just who I am. I am nervous about meeting people, public speaking, walking around Harris. But this was the first time since elementary school that I was excited about my first day. I knew I would be in the fine company of another intern (named Brittany) and the 2 Connecticut College alums that work in Interview's advertising office (Marie LaFrance 2003 and Elliot Coakley 2005). If all else failed, I could definitely aask them what dorms they lived in on campus.
I suppose some background information would be helpful because an understanding of where I'm working will be necessary for when I actually start to describe what I'm doing during my internship (which is the whole point of this blog right?) A brief history of the magazine is as follows:
Interview Magazine was founded by Andy Warhol in 1969, based on the idea that artists should interview each other. This has been the driving force behind the magazine and has caused it to stand out as a high-end, high-culture entertainment magazine. Some celebrity contributors include Elton John, Johnny Depp, and Lindsay Lohan. Interview's esteem has garnered the motto "The Crystal Ball of Pop".
How perfect for me! The girl who is obsessed with pop culture gets to work for a premium pop culture publication. Seems like an impossible gig to get, right?
Well, thank goodness for CELS and alumni contacts because otherwise I would have been lifeguarding again this summer. Marie LaFrance contacted CELS looking for advertising interns, hoping to give back since she had an amazing CELS experience. I jumped at the opportunity, which is the only way to do it because if you don't act quickly and eagerly, the opportunities will just slip right past you. So I contacted Marie in November or December, and we made a plan to get in touch again in March. I interviewed at Interview (hah!) during my spring break, and I made sure that I made a great first impression by choosing the perfect outfit. Now, I'm not usually one to believe that clothes are terribly important...but in the work force, they are. Physical impressions are everything especially at a magazine that is fully invested in high fashion designers. I certainly felt better walking into an office covered with Andy Warhol prints in a sleek, classy outfit.
It was during the interview that I was very nervous, and I was afraid that I completely botched it. I didn't know how to answer the question, "Tell me more about yourself." I stammered, tried to delay, and then I realized that I really had nothing to say. Did I have an existential moment of doubt? Kind of. I didn't know what was worthwhile and what wasn't, so I just went on to say how much I love working on the school newspaper and how much I love magazines and publications. The interview ended quickly, about 20 minutes, and Marie said she would call me soon to let me know whether I got it or not.
I wasn't entirely sure whether I wanted to be an advertising intern, but I was so enamored with the magazine and the opportunities it would offer (even if it wasn't in editorial) that when Marie called me on Monday, I said yes immediately. And then I was excited. Really excited, and I wished it would be May 30th so I could go into the city for the summer and begin my glorious life as a savvy, advertising intern!
Claire is a rising senior at Connecticut College, majoring in English. Her "claim-to-fame" is that she will be the 2007-2008 co-editor-in-chief of The College Voice and has a weekly column featured in the Arts & Entertainment section. Some say she has an encyclopedic knowledge of all things popular culture and rock 'n' roll. She hopes to have a career in the publishing world, realizing her life-long dream of interviewing musicians, but she would be content with doing layout and design. Claire also has experience with blogging, having used the blog site livejournal for quite some time, and she is a fan of celebrity gossip blogs. She is living in New York City this summer and is an advertising intern at Interview Magazine.