Today I feel like a pesky intern. I have been wandering around looking for work to do, but no one seems to have any for me. During my search I even wandered into an important meeting which I was promptly thrown out of. Incidentally, I have also been thrown out of my own office because my office mate is conducting a phone interview.

So I gave up on the search for work, got some orange chicken from Panda Express, and I have settled into a co-worker’s office for a nice, long blog post about life, love, the meaning of the universe, editing, and the summer. (But mostly the last two.)

I’ve noticed something since I started working here as a writer and editor. Even when I’m not at work, I now have the urge to edit everything. I am officially the person who everyone hates because I am always pointing out mistakes on signs and brochures and being really snotty and condescending about it (despite the fact that I, myself, absolutely depend on Microsoft Word’s automatic spell check). But I come across about 50 things each day I want to edit. From Facebook statuses to restaurant menus to the student newspaper (which got my last name and major wrong in my last of 60 columns) to the fortune cookie I got the other day telling me “it is time to moving forward.” I just want to fix the world’s mistakes.

And speaking of moving forward, this is totally unrelated but I am excited to continue working here as we move on into summer. Summertime in Bloomington is wonderful with most of the students gone, and it will be nice to have a reason to be in town every day. I am also excited for summer because I just opened my fortune cookie from my lunch and it says “You will have full contentment by summers end.” So achieving full contentment is definitely something to be excited about.

(Although there should really be an apostrophe before the “s” in “summers.”)

After a circulation of about 549 e-mails were sent among the writers and editors trying to find a day and time that we could all have lunch together, we went ahead and made a reservation for 12 people at the Dunn Inn for Monday at 12:15. “And good thing we did,” I thought as we entered the restaurant that was completely devoid of afternoon customers except for the 12 of us.

The Dunn Inn turned out to be a very friendly place. When our food came out, the waiter sang out our orders as he placed them in front of us. I ordered a salad along with a few others, and everyone else’s food came out before ours. “The salads will be out soon, we’re just waiting on a cucumber!” the waiter said to us. (Sang to us, rather). About a minute later a cook emerged from the back and scurried through the restaurant and out the front door.  About ten seconds later, he returned—a cucumber in hand. (How this cucumber managed to materialize in so short a time span, the world may never know). When my salad came out it was enormous, and I made the obligatory remarks: “This is so big! I’ll never finish! It’s bigger than my head!” But of course I downed it in minutes flat, as I always do. It happened to be the birthday of one of our writer/editors, so we all sang Happy Birthday to her. When we finished, the cucumber cook from the kitchen ran out to us, grinning. “It’s my birthday, too!’ he exclaimed and we all started applauding.

Also this week we hosted our first ever intern fair for new interns for the summer and fall, and I got to talk to the aspiring writers/editors who will one day replace me. *tear*
The internship fair was a big success with an impressive turnout, but if we had to do it all over again I would suggest that we not serve cupcakes. They are awkward to eat in front of people you are trying to impress.

I wasn’t even particularly trying to impress anyone, and yet I became so self-conscious sloppily eating my cupcake with the thick layer of chocolate frosting that I momentarily considered hiding out in the bathroom to finish eating it, but then I remembered the scene from Mean Girls where Lindsay Lohan has to eat her lunch alone in the bathroom because she has no friends, and I decided to try not to be that pathetic. (Instead I regretfully threw away my half-eaten cupcake).

In honor of my first blog post a couple weeks ago, my boss presented me with a silky smooth milk chocolate Dove bar, which I spread out and savored over a 3-day span. (I did not blog because I was motivated by this chocolate bar. I had heard mention of a chocolate-y incentive but for some reason I had assumed it was more of a metaphorical chocolate bar, which made it all the sweeter when it turned out to be very, very real).

I hope my boss realizes that, now that she has set the bar (pun intended), I will expect chocolate in increasing qualities each time I blog. Over the next few months I expect to receive the following in this order: chocolate chip cookies, a chocolate bunny, a three-layer chocolate mousse cake, a chocolate fondue feast complete with fresh fruit for dipping, and—eventually—my very own chocolate fountain to reside permanently in my office.

Also after my last blog post, my co-workers started feeling sorry for me for never getting mail. So the next time I passed my mailbox, it looked like this:

If you think you’re looking at a toy car, an IU promotional mug from the 80’s, and some kind of nut that has been spray-painted metallic for reasons I cannot even begin to imagine, you’d be correct. Mail at last!

I’m still having a lot of fun working here and I continue to learn a lot about writing, marketing, and IU. Our office has been working hard to develop a YouTube channel for Indiana University. When we all arrived at our weekly staff meeting a couple weeks ago, we were told to go out on campus to interview students about what they watch on YouTube and to come back an hour later to report our findings. (The student I ended up interviewing told me that he watches YouTube videos to learn military tactics, which I found slightly frightening…) But I think we received a lot of interesting insights that day and started developing some really innovative ideas. I also got to spend some time surfing YouTube to see what kinds of videos IU students have made and posted that we could link as favorites on our channel.

I’ll leave you with a few of my personal favorites:

IU’s Straight No Chaser—Stand By Me

Why I Like IU: Squirrel Cam

Jordan River Junkies

A little over a month ago, I nervously entered the Office of Creative Services to begin my first day as an intern. It was 9 a.m.—an hour I had not experienced since high school—and I was priding myself on being able to function so early in the day. Like a real adult with a real job! (An hour later I realized that I was wearing my shirt backwards. I snuck off to the bathroom to fix it, but only after being introduced to everyone in the office.)

Anyway. I am really enjoying myself here. This is, after all, my first job that doesn’t involve serving either pizza or fried chicken. Also, I have two computer monitors at my desk, which makes it easier to pretend that I am extremely and irreplaceably important. Also making me feel important is my very own mailbox. I have never gotten any mail here, but each day I walk by it, hopeful. I refuse to be discouraged. I like to think that one day, when I least expect it, a piece of mail will be waiting for me. If not, maybe at least someone else’s mail will be delivered into my box accidentally, which would be equally exciting.

But I do more here than open multiple browser windows to spread out on my two monitors (just because I can) and think up reasons to pass by my mailbox six or seven times a day. I have spent most of my time working on the Founders Day booklet. I have been researching the distinguished teachers who will be honored with awards at Founders Day this year and writing page-long biographies of each. I have gotten to read about some amazing people, and I truly feel honored to get to do something for them—even in this very small and anonymous way.

I also enjoy going to biweekly meetings with all the other editors here to discuss current projects. We have also been known to debate our favorite punctuation marks, which is something that nobody outside of this office has ever wanted to do with me. For a while the editors were split evenly between the semicolon and the em dash, but slowly everyone but me has jumped to the em dash ship. I will loyally stand beside the semicolon until the day that I die, though, even if it costs me friends, family, and health. (Unless I eventually decide I like the em dash better. I didn’t even know what it was until a few weeks ago. And secretly, I’m still figuring out how to use it.)
I will continue to update about my internship throughout the spring. But right now, it’s time to go check my mailbox.

by Julia Boriss