Intern Musings

There has been a long line of predecessors that have walked the intern line, I don't know if it is a straight line, but a pathway nonetheless. There has been the famous temp from The Office who rose to the heights of management, there have been interns on boats performing various labors as depicted in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and there have been countless of real interns all over the world getting that oh so precious on the job training. As an intern I have made some observations. 1. If you do an internship in HK everyone will assume you are British. As far as I can tell, out of the 3,000 employees at my place of work I am the only young American boy. In fact, I have been accused of being the famous Prince William on more than one occasion. I have endeavored to learn British to cover for my Western drawl. Words such as peckish, lift, rubbish, brilliant, and cheers have entered my word arsenal throughout the day to assimilate me into the British role I am assumed to be playing. 2. Interns can ask any question and do anything. In the short period that I have been here I have asked every stupid question that you could possibly think of and will only continue to do so. "So, do you like work?"; "Those guys fly the planes, right?"; "What time do we leave?" Most of these questions are followed by me smiling and the other person laughing. Brilliant! I really am getting the hang of this. 3. Interns get special privileges. So in this week I have been to airplane simulations, watched flight attendant trainings and briefings, witnessed where the meals and items are prepared before the flights, and many other things. I know what ISM, FP, and Y3 stand for. I know protocol and procedures, safety and service standards. It has all been a wonderful opportunity. 4. Interns sometimes go a long time without talking to other humans. Finishing work at six and heading home leaves me with few options. I get to my flat at a retirement/wealthy community and my options become limited. I could take an hour bus into the city, read, run, or write blogs. All enticing options, but monotonous after a few days. I think I regularly go 10-12 hours without talking to anyone. Dreadful, but it opens up a lot of time to reflect and ponder. All is well. Those are some of the intern scrutinies and joys that I have found in this first week. Cheers!

Driving Me Crazy

Today I found that I have a fear that I had never previously considered. A fear that is plausible, but never considered feasible. While driving to my new flat on th gold coast, courtesy of one of the many lovely buses of HK, I became intent on the actions of the driver. The man could not go more than 10 seconds without rubbing his eyes are hitting himself on the back of the head. I found the bus drifting out of the lane on several occasions while this went on. I had never seen a man fight o hard to keep his focus and stay out of delirium, other than witnessing various students attempting the same feat in tedious poly sci classes at the Y. My curiousness into the matter elevated as my dear old friend led our entourage into a torrent of rain. The veerings into other lanes got worse, and as he endeavored to pass a truck I thought for sure that we were going to collide. To my astonishment we arrived unscathed at our destination and the driver embarked to his next destination with a prayer from me that he arrive safely there. Perhaps I underestimated the prowess of this man and his keen sense of the dimensions of his vehicle, however, when it comes to avoiding collisions with other vehicles, I prefer a sober, coherent driver.

The grass is greener where I stand. , ,

The more options that I have the harder it is for me to make a decision about something. Currently, I have over 11,000 songs on my ipod and every morning when I arise and head for school I am amazed at the cogitation process that preempts a song choice. The more movies I have in my arsenal, the harder it becomes to choose one to watch. I mean from Babe pig in the City to Poison Ivy with Alissa Milano, the choices become difficult when mass amounts of media are available. This has been my problem in the past with dating. I know this is cliche coming from a Provo dweller and I think it is becoming cliche to say cliche these days, but I'm at a loss for words. The mentality of so many of my peers (including myself) lacks a notion of compatability, and awaits perfection, in the meantime acting mediocre ourselves. What awaits around the corner? How in the hell is that guy with that girl? Why can't the girl do all the work? Why, when I tell someone how I really feel it always goes south and when someone does that to me the same happens? These are questions I pose. Are too many options a bad thing? By narrowing down the options I find it a lot easier to choose. Tacos or pizza? The National or the Killers? Black shirt or blue? Jurassic Park 1 or Jurassic Park 2? You might still find complication in these decisions, but I am suddenly able to arrive at a decision with a lot less trepidation and not have any cognitive dissonance to reflect on after words. So, this Easter I vow to turn over a new leaf, to accept my position and my options. No more waiting for girls to mature, or wasting time with what isn't there. I know what I like in someone and a lot of my friends possess the qualities that I find attractive. Where I stand I have viable options and no one else grass is greener than mine.

Groverfield

Grover Cleveland was a great president. If you are interested, his birthday is the first week of March. He was also the only President to serve two non-consecutive terms in the White House. He was also a leader of the Bourbon democrats in a period overly dominated by Republicans. These are a few reasons why I think that Grover should be more celebrated on this day more set apart for the Lincolns and Washingtons, and Roosevelt twins (Teddy and Franklin). Grover was also a Mayor, Sheriff, Governor and eventually President. He was a cartographer, boy scout, and expert at the sextant. This day commemorates President's. How many people are truly trying to acquire more information about these men on this day? Everyone I talked to today I would question them about who their favorite President was. Few were the responses of Taft, Grant, or Cleveland. Apparently there is some new movie out called Cloverfield, instead of wasting time on a porous film such as this, take some time out and learn about a President. I did, and Grover Cleveland founded Cleveland.