Connect the dots: summer edition (Part 3, "work" edition)

They say that when you're having fun, time flies.

Now I'm nearing the fifth week of my internship all of a sudden, but have yet to do any semi-stimulating work...so I'm pretty sure the supposed "fun" thing had nothing to do with it the fact that I can't believe it's already half over.

At least when you're an elementary school teacher drafting lesson plans about Ben Franklin and the top 5 vegetables produced in the United States, you know that eventually you'll be able to interact with the kids you're teaching. But at work, coming up with mystery people of the week and trying to fit a book review and an interview into 150 words in vocabulary for second graders, doesn't have much of an end reward or even an initial motivation.

I can't really complain, though. The job has some pretty sweet aspects. First, there's this beauty:

The interns' view.

Then there's the group of five assorted fellow interns who definitely make it more bearable, be it with the drug deals in the office, the serious christina aguilera obsession, or the fact that none of us are really doing much at any time of day and all experience that idle silence..or not. All from our shared corner office on the twenty-second floor.

Or the free screenings of Brit teen pseudo spy kids movies with gorgeous brit teen actor who has to be older than his character's 14 and the alison lohman interview and the re-organizing of the archive closet. wait, no, not that one.

The midtown lunch breaks, the magazines, the time to keep an almost-real time email conversation with tom or read all the nyt leftovers from my short subway ride online or discuss the aforementioned christina obsession and the great collective idleness.

Plus, today, I saw my first contribution to time for kids, in print. I was walking by the bulletin board for all the final proof pages with my fellow edit intern sarah, an adorable journalism masters' student who is about to get married, and saw the Pakistan issue pages were up. My first assignment was a disgustingly difficult and tiresome task--I had to find typical patterns from Pakistani art or traditions or anything that could be used for the borders of the issue. It took me two weeks' time, a bunch of angry reproaches from the art director and too much color ink, and it definitely sucked when I got yelled at and it sucked to have to re-do parts of it. But today the first proof went up! with a border! and it's from a close-up image I found of the entrance to the Badshahi mosque, and to see that simple little Pakistani pattern, from my research, that kids would learn to associate with pakistan...that felt amaaaaazing.

To live is so startling, it leaves little room for other occupations.