As you may recall from my last post, Wednesday is the perfect day. I clarified that it may have been just that Wednesday, but this past Wednesday followed a similar pattern of perfection. My workday moved along in normal hump day fashion, but when I got home my stomach was filled with butterflies. I had an hour before I would sit down to my most important Skype of the summer (no offense Tessa). A few weeks earlier, I had received an email on the Penn State Comm Student Listserv about an internship opportunity for this fall. They were looking for twenty new interns to be trained in using the jumbotron camera for football and basketball games and/or be on the sidelines filming with a reporter followed by editing the clips into a highlight reel to be displayed on the Big Ten website. I can stay in the position on the payroll every semester following this fall until I graduate or leave the area. Talk about a dream of an opportunity. Needless to say, I was plenty worried on screwing up this interview. I don’t pride myself on being good at them. I know it may be hard to believe, but I’m not always this eloquent. When put on the spot to impress or sell myself, I go blank and I stutter and I say the first thing that comes to mind (which my sorority sisters know is generally not always the best thing to say). You also may have noticed that I am a rambler. So when I finally do get words out, they keep coming in this long train of uselessness that does not pertain at all to the question I was asked. All that aside, the interview actually went really well, and I must have said something right because I got the internship. I am beyond excited! This is what I have wanted to do ever since my first football game. Last football season, I got the opportunity to report on a game for PSN-TV’s sports news. This allowed me to be down on the sidelines filming, and I knew that is where I was meant to be watching these games, on the field through a camera lens.
As if that weren’t enough to be excited about, Thursday night was the premiere of the final installment in the Harry Potter movies. This was the moment I had been both waiting for and dreading ever since I was in first grade. It was drizzling and dark, which set the tone nicely. However, when I arrived at the theatre, Dublin actually let me down. I guess the honeymoon couldn’t last forever, but that still does not lessen the pain of finding a flaw in my beloved city that could not be overlooked. There was no line. There was only a smattering of viewers waiting to be let into the theatre. Granted, you picked your assigned seat when you preordered your ticket online and we had picked one of Dublin’s smaller theatres (the only one we could find that let you preorder tickets online), but still, on the night of the final premiere I expect a line-up of people dying with anticipation at half eleven at least! When the doors to the cinema opened, we filed in to our seats, and I looked around only to see about a total of three people half-heartedly dressed up. To be fair, I wasn’t dressed up either, but I could only fit so much into my suitcase and a Harry Potter costume didn’t make the cut. But people with their whole closets here with them should have been going all out for this final premiere. I know from pictures that the U.S. did not disappoint. It makes me proud to be an American.
The movie was fantastic. Not as good as the book, obviously, but still quite spectacular. I was very pleased with how they did things. My only criticism would be that I wish they showed more of the Snape/Lily at Hogwarts story and made a bigger deal about Fred’s death. However, even though I found it understated, I couldn’t help but tear up when I saw all the Weasley’s gathered around their dead redheaded kin, as well as when I saw Lupin and Tonks lying next to each other, so close yet so far. The tears came again when Harry passed Ron and Hermione on his way out to the Forbidden Forest. When he looked back at Ron, I lost if for a moment. Ron just lost his brother, and now he believes he’s about to lose his best friend, another brother. Can you imagine how he must have been feeling? Obviously I could, as shown by the tears in my eyes. The ’19 years later’ part was cute and a bit cheesy, but I would have been disappointed if it wasn’t there, corny or not.
I left the theatre satisfied, but sad. I had an overwhelming feeling of loss. With Toy Story 3, this final installment of Harry Potter, and turning twenty, my childhood is officially over. Everything I’ve grown up on has seen it’s end, and though I’m far from finished growing up, it is now time for me to grow up in a different way. My life isn’t about getting my problem set done on time for class tomorrow, practicing my Irish dancing, or saving up money for Beanie Babies. It’s about living on my own, building a career, and saving up money for future bills.
But all this has nothing to do with Europe, so I will get on with it. (See what I mean about rambling?)
Friday was a fantastic day at work, easily the best day of my summer. I was handed over a project to edit. Yes I Can is a documentary that Campbell Ryan is about to finish up producing. It will air this fall on Setanta Sports, slightly similar to ESPN, but airs reality shows or documentaries that are related to sports, like Yes I Can, besides just athletic games or sports talk shows. I am in charge of editing four five-minute behind-the-scenes clips for each show in the docu-seriers, and one twenty-two minute behind-the-scenes segment for the whole show. I’ve got one five-minute one done and about halfway done with another, and I am loving it. The documentaries are about people with physical handicaps taking on a challenge to complete an extreme sport of their choice. Editing the behind-the-scenes makes me wish I was here earlier to help in the filming. The shoots look like they were loads of fun to work on. Especially Simon’s, the one I finished editing. He has muscular dystrophy and his challenge was to play air soft. It reminded me of paintball at the Ranch so much (and getting chased around and shot at with air soft guns, got to love the nights of Day Camp week).
Saturday was a day out with three of my four my roomies. One of my flatmates, Amanda, goes to Penn State as well, and we were bumming a bit about missing Artsfest, so we decided to cheer ourselves up by taking Dublin by storm. We started at this place called ‘Treat Your Feet’ where you stick your feet in this fish tank and tons of little toothless fish nibble all the dead skin off your feet and ankles. It was wild! It tickles like crazy at first. I had about enough after 30 seconds, and still had 14-and-a-half minutes left in my session. It was so different and weird. I couldn’t look down because it made me queasy to watch them. It looked like leeches were attacking my feet. After about a few minutes I could control my shrills and laughter. After a few more I calmed myself down completely and was able to watch them. Once you get used to it, it feels fantastic. I loved it and would do it again in a heartbeat. It left my feet feeling so soft, and they gave me peppermint lotion to rub on them after I dried them off which made them feel very refreshed and tingly. Amanda and I decided we are opening up a shop like that in State College, so that all of Penn State can experience the sensation of having their feet wiped clean of dead skin. They told us they were in the process of opening full-body tanks. All the more reason to come back to Dublin!
We continued our roomie day with some shopping. It was incredibly difficult, especially since we only went in stores that were having sales. But I controlled myself to only a few essentials that can be mixed and matched with multiple outfits.
That night, Amanda and I went out, in our new clothes, to celebrate another intern’s birthday. We went to this place called Dandelions that was a large bar on the first floor and a dance club downstairs. After awhile, we took a break from dancing and sat upstairs at one of the little tables where some guys approached us. They were Americans (strike 1) in the Navy currently based in Spain where they played on a Spanish international baseball team. They were in Dublin for a game. We soon discovered one went to Ohio State, one went to Iowa, and one went to Notre Dame (strike 2, 3, and 4). That was enough to send us running back down to the dance floor.
Sunday, I woke up early for a trip to the Cliffs of Moher with all the Global Experience interns. The Cliffs were absolutely beautiful, but incredibly windy. They had to close off the footpath along the Cliffs and put up a wall on the areas that were still open because people kept being blown off the edge to a watery grave.
When we made it to the top by a look out tower, there was this massive wind tunnel. I watched interns as they tried to walk forward only to get pushed backward or knocked off there feet completely. Naturally, I had to join in. I rush over to the area where the wind is at it’s most powerful, only to realize a few moments later that my across-the-body purse had been left unzipped after I took my camera out. I frantically felt around inside, but all that was left was a 10 cent euro coin. My umbrella, little hairbrush, seven euros in change, passport, debit card, credit card, and Cliffs of Moher ticket all went flying. The first thing I saw was my umbrella, and I snatched it up. Then, realization set it in. My bag, which contained all those things just listed, was empty. I spun around desperately scanning the ground, but my hair was being blown all over the place in the wind. Once I finally got a handle on it, I spotted my friend, Heather, holding my little hairbrush.
“My passport!” I called to her and her eyes went wide. My heart soared when I saw a man just past her rifling through the pages of a passport looking for a name. I ran over to him and collected my passport and credit card. That still left my debit card, change, and ticket. The ticket was obviously long gone, but at that point it was nothing more than a souvenir so I wasn’t too upset about it. The change would be difficult, if not impossible, to find and, though sad to lose, not worth the effort when my debit card was still missing. I enlisted a few others, and we searched high and low, but it’s a bright orange card, so if we didn’t see it right away I knew it was already over the Cliffs. It put a major damper on the day, but better that than my passport.
After the Cliffs, we road on to Burren in Connamara with some of the craziest wind-swept hair you have ever seen. Burren was beautiful. It was covered with rocks and boulders left behind by glaciers. We stood on sheets of rock that was once a seabed. We stopped along the coastline where we got to see more cliffs, though much smaller (I made sure my purse was zipped tight before getting off the bus again).
On the way back to Dublin, we stopped at what was once an abbey, and I found what could be a deceased relative. It’s possible he could’ve traveled from Cork to live in Galway, right?
Monday, I finally met my boss(es). I can’t remember if I already explained this, but the woman I interviewed with, Triona, is the head of Campbell Ryan Entertainment. She married Nuno, the head of beActive Media in Portugal and Brazil, and the two of them combined their companies. So, both are my bosses I guess, and I technically work for beActive International (and I recently learned there is talk about opening an office in L.A. or New York, hello future job?).
They were out in Howth meeting with the editor of the Yes I Can series in the morning, but showed up in the office come afternoon. I loved them as soon as they walked through the door. They were so friendly, warm, and laidback. They create such a great work environment. And I thought I didn’t want to leave before!
Today I was a part of my first business meeting ever. Nuno was going over a new strategy for all the online aspects of their TV and film productions. He read through a list of brainstormed ideas of things to go on the websites for the different series that Catherine and I had come up with. Nuno and Triona both liked my ideas and plan to use them. I felt so proud to have been able to a) offer input and b) have it well received.
If you made it this far in one sitting, I am impressed. I’m coming to the end of the fourth page on Word. I don’t understand how the pages fill up so fast, but now I know how my Dad feels writing the Christmas newsletter.
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