Internship....

Thank you to everyone who sent well wishes my way today. This morning at 9:30 a.m. I began my four week internship at the Oakland Press. By about 9:35 I was thinking "what the hell was I thinking?". Starting something new at my age can be scary or should I say it is very scary. I had such confidence when I was getting ready for my day. As I drove to the paper , humming to the radio, I was excited. Then I walked in the door. Everywhere I looked there were people and computers. They all looked so smart and news paper reporter worthy. What was I thinking? I have no real experience in the newspaper business. I took creative writing classes in college but who was I kidding?

The editor called me into his office and began talking about expectations and what they were looking for in a blogger. I kept thinking that any minute he was going to tell me that they had made a mistake and I should collect my things and go home. Just as I was able to calm myself he asked me if I was familiar with the inverted triangle. Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered this information but the scared part of my brain could only see the food pyramid. I was certain that wasn't what he was referring to so I just admitted that I didn't know. He gave me the look I had been mentally giving myself for the last ten minutes and then patiently explained it to me.

With my tail between my legs I made my way to my intern desk. Oh goody...a Mac. I don't know anything about a Mac, but my daughter Ashley has informed me, on more than one occasion, I don't know that much about Dells either. My first assignment was to write a short bio. Sounds easy enough, doesn't it? That is exactly what I thought until the little cursor was blinking at me like a computer with Teret's Syndrome. I was stuck. Should I start with Hello my name is Kim? No that made me sound like I was at an AA meeting. How could this be so tough? So I took a deep breath and remembered the note my dad wrote me on my fortieth birthday. He said, " with enough cell phone minutes and diet coke you could rule the world.". Well I don't know about ruling the world but I did write my bio and attempted to turn two press releases into stories. I left at 3:30 knowing two things for sure. First, I would never forget what the inverted triangle means and second, maybe just maybe my dad was right.