Hardly Workin'

The past couple days have the first days at my 2 internships.  Yesterday (Wednesday) was my first day as an intern at Glassman Media.  I woke up nice and early in the morning so I could arrive by 9:30, the time my supervisor had originally told me.  However, after I was mostly ready to go, I saw an e-mail from her telling me to come in at 10:00 because she had some errands to run.  It was sweet!  I had some extra time on my hands, and I used it to watch part of an episode Press Your Luck!  When it was finally time to leave, I got up and walked over to the building where Glassman Media is located - it's the one that's in the same building my classes are in!  That's very convenient!  Once I got there, Barbara (my supervisor) told me to sit behind her desk for a while.  She didn't really have anything for me to do at the time, so I just relaxed.  I got to meet some of the other people working there.  Apparently, a bunch of new employees just started on Monday!  I also signed a form that was basically just a confidentiality agreement.  I'm going to see and hear a lot of things that are top secret (for now, anyway)!  I got familiar with the place, and then I just sat down behind Barbara's desk.  She just got a new MacBook Air a few weeks ago, and she was having trouble opening Microsoft Office on it.  Since everybody else was busy and didn't have anything for me to do, I just tried to help her figure that out.  It was wanting her to enter in a product key, but she said she already did that.  I tried a couple things that might have helped but didn't quite do the trick.  She called another employee in, and he just recommended entering the product key one more time.  Sure enough, that worked!  Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel were ready to go!  However, Outlook still wanted a product key.  Before too long, I figured out that the package she bought didn't include Outlook.  She had it on her old Mac, and she wanted to see if she could get it on her new computer.  She made some calls to Microsoft, and they told her they would refund her for the package she bought and sell her a new one with Outlook.  She was okay with that, but she was still concerned with how much it cost.  She said she never remembered having to buy Outlook for her old computer.  After that, she called another guy who works at a company that operates a server for Glassman Media.  He told her that she could just download Outlook from the server.  She tried downloading the file, but it wouldn't open properly.  The computer brought up a strange error message I had never seen before.  I did lots of research and tried a bunch of weird tricks, but nothing worked.  After several hours of laboring over it, she called again and figured out that the server had the wrong file type.  It was incompatible with her computers because it was too new or something like that.  She might just have to buy Outlook for her computer after all.  Those couple problems ended up consuming our whole day!  Nobody ever pulled me aside to do real work!  I know that I'll be doing some cool stuff with them eventually, but my first day at Glassman was just tech support!  She said they were in a slow period and just starting up with something, so I should be right in the action when I go back next Wednesday!  After my internship, I walked back home and made myself some dinner.  At 7:00, it was time for my first session of New Media & Emerging Entertainment.  I think I'm really going to enjoy that class!  It seems exciting and fun!  It's all about exploring storytelling on new platforms and technologies.  We're going to be learning about stuff so new that it's not even in textbooks!  The professor started out by telling us his story and his experiences, and he also explained what the class would look like.  I'm looking forward to the field trips!  He told us about many places we'll visit, and he says we could be going to the Jim Henson Studios!  You don't know how happy that would make me!  I'm a huge Jim Henson fan, and what the professor described sounded so neat!  We introduced ourselves, and then he gave us a basic introduction to the class.  We talked about old media vs. new media, aspects of good stories, etc.  It was all really engaging stuff, and we got out of the class a little over an hour early!  That class is gonna rock!  Today (Thursday) was my first day at Karga Seven Pictures.  I met the other guys in my carpool around 9:00 this morning, and we took off.  We got there a little early, so we sat around for a while and then signed some paperwork.  Our supervisor took us around and showed us all the important stuff.  Karga Seven is much bigger - they have a bunch of different offices on two floors, and it's located in a huge place!  It's called the Los Angeles Center Studios, and the whole place is big and fancy!  There are a few buildings that are all kind of interconnected, and it's like a miniature city!  After our tour, we went off to our separate departments and got to work.  They had me do some research, but it was pretty relaxed.  I got through all my assigned work with plenty of time to spare!  During my lunch break, I got together with some of the other UTLA people and ate at a nice outside table.  Including me, there are 5 UTLA people interning at Karga Seven!  Just before 5:00, I added some finishing details to my research and turned everything in to the lady I was working with.  It was neat getting to walk around the whole place and meet new people!  I think I'll enjoy both of these internships!  I did considerably more work today than I did yesterday, but I still feel like I'm hardly workin'!  Tomorrow is just a short 4-hour day back at Karga.  Navigating the public transportation will probably be the biggest challenge!