Stress

My interview was easy, and I got the internship. The problem is that I'm not sure if I want it.

It wasn't even a real interview; Kathleen (the interviewer) talked to me about how great it was that I was studying abroad, how I should take advantage of it and travel, her personal experience and the history of the newspaper. She only asked me questions about what classes I was taking and what type of news I'm most interested in. And I had to ask her about the job description: what I'd be doing, the hours, the dress code, etc. It seemed like she assumed that I wanted the job and that I was going to get it, which was not at all what I was expecting because the EUSA representative told me this was a very competitive internship.

The internship is with the Sunday Times and I'd be right in the general news area, doing typical intern things: researching and helping the journalists with whatever they need. The downside is that I'd have to work Saturdays. And that's not fun. Kathleen did say that if I had something planned for the weekend, I could have the day off. My parents will be visiting one weekend and I already have plans to see Stonehenge in December and I was hoping to go to Paris sometime in November. So I doubt that I can take off many more Saturdays than that.

But it is a great opportunity and it will give me the typical experience of being an overworked journalist. And I hope to make friends with my colleagues. And I will still have nights and Sundays to explore London. So maybe this is for the best.

On another note, my friends and I are trying to plan our week-long break, and it is so stressful. We need to have our flights booked by tonight because ryanair.com is having a deal where you can get flights for 1 pence plus taxes. We know we want to go to Rome, Florence, Venice, and Barcelona. We booked our flight to Rome (which unfortunately was not a 1 pence deal and leaves at 6:30am on Saturday morning). Then we're planning to take a train to Florence and then Venice, and then fly out of Venice to Barcelona. We're having issues because different people want to do different things; one girl has already been to Italy, so she wants to leave for Barcelona on Wednesday, but that would give us 3 1/2 days in one city and approximately 4 days for 3 cities. And so our group was about 6 people, but now we've sort of split up into two groups of three people, and I think each group is going to end up doing its own thing.

After we book the flights, we still have to book hostels and look into transportation within and between cities. It's pretty stressful, especially with the language barrier. Although, Diana took Italian in high school and I took Spanish, so we know a little bit.