- April 19-23, 2010 (Monday to Friday)
- Monday gave me a headache, LITERALLY. Not only was the extreme temperature difference bad enough (extremely hot outside, and frigid cold in the office,) but the big pile of newspapers given to me made things slightly worse.
- TJ wasn't around this Monday, since his granny was confined in the hospital. (Hope she's doing well.) Because of this, his almost-daily work was given to me: scan for Instituto-Cervantes-related articles in the gigantic pile of newspapers. Now, I wouldn't really mind doing it normally, but since it was a Monday, the pile of newspapers was thrice the thickness of the usual pile. It was a Monday, and I had to check all the newspapers from Monday's papers, as well as papers from the previous weekend.
- Yunji was supposed to help me, until she was asked by our boss to accompany the Spanish poet (yes, he hasn't left the country) to RCBC in Makati. Everyone else was busy as well, so I was left to drown in the pile of newspapers.
- I also had to check all the newspapers as quickly as possible, since Director gave me a 12noon deadline. It was supposed to be 11am actually, gladly he gave me an extension. Even better, Enzo came shortly after 11, and I desperately begged him to help me. He did. Haha.
- After lunch, waited for the eco-bag person to arrive. She told me that she'd be arriving around 1 in the afternoon, but she arrived at the office around 3-ish in the afternoon.
- Things became complicated when my boss told the eco-bag person that he wasn't allowed to give the 50% down payment to the lady, as part of standard procedures. The lady reasoned out that it was their procedure to get the 50% down payment from their customers. I on the other hand went in between my boss and the lady, since I was the lady's contact person.
- Since my boss assured me that he really couldn't give the down payment, I had to tell the lady to trust my boss that he'd be giving the full payment upon delivery of the bags. Thankfully, the lady trusted us, and went on to discuss the bag size and design with my boss.
- Things were settled quickly, and I aired my aching head for a while before going home. I left the building with Yunji, and rested the moment I got home.
- Even though my headache, as well as everything underneath it almost tore me apart this Monday, a few good things still happened. Aside from my article being published again in another Chinese newspaper, I was officially enrolled at the Instituto without having to spend a single cent, a benefit I had for being an intern.
- I was supposed to enroll at level 7, but the classes for level 7 in this cycle would be done during the night. Level 6 on the other hand would be done during the morning. Better. Haha. It's OK though, at least I'd get to review my Spanish. After all, I didn't take formal Spanish lessons aside from my Spanish 1 class in Ateneo. :D:D:D:D
- Tuesday was sort of Monday's opposite. Things ran smoothly, and I wasn't as stressed out as the previous day. I got published again in another Chinese newspapers, and it certainly made my boss happy.
- I was later asked by Martin to proofread the print out of the Bersong Europeo sample copy, and see if there were any errors. I proofread the blurbs of the authors, as well as the poems and the translations. It was a bit difficult since I also needed to proofread the poems themselves, written in their original language - including a Greek poem written in Greek. I guess my slight knowledge in reading Greek letters helped a lot in proofreading that two-paged poem.
- Other than that, I had a slow afternoon inviting people to the upcoming Dia del Libro. (Please come :) :) :) :) )
- Wednesday was a teeny bit the same as Monday. I was asked to design some item and price signs for Dia del Libro, and I thought hard on how to make the signs attractive, convincing, and clear. After thinking and designing two signs, my boss saw what I was doing and immediately told me to change it. Turned out, he wanted the signs to be plain.
- I revised my work a lot of times that it was a bit past my lunch time when I finally finished my first task of the day.
- Later that afternoon, the eco-bag person came to pay us a visit with the sample eco-bag to be sold this Saturday. I must say, the sample looked simple, but great. Everyone liked it too.
- Like before, I was the messenger between the eco-bag person and my boss. The eco-bag person was sitting in the second floor, while my boss was with someone at the Cafe de las Letras at the ground floor. I didn't have a choice but to relay one's message to the other while endlessly brisk-walking up and down the stairs.
- Finally, everything was settled, again, and we were told that the bags would be delivered around late afternoon this Friday.
- My other task was to edit the SMS announcement of this Saturday's event written by Enzo the other day. It didn't take long before I finished editing it (along with Kaye.) After I gave the edited version to my boss, he sent it out to hundreds of people in his address book.
- Thursday was not a stressful day, unlike the previous days. Since I already started my morning Spanish classes, I only come to work in the afternoon. It's a good thing that my Spanish classes were credited in my log time; I think they consider the Spanish classes as a part of training in working for a Spanish institute like Instituto Cervantes. During the afternoon, all I had to do was send a short invitation via text to all the people in the Instituto contact list. While doing that, I also helped Martin in taking pictures of our model/student/volunteer Franco Imperial. Franco is also an Atenean, an incoming sophomore from MEco. We shot a series of photos showing the "10 Reasons to go Dia del Libro."
- Martin later decided that the photo series should be made into a video slideshow. Since Martin didn't know how to do one via Moviemaker, I volunteered to do it, since I'm used to doing video slideshows. I did the slideshow Thursday night, after Martin sent me the photos. As I was doing the slideshow, Martin gave me instructions - all I had to do was to turn his instructions into reality, and upload it in youtube using the Instituto Cervantes de Manila account.
- Now Friday was a surprisingly not busy day. I expected Friday to be very busy, since it's the day before one of Instituto's most elaborate annual events. I was tasked to print out the ballots sent to my email by Martin. The ballots will be used for the Photo del Dia contest during the Dia del Libro. People would use that to vote for their favorite entries.
- Aside from that, the eco-bag person delivered the eco-bags, three hours earlier than expected. That's a really good thing I guess. Since I was responsible for the eco-bags, the big bags of ready-made eco-bags gave me a big sigh of relief.
- What added to the un-busy ambience was the lack of people in the office. Some of the other interns went elsewhere to deliver more flyers, and our Spanish bosses had their regular late-lunch. (It's their culture to have a later lunch.)
- Though supposedly a bigger event, I think I didn't feel the pressure - unlike the preparations for Berso sa Metro - because the Instituto started preparing for this event long before I started my internship. At least things were done one by one, until all of the pieces of the puzzle have been placed in their respective places. The only thing left? Dia del Libro itself.
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