My second internship gets under way

This week I started my internship at the Navy News and I've settled in really nicely. On Monday I researched and wrote the 'Time of your Lives' column, which is where they publish some news stories from that month in previous decades. So I had to go through the archives and find an interesting story from November of 1972, 1982, 1992 and 2002 and then write a brief summary of each along with quotations. I also picked out a nice picture relating to one of the stories - a cat being awarded his Good Cat Badge!

Then yesterday I was given the task of writing lots of charity-related press releases into proper news stories, which I found really interesting because at my last internship with Fusion People I had to write and edit some press releases, so I now have experience of writing for both sides of the process.

Today I had the scary task of meeting the chief executive of the Mary Rose trust and interviewing him about the soon-to-be-opened museum and the whole project of building, conservation, etc. But it turned out not to be scary after all, he was very nice and eager to talk to me about it, which was great because it meant the interview ran really smoothly and I got a lot more information than I had questions for. I also hope this means I'll be less terrified the next time I go in for a job interview, because I know what it's like on the other side!

I recorded the whole interview on a voice recorder, then when I got back to the office I played it back and typed it all out. Tomorrow I am working from home to write up the article, which is looking to be very extensive. It will be fantastic to see the finished article published in the Navy News.

I'm really pleased with how many times I have stepped out of my comfort zone and taken on new challenges in the last few weeks. I feel like I'm a lot tougher and smarter than I give myself credit for.

I'll be posting some book reviews in the very near future - right now I am reading Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children which is way out of my usual choice of genres but it seems like a fun read so far. I have also been reading Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire on my train journeys, so I can pretend I'm escaping to the beautiful, wild American desert rather than travelling through grey England!