The Life of an Intern

As an intern, you soon learn that nothing is beneath you. If you’re asked to lick the ground upon which your colleagues walk, you do it. And if you so much as breathe in a somehow confrontational or even disrespectful way, you can be sure to hear all about your unprofessionalism shortly afterwards.
Now, here’s the funny thing, most office interns will, 9 out of 10 times, receive bitchy and self-esteem shattering comments from the women inhabiting the office. Yet the icing on the cake is that you can’t win! You’re either prettier than them and therefore pose as a threat, or you’re not prettier enough and therefore are not worth a second of their egotistical time.
Working with men does pose its problems as well, such as sexual harassment, screaming and all round unpleasant behaviour due to a level of testosterone that we (always calm and evenly hormonal women, yeah right) simply cannot understand. No, we’re much too complex to lower ourselves to a primitive level of behavioural setbacks. As women, we tend to act as mind ninjas, attacking our target in their vulnerable state, with small insignificant comments that later eat away at their core and cause them to rethink everything they once knew.
As an intern, you can expect many a day with remarks such as: “Some things you just can’t learn, even with the amount of practice you’re doing.” Which, dear reader, I can honestly tell you is a woman’s form of in-office-abuse. The classic, ‘give up now, you’re clearly never going to amount to anything,’ line is quite commonly found in any situation where a woman is academically threatened by you.
Now don’t be alarmed, not every single woman in the working world is out to get you and your little dog too. There are always those with a sweet disposition and a caring nature that will show you some compassion when needed. Yet I can, with a heavy heart, guarantee that there will always be at least one woman, with a severe lack of confidence in herself that will resort to picking on the new kid. And to make matters worse, she will be so inconspicuous, so quietly devious, that she will leave no evidence that you can report to a superior. Be prepared for conversations such as: Intern: “I just met this young girl who was over the moon to meet me! She thought it was amazing that she was able to chat to someone who works for her favourite show,” Evil co-worker: “Oh, haha, you obviously didn’t tell her that you’re just the intern!”
Yes, these small throw-away-comments are a dime a dozen with Satan’s little earth walkers. Even strong young women like myself fall prey to these vicious life sucking leeches that feed off your being. I must say, dear reader, that there were many a time when I could have launched my computer across the room and hit my own life sucking leech, square in the jaw. There was never a day that I wished someone harm, other than my last day. As I was called in to discuss my time (at what had started out as my dream internship) I was shattered into pieces as fault after fault was laid out before me, courtesy of my wonderful co-worker. Yet as my dreams of becoming a writer were slowly diminished, compared to others and finally the idea for my future was laughed at, I realised that none of these women would decide my fate. Let them laugh. Let them tell me that my writing style is not good enough for them nor do they think that writing is something you can learn – you can either do it, or you can’t, as I was so blatantly told. I walked out feeling pretty damn wretched and almost willing to believe that I was the emotional and unprofessional person they had described and then I realised that yes, I had to keep my cool when working with people I couldn’t stand, and yes, I don’t write in a quirky manner coated in sparkles and fluff, but no one is going to tell me that I can’t do something that I love.
So, prospective intern, I leave you with this: Do what you love. Take the good with the bad, change your attitude where necessary, but never and I mean never, give up on yourself because a few people dislike what you do. Accept criticism. Learn from your mistakes. Accept advice. And follow your dreams no matter where they may lead you.

Never Be Afraid to Dream Big!

So some international band has made it big, again. Big surprise there. But what about South African music? Are we so far removed from our own beautiful country that we all long to live the American Dream? Is it possible that we keep letting talent slip through our fingers, forcing them to put their dreams on hold because we can’t give their demo’s the time of day?
Our media screams out the achievements of the beautiful and international while saving a ¼ page at the back, under the adverts for diet pills and exotic dancers, for our own brilliant musicians. How can we - a country of diversity and sheer resilience – bow down to those across the ocean? To follow America, we’ll have to give up our originality, gain an immense amount of weight, open a Mac Donald’s on every street corner and make sure that we pollute every inch of green land available to us and any neighbouring country.
OK,so maybe that’s a slightly harsh view on the land of cellulite and fast food but how wrong am I really?
As South African’s, we’ve had the world watch us like monkeys at a zoo, yet we triumphed. We’ve got a government with the education level of a 10 year old, but their no G. Bush. We’ve had more trials and tribulations than success but we pull through every time as a nation. Why should our music be any different?
This is not to point fingers and scream blue murder at the nation’s inhabitants. Of course I listen to international bands. I laugh, cry, dance and fall asleep to some of my favourite tracks that are right out of the heart of America. Yet the talent that we hide from the rest of the world, hide right here under our mountains and plateau, is criminal. We need to set them free, throw them out there and let them take the world by storm with the extremity of South African vasbyt!
Who better than to dream big and succeed than us? Who else can say that they have come from a nation ripped to shreds and stitched back together all in under 100 years? Join the revolution. Support South African music in every shape and form.
And to get you started, try out ALconGINE on Facebook and Dream Big.