Interning
"Eat well, live well." Big letters on the side of a food cart by the Capitol, which immediately take me back ten years.
We are underground, in the giant Orwellian hallway that ran beneath the buildings of Pharmacia's campus in Portage. Wide enough to drive cars through and dimly lit. Along the side of this underground road is a cafeteria, and the trays have a sort of germanic design painted on them and the words "qui bene edit, bene vivat" -- whoever eats well, shall live well. My boss Tore asks me to translate and I do, and he is impressed and entertained. I feel proud that high school Latin class has managed to pay some small dividend, though it's probably not worth being impressed over. I am good at doing things that look or sound more impressive than they really are.
It's the good cafeteria, the one underground. It has hot food, unlike the one closest to our lab, which is marked "Control Canteen #2" and has little more than a sandwich machine. The name amuses and slightly disturbs me, perhaps aided by the robots that roam the hallways nearby. Sometimes while in the canteen I say hello to Ben, a friend from high school who is likewise interning with the company. After the summer, I will probably never see him again. I'm not very good at holding on to people.
In a few days, I will be in a conference room watching a live feed of an airplane crashing into a building, fascinated by how starkly real it is. I will go home early, and take a nap, and Ian will call me to talk about it.
We are underground, in the giant Orwellian hallway that ran beneath the buildings of Pharmacia's campus in Portage. Wide enough to drive cars through and dimly lit. Along the side of this underground road is a cafeteria, and the trays have a sort of germanic design painted on them and the words "qui bene edit, bene vivat" -- whoever eats well, shall live well. My boss Tore asks me to translate and I do, and he is impressed and entertained. I feel proud that high school Latin class has managed to pay some small dividend, though it's probably not worth being impressed over. I am good at doing things that look or sound more impressive than they really are.
It's the good cafeteria, the one underground. It has hot food, unlike the one closest to our lab, which is marked "Control Canteen #2" and has little more than a sandwich machine. The name amuses and slightly disturbs me, perhaps aided by the robots that roam the hallways nearby. Sometimes while in the canteen I say hello to Ben, a friend from high school who is likewise interning with the company. After the summer, I will probably never see him again. I'm not very good at holding on to people.
In a few days, I will be in a conference room watching a live feed of an airplane crashing into a building, fascinated by how starkly real it is. I will go home early, and take a nap, and Ian will call me to talk about it.