Zoo Reunion?
I've been invited to an intern reunion luncheon at the Oregon Zoo. Should I go?
It appears that my time interning at the Oregon Zoo was during the one year period between April of 2003 and March of 2004 when I left LiveJournal, so I don't have anything about it really. I'll give you the lowdown. One of the cool hip things to do to get credit in college for your major was to intern somewhere. One of my roommates got a wonderful internship at a marine aquarium and lab on the Oregon coast while other people I knew were working at Intel and radio stations. For a short time, I toyed with the idea of working at a television studio in Portland for the summer of 2003. I applied to a bunch of places I have yet to hear back from even today. Then I saw that the Oregon Zoo was looking for college & high school kids to pretty much run the park. I applied to be the summer's videographer intern. It would have been wild; I would have been shadowing the park's paid videographer and get to use the tools of the trade. As a side thought, I also applied to be the Zoo's web intern. I really didn't expect to get that one since I really wanted the videographer one.
I got a call from the Zoo one day in my dorm room at EOU. It wasn't from the videographer like I had hoped, it was from the marketing director. "Marketing? What do you want with me?" "We want you to be our web intern for the summer!" So that's how it started. I guess they interviewed me on the phone at the same time they were interviewing the other potential they had in mind and I made them laugh more. I was hired on the spot. I danced around my little dorm room like a friggin moron. It wasn't the videographer thing, but it was an internship nonetheless.
So from late June to late September of 2003, I helped run the Oregon Zoo's web site. The website hasn't changed much at all since I was there and I was able to spearhead certain initiatives like a site-wide search function and descriptions for each of the site's 600 HTML documents. But usually my "job" consisted of updating the site with tidbits from around the Zoo. News items, statistics updates, random corrections, that kind of mindless crap. It was fun.
What made it slightly uncomfortable was that I was the only male among 16 female interns all in the marketing department. The others were more into actual marketing, setting up concerts and advertising. They were friendly and all, but I never really fit in. I was the odd one out. And it turns out that the girl they hired for the videographer internship was the same girl they hired to do it the year before. Not only that, she left half way through the internship so they asked if I'd finally like to have it. I was too committed with the website and I wasn't really feeling up to doing both, so they had to look elsewhere. Yea, it was a wild 3 months.
So here we are 26 months later and to my surprise I've been invited to another function. I'd have thought that by now, I'd have been forgotten, but they seem to keep in touch with everyone they hire. I probably should go, I mean, I'll have nothing better to do. I'll be uncomfortable and I bet only a couple people will remember me, but that's life. Right?
It appears that my time interning at the Oregon Zoo was during the one year period between April of 2003 and March of 2004 when I left LiveJournal, so I don't have anything about it really. I'll give you the lowdown. One of the cool hip things to do to get credit in college for your major was to intern somewhere. One of my roommates got a wonderful internship at a marine aquarium and lab on the Oregon coast while other people I knew were working at Intel and radio stations. For a short time, I toyed with the idea of working at a television studio in Portland for the summer of 2003. I applied to a bunch of places I have yet to hear back from even today. Then I saw that the Oregon Zoo was looking for college & high school kids to pretty much run the park. I applied to be the summer's videographer intern. It would have been wild; I would have been shadowing the park's paid videographer and get to use the tools of the trade. As a side thought, I also applied to be the Zoo's web intern. I really didn't expect to get that one since I really wanted the videographer one.
I got a call from the Zoo one day in my dorm room at EOU. It wasn't from the videographer like I had hoped, it was from the marketing director. "Marketing? What do you want with me?" "We want you to be our web intern for the summer!" So that's how it started. I guess they interviewed me on the phone at the same time they were interviewing the other potential they had in mind and I made them laugh more. I was hired on the spot. I danced around my little dorm room like a friggin moron. It wasn't the videographer thing, but it was an internship nonetheless.
So from late June to late September of 2003, I helped run the Oregon Zoo's web site. The website hasn't changed much at all since I was there and I was able to spearhead certain initiatives like a site-wide search function and descriptions for each of the site's 600 HTML documents. But usually my "job" consisted of updating the site with tidbits from around the Zoo. News items, statistics updates, random corrections, that kind of mindless crap. It was fun.
What made it slightly uncomfortable was that I was the only male among 16 female interns all in the marketing department. The others were more into actual marketing, setting up concerts and advertising. They were friendly and all, but I never really fit in. I was the odd one out. And it turns out that the girl they hired for the videographer internship was the same girl they hired to do it the year before. Not only that, she left half way through the internship so they asked if I'd finally like to have it. I was too committed with the website and I wasn't really feeling up to doing both, so they had to look elsewhere. Yea, it was a wild 3 months.
So here we are 26 months later and to my surprise I've been invited to another function. I'd have thought that by now, I'd have been forgotten, but they seem to keep in touch with everyone they hire. I probably should go, I mean, I'll have nothing better to do. I'll be uncomfortable and I bet only a couple people will remember me, but that's life. Right?