Hello, my name is Chris and this is my first post as a Relevant Magazine editorial intern (and the first intern post in quite a while). It is actually in my job description to write in this blog so, in my first week here, I have decided to go ahead and get an early start. I am nervous, excited, anxious, a little scared and, to be completely candid, i just peed a little thinking about all of the fun that we’re going to have together on this blog over the next few months. I don’t really know what I’m going to write about and I don’t know what people want to read about (I guess you can tell us that in comments), so I’m just going to say some things that have been on my mind to warm up for the summer.
I think that the main thing I’ve been feeling is disbelief that I am allowed to do what I’m doing here. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t feel like I can do the job. I’ve been going to school for this for four years really, I’m probably overly-confident in my abilities. Instead, it’s more a feeling of disbelief that I’m already being trusted with so much so early.
I’ll explain.
It’s kind of like the first time that you experience the transition from being a camper to being a camp counselor. When you’re a kid, you have complete and utter trust in your counselors. You think, nay, you KNOW, that your camp counselor is a survival expert who could fend off a bear if the need ever arose and you have no reason to question that. And when you become camp counselor yourself, you expect there to be some crystallizing moment when you suddenly become as mature and cool as your counselor had been when you were a kid. What you inevitably realize though, is that the only thing that separates you from them is an afternoon’s worth of CPR training, a T-shirt that says “Staff,†and a few years. Worse still, you realize that they could probably beat you up if 3 or 4 of them banded together and formed a half-decent game plan. The beauty of it though, is that those kids are just as dumb as you were when you were in their position and they will inexplicably assume that you are far more qualified than you really are.
Why am I talking about this? Because I firmly believe that this is how much of the world works. I am sure that much of this country’s work force is amazed on a daily basis at how much people are willing to trust them with based on assumptions. I bet there are times when a doctor shuts the door behind a patient and thinks, “I’m glad they left when they did because I just made up that last five minutes as I went and was running out of things to say.â€
That’s not to say that doctors, or people of any other profession, are not perfectly qualified to perform the function that they do, I just think that we tend to to idealize people because it makes life a little easier to live.
I’ve only been thinking about this because, with this internship, I have felt myself passing through the barrier separating magazine reader from someone on the other side. The other day, I was interviewing an author via telephone and I couldn’t help but think to myself, “If this guy knew that I drove in from Alabama less than 24 hours ago, he would probably hang up the phone.â€
And that’s the beauty of it, he didn’t hang up the phone. I’ve been given an amazing opportunity to do some ridiculous things and to learn from some amazing people and I fully intend on making the most of it. I’m excited to get a chance to be away from what I know and to change and grow here in Orlando for a summer as I get a little bit closer to adulthood.
That’s all I have for now, so check back here often this summer as I and the other interns give you an all-access, uncensored look at the seedy underbelly of Relevant magazine.
