First week on the job

So I started both my Iowa Outdoors Magazine internship this week and my Meredith internship. I like them both a lot so far. I have to say I like the Iowa Outdoors one more just because the magazine is awesome and I'm really interested in the topic - outdoorsy types of stuff like plants and animals and hiking trails and things. At Meredith I work for MIM - Meredith Integrated Marketing - which basically does a bunch of custom publications for a variety of clients like Carnival Cruise Lines, State Farm, Pepsi, Jeep, and so on. I like it because it's magazines and advertising kind of rolled into one and I've had an interest in advertising lately.

This week at IOM, I did a lot of copy editing. Which I don't mind at all. I really love copy editing. We're working on the September/October issue right now, which will be out in late August. It's cool because I'll be around to see the production of this issue from start to finish. Anyway, whenever stories come in, I get to copy edit them. It's awesome. I even got to write a couple of things this week. I got to write a short story about the proper way to mulch and I worked on a feature we have called "But Why?" where little kids submit questions about nature and we research the answer. I researched the answer to "where do bugs go in the winter?" I really enjoy doing stuff like that, I find. I like the research part because I'm learning a lot about something I'm interested in and I get to write about it. It's very cool. Sadly, this internship doesn't pay.

At Meredith I've been doing a lot of research, mostly. My boss is giving a presentation about Meredith and social media, so she had me spend all day on Twitter looking at tweets from Meredith publications like Ladies Home Journal, Parents, Fitness, and so on. That was kind of cool. Right now I'm working on something for State Farm. I was given a story outline of all the stories that will be in the new issue of "Good Neighbor" magazine, and I'm researching information for the writers to use when they actually write the stories.

It's cool to be working for both a small magazine and a big publishing company at the same time. I'm definitely experiencing both ends of the spectrum, which is nice. Variety is a good thing.

I work both these jobs Monday through Friday. I do mornings at IOM and afternoons at Meredith and that's working out nicely. Between the two I have a pretty standard 8-5 workday. I listen to the traffic report on my way to work and worry about things like rush hour and all that...

Wouldn't you know it? I'm a working stiff now.