13 Dimensions of Oral Assessment

At the US Embassy briefing, the foreign service officers presented the criteria on which they are judged during their oral assessment. Reviewing these qualities reminds you of vital life skills that can be applied to just about anything! Job interviews, being a student, leadership positions...check them out.

1. Composure. To stay calm, poised, and effective in stressful or difficult situations; to think on one's feet, adjusting quickly to changing situations; to maintain self-control.
2. Cultural Adaptability. To work and communicate effectively and harmoniously with persons of other cultures, value systems, political beliefs, and economic circumstances; to recognize and respect differences in new and different cultural environments.
3. Experience and Motivation. To demonstrate knowledge, skills or other attributes gained from previous experience of relevance to the Foreign Service; to articulate appropriate motivation for joining the Foreign Service.
4. Information Integration and Analysis. To absorb and retain complex information drawn from a variety of sources; to draw reasoned conclusions from analysis and synthesis of available information; to evaluate the importance, reliability, and usefulness of information; to remember details of a meeting or event without the benefit of notes.
5. Initiative and Leadership. To recognize and assume responsibility for work that needs to be done; to persist in the completion of a task; to influence significantly a group's activity, direction, or opinion; to motivate others to participate in the activity one is leading.
6. Judgment. To discern what is appropriate, practical, and realistic in a given situation; to weigh relative merits of competing demands.
7. Objectivity and Integrity. To be fair and honest; to avoid deceit, favoritism, and discrimination; to present issues frankly and fully, without injecting subjective bias; to work without letting personal bias prejudice actions.
8. Oral Communication. To speak fluently in a concise, grammatically correct, organized, precise, and persuasive manner; to convey nuances of meaning accurately; to use appropriate styles of communication to fit the audience and purpose.
9. Planning and Organizing. To prioritize and order tasks effectively, to employ a systematic approach to achieving objectives, to make appropriate use of limited resources.
10. Quantitative Analysis. To identify, compile, analyze and draw correct conclusions from pertinent data; to recognize patterns or trends in numerical data; to perform simple mathematical operations.
11. Resourcefulness. To formulate creative alternatives or solutions to resolve problems, to show flexibility in response to unanticipated circumstances.
12. Working With Others. To interact in a constructive, cooperative, and harmonious manner; to work effectively as a team player; to establish positive relationships and gain the confidence of others; to use humor as appropriate.
13. Written Communication. To write concise, well organized, grammatically correct, effective and persuasive English in a limited amount of time.

Source: http://fsot.wikidot.com/the-oral-exam

Mi pasantía

One thing I have realized I will miss most about leaving Argentina is how much I'm going to miss going to work. My co-workers are great, the Puerto Madero office location is awesome, my projects challenge me and it's fun to accomplish them. In addition to translating a lot of press releases, I've had the opportunity to copy write and do one of my favorite things, make blogs. Here's Entercomm's blog and NetApp's as well.

Last week, one of my work assignments was to find news in Spanish to publish on an agency blog that wanted to share reputable marketing & communications news stories. As a regular reader of AdAge, Mashable, AdWeek and other advertising and social media news, I didn't think this would be that difficult. If these sites are so reputable in the US and share international news, wouldn't they have a way to communicate to Latin America as well?

No. Although LinkedIn profiles are available in Spanish-speaking countries and have specific sites for Argentina and Mexico, they STILL share news in English. LinkedIn usually sends a weekly email of news updates, and my boss showed me how although her account is registered in Spanish, the system does not contain the news in Spanish so they send it to her in English. Way to cater to your community.

In the US, we currently have the perception that having a surplus of news sites and blogs can become useless; we already have enough and are overinformed. But did you ever think about being in a country where you had access to all of those sites…but none were accessible in your first language?

I ended up finding plenty of news written in Spanish and specific to Argentina, but it tended to be more localized. I can't imagine not having a reputable site to search for all of my social media news, where am confident it will always be updated whether Amy Winehouse dies or Google launches Google+. And here in Latin America, they get the news, but often a poor translation of those stories. Mashable launched Mashable en español in 2009, and it failed, presumably because they didn't keep up with the amount of stories and publishing them in Spanish too.

Hence, be thankful for all the news we have in America. And that if you work in the business industry, you don't have to translate every new story that comes out or here a limited perspective because the publication is specific to that country.

Back in BA

After two crazy weekends of traveling, I´m back to power through our last couple of days in Buenos Aires. As with all things, I can´t believe time has gone by so quickly and that it has already been more than two months!

Plenty of stories, quotes and photos will soon be shared here....as soon as I find the time to blog about it :)

For now, I´ve been getting a lot of things done at work and have completely created and revamped these blogs, feel free to check them out! I´m gaining more and more respect for Wordpress (sorry blogger) the more I figure these out.

Entercomm blog

NetApp Latin America blog

Lost in translation

Passport translation

When Jordin and I bought our bus tickets at the Terminal de Omnibus, the ticket vendor held onto the copy of my passport for an unusually long period of time. It started to scare me that something was wrong, especially when he called over his coworker to read something. I peaked through the glass to try and figure out what the two men were doing, and saw them reading aloud "WE....THE....PEOPLE" in broken English. They were trying to read what United States passports say...and if they could figure out what it meant.

We told the workers that this was "la primera estrofa de la constitución de los Estados Unidos," the first stanza of our constitution. He then had fun trying to read and pronounce anything on the rest of the passport...such as my name. "Kat-reen Ar-tay-mAS." It ended up being adorable that we practically made their day by teaching them some English translation. We ended this journey by being asked what the word "gross" is. I thought he said GROWS, and gave him 'crecer,' a Spanish verb for grows. Unfortunately, we think someone had received the insult of "gross" and translated into the proper Spanish adjective (grotesco/sucio) and told him what it meant.

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Translations at my internship

At work this week, I was translating a press release that requested customers to "spill the beans" about their thoughts on a topic. Translating phrases into Spanish like this is interesting, because sometimes they make no sense and other times they are incredibly direct. In fact, Stacey's boss has used the direct translation "romper el hielo" for "break the ice," which taught us that some phrases do have the same significance in other languages. I figured I would ask my coworkers what they thought of this phrase or even knew what it meant.

I asked if "derramar los frijoles" (spill the beans...literally) had a connotation in Spanish, and received long stares of confusion. Answer: I guess not. What disturbs me here isn't that I had to think of a simple way to paraphrase this saying, but something more. Somewhere, an American employee at a software company writing press releases for the Latin America region actually thought it was okay to use a phrase like "spill the beans." I ended up translating it to share your thoughts with us, but the lesson of the day here: if you are ever working for an international company, be careful with your language usage and writing.

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If you haven't yet noticed due to my lack of daily posts, I'm a little behind. Realistically, I'm not really behind on anything except the standard I set for myself. I am conquering more and more of Buenos Aires, going out of town Thursday through Sunday and doing something new in the city just about every day, in addition to writing Spanish homework assignments, researching to create an ecofeminism video for one of my internships and writing two four-page Spanish research papers. I hope to have Córdoba photos and stories published before I leave, because blogging not only shares your stories with the world, but helps me keep track of my trips!

To all in the Chicago suburbs, I hope you have electricity through all the storms! Thoughts and prayers!

Besos <3

Lunes

Typical Monday here in Buenos Aires. Because unlike the rest of you, I did not have off work for a holiday! It was more exciting than I'm making it seem though, you'll see.

Small world
Amy and I were Facebook chatting this morning, and she told me she met someone in Washington DC who just got back from studying abroad in Buenos Aires. The boy she met was in town for the weekend visiting a friend, but from Pennsylvania, and Amy knew the friend. So as they were talking, she said OH MY FRIEND'S STUDYING ABROAD IN BUENOS AIRES, maybe you know her! (Doubtful, right? Guess not....) Knowing that I was blonde and from Mizzou, he remembered meeting my roommates and I in Palermo one night when we met a bunch of American students and chatted with them for a few minutes. We never caught their names, but he remembered meeting us because we were four blonde girls and apparently he caught that we went to University of Missouri. We must really be attention-getters, because last night when Sebastian came over looking for our apartment for the 4th of July Fiesta, he asked someone downstairs if they knew where we lived and he said "Oh the four blonde girls / chicas rubias?" Guess we underestimate our American presence. Both a good and a bad thing simultaneously.

I confirmed that it was the same guy because we had a mutual friend on Facebook from their study abroad program, and he friended Amy on Facebook so I saw the picture and sure enough, we had met him. How small of a world is it that you can meet someone in Buenos Aires for 5 minutes, who proceeds to meet Amy in DC while visiting another college friend?!?!? ¡Qué extraño!

Pasantía / Internship

After I finished a long translation at work during the late morning/early afternoon, everyone moved their chairs facing the center to presumably have an office meeting. I had never sat in on one of these, and was pretty confused/scared about what was going to be said and whether or not I could understand it. I comprehended it all, and learned that the office will allow and encourage employees to work from home on Fridays to avoid the long commute and generally be more comfortable. This decision didn't come out of nowhere and had clearly been thought out if not researched, but they're going to try it out and see if everything works since most of the work is individual based on which clients you're working on.

Evidently, this changed my hours so instead of working from home on Fridays, I will be working Wednesday mornings instead (my only morning off) and traveling on Fridays! ¡Que suerte! The logic makes a lot of sense and I look forward to seeing how it will affect the office. As much as I don't look forward to my two 12-hour days in a row (Tuesday & Wednesday with classes & work, not including commuting), it will be great to have an extra day in Córdoba and Mendoza.

My next project this week actually works with a client in the San Francisco, California area, because an Argentine man owns or works for the business and hired the firm to build the brand and its website. It's great to watch everything come together in terms of brand identity as well as breaking the language barrier. There are countless examples of phrases in Spanish used for companies that have no direct translation in English, so I have to use my thesaurus brain to figure out an alternate explanation.

In other news, as I've mentioned before, Argentines are very picky about accepting bigger bills, so you always need coins/monedas for the buses/coletivos and small bills for everything else. These are the first few days where I've actually run out of coins, and been refused to have change broken jsut about everywhere I go. There's a bank right next to where I work, so I left work around 3 p.m. per usual and was pretty excited to break my 10 peso bill ($2.50 USD). I thought it was horrible that US banks only stay open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. because of business hours, but Argentina bank services (ATMs are usually 24 hours if you swipe your card to get in the building) close AT 3 P.M. So as I happily pranced into the bank to get coins, I got yelled at by the employee who told me the only way I could get on a bus to get home was if I bought something at a kiosk because every bank would be closed. Great. This almost put me at the verge of tears, turning something so simple into the most difficult process ever. FINALLY after three blocks, I found a street vendor and bought some gummies to get on a bus to MALBA. What a journey.

MALBA- Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires

With only a month left in Buenos Aires, I started a list of adventures I'm going to take after work. My roommates and I usually do sightseeing like this together, but with varying interests and a time crunch, it's time to see all I can! I left the office and took a bus to Recoleta/Palermo to see MALBA, the Latin American Art Museum. Even though I'm not the most artistic person in the world, art is growing on me because it differs everywhere you go and I've come to appreciate a lot more since high school.

What has fascinated me about Argentine and a lot of Latin American art I've seen at various museums in Argentina is how modernist it is. While America appreciates creativity, the term museum carries an old connotation and rarely displays recent artwork or creations. In Argentina at expositions such as arteBA and Centro Cultural Borges, this is all they show. Each piece of art uses a variety of materials, and 3D pieces are valued. The first floor of MALBA was a large room going through the decades and displaying the following genres of art:

Decade

• 10s & 20s- modernisms and vanguardism, European influence
• 30s & 40s- surrealism and policy
• 40s & 50s- constructivism and concrete yet abstract thinking
• 60s & 70s- "arte pop," minimalism, conceptual thinking

This is part of the 60s/70s room, observe the alligator eating a woman.

American in Paris, a Latin American classic

After these, I was told that cameras were prohibited in the museum. Whoops. The next floor's exhibit was called Arte Argentino Actual en La Colección de MALBA- 1989 - 2010, which as the title implies, was all Argentine art from the past 20 years. Ranging from lampshades to paintings to video collections, this room made me laugh and smile a lot. The last unique exhibit closing off this room was called El triunfo de la muerte, The Victory of Death. This was a series of framed photographs of a man in a suit, with gunshots taken in various spots on each frame showing the progression of a man being killed. Each piece just amazed me and I was very impressed with the exhibit and museum. The overall shape of MALBA reminded me of the Getty Museum in southern California that my mom dragged my sisters and I to at a young age. The overall design was very friendly and the benches even dragged on and each wooden bar twirled throughout the walls of the museum.

It's afternoons like this where I love living in a city. Where else can you get off of work, pay $2 to see some awesome art and walk home past Argentina's version of Embassy Row? I didn't exactly know where I was since I left my T-book map at home, but all of this excitement and I was still home by 5:30.

El español

Between work, classes and conversations the past couple of days, here are some things I've been learning about Argentina and the Spanish language itself.

Work

The longer I live here and work at my internships, the more I realize that my brain needs to be just as much of an English thesaurus as a Spanish dictionary. Another project I completed at work was watching a video in English about web design for a client, and translating it to the designer in Spanish. The company knows all of its viewers are not English-speaking, so the voice speaks slowly, but they still use ridiculous words that most English native speakers wouldn't even be familiar with. Watching this video and being the English speaker at work, my mind needs to think fast and can't always use a dictionary. Between the video and finding some graphics for a project, here are some quick translations and how my mind has processed them the past few days.

• assets --> traits --> rasgos (Spanish)
• place order--> finalize the purchase --> finalizar la compra
• hover--> scroll the mouse --> move the mouse on top of the screen --> mover la ratón encima de la pantalla
• mockup--> rought sketch --> draft --> borrador
• And now...the reverse. Searching for images on a graphics website, my coworker had typed in "doble baby carrier." She wasn't finding what she wanted and asked what could be searched in English to figure this out. Even I had trouble thinking of this one, but what she was looking for was a double stroller. Typing in stroller didn't fully produce what we need, but "stroller for twins" --> stroller para gemelos worked out perfectly!
• Osos means bears, and I later discovered that searching this term actually meant searching for stuffed animals. It makes sense: most people associate stuffed animals with teddy bears, but how would a non-English speaker know that term? Thankfully, I was able to figure this one out with some body language of motioning the size of stuffed animals and more.

Spanish class

Our Spanish teacher, Alejandro, is very intelligent and solicits clarification after just about everything he says. Here's proof; I counted during class.

• 18- "¿Soy claro chicos?" - Am I clear?
• 14- "¿Comprenden chicos?" - Do you understand?
• 7- "¿De acuerdo?" - Agreed?

Most of you know that when I laugh pretty hard at something, I start crying. One amusing thing about my experience in Argentina is that in the past month and a half, I have cried of laughter daily. Each day, something that funny happens (to me at least) that I burst out in tears. Jordin especially will watch for it when I begin laughing, pointing out my turning point to tears. Yesterday, this moment was in Spanish class, and my roommates and I were giggly for no reason. But of course, the tears were a dead giveaway so Alejandro taught us that there's a word for this in Spanish.

• Tentar/estar tentado- to have ganas de reír/a desire to laugh. An English translation shows the word as meaning more of a temptation to laugh or trying to hold back tears. What a funny lesson!

Journalism seminar

In Wednesday's journalism seminar, we watched & discussed a documentary from Jorge Lanata on Argentina's economic crisis in the late 1990s, and especially 2001. Carolina, our professor, was in Argentina toward the end of it, but studying in Europe in the beginning. Here are three excellent quotes I recorded:

• "What can I do? I have a flight in two hours and we don't have a president!"
• "I called my parents to ask what I supposed to do. And my parents said you know our country, just come. It was ok, then I came back to Brussels."
• "And the demonstrations. That was really really weird."

Más

One warning the study abroad office gives you before you leave is that when you share your experiences with family and friends, you can't get upset if they don't fully comprehend or even appreciate what you're telling them. They advised us that they'll listen and laugh with you, but continue to move on and discuss themselves. I didn't really believe that this was the case, but the more I Skype and chat with people, the more I realize this is true.

It's not any offense toward my friends, family or how I explain the story, but the idea of being there and speaking Spanish. My Iguazú trip was an experience where words cannot truly capture the beauty of seeing the waterfalls and walking around the national park. When we share our work stories, crazy weekend adventures of being tourists, meeting people, restaurant experiences, city commutes and more with friends, we notice that only my roommates and I can understand the fact that we don't speak in English. Our Spanish improves immensely each day as we go to work and listen in class, so much that we have come to appreciate the stressful experiences and issues we face in the United States, because we're speaking English. We've enjoyed making comparisons, such as these:

• Have you ever been afraid of getting lost driving around Jefferson City? Try getting dropped off two miles from your home in front of an obelisk by a taxi at 4 a.m. and finding your way home.
• You thought booking the MO-X shuttle to Columbia was difficult? Try having Despegar cancel your flight and knowing that the only way you'll end up at your destination is arguing the situation in Spanish for three hours.

Stacey put it well, explaining that when we make plans with people we meet in Argentina or receive assignments at work, there are times where we probably only understand about 60 percent of what was initially said. (Note: That is not implying anything about our Spanish proficiency, but more the fast-paced culture.) But then it works out. We have fun. We learn. At the end of the day, we have great life experiences we'll be taking home with us. I have to apologize to Becca, because she started an internship in Australia that assigned her a 10-page report on the business's HR department. Instead of empathizing at the time, I responded: "At least it's in English."

We don't necessarily have it more difficult, but everything's relative. A 10-page report is difficult. So is a Spanish interview, documentary, or press release. Thus, we're learning to appreciate work, directions and getting lost in the USA after everything we've learned here.

Dream job

This week in Uruguay, our last guided visit was to the United States Embassy to Uruguay. None of the group was quite certain exactly what we would be doing here, but after about three rounds of security, we were finally let in for a presentation. Here, I learned that embassies' main priorities are to serve the American people abroad, and discussed the various goals and services embassies hope to provide. We heard from the head of research, an intern, a consular affairs employee, and another higher up position--and these presentations turned me around.

I was inspired by all the work they do on a daily basis and the strong impact it has on so many individuals. One woman is interviewing Uruguayan citizens in Spanish and deciding whether to grant them a visa to the United States. Theoretically, her analysis and decisions could singlehandedly control someone's future hopes and dreams. Another is receiving news wire/cable information from the Capitol and offices in Washington DC, and deciding how to best share it with the Uruguayan citizens. These are important positions and are happening in just about every country. Best of all, these presenters were real people--they were American citizens who graduated from state colleges (ironically, all journalism majors) and went on to work in an industry combining journalism, politics and public affairs.

The US Embassy to Uruguay, overseeing the beach

So what was my next step? Researching the US Department of State internships for next summer. Or for future employment. Employment becomes difficult because the majority of these positions only remain in one location for two to four years, so it's a difficult job to settle down in but definitely something respected. As I felt after Project Mexico, this visit once again sparked my determination to help people of Hispanic heritage fulfill dreams and enter the US. Thankfully, I have a professional project or thesis for graduate school where I can pursue this interest, but working for consular affairs or in the Bureau of the Western hemisphere has become a goal that will hopefully soon be achieved, come January!

Viernes

After a late night in Palermo with Jordin yesterday, I woke up to see that it was 8:15 a.m. and I had to be in Puerto Madero in 45 minutes. Happy to see that the bus was waiting for me right outside, I hopped on and sure enough, got into work at 8:59 a.m. But it had appeared that no one else in the office had.

My boss usually unlocks the doors and is the earliest person to arrive, with everyone else floating in between 9:30 and 11 a.m. Since she was stuck in traffic and no one else had a key, I didn't get into the office until 9:45. So much for sleeping longer and being on time, right? But relaxation time isn't allowed; something always inhibits me from chilling or just reading some news for a bit. A few minutes after 9, a man was waiting outside the office with me to pick up an iPad that we had been using for a client. I explained to him that we'd have to wait for the office to get unlocked, etc, and we managed to converse until 9:45. His name was Pedro and he was from Peru, but works for an audiovisual/electronics company in Buenos Aires. In addition to discussing why I was in Buenos Aires, working and where I was taking classes/living, I learned his family history, how his company rented out the big screen used at the Shakira concert in March, that he went to the auto show yesterday, and just about every other conversation topic you can imagine. My mind is never put to sleep here in a full-on conversation in castellano!

I felt pretty official at work today because I wrote a press release for Espacio Forum, a convention-center type place in La Plata. The British Telecom documents I translated taught me a lot of new vocabulary about employee benefits, summer and skin cancer, always interesting to learn.

Continuing the pattern of taking a different way home from work, I went to Parque Lezama (where Buenos Aires was founded) because I realized it's only a five minute walk from work. I saw the Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Church, that looks more like a building from Aladdin, on the outside but it was locked. Picture to come soon!

After a good Friday afternoon nap, our roommates did dinner at our favorite, WOK China, and got helado for dessert at the same place I've been to three days in a row now. In an attempt to befriend the ice cream man, I laughed & said "REGRESAMOS!" - We're back! as we entered, at least it got him to laugh.

Time to rest up for a week of travel! Our flights are all booked, and if I've learned anything, it's to never wait to book a flight and just pay for it when you see the price and times that you like. Websites like Despegar will trick you.

Fijense en eso!

Ever since the day we arrived, I keep hearing people say different forms of the word fijarse. Fijate, fijense, etc. The dictionary says it means "to fix," but I'm convinced that it's just a phrase that porteños use to mean just about anything. Carolina says it every time she wants us to think about something. My coworkers say it when I'm supposed to actively do something. And today it was on our Spanish test so I finally asked (Ale-)Alejandro, our spanish teacher, what it means. And it's something to the extent of understand/realize/think in this, but also a perfect example of how some words in various languages don't have a direct translation. Fijense en eso!

Some of the funny things that happened at work today:

• I think Martín, one of the newest people hired by Entercomm, gets excited out of the idea that he can give me work to do. So I started off with data entry (every intern must do it at some point, right?) of email subscribers to IGT (Inter Gaming Technology for casinos and more). Some key observations included that hotmail is the most popular email base for Argentines to use, and like in any country, I found some funny addresses. Names like "el pobre gringo- the poor white person trying to speak Spanish" and "besame en la disco-kiss me in the disco club." Guess it's not just an American trend to have incredibly odd and embarrassing names as your screen names and email addresses!
• ¿Vos miras Glee? was how it started. Brenda asked me this, to which I responded of course! No one else in the office knew what Glee was, but Brenda had seen a commercial for it an was curious. I showed her pictures from the concert last year and even played some Glee music, especially Queen because my coworkers love 80s music. This gave me the privilege of being DJ for the day, and I can't explain what an honor that is at the office. I played their category of music of course, 80s & 90s rock, which was not an issue since plenty of those songs are in my iTunes library anyways. They were shocked that I had Enrique Iglesias's "Cuando me enamoro" and enjoyed the World Cup music I had from Project Mexico last summer. Fun way to get to know the office through the background music we put on!
• One of our software clients requires all web designers to take a training course in the visual identity of their brand in email, but does not offer the course in English. (I'm being confidential about the client so I don't get Google-Alerted and arrested, mu-ha-ha.) The training discussed HTML code, templates, and the proper style guide the company uses to define themselves in terms of pantone color tiles, fonts (typefaces), sizes and more. Connie, one of the designers, and I watched 45 minutes worth of video and then passed the exam! Although she only speaks English, the visuals allowed her to understand some of what the video was saying, but my main job was to explain what the video was saying in Spanish to her. It's a pretty cool experience to watch translating go from paper to verbal, real-life situations. We're doing the same thing tomorrow!

Ocho observaciones- Eight observations

Observaciones del día culturales (Cultural observations of the day)

• 1. Desayuno/breakfast- As I have mentioned, the body clock and eating schedule varies in Argentina. Porteños don’t eat lunch until 2 to 3 p.m. at earliest, dinner 9 to 10 p.m., and they go out between 1 and 6 a.m. So if I start work at 9 a.m., how does your stomach handle hunger between 7 to 8 a.m. when you wake up and 3 p.m. when you eat lunch. Answer: They load up on mate, coffee and tea with some galletitas (little cookies, like crackers) and it fills their stomach until lunch time.
• 2. Música/music- Eighties rock is where it’s at in Argentina. They love American rock music. And they know the lyrics in perfect English. They couldn’t tell you what it means, but can sing every word to Queen’s “Somebody to love.” Or Cyndi Lauper’s “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Our taxi driver from La Plata the other day belted out the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Bob Marley cds. Latin American music if for boliches/clubs at night, not for leisurely listening!
• 3. Dinero/money- This one’s pretty funny. If you’re buying anything in Argentina from a Subte pass to food to gifts, you better have exact change. In the United States, we’re under the impression that you’re valuing the company you’re buying something from by providing them with business, so they are kind enough to make change for you. Pay with a $20 bill at McDonald’s for your $1 ice cream cone and they give you all $19 back. In Argentina, that’s not the case. They’ll deny your sale if your bills are too big. This raises a problem for us because the ATM only distributes 100 peso bills, similar to a $20 bill in the US. But it’s very difficult to break these. Stacey has been denied her morning breakfast and coffee because she didn’t have 14 pesos in change to give them. At the market, where all the vendors are essentially selling the same things, they made us go to another vendor to get change to buy HER bracelets. Crazy, right? And if you don’t find coins somewhere or another, you’re not taking a bus anywhere. Sometimes we’ll buy cookies or café just to get coins, because they won’t give you coins without your business either. Oh Argentina!
• 4. Facebook- Or as they say it, FAYbook. The “ay” sound, like the one in “Ka”tie, is difficult for them to pronounce because that sound in Spanish is the letter E. Or é. So if they say words with an American ay, it’s pretty strong. In a normal conversation around the office, you a lways know when we’re talking about FAYbook because it’s the strongest vowel sound used. Spanish mumbling…mumbling…en FAYbook…more mumbling. If you can’t envision how this sounds, my goal is to record a true porteño voice saying it. It’s great. The obsession with Facebook is also pretty large because it’s on the rise in Argentina. It’s not any more or less common than in the US, but businesses in Buenos Aires are in the transitional period of utilizing social media marketing. That means making a Facebook page (or individual account that you add as a friend as they do here), friending your competitors and keeping tabs on who has the most friends or followers. Everyone from coworkers, waiters to friends we meet in plazas and bars have asked us if we have Facebook, as if it’s the coolest thing in the world. Thanks Zuckerberg!

Observaciones personales

Walking home with my mate today down Puerto Madero

Like a true porteño

• 5. Mate: Now that my coworkers “cured” my mate, it’s finally usable without consuming, you know, dust and seeds. So today they helped me prepare my mate, since I’m back on the 4-5 hour sleep schedule. Knowing that I’m a girl and American, I not only tried the mate de naranja y pomelo (orange and grapefruit flavored herbs), but with an extra spoon of azúcar (sugar). And boy was I on a caffeine high. The combination of the sugar and caffeine didn’t just wake me up, it was painful. My head was spinning in circles and my heart rate was rising by the minute. No more daily mate for me! There’s a reason I don’t drink coffee and tea in the US!
• 6. Cleaning: Monica is our cleaning lady. Yes, our program covers having a cleaning lady coming to our apartment weekly and mopping, dusting the entire house, replacing our sheets and towels and fluffing our pillows. This is way too much of spoiled treatment as a college student. This is not an accurate representation of real life and I don't like it. I know we pay a study abroad program fee, but this just promotes laziness. Don’t make your bed…Monica will! Why kill the fruitfly flying over that grapefruit…Monica will take care of it. I won’t be able to afford a cleaning lady after college, why mislead our minds and lives now by spoiling us? As grateful as I am for what Monica does, I still refuse to let her do the dishes in an effort to be less spoiled.
• 7. Copywriting: One project I am assigned to complete a lot at work is copywriting in both Spanish and English. This means anything from writing captions, explanations or paragraphs to put on advertisements, promotional materials and information about our clients. As a journalism major, I LOVE writing so this is definitely one of my favorite tasks. Although Entercomm mainly works with software agencies as our clients, we still have a variety of clients that are local & even international that have nothing to do with software. A kitchen furniture and supplies company (empresa), construction agency in Los Angeles (I don’t get this one either), event planning agencies and more. I've learned that copywriting is teaching me a lot of skills--specifically being concise, direct, and learning synonyms for words in both English and Spanish since I'm writing in both languages.
• 8. Software: Because our software clients require the most work, I do a lot of translating of press releases from NetApp, McAfee, British Telecom & Quest Software. I'm learning more about IT software, cloud computing and security for PCs then I ever would have wanted to know, and more! Did you know NetApp is No. 5 on Fortune's Best Places to Work in America list, and No. 14 on Boston Business Journal's best places to work in Boston list? Or in my terms, "Esta clasificación en Boston sigue #5 rango en la revista de FORTUNE en los Estados Unidos en la lista de “100 Mejores Empresas para Trabajar” para 2011." This is teaching me a whole new realm of vocabulary as well as helping me learn what software technicians actually do. Who knew?!

¿Comprenden chicos?

#Winning

An account of exciting occurrences of the day that fit with the Twitter hashtag #winning.

• We have finally become colectivo (bus) pros! Stacey, Jordin & I got to Universidad Austral for Spanish class in just 30 minutes after taking a new line!
• Did you know that if you click SHIFT + OPTION + ? on a Mac, you'll get the upside down question mark!¿!¿!¿ Excitement!
• Food from Wok China in Argentina is better than Chinese food in the US. Even better for the cost-conscious college student, it's enough food to feed me for three whole days!
• Elizabeth and I did our grocery shopping, and we successfully made popcorn! I had milk for the first time this entire trip (chocolate milk) and got a 1/2 gallon for $1! Other sale items included 2.5 gallons of gaseosa de pomelo (grapefruit soda) for only 6 pesos ($1.50 USD), and dulce de leche flan at two for 4 pesos ($1 USD)!

Things I learned today

From news to Spanish to gender studies and more!

• A review of commands, specifically in the forms of vos and vosotros. These are not used in Spanish spoken in the US or Mexico, so it's been a challenge to teach myself the conjugations, especially with people at work.
• The phrase "No me importa" doesn't mean it's not important to me, it holds more of a connotation of I'm not interested! I said this at work when they asked which of the two office cliques I wanted to have lunch with, and one of my co-workers jokingly acted offended. I was incredibly embarrassed/avergonzada.
• Because I chose the one clique who ate inside the office, Brenda, Vanessa and I took a 15 minute walk later to get out and enjoy the sunny afternoon. We talked about the difference between Fahrenheit and Celsius and Vanessa told me it hasn't snowed in Buenos Aires in over three years!
• Other word conversations on the walk included "tips" and "Atlanta." The women get a kick out of the American A sound, especially with the Chicago accent, so they made me say Atlanta. They were also unaware that "tips" had other meanings besides leaving money at a restaurant. They were excited to know that "tips" could be short pieces of advice. Language is so underrated! Some people don't know all of these things!
• The word document en español is archivo, like archive, so naturally I have been pronouncing it arKivo. En realidad, it's arCHivo with emphasis on the ch. Whoops!
• Get ready to cry. Mizzou takes us on one trip while we were here and had planned a trip to Bariloche, which is where Patagonia and the Andes mountains are. Much to my dismay, a volcano is soon erupting in Bariloche and our trip has been cancelled. As excited as I was to see this gorgeous site, I'm trying to take it lightly after all that has happened in Joplin. We are blessed that there were warnings of this before our trip; natural disasters are not in our control. We'll be going to Montevideo, Uruguay instead, and I guess this timing just calls for another trip to Argentina in the future to see the mountains. To read more about the situation in Bariloche with the volcano, click here.
• All my research at work paid off today when I went through the relevant websites and posted advertisements for our clients on them! This included creating accounts, emailing press releases, writing text for the ads and more.
• At the end of creating all these accounts, I had to verify myself as a human by typing in the anti-robot codes. This is even more difficult here because some of the letters have acentos on thém! Imagine how long it took me to get the code correct!
• Tuesday evenings end with my Women & Gender Studies course taught by Carolina, which never ceases to amaze me. I can't even begin to explain how much I'm learning in this four-person course and how happy I am to be taking it in a session where I have the time to continue to research these situations for fun and learn more about sexism and stereotypes. More elaborate blog posts will come later, especially since I'm writing our first research paper this week!

El fútbol

When I woke up this morning, my cell phone, watch and computer all had a different time. How this happens, I’m not quite sure. The phones in Argentina (boo Movistar) are not as intelligent as phones in the US--you set the time yourself every time you change the battery--but I have no idea how it managed to slow down. Regardless, I still got to work 20 minutes early and once again, was the first one to arrive to the office. Argentina: A place where on time is early and late is on time.

After finishing a Spanish writing assignment and a day at work, I'm having a lot of trouble writing in English right now, so I wrote my accounts of the day in Spanish first to help me out (que extraño! / how strange!, see bottom of this post).

Mi pasantía / internship

My project of the day (and possibly the entire week) was researching and media planning on the internet for Espacio Forum, a company that works with event planning for businesses. The facility is a convention center for business meetings and conferences slightly outside of Buenos Aires, with the technology to video-conference speakers and more. Reading up on event planning made me curious, so I looked up what starting salaries for event planners were in the United States--specifically in the Chicago area & southern California. They averaged $59,000, more than I anticipated. Maybe you'll see me as an event planner someday...

El fútbol / Soccer

The big manager at Entercomm is named Miguel, and he is my boss (Brenda)'s boss. He gets amusement out of calling me Kati *Kah-tee*, as the AY sound is difficult in Spanish, especially when not presented with the letter E. You should hear them say FACEbook, it's great. Anyways, he asked if I was a soccer fan and if I was familiar with the Boca Juniors, the soccer team in Argentina. When I told him not really, he came over to my computer and opened YouTube. He spoke highly of Diego Maradona, a legendary Argentine soccer player who played in four World Cup's (Copa Mundial) and even coached Argentina's national team from 2008-2010. The first video was called the Hand of God, a play where Maradona basically scored with his hand and the referees didn't see in the 1986 World Cup. The next one, notoriously called the "Goal of the Century," is another phenomenal goal scored by Maradona. Watch the video, and listen to the announcer scream GOAL!!! at the end. My manager told my co-workers to be silent while he taught me about Argentina's fútbol history, got down on his knees in the middle of the office with his arms in the air, and screamed along. GOAL!!!!!!! That's passion.

If this doesn't prove Latin American devotion to fútbol, I don't know what does. But there's more. He explained that this wasn't just about Maradona's awesome goal, but was about making a comeback after the Dirty War in Argentina in the early 1980s. In the 1986 World Cup, although Argentina beat Alemania (Germany) in the finals, they beat Inglaterra (England) in the above two videos during the semi-finals. Miguel said this symbolized relieving themselves from the Dirty War and meant a lot to both countries. I was fascinated. It's amazing to see the effect of a sport, especially fútbol, and makes sense how the popularity and competition of soccer lives on in Spanish-speaking countries.

Comida nueva y cosas pocitas / New food & small things

• Jordin & I tried "choripan" yesterday at La Boca, which is what it sounds--a mix of chorizo (sausage) & pan (bread); a hot dog but better. It costs $3 USD or less and is incredibly tasty and filling!
• Stacey's new credit card finally arrived....to her house in Texas. They thought her BILLING ADDRESS was in Argentina but that she needed the card in Dallas. And it took them two weeks (double the promised maximum time of five days) to send it nationally, who knows what will happen INTERNATIONALLY! A fail on Wells Fargo's part, pobre Stacey yet again!
• Our cleaning lady, Monica, came for the first time today and I finally realized how luxurious it is to have a perfectly clean home! There is not one crumb in the kitchen, the floor is mopped, we have new sheets and towels, how spoiled are we? Might as well appreciate it now because it's not like I'll ever be able to afford a cleaning lady! Thanks J-School!

Español para la gente que puede entender (Spanish for those who understand)

Empecé el día con el clipping y trabajo de Brenda. Fue para un sitio de web que se llama Espacio Forum, negocios para pensar eventos corporativos y empresariales. Busqué información en los salarios para estos personas, y fue más de $60 mil! Es posible que todavía puedo hacerlo en el futuro! Este proyecto tomaba mucho del día, y el resto de la oficina charlaba y hablaba un poco de los fines de semana y más. Miguel gritó KATI! y me mostró videos de la Copa Mundial en 1986 para probar la importancia de fútbol en la Guerra de los 1980s. Explicó la situación y me fascina fenomenal mirar su feliz cuando miraba el video, y toda la oficina conoce a la situación. Después, almorzaba con Brenda y Vane y hablamos de nuestros fines de semana, vida en Argentina y más. Me encanta pasar tiempo con ellas.

En términos de comida, ayer Jordin y yo comimos choripan, una mezcla de chorizo y pan. Chorizo es carne y fue como un perro caliente muy bien. Como los fotos ayer, también comimos manzanas con dulce y palomitas. Hoy, tengo mi bocadillo favorito para el viaje. Es el yogur de dulce de leche con OREOS que compré en la discoteca! Mmm. En otras noticias, la casa está tan limpia porque Monica, la mujer de limpio, vino hoy para el primer tiempo. Me encanta!

El jardín botánico

It’s a beautiful fall day in Buenos Aires, contrary to what I thought when I saw the darkness on my way to work at 7:30 a.m. I walked into the office at 9, and much to my surprise was the only one there. Although work always starts at 9, porteños are known to be casually late, so my co-workers didn’t arrive until almost 10 a.m. After the clipping and a translation, I continued the Excel sheet from yesterday with more researching on IGT—International Game Technology—and NetApp—cloud computing software and storage.

My boss’s boss, Miguel, was in the main room with us and wanted to get to know me this afternoon. He gave me credit for not really having a summer since it’s late fall-winter in Argentina. He also wanted me to teach Martín, one of his employees, English, which is funny because Martín gets mad at me because I can’t understand his voice in Spanish. It sounds like that of a raspy, Argentine, mumbling smoker; you can’t blame me on this one. He proceeded to say what he knew in broken English: "Hi, my name is Martín. I have 26 years." In Spanish, stating your age uses the verb tener- to have. I taught him how we say "am" and use am, are, is, etc for that. Oh the differences across languages.

We had a mate circle at work, meaning the mate cup keeps going around the room until everyone is caffeinated enough to stay awake. It was a relaxing day and I leave at 2 p.m. on Fridays, so I stopped for some dulce de leche ice cream on my way back. Last Sunday, my roommates went to Plaza Italia while I was at church, a park area in Palermo, so I figured I’d explore there today.

“El Rosedal” is a gorgeous botanic garden right in between Palermo & Recoleta, so I walked around the lake and brought a book to read at the botanic garden. They event rent rollerblades here, but the idea of having another broken arm this summer has stopped me from taking up that opportunity. The park not only circles a lake where you can paddle boat, but also has beautiful flowers, palm trees and gazebos everywhere. Everything’s blossoming because it’s fall, and I love just sitting and people watching. There’s everything from people with cameras (only some tourists though), family photoshoots, couples walking around, kids walking home from school to old people enjoying the park. This will definitely be somewhere I plan on returning to!

Stacey and I went to our first tango show tonight, more on that tomorrow. Here are some pictures of El Rosedal!

The view from my bench where I read for a bit

Flowers and birds

The lovely lake!

I just love the shadows in this picture, and the overhang

around this section of the lake.

Trabajo trabajo trabajo

Work duties of the day

• I did the clipping perfectly this morning and finally have the art of news tracking for clients down in minutes!
• Two translations (it really is helping my Spanish!)
• Brenda, my boss, sent me an Excel file and explained that I'd be researching for one of our clients, Mobilis. Mobilis manufactures kitchen supplies and furniture in La Plata, Argentina- an area in Buenos Aires but outside of the main city, and designs rooms as well. My project was to compile a list of websites (with no previous experience of this industry or area) to advertise these products on, and find prominent webpages to provide coverage for Mobilis. Once again, how would I start this in English? I don't know anything about kitchen installations and architecture in English...now in Spanish? My first thought was to look at Mobilis's Facebook friends and see what I could find Googling them and analyzing the content on their profiles. It worked well, because it led my research to finding over 30 sites!
• After this, I started the groundwork for social media plans for three of our clients- Mobilis, NetApp, and IGT (International Game Techonology- for video games). All of them have Facebook and Twitter profiles made, but Entercomm wants to analyze how the competitors use social media. The main issue with the language barrier and international internship: I'm not familiar with these organizations, what their presence is in Buenos Aires and who their competitors are. I researched some background information on how they are in the US (especially NetApp & IGT) on Yahoo Finance to have a point of comparison, and proceeded to search for competitors. On the Excel sheet, I recorded the links to social media, what the organization posts and how many friends or followers they have.
• In Argentina and a lot of Latin America, many companies with Facebooks have accounts where you add them as friends and not fan pages. Some incredibly large companies have less than 100 friends, and it made me realize what a bubble I'm in as an American, as a journalism student and as someone who keeps up with company news. It's unheard of at this point for your business to not have an active Facebook page where customers can interact, but that's still developing here. I'm interested in seeing how this continues through my time here, because according to Clarín, Argentina is one of the countries with the most residents registering for Facebook in the last month. My competitive mindset also makes me glad that our clients are able to surpass our competitors in terms of friends and followers :).

Lunch conversations (conversaciones durante el almuerzo)

Lunch is a big deal at Entercomm. At 1 p.m. on the dot every day, everyone who didn't bring food orders delivery and around 2 or 2:30, we go downstairs, sit outside by the unused pool and eat for an hour. Even when we finish eating early, this is strictly social time. It's where I learn a lot about their culture and my co-workers ask a lot about the US, so it's a good tradeoff. It's also fun being the only intern because I represent an influence of not only Mizzou and Chicago, but the US to them--so I enjoy that these conversations are meaningful.

• Tuesday they asked me where I live at school, and because they didn't seem to understand the concept of a sorority, I told them I lived in a house with a group of 100 girls. They brought that up again today and asked if this system fights a lot like they portray it in the movies. I explained that it's exaggerated....haha!
• They also asked if all the popular people at school are the ones who play soccer and cheerleading like American television shows tell it, which made me laugh for multiple reasons. I think the co-worker that asked, Martin, meant to say "fooball," but he heard "fútbol" as soccer and assumed that was what they meant. I told him this was an exaggeration as well!
• I explained how Columbia is a college town with only 100,000 residents, and they wondered what we did on the weekends. Being at Mizzou with such an active Greek community and being involved in activities that determine my schedule, I had a hard time answering what a typical weekend is like. Definitely something to think about!

Catedral

Since I work pretty late hours, I don't have as much time to roam the city during the day, so I took a new way home to go explore Catedral and Plaza de Mayo again. I actually made it into Catedral not only to see the art museum and stations, but for one of the masses. It was absolutely beautiful and awesome to know that I can just go here whenever I want!

BREAKING NEWS: Stacey's vida es un chiste (life is a joke)

Stacey was informed yesterday that her second internship fell through, and assigned to a new TV station. Her first project is to complete a documentary (with a camera of lower quality than she is used to) and she went to the station today to meet the group. The director had her play name games in Spanish with a group of people who were taking theater classes during the day, and she became acquainted with them. If that's not funny enough, she later discovered that this documentary would cover how this group of individuals are people from jail who receive passes during the day to take improvisational theater classes. Criminals. That are still in jail.

Do this to the girl who has already had her wallet stolen and issues with keys. It sounds like a cool cultural experience and Elizabeth and I hope to go watch her film the theater practices someday! I'm excited for this weekend because I'll FINALLY have time to explore, tango and more!

Las boutiques!

Wednesday is the one day I don't have any obligations until 2 p.m., so I decided to go boutique shopping after catching up on some sleep. The dangerous part was that I did this alone--no friends as barriers to tell me to not spend my money. We only live two blocks from the Subway station and walk past these shops everyday, but never have time to actually look. I probably entered at least 15 stores, and am already in love. Scarves are very popular (especially because it's winter), and you could buy cashmere scarves at "2 for 35 pesos", that's about $4 USD for each scarf!

Boutiques have the reputation in the United States of being fairly expensive and upper class, and are probably similar here because of the neighborhood we live in, Recoleta. But the prices demonstrate the lower cost of living in Argentina because an average, cute long-sleeve shirt was anywhere from 30 to 80 pesos--$7.50 to $20 US dollars. How great is that?! It was nice to check them out at my own pace for the afternoon.

I started work on the Artemisa Naturaleza blog today with Carolina, our trip advisor who does freelance work for Artemisa Noticias. After making some corrections and adding an ecological moment from an Argentinean actress, I made two Powerpoints in both Spanish and English that present what Artemisa Naturaleza is.

One challenge with journalistic work in general is that bosses themselves do not always know what they want, and give you some free reign but definitely hold some sort of expectation. Therefore, it can be difficult to fulfill this with an international internship is because if the boss is unclear what he or she wants and does not communicate it in Spanish, how am I supposed to decide what to do or figure out what you want in English? These types of challenges will be more difficult to overcome with Artemisa than Entercomm because of the nature of the projects.

Jordin, Stacey and I headed to Mostaza, the cheapest place within walking distance of our 6 p.m. class. The most exciting part of this dinner was that I bought a dulce de leche soft serve ice cream cone for only $1, and it tasted phenomenal! We had to run though with barely 20 minutes to eat and get back.

Our first journalism seminar was tonight, where we learn about issues in Latin American journalism and learn about Argentina's issues in the industry. We analyzed each main publication and it's reputability, and learned a lot about how negative government relations exist with the press. These poor relations go all the way back to Argentina's problems in the late 1970s, and continue past the economic downfall in 2001. The views are so extreme that mainstream newspapers will make fun of Argentina's female president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, in hard news articles. Although the seminar is not what I originally anticipated, it will be interesting to gain this knowledge and analyze international journalism.

As I look at my productivity list to accomplish over the summer, I realize how much my life will change in the next year. Next semester will be filled with an intense Management of Strategic Communication course of group projects, Centennial Homecoming events, vice president work, planning Relay For Life...oh yeah, and applying for grad school. The J-School's master of arts in journalism (strategic communication) requires me to score 1000 on the GRE and write three essays (among other easy logistical things) before December. Considering I didn't know what the sections of the GRE were until about an hour ago, this will require some preparation. I found this awesome website with free GRE practice exams and already feel more intelligent. I'm adding 10 GRE questions a day to my to-do list.

Now, off to bed to wake up for early morning Spanish! Buenas noches!

And it's already the end of ma-jo

My body is finally adjusting to living in Argentina, now that I eat breakfast at 7 a.m., lunch at 3 p.m. and dinner at 10 p.m. Sleeping? Ha. Completing a 12-hour semester during the summer has its drawbacks, but is definitely worth it.

If you ever want to see me stressed, impatient and/or freaking out—wait for public transportation with me. Our bus did not show up to the stop for a good 15 minutes, and it took us 45 minutes to get to school. Arriving barely on time to Spanish, we learned about payadas, a South American tradition where men with guitars improvise rhyming songs in a call and answer style. Honestly, they just remind me of rap battles but more classy, competitive and in Spanish. How awesome!

Tuesdays are the day where I don't come home for 14 hours--leaving the house at 7 a.m. for class and getting back from work and a gender seminar course around 9 p.m. I'm loving Entercomm more and more each day, as I get to know my coworkers, complete projects and feel satisfied after every English-Spanish translation. Today's work stories include...

• Clipping- I'm sure I'll start with this everyday, because it's not the most desirable job, but I once again find it fun and accomplishing to dig up the news on all of the clients. It's like an investigation game. See how much news you can find with our company's name that's in Spanish and published in Argentina--go!!
• Google Reader- I created a GoogleReader tablet for the additional bookmarks like blogs and websites specifically in Argentina that Google doesn't always recognize (like .ar pages) to search for company names. Thank goodness for this invention, it saves me about an hour of searching through websites.
• Translations- I started off by translating a British Telecom advertisement for World Environment Day on June 5 from Spanish to English. Next, I translated a five-page document with a lot of technological terms from NetApp and its new software security programs. When I'm doing this, I still do not believe it's real life. I feel like a Spanish teacher just told me to do this to practice...but it's not. It will actually help some Spanish speaker understand what the article means. Very satisfying.
• Lunch- I ate lunch with three of the women at Entercomm, my boss Brenda, a designer named Vanessa, and the secretary. We had a great conversation and they are always interested in learning about my endeavors in Argentina and the United States, Chicago and Mizzou are like. Sometimes I think they ask me questions just to help me improve my Spanish, which is very courteous. I realized the reason I understand the women from Argentina so much better than the men is because the men tend to mumble more; it's not even related to slowing down. Since the workplace in Argentina is a bit more relaxed (that's an understatement), Vanessa, Brenda and I went on a 15-minute walk around Puerto Madero after lunch to power up for the rest of the afternoon. Why am I living a dream?
• Brenda said she used my headers and copywriting for the construction group in California's new website and that they were what she needed!
• Spanish story of the day: Martín, one of the Entercomm employees, just got back from vacationing to London and Spain. He was making fun of some of the English words he learned, and the whole office got a kick out of the word mattress. I don't know why they thought it was so funny, but they checked with me to make sure he learned the right word. Colchón means mattress in Spanish, and they just all thought it was hilarious.

From work, I walked to the Mizzou office building (about 15 minutes down the same street, my pretty Puerto Madero walk along the water) for the first night of my Women & Gender Studies course with Carolina. The decision to take this course makes me so happy I chose to go to Mizzou, because it's just our teacher and three students. I like having the opportunity to take classes of a variety of sizes and especially in such a controversial topic to some, it's great that we can discuss and ask whatever we would like. The syllabus emphasizes gender roles in the media and in South America, touching on the US and Latin America as well. As a person who already respects feminist ideals, I'm really excited for our lessons and discussions!

T.G.I. Friday's- Buenos Aires

The Friday's is right next to the Mizzou office; it was only a matter of time until I tried it. Being starved after class, Elizabeth and I went in to see the menu. It happened to be Happy Hour (2 for 1 appetizers and drinks) so we got these beautiful mojitos! Yes, I can order drinks at a Friday's for once in my life. The service charge also included bread and a salsa-type sauce, how funny. Other than those two things, everything else was just about the same with the prices hiked up. My Sesame Jack Chicken Strips had the perfect JD glaze and tasted great as usual. The menu was a year or two behind, but even the uniforms were the same. Oh Friday's.

Mojitos and bread from Friday's- Buenos Aires

We took a new route to the Subte and walked past the Casa Rosada (pink house) on Plaza de Mayo! Look how beautiful it is at night.

Casa Rosada

Argentine Dialect

Although the Spanish accent here is incredibly different and even called castellano, emphasizing J-sounds instead of L's and Y's, I finally realized today how much it makes sense. A lot of the Y's specifically are included in Spanish words where Americans have Js. Look at these examples!

• Proyecto (Spanish) --> project (English) --> projecto (Castellano)
• Mayoría (Spanish) --> majority (English) --> majoría (Castellano)

Argentines are not just weird, they're in SOUTH AMERICA so they're picking up on American sounds rather than European sounds. I get it! Obviously the Y still applies to words like May * mayo (Spanish) --> majo (Castellano), * but it makes so much sense now.

Have a great first day of June!

First day of work/empezar la pasantía

I don’t drink coffee or tea, but did discover the first over-caffeinated morning beverage I like: mate. Mate is a popular South American drink served in calabaza like the one below, or a calabash gourd. In it, you place yerbas (a mixture of herbs) and periodically add hot water, drinking it out of the straw/bombilla. There are even different flavored herbs, such as pomelo (grapefruit)!

Mate

Everyone at Entercomm drinks it to get powered up in the morning, and they graciously shared it with me.

I took the bus to work at 7:15 a.m. to arrive early my first day, and proceeded into the 3^rd floor office at Puerto Madero to meet Brenda, my boss. As the regional officer for this office, she gave me a brief rundown on what the company does and who each of its clients were. They specialize in software companies throughout Latin America, but work with others as well—such as a construction website, a group in England and more.

Entercomm’s four big services are:

• Digital Marketing
• Image and Design
• Media and Content
• Corporate Events

I met each of the ~eight employees as they walked in, each who greeted me and everyone else in the room with a kiss on the cheek. I’m sure they were happy to see an intern because hey, I’m at their disposal for free labor! Sol, one of the copywriters, was ecstatic that I could do the translating. Two of the women worked on design, two were account executives, Brenda was the regional officer, and a secretary and manager of the location had offices downstairs. As you enter the office, the manager and secretary have their large desks and windows, and upstairs is a small room with eight computers and chairs lined on the two walls. It’s a lot more open and interactive than America’s cubicle environment, which I liked. Pablo who sat next to me played U2 and Beatles music all morning, so it was amusing to hear a porteño sing or hymn along in perfect English. Brenda and the rest of the employees passed projects onto me as I completed each one.

Some of my tasks for the day included:

• Copywriting headlines and subheaders for a new website they’re creating for a client in California
• “Clipping” –creating a document for each client of all of the news articles in which their name appears in the past 24 hours (or on a Monday, over the weekend). This involves a lot of intense Googling and searching on websites!
• Translated the copy for two advertisements, one English to Spanish and the other Spanish to English
• Researching video and information for slot machines from IGT, international game technology

I’ve never felt so accomplished about completing work as I did today, especially with instructions entirely in Spanish, or castellano (Spanish with an Argentine dialect). My Spanish probably improved a ton just today. I understood most of the instructions given to me, and the employees said I speak well, but I just need to work on keeping up with fast-paced conversation. The office ate lunch together around 3 p.m. (typical Argentina lunch), where I learned that it’s hard for me to pick up on what everything means unless I’m listening to my full potential—eye contact and everything. I couldn’t eat my lunch and understand every spoken word. My goal is to change this by the end of the summer. After 30 hours of work a week, I think this is achievable.

My walk to work is prettier than yours...ha

Challenges of the day

• My boss asked me: desayunaste? – Did you eat breakfast? --> But in castellano, it sounds like: Des-a-jun-as-te? --> It took me a good five minutes to understand what my coworker was saying, and then I did in fact tell her that I ate breakfast. Haha.
• In an effort to finally fix our router, the landlord came in and took it out today. We went to Freddo where we frequently use WiFi for free, and it didn't work =O. So now I'm sitting at an ice cream shop / heladería using its internet. So we had to buy ice cream. #darn
• Inspiration: This is a study I found on Mashable regarding social media distractions. Despite the fact that I'm working for free, it's what keeps me from checking any social media or email while I'm at my internship.

The Intern Queen!

This Tuesday, Lauren Berger, also known as "The Intern Queen," came to speak at Mizzou's Trulaske College of Business for the professional development program. Some of our chapter members realized that Lauren is a Phi Mu alum from Florida State University, and invited her over to the house.

Lauren gave an hourlong presentation about the importance of internships, while incorporating her experiences working 15 internships in her college career. She had fascinating stories demonstrating the significance of persistence and follow-through, which I truly admire her for. She gave advice on sending e-mails, telling people you value their time and saying thank you, as well as discussing proper interview etiquette for the phone, Skype, in-person and Starbucks interview settings.

She founded The Intern Queen two years ago after working at an agency in Los Angeles, as a database for current students to find internships. Right now, it is completely free and companies pay the organization to post internships there. Lauren travels and has spoken across the country, but is based out of southern California.

Since she was a Phi Mu alum, some of our members stayed after to take a picture with her and thank her for the presentation. I chose to stay until audience members finished asking her questions, realizing that we had no idea how she would find our sorority house by herself, nonetheless park and maneuver campus. We got in her car and I asked her what she thought of campus, and she hadn't even seen it. We proceeded to take a driving tour, take some cell phone pictures to picture mail them out and tour Chi chapter's home.

Lauren and I posing by the fireplace

It was a great opportunity to not only hear Lauren speak, but hang out with someone so professional and receive internship advice!