It's taken a while, but after one
month, a few linguistic misunderstandings, several rainforests' worth
of paperwork, and the odd helpful contribution to the office, I think I might finally be getting the hang of this whole
working-in-a-foreign-country thing.
I'm interning at the Goethe Zentrum, the
Bologna branch of the Goethe Institut, a huge organisation
responsible for promoting German culture and providing German
language courses. The reasoning behind this was that I wanted to keep my German up whilst living in Italy and get some experience of work in the cultural sector, and in those aspects it's been a success. But being the only person there with neither German nor Italian as my native language, there's the danger of work that's either way above my linguistic level and therefore terrifying, or just boring as they're not sure what I'll be able to manage. The Bologna office is small with only three permanent members of staff, but fairly chaotic nonetheless, and they've not managed to find time to give me much of an explanation of what my role actually is. But after a bit of time to suss out, along with the other interns, how the office works and how we're supposed to help, I'm now being trusted with more responsible and interesting tasks - as well as the obligatory occasional photocopying sesh.
As it's the start of the academic year, the Institut is busy at the moment with all the new students signing up for the year, and we have to give them the relevant information, examine them to test their level, and fill out approximately five million forms. Although the Italian students probably don't appreciate having their German examined by an English girl with a very iffy accent, this is one of my favourite jobs, not only because I can act all teacher-y with my red pen and examiners' booklet, but because I'm hoping that correcting their mistakes is going to drill the German grammar rules into my head, something seven years of learning the language hasn't yet achieved.
As it's the start of the academic year, the Institut is busy at the moment with all the new students signing up for the year, and we have to give them the relevant information, examine them to test their level, and fill out approximately five million forms. Although the Italian students probably don't appreciate having their German examined by an English girl with a very iffy accent, this is one of my favourite jobs, not only because I can act all teacher-y with my red pen and examiners' booklet, but because I'm hoping that correcting their mistakes is going to drill the German grammar rules into my head, something seven years of learning the language hasn't yet achieved.
As well as the language courses,
the Goethe Institut organises cultural events throughout the
year, from concerts to talks to film screenings, and I've been
helping to get these sorted for the next few months. This has
involved putting together the programme for the term and
contacting the musicians or speakers to confirm details, as well as
researching potential films (including the charmingly titled
'Fickende Fische') and ordering food for the Institut's open day. The
latter task reminded me of Year 9 German lessons where you'd plan a
shopping list for a party, but somehow evolved into a herculean task
as none of the staff seemed familiar with online ordering and
struggled to come to terms with the concept of a username, all of
which was quite entertaining for me and the other two interns - I
think we earned some serious respect from the boss for solving this
conundrum for them. This weekend the Institut hosted a concert by a
youth orchestra from Leipzig, so I helped to make programmes, set up the event, welcome people and explain a bit
about the Goethe Institut in the hybrid German-Italian that seems to be the office's lingua franca.
There's also the inevitable deluge of
admin and errands – filing, phonecalls, emails, and multiple trips
to the post office and coffee bar (being Italy, it's an unpaid
internship if you exclude the Erasmus grant, but coffee/juice
expenses are covered, something I am taking full advantage of). Not
exactly glamorous perhaps, but the post office lady, barista and I are
practically besties at this stage, and I've finally got the hang of both the fiendish photocopier and my Italian 'phone voice'. The obvious benefit
of a bilingual German-Italian office is that I don't hear a word of
English all day, and even the more tedious tasks have the bonus of
picking up exciting new vocab such as 'mark as spam' 'photocopy this
front and back' and 'can I please speak to someone who knows what
they're talking about?'...Only joking (sort of) but I do feel a
ridiculously huge sense of achievement every time I successfully
manage to give someone the information/paperwork/translation they
asked for!
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