Hey there,
My Name is Natalie, I am 22 years old and i am a student at Fortis Akademie Gruena (Chemnitz, its in Saxony, Germany). I am a trainee for Assistant Graphic Design in Multimedia and Communication. There i learned how to take pictures and edit them in Photoshop. I also learned how to create Logos, Flyers and something like that. We also dealed with 2D and 3D animations and we can create websites with flash.
I hope to achieve more confidence through my placement. I think I can get a insight, how the things are going on in a company abroad. And very important for me is to improve my knowledge, my pronouncing and getting a little bit better in contact with other people.
When I am back in my home country i would like to go on holiday. I want to meet my friends and spend time with them, because 4 weeks away from home is a very long time, and we have many things to fetch later.
In the future I want to do something with photography. I enjoy taking pictures very much. I don't know whether I shoot people or landscapes, i only want to take pictures, edit them and sale them.
I think it would be more fun to shoot people and not only stagnant landscapes.
In my freetime I like meeting friends, going to the cinema, or surfing on the internet. I have a cat named Helene and I like it to play with her and also to cuddle with her. I enjoy playing computergames. I am a very active person, I go outside for walks or meet friends for swimming or shopping.
There are many things that inspire me. First of all my cat. Sometimes I look at her and then I get great ideas. When I look out my window it inspires me also a lot and it also helps me to search something on the internet.
My life philosophy is, not to give up if its getting a little bit difficult. Just ask, there are many people who can help you if you have a question.
Day of Arrival
I just packed my things a day before the travel starts. I don't like it to do it over weeks and plan all the things I would like to take with me. If I missed something I' ll not be dying.
So i packed my things just on sunday, after i brought my cat to a friend. It is very hard to pack things, when the cat is just jumping around and burrow through my things.
On Monday I just pack the things in my bag, I used the evening before or in the morning. Like my thoothbrush, my laptop and my camera. My suitcase ( a big red hard protective case) was two kilos to heavy (we are only allowed tohave 20 kilos of weight for the flight) so Marcus packed a few things in his suitcase, so i wasn't over the 20 kilos.
We met in Chemnitz at the bus terminal and went by van to the airport. It only takes an hour and we arrived in Dresden at the airport. I was very nervous. Ok, it wasn't my first flight. Two years ago I flew to Majorca. But as i sat in the plane I wasn't that nervous anymore. It wasn't that bad as I thought it would be.
In London everything was so big, even the Airport was not as small as in Dresden. I feelt a little bit overwhelmed, everything was so hudge, everything looks different than in Germany, everywhere new things to discover.
We met somebody from Embrace in the lobby and then went by Underground and Train to our house. It was very hard to carry the heavy suitcases and also the handluggage through London, in the rushhour!
The house looked very great at a first glance, but we had to clean the bathroom and the kitchen before we used it. I think it was nearly ok, but not the german standart we are inured.
My room:
I have a room for my own, because there was a room free, so I decided to go alone in one room.
I like it, because i don't have consideration for anybody. So I can watch a film, or dance in the room and don't disturb anybody, it is like at home ;).
My placement is Ininks Design Studio. Theresa is also on this placement, so we can go together to Eurolink Business Center. It only takes us 20 minutes by bus. And we don't need to change bus.
Daily Travel and Placement
The placement is at Eurolink Business center and we can get by bus to our placement. It is a huge building with many offices inside. There are three Buses we can use. The number 432, number 2 and also number 196. And get out of the bus at St. Matthews Estate.
In the morning the bus isn't that full. We always get a seat to sit down. We start our work at 10 a.m. and we can go home at 5.30 p.m.
When we go home the bus is sometimes very full, we had to stand with our heavy laptop bags, but it's only 20 minutes bus, so it isn't that bad.
I like going by Underground, because in Chemnitz we don't have a Underground. It is so fast and we can get everywhere in London.
At Ininks we do some menial work. So we exempt a picture from the background, resize pictures or create templates for businesscards or letterheads.
The placement is a commercial organisation. They do designs, websites and brandings.
The people of Ininks are all very nice. If we have questions we can just ask everything. Sometimes it is very hard with the language, sometimes they speak very fast and i didn't get everything. There is also the missunderstanding. We thought, that we had understand what we have to do, but we missunderstanded it and did something wrong.
Home from Home
In the House we cook in little groups. I only buy food wich is frozen and i only put it in the microwave to "cook" it. We also go in little groups shopping. Together we buy things like milk and bread ( i wouldn't call it bread xD).
It is always a little bit hard with the cleaning. We do have a dishwasher, but it is very tiny. We are 9 persons and 9 persons need many dishes and cups so the dishwasher has every day work. But there are also many dishes that we have to clean by hand, and not every one does it. We were afforded to wash our dishes on our own but not everyone do this.
In Germany i live in a flat share so for me it is not really a conversion. Maybe a little bit, because here in London we are 9 persons in one household and in germany i have only one flatmate.
Sometimes it is a little bit hard, because we only have one bathroom.
I enjoy, that there is everytimes anybody there. If you want to talk, go to the kitchen, there is anybody. We watch together films, eat our meals together or simply sitting together and talk.
Weekly Lessions
Our teacher Nick is a very funny guy. He always makes jokes. In the first week we had a lesson about guidelines, the rules in the house, health and safety and also safety in London.
We were told to make a blog (which I write now xD), to work on our Life Dream (I just started it yesterday, three days before I have to hold it) and to write our weekly reports. I really don’t know what to write about, I just wrote a few things.
We learned much about tenses, we had to hold presentations about a product, I chose the computer game “Plants vs. Zombies”. It was quite hard to chose a product. First I thought of an umbrella with a hole, but I didn’t know whether the product could also be imagined and funny, so I decided to take a game that I like very much.
On Wednesday the 19th of January we had our first meeting in the office of Ininks. I was really nervous, because I didn’t know what to say or to do on the first day. It was only a talk, something like a job interview. Our supervisor wanted to know something about us, what we want to do after our apprenticeship, what we want to become in our life. So I noticed that every nervousness was unfounded.
Free Time Activities
In our freetime we did many things. We visited the national galleries, but we were there a little bit late, only 30 minutes in the museum.
We also visited the British Museum.
It was very interesting. We saw mummies, old Japanese paintings and also Egypt sculptures.
We were also in the cinema. We watched Avatar in 3D in the Imax in Waterloo. The screen is very huge, it is 26 meters long. Before the film started, there was some advertising, just in the size of the normal cinemascreen. It was a little bit scary how small it actually is. When I sit in the normal cinema, I think that the screen is quite huge, but the difference is amazing.
Only with Saskia I visited the London Bridge Experience and the London Tomps.
“The London Bridge Experience is a great interactive experience spanning the history of the bridge with the periods acted out by characters of the time. It is a fun family attraction that’s both historical and hysterical”
The others were such chicken. It wasn’t that scary at the end. The London Bridge Experience was something about the history of the bridge.
And we also shopped very often. On one day we were at Camden town. There are really a lot of shops and also a lot of people, too.
On the 6th of February there was the Chinese new year. So we went to Chinatown. There were music, food and many many people. We watched a dragon going from shop to shop to get something like a sacrifice which was a dumpling filled with salad.
We got to these places normally by bus and underground. I enjoy going by underground, because we don’t have it in Chemnitz.
I enjoyed the trip to British museum the most. I liked these old things and how good they are obtained.
Also Avatar was very great. I saw the film in Germany, but I think the originally synchro is always the best.
So this was my internship in London. I liked it very much, and everytime I' ll get the chance to come back to London I'll do it without thinking. I love the town, and maybe sometimes i will live there.
