Today was my first official day of my internship. Yesterday I woke at 5 a.m. and drove to San Antonio to make it for my orientation at 1 p.m. Please note that not only was it my first solo road-trip, but also my first time to San Antonio, so ultimately it was a pretty adventurous day on my part. After orientation I maneuvered my way out of downtown San Antonio and headed to my relative’s house (she’s either my second or third cousin, I can’t remember which) where I will be staying for the two days of the week that I’m in town. Why only two days, you may ask? Because I will be commuting weekly to SA from Dallas so that I can work a paying part-time job and manage my tendency to get extremely homesick. That being said, so far my time here has been pretty fun.

My first day:

7 A.M. I woke up early because I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get from where I’m staying to downtown SA in morning traffic. Turns out it didn’t take long, which gave me time to walk to the CVS from the parking garage to purchase band-aids for my mutilated feet (I only brought one pair of business flats and they don’t do well long-term).

9 A.M. I arrived at my place of temporary employment and checked in with the receptionist, got my parking tab validated (free parking!) and dropped my lunch and purse off in the internship room, then took my laptop to the creative department and plopped myself down next to my copywriting mentor, Kevin. My first assignment? Write a press release, of course! Have I ever written a press release? Nope, but I gave it my best and promptly got a fist-pump from Kevin after I sent him my draft.

10:30 A.M. I was informed that I was in charge of collaborating on client birthday cards with the graphic design interns and started researching “This Day in History” tidbits that I have to write funny quips about. There are several different dates throughout the next 3 months that I have to research, so I figured I’d get a head start.

11:00 A.M. Got to sit in on a creative meeting between my mentor, his Art Director, and the Account Exec for their client. It was pretty cool, getting to actually witness what I learn about in class. Kevin explained what the brief was and the client’s comments after the first pitch.

11:30 A.M. Got invited to go to the birthday lunch of one of the employees. Although I had brought my lunch, I figured I should probably take the offer and joined my mentor, the birthday girl, and five or six other employees at a cool Mexican food restaurant off the River Walk. It was a bit awkward, considering I didn’t know anyone and I’m naturally pretty reticent (believe it or not), but I tried to add my two cents and even got to use the agency knowledge I learned in Advertising Literacy in conversation.

12:30 P.M. Was asked by Kevin if I wanted to try to write some outdoor headlines for the client they were discussing earlier – which honestly kind of freaked me out, but I’m not gonna say no on my first day, or ever for that matter!

1:00 P.M. Wrote 8-10 headlines, but Kevin is MIA… maybe he took his Employee Wellness Initiative optional wellness hour… So I went back to History research and awaited his return.

1:30 P.M.  Kevin came back and I sent him my headlines. He said they looked good. And then I finished shortening some quotes for the same assignment. He said they looked good. I don’t really know if they’re gonna use any of the things I wrote or if he just wanted to give me practice. But I did it. And that’s what counts.

2:00 P.M. Kevin kind of ran out of things for me to do so he sent me to the intern room to see if the computer they provided me (already programmed to access my agency-issued email and the agency server) would work better than mine. I went up stairs and found one of the graphic design interns and chatted with him a bit and ate a small snack (part of my “wellness” hour, I have decided) then looked at the archaic PC with my name on it and decided that I’d much prefer my own laptop – it would just be easier that way.

2:30 P.M. I spent the next bit of time doing more history research and observing the creative department play pool, send eachother funny videos, pass on projects, and ask for client updates. I then realized that Kevin is the only copywriter in a department of 1 Art Director and 2-3 Graphic Designers and I kind of felt bad because I assume he writes the copy for every client. Way to go, Kevin!

4:30 P.M. One of the Creatives (the department DJ) decided that the only way to purge Justin Beiber out of his brain (he has kids) was to play it for the office. So I rocked out to “Baby” and told the story of how my little brother just got Beiber-ized.

5:00 P.M. Left the office, walked to the parking garage – didn’t get complimented by hobos this time unfortunately – and drove “home” in rush-hour traffic which turned the 30 minutes it took me to get to work this morning into an hour. Oh well, I got to listen to the Easy Listening radio channel (one of my programmed favorites in Dallas is apparently something totally different in SA) that is the closest I get to having broadway radio, so I enjoyed myself.

Tomorrow I go in all day again and am trying to set up a meeting with my fellow interns to discuss our newsletter assignment due in June that has to serve as an introduction of ourselves to the agency – ofcourse, as copywriter, I have to write it. Which is awesome, but I’m only here 2 days a week so we need to brainstorm while I’m here. My vote is a super-hero comic strip!