1 Week Down, 13 More To Go

I survived my first week in Boston! It was busy, and exhausting, and slightly confusing, but more than anything else it was a very good start to my time here.

Now, because I know what everyone is wondering, I’ll cut to the most important part: yes, I have already eaten a lot of cheese in my three short days of working; and yes, we get to take home as much free cheese as is left over from our tastings. My deadly sin is gluttony, so the next three months will be a serious test of my restraint.

With that settled, here is a summary of what my new job is like:

As of right now, I am not yet living in my apartment. My lease doesn’t start until September 29, so I found a family in the Boston suburb of Watertown that was nice enough to let me stay in their guest house for two weeks. The house is comfortable and safe, and the family has been very kind and welcoming, so it’s a great temporary situation! The only downside is that I have a roughly hour and a half commute to work, and that’s a little bit of a drag (especially for the girl who is physically incapable of functioning before 9am…and 9 might be pushing it if I’m being completely honest. This is what a summer of unemployment does to a person.)

For reference, here is a map of where I’m currently living (the purple dot) and where I work (the red dot). The arrows are more or less the route I take to get between the two places: The good thing about my long commute is that I switch buses right in front of the gates to Harvard, which isn’t too shabby of a place to see everyday. I haven’t walked around the campus yet; I’m the midst of arranging a tour with an “insider”, who happens to be one of Luke’s friends that is a Freshman at Harvard.

Taking the bus versus the slightly faster subway is also a lot of fun because it goes across a bridge that has an awesome view of downtown Boston: As far as exploring the city goes, I haven’t gotten to do too much of that so far. It will definitely be easier to wander around once I’m living closer to all the action! For now, though, I’m able to focus all my attention on work, which is already very hectic.

Because this magazine is a fairly small publication (with a full-time staff of six employees), interns actually have to do a lot of important and valuable work, which is why I was willing to come all this way for the job in the first place. My duties include writing daily content for the website, managing the magazine’s social media presence, and researching and writing my own series of blog articles. It also turns out that Culture’s current editor has a new job, and there is no one in line to replace her yet; which means the remaining full-time staff have a lot of extra work on their plate right now, giving us interns the opportunity to write and edit articles that will be in the next issue of the magazine.

The office is a really fun environment. It’s located on the top floor of a converted industrial building, and the space was formerly the location of The Harvard Common Press. Now, it’s known as The Food Loft and there are a few other small, food-related companies that share the floor with us. There are shelves and shelves and shelves of books leftover from the Press days, and it is decorated with a lot of…interesting artwork.

That funny little Mexican dragon thing is my co-worker, Harvey.

There is also a policy on the floor that anything in the refrigerator that has already been taste-tested by one of the companies is totally up for grabs. I have yet to take advantage of that perk, but I will definitely do so in the future when I don’t have to commute with gourmet food in my purse.

But in spite of all the office space distractions, I have been able to accomplish some work! Here are my first two short pieces that are up on the website:

Secrets of the French Raw Milk Movement

Political Cheddar

I would like the record to reflect that I absolutely did not pick the picture that goes along with “Political Cheddar”. It just really, really bothers me that there is a picture of blue cheese under a title that includes the word “cheddar”. That doesn’t make any sense at all.

Last thing for today: If you’re on Facebook, consider liking Culture Magazine’s page, because I manage that now! Yay for social media, right? You can get to the page by clicking here. Help me beat the three other interns! They are each responsible for managing either Twitter, Tumblr, or Google+, and basically I just want to be better at social media management than they are by having more activity on Culture’s Facebook page!

Tags: Boston, cheese, food, travel, work