Wrap-ups and New Adventures Around the City

This was my second to last week at FJ! The summer has gone by so quickly. Besides the usual copyediting and proofreading, I attempted to start wrapping up the things I’ve been working on. The milestones project I’m in charge of has been progressing rather slowly. It's a tedious task and with all the other things we’ve been working on it hasn’t really been a priority. Presently, we’re part way through each decade, so I don't think it's feasible to try to finish this summer. However, I took some time this week to write down directions and guidelines, and I think the project will be easy for other interns to pick it up wherever we leave off. (Above: Taking in the View During Lunch)

Despite my wrapping-up efforts new projects keep presenting themselves (which I don't really mind--it's nice to have lots of new things to try). At the beginning of this week my supervisor introduced yet another new, interesting project for the interns to work on: transcribing a talk given at the Friends General Conference Gathering. It was about 55 minutes long, so once we split it into roughly 10-minute sections it actually didn’t take too long. My speed typing skills were put to the test!

Since my long-term projects fell through I’ve been helping another intern with an article she plans to write on recent/future changes in leadership at at least 8 Quaker organizations. We each took half of the organizations and contacted search committee members or the leaders themselves for interviews. One woman offered to meet with me in person and I will be interviewing her on Tuesday! I’m still waiting to hear back from the other individuals I contacted. I’m concerned that I won’t be able to finish my part before the end of my internship.

After work on Thursday I met up with two friends for dinner at Reading Terminal Market. Afterward, we took our ice cream outside and wandered around the city for a little while before heading back on the train. There aren't too many things I love more than ice cream on a warm summer evening, but I never learn my lesson; I need to get it in a cup instead of a cone. I just can't beat the heat and I end up with ice cream all over me. Otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed our city adventure, which was something I’ve been hoping to do all summer! I can’t believe I had never really just walked around center city Philadelphia for fun.

Disappointments, Sticky Buns, and Strangers

This week was quite a mixed bag.

I did not begin the week in the best of spirits. I recently discovered that the anthology I had been compiling about Quaker heroes and historical figures had already been started by past interns. In fact, they had already chosen all the articles, scanned them into InDesign, (the layout software that Friends Journal uses) and even organized them into categories and finalized a table of contents. There’s nothing left for me to do. Luckily I wasn’t very far along in the compiling process, but it’s still disappointing.

After doing some research I’ve also given up on the idea of writing an article that would somehow relate my Swedenborgian background to Quakerism. I found some interesting connections, (for example, one of the first people to translate Emmanuel Swedenborg’s theological writings into English was William Cookworthy, a Quaker minister) but it’s not enough for this type of article. I would need to do a lot more research and I'm not sure if I would find much even then.

On Wednesday my week got a lot better. The interns spent the whole day working on a subscription renewal mailing! I know it doesn’t sound like much fun and it might not have been—the paper-folding machine was broken so we had to fold each letter before stuffing it into an envelope (my hands were black with ink by the end of the day). In spite of our technical difficulties and the overwhelmingly large stack of letters, we managed to enjoy ourselves. We pushed two tables together, made a Pandora radio station with the Backstreet Boys and Disney songs, and spent the morning chatting, while listening to music, folding, and stuffing. In the afternoon the staff joined us for the weekly staff meeting and we were able to finish much faster than I expected. The senior editor also brought sticky buns from the nearby Reading Terminal Market, deliciously gooey treats made by some talented Amish bakers, which added to the festivity.

On Thursday I got to proofread part of a book! Two of the anthologies that past interns started are getting very close to publication. One should be printed in the next few weeks and the other is in the editing stage. I proofread a section of the second anthology. It feels so exciting and official to be contributing to the production of a book.

Thursday’s lunch added to my mixed emotions about this week. One of the construction workers having lunch near us approached our table and asked if any of us were single because he wanted a date for his friend who was sitting close by. We told him we were taken, but we probably weren’t very convincing because he kept trying to persuade us for a few awkward minutes. His friend looked pretty embarrassed, which we later decided was kind of comforting. It was a strange, somewhat amusing experience.

Staying Focused for Week Seven

When I first began my internship my biggest concern was self-confidence. I think I’ve made a lot of progress just by gaining experience; I’m a lot more confident when editing and giving my comments on submissions. Now that I’m pretty comfortable at Friends Journal and familiar with most of the tasks I complete day-to-day, I’m facing a new challenge: staying focused and engaged. This week I did a lot of copyediting and proofreading. I entered corrections into articles in Word and I proofread the corrections that other interns made. All of this was in preparation for sending our corrections on the October articles back to their authors for approval. I also continued to work on the milestones project, entering data into an excel spreadsheet.

I really like editing and proofreading and I don’t mind data entry, but doing those things for hours at a time has begun to take a toll on my attention span. At an unpaid internship, where the main incentive is one’s own desire to learn, staying focused can take a lot of self-discipline; I’m not working towards a promotion or a paycheck. So how can I steer clear of boredom and continue to work thoroughly and quickly?

Well, I’ve recently made a few discoveries that I think will help (and in hindsight they seem fairly obvious). First, if I’m beginning to feel bored or distracted after multiple hours of copyediting, it’s ok to change what I’m doing. When given a task or project, my inclination is to work on it until it’s finished. But if it takes a long time and isn’t time sensitive, my supervisor has actually encouraged me to take a break and work on one of my ongoing projects whenever I feel the need. My supervisor has also been very open to me asking for something else to work on, which brings me to my next realization: it’s ok to ask for more work.

At first I felt like I had to wait for someone to give me something to do and I felt a little shy about asking for more work. However, since there are six other interns, it probably isn’t easy for my supervisor to remember who is doing what and who needs more to do. Asking for work can only help both of us. Yes, I’ve definitely felt tempted to check Facebook or to take a break and find the nearest Starbucks, but I also realized that by the end of this internship I’ll have three things to show for my time: what I’ve learned, the connections I’ve made, and the reputation I’ve formed. A quick Facebook perusal wouldn't contribute to any of that. Personally, reminding myself of those things is a better motivator than a caffeinated beverage would ever be (which would only make me more antsy).

What happens when interns are left (almost) alone?

This was a pretty quiet week at Friends Journal. Some staff members spent the week at the Friends General Conference, an annual meeting of liberal Quakers, and a few others were on vacation. The interns greatly outnumbered actual staff every day!

Our supervisor left us with a substantial project to work on in his absence. Six of us spent the week reading through a huge pile of submissions with the ultimate goal of selecting feature articles for the November issue. We each began by reading and commenting on as many articles as possible to get a range of opinions on each one. Then we organized the articles into piles based on our opinions (as well as the comments of past interns on some of the older submissions). We came up with a lot of categories to accommodate articles we weren’t sure about and ended up with a pretty complete spectrum: no, maybe/no, maybe, maybe/yes, yes with editing or a rewrite from the author, yes but for a later article, yes but not as a feature article, yes for November, and a pile for articles that need to be read by more people. Finally, we had to cut our ‘yes for November’ pile in half to stay within the suggested limit of 12,000 words. I think we finished with a strong selection of articles for November with a good balance of spiritual, social, and historical pieces.


Overall I thought the process went pretty smoothly. We worked well together and mostly agreed about the articles we thought should be published. I hope that our supervisor approves of the articles we chose!

After we finished our project I resumed work on the milestones database. Before I knew it my workweek was over.

For a change of pace and perhaps some enlightenment, here are some of the Quaker terms I’ve come across in the past few weeks. Enjoy:
-unprogrammed Friends: Quakers who meet for silent worship without a pastor. Those present wait for “leadings of the Spirit” to speak
-meeting for worship: what unprogrammed Friends call their religious gatherings
-birthright Friend: someone born to Quaker parents (as opposed to a convinced Friend who becomes a Quaker later in life)
-seasoning: a period of waiting when you aren’t sure what to choose or what action to take
-witness: some type of public action, often to work against social injustices or other issues.

Fondness For the Friends

At the beginning of this week my supervisor asked me to begin and coordinate a long-term project that would enable anyone to search online for milestones published in Friends Journal (birth, death, wedding announcements). The project involves indexing the necessary information from each milestone—such as name, event type, date, and issue date—in an excel worksheet, which will eventually be made into a searchable database on the journal’s website. I spent most of Tuesday figuring out what information to include, how to organize it, and how to solve any problems that came up as I began entering data (for example, I realized that for a marriage announcement we needed to make a separate entry for each spouse).

Once I was confident in my excel skills I showed the other interns what I had been doing. It’s a pretty mindless, tedious task and I felt a little guilty asking the other interns to participate—I also tend to shy away from group work after some negative experiences in the past. But everyone was willing to be involved and now almost all of the interns are working on a decade of milestones—it’s something we can each work on for short periods of time between other projects. I really enjoyed showing other people how to work on the project and I liked being able to answer their questions and problem solve with them…I guess there’s something to this collaborative learning thing after all!

This week I also got to pick some poems for the September issue. Friends Journal keeps a lot of poetry submissions on file, so I looked through for poems that would complement the feature articles or relate well to the season. My picks are certainly not the final say on what will actually be published, but it was fun to give my opinion. Friends Journal does a great job of including interns in the publishing and editing process. Although staff members make the final decisions, they are very open to input from interns in choosing articles, editing, formatting and designing an issue, and marketing. It feels like they really take an interest in my learning experience.

On Thursday I met with the publisher/executive editor of the journal to interview her about her experiences in the publishing field and my amazement at the interest FJ staff members take in their interns was further enforced. She talked with me for over an hour, asking me about my own background before I even began interviewing. She answered my questions thoughtfully, describing her journey to her current position, the challenges and joys of her job, the qualities and skills she feels are important for success, and her predictions for the future of publishing. A lot of her thoughts have stuck with me since our meeting; her emphasis on flexibility and creativity in running a small publication, her firm belief that there are many useful applications for a major in English, the parallel she drew between special events planning, theatre, and publishing, her belief that the technology of ink on paper will never be obsolete, and finally her trust that God is leading us all and that we just can't know what's in store for us.

Before I started at Friends Journal I didn’t know what it would mean for me to work at a Quaker journal. I wondered what it would mean in terms of workplace values, the content I would read, the people I would meet, and how it would compare or shed light on my own beliefs. I'm discovering that it means working in a friendly atmosphere where my opinions are valued and I am trusted with actual work; reading articles that encourage nonviolence, understanding of other cultures, seeing good in others, and showing compassion; meeting people who care about the work they do; and finding that although I don’t agree with all Quaker practices and ideas, I can see a great deal of value in the a lot of them.