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.