Year Abroad Tips: Planning a Work Placement

So you're about to start planning your Year Abroad and you're totally freaking out because it seems like a mammoth task or maybe you're all cool and serene. Whatever. This is a little blog about work placements, how to get them, what to prepare for and what to do if things go wrong. 

1) Do something you enjoy. No seriously. If you don't enjoy at least part of what you're doing you are going to be seriously miserable, because doing a work placement means that most of your time abroad will be spent, well, working. I knew that I wanted to work in a theatre so that's where I started looking. You also need to consider whether you are prepared to work for free. Remember that paid internships will be extremely competitive and you will be up against some pretty competent native speakers. I decided that gaining experience was more important to me than earning money and I managed to do get by with my Erasmus Grant and student loan. There were a few disasters but I'll talk about those later on.

2) Once you've decided on the general working environment you're interested in, make a list of cities/places that appeal to you. I had three potentials for my first Germany placement: Düsseldorf, Leipzig or Rostock. I then made a list of all the theatres that were in those cities and sent out an email and CV to each of them. When I was applying for a job in Italy, things got a bit desperate and I started looking for anything that was available. This might happen to you, but roll with it.

3) Make sure you have a CV that is appropriate to the country you are applying to work in. Germans, for example, have completely different expectations for CVs and Cover Letters than England. Your university should prepare you for this, but do make time to go and see an academic tutor to make sure everything is as accurate as possible. I also advise adjusting your Cover Letter for each place you apply for so that you are really clear about why you want to work for that particularly company/institution.

3) When preparing for the interview, make a list of phrases in case you get tongue-tied. Also write a few key sentences explaining why you want to work with that particular company (so do your research!) Try not to panic, because that will only make it harder to speak in another language. Speak slowly, clearly and concentrate on what your interviewer is asking/saying to you.

If you manage to get a work placement CONGRATULATIONS. That's a massive achievement! Here are a few tips to help you get off to a good start.

1) CHECK THE DRESS CODE. Do this before you board the plane or pack your suitcase. I stupidly forgot and turned up with a suitcase full of jackets, skirts and smart trousers, when in fact everyone was wearing jeans *face palm*  So to avoid extra costs and embarrassment, send your employer a quick, polite email to clarify what is appropriate.

2) Turn up on your first day with all the necessary ERASMUS forms so that you can complete them and get them signed. Try to send them back as soon as possible. This will alleviate any University admin stress and will allow you to concentrate on enjoying your work placement. If you're not being paid for your work, make sure you are absolutely clear on your working hours.

3) BE BOLD. You will be nervous. I spent my first day at the theatre cowering behind a corner whilst everyone chatted and greeted one another, but as soon as I made a step towards the crowd, someone came and said hello and that's when the fun started. So be nervous but DON'T BE AFRAID. If there are other interns GO AND MAKE FRIENDS WITH THEM, they may not seem like your type of people to begin with, but after a few lunchtime chats and drinks after work you will find your language skills significantly improving. Friendship takes work and when I look back on my experience I am so glad that I made the effort to invest time into the other interns I was working with because they are now some of my most precious friends.

4) ASK FOR HELP. If you don't understand something just say. There is nothing worse than sitting at your desk trying to look busy when in fact you have no idea what you're supposed to be doing. Avoid wasting your time and take the chance to learn a new word or phrase. Most people will be sympathetic to your position and will respect your honesty. 

The End

One thing I've learnt over the years is how TERRIBLE I am at finishing things. This goes for all areas of my life, including this moment right now where I am sitting on a mattress in the middle of my old room, with a half packed suitcase, a half finished translation and crap strewn all over the floor. Naturally, instead of completing a task I'm distracting myself and writing a blog. One day I will get the hang of it. The last couple of weeks of my year abroad have left me with very little brain power. I definitely underestimated the mental strain this year was going to entail, especially with all my moving around, language swapping, home swapping, job swapping, decision making, friendship making and having to chase Bristol up with admin stuff that they had forgotten about, miscalculated and got completely wrong. Ergo I haven't been able to think straight since the beginning of August. All my energy is going into getting through the last few hours, making sure I've packed everything and getting myself to the airport without exploding into a teary, stressed-out mess. 

The end is always a difficult time. You want to control it  so that everything sums up nicely. You want to say goodbye to everyone perfectly, take the perfect pictures, have the perfect meal, wear the perfect outfit and say the perfect things. You want to wake up serene, calmly pick up your bag, walk out the door and leave, looking a little bit like movie star at the end of the film. And it never really works out how you want it to. My last few hours in Bristol were spent frantically peeling bluetack off my walls, drinking mug after mug of coffee and feeling slightly queasy at the thought of telling my Mum that I'd somehow acquired an extra bicycle and a piano, that would somehow have to fit in the car. My last day in Düsseldorf was also spent in a manic frenzy of packing, being locked into my apartment, realising that I had no food left, feeling faint with hunger, meeting my friends later than I wanted to and getting the wrong bus home. My last night in Florence was spent alone with a bottle of sparkling wine and Gilmore Girls, before yet another frenzy of packing and tying my duvet to my suitcase with a piece of string. Parma was a mess of tears, cleaning, sleeplessness, packing, texting my Landlady and then phoning my boss on the train to the airport telling him I was leaving. The past year has been full of rather unsatisfactory endings. Yet what I remember is all the things before the end, all the times I went to the cinema with Franzi, had cups of tea in the office with Sarah, my boss and I dressing up as mexicans, my friend Kate and her beautiful birthday concert, International food evenings at church, ice-cream with Brynne, cooking with Tessa, Florence at sunset, adventures with Hodges, the perfect sips of coffee, the lone wanderings, the performances than left an imprint, the strangers than made me bolder. I never look back on a time and remember those horrible last moments, where I had to untangle myself and move on. I only recall them when I find myself having to do it all over again. 

Today is my last day in Berlin and rather than expecting a day full of last minute japes around the city, I am quietly accepting that it will be stressful, that my highest priority is to keep myself together and not leave anything behind. Right now I can't even tell you what the last few months have meant for me, because all I can think about is that Lufthansa flight at 18:00 tomorrow afternoon where I will finally flop on a seat and feel the relief seep out of my pores. There is always a lot of processing that needs to be done, your mind, body and soul need to click back into a place of rest before any conclusions can be made. 

Travel doesn't consolidate it unravels. It makes you feel like a solid core, that fluctuates between a mess of ideas, thoughts, opinions and memories. In many ways you know yourself better, in others you seem unrecognisable. This constant oscillation is beautiful, but exhausting. If you travel too long and too far, without putting down a few roots here and there, you start to lose yourself; things start to lose their clarity and you find yourself wanting to sleep longer and do less. I got to that point on Saturday and whilst I still had a lot of fun, the only thing keeping me human was the thought that in 3 days time I'll be sat at home in Bracknell having a cup of tea, in a Cath Kidston mug with my family. In many ways I have finished this season well, I have persevered, had fun, kept positive and in others I am too exhausted to care. Even if the next 24 hours becomes another anecdote for my terrible finishes, all that will matter is that I got home in one piece. 

Florence on Film part 2: Adventures with Brynne

I remember this day so clearly. There was a beautiful blush-coloured sun, a free afternoon, new film in my camera and a plan to see Galileo and Dante in their final resting places. I was dreaming of a Room With A View and the moment Lucy Honeychurch walks around Santa Croce all gumption and poise. So we took off in the rosy-light, ready to take culture by the horns and make it ours.

If I'm honest, the inside of Sante Croce was a bit of disappointment. I think perhaps the €6 entry-fee had something to do with it! No one wants to spend that much to look at a couple of graves, regardless of whether the deceased are famous or not. However, the cloister and the gardens were really beautiful, as was the light. We took some lovely photos and enjoyed the evocative smell of freshly cut grass - a reminder of the impending spring. The band playing outside on the square were also fantastic and I embarrassed Brynne massively by twirling and jumping around to the music - hahahhahahaha! We rounded everything up with a cappuccino before heading back to our lovely apartment. It was a idyllic.

Florence On Film part 1

I just got my film photographs back from Boots and I'm so, so happy with them. They have captured my month in Florence so accurately and honestly. I love all the colours, the different light, the places. AAAHHH gorgeous. I just HAD to share them with you.

1/ climbing the bell-tower

2/ Piazza Michaelangelo. The views were STUNNING and we saw a couple taking wedding photos (too cute!)

3/ General wanderings: ponte vecchio, wall-art and the uffizi gallery.

Florence is a bit of a photogenic babe. I'll be back with more tomorrow. 

In the meantime please pray that I get a job in Germany soon...it's kinda urgent. 

Fiona/Ellie-Cam

For my 21st Birthday my dear friend Fiona sent me a disposable camera. She had already used up half of the film and I was instructed to use the other half. The result was a collaboration of moments, carefully selected to remind of how wonderful and varied our lives are. I love how photographs remind us of things we've done, because it's so easy to forget what things really looked like and how they really were. These shots make me miss the people in them a lot. I'm so fortunate to have met such an incredible bunch of individuals this year - I only hope it continues. I've deliberately mixed the photos around, some are obviously mine, some are not, but I hope you enjoy these little snapshots of our lives on this Thursday afternoon.

Admitting Defeat...

You might have gathered that the past couple of weeks have been really tough. It's been my third move of 2013 and it has started to wear down on my body and my spirit. Ever since arriving here, I've just felt constantly exhausted and unable to appreciate or participate in the beauty around me. I have noticed that negativity has seeped its way into my thoughts and my words, I have found it gradually harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning, I have been unable to really engage in social events because my brain has been so fried and my body so lethargic. Since Saturday I have been in bed with some kind of coldy/flu-like illness and slowly getting more and more frustrated with myself and my surroundings. My friends and family encouraged me to think about coming home, but there was something in me that kept saying that I didn't 'DESERVE' a break, that I hadn't been here long enough to warrant going home and putting my feet up. I'm a pusher, someone who preservers and I thought that going home would be admitting defeat. I would be letting my boss down and letting myself down, or so I thought. I woke up on Wednesday morning and something screamed BASTA. Enough. Enough of sitting in my apartment, all alone, without internet, wandering around in a feverish daze, enough of getting worked-up about essays and job applications and my lack of productivity and enough of being so down-right unappreciative of this amazing opportunity to live and work abroad. 

I need to go home, get well, get perspective and find my work ethic. In all this moving and shifting I feel like I've lost a bit of my enthusiasm and audacious hopefulness. I hate that and I want it back. So today I'm getting on a plane and I'm making myself stay in England for a week. I will see friends that build me up, sit on the sofa to read my book, go to Santa Fe to work on my essay, love my church, visit the places that inspire me most and enjoy the beauty of England on the brink of Spring.

It's not admitting defeat, but recharging, it's not weakness, but strength. At least that's what I'm telling myself. 

On Living Alone...

You get used to silence, to the sound of your own breathing.

Sometimes the emptiness is overwhelming and you have to lie on the floor and talk to yourself just to make sure you're still real and have a voice.

There's a lot of spontaneous dancing, a lot of candles, a lot of music.

The radio is my friend.

I smile at myself in the mirror a lot.

I sleep with the light on.

I sit on the windowsill and peer out at my neighbours, trying to work out whether they're a potential threat or a friend and whether they've just seen me dancing around the room in my underwear.

There is space to think the deep, hard thoughts that sit right in the middle of your head, the ones that only come to the surface with time and opportunity. 

I'm writing a lot.

I'm REALLY listening to music, mulling over lyrics and melodies, wondering how they sit with my soul.

I'm caught in the middle of my introvert and extrovert self: desperately, achingly lonely yet very content with myself and my thoughts.

I'm not sure which I prefer, but right now that doesn't matter. I am alone, there's no point fighting or wishing for something else.

Life Lately

1/ Productive, cosy, coffee -fuelled writing days in knits and socks.
I wrote an article for the Bristol Tab about ethical-fashion and blogging. Check it out here

2/ Lazy mornings with my Kindle and my Moleskine.

3/ Cycling home from work I came across this amazing yogurt, milk and cheese vending machine. Made me like Italy a teeny bit more.

4) Standard converse-wearing days at the teatro. I really want to be a better intern.

5/6 I found two great coffee shops and it felt like home.

7/ When it's sunny, Parma really isn't too terrible. The other day it was so clear I could see all the way to the mountains.

8/ Been jogging and cycling around the park a lot recently. I think I finally understand why people find running so good for the soul.

Black Cape and Black Days

I bought this cape just after my operation in October when none of my clothes fitted me. It was the last one in the sale in Gina Tricot and I instantly fell in love with it. I was never that in to black clothes before my year abroad, but I think Europe and working in the theatre have had an impact on my wardrobe. Pretty much everything I own, or want to own is black. Maybe I'm getting more sophisticated, maybe I'm just becoming boring and pretentious. Who cares? It's slimming, it's easy to wear and it never, EVER clashes. It's the instant cool factor and I love it. 

This week has been a real toughy in old Italia. The weather has been bipolar (it's currently snowing...IN MARCH!), I've sucked at my job, my super funny, kindred-spirit of a housemate moved to Germany via England, I've been a bit lonely and I'm currently stuck inside with an annoying cold-like illness that's making me feel pants. It's not surprising really, seeing as the past six weeks of my life have been ridiculously busy and stressful - my body must really hate me right now. However, despite the unhappiness and general feeling of not wanting to be here, I am determined to keep pressing forward, learn Italian and get better at my internship. I'm trying to see the positive side from my sick-bed, but really all I want to do is go home and be looked after. 

Here's to a brighter third week!

Life Lately

1/ Flying over the Alps is always my favourite thing about getting the plane to Italy.

2/ The first slightly gluten-free meal I've ever had on a plane. YUMM.

3/ I bought a bike on my first day in Parma and haven't looked back. I love it, even though it has no gears (turns out the Italian don't really do gears!)

4/ Having an opera-studying-conservatoire-going friend means I get to use the practice rooms with her and sing my little heart out.

5/ Care package from Louis with bike lights, dark chocolate, pens, a red nose, a letter, packets and packets of tea, MOAM and some Bristol surprises. I love, love, love getting care packages from Louis, they're always so quirky and thoughtful.

6/ I tried Reindeer for the first time. It tasted like Christmas...

7/ Hodges and I went to Ikea. It was very Italian and the restaurant was closed so we couldn't eat meatballs and the layout was typically Italian and ridiculously confusing. Still, there's something very comforting about the Swedish food market and being able to use my Ikea family card.

ERASMUS Woes.

Planning a year-abroad is incredibly challenging, especially if you decide to do a work placement. It is not the the work placement itself that proves challenge, nor the amount of interviews or applications you have to send off. These challenges are to be expected from any work placement, including those completed in the UK. What drives me completely nuts, stresses me out, makes me want to curl into a tiny ball and could possibly send me to an early grave is the amount of forms you have to fill in. I sometimes have a feeling that the ladies in the Erasmus office in Bristol have complete disregard for the fact that MOST of the people on their year abroad aren't using their Erasmus grant for boozing and snoozing their life away, but actually relying on it to pay things like, oh I don't know, RENT. I know I'm not the only one who has received a heartless email telling them that they can't possibly get their grant this month for such and such a reason and has been left feeling stranded and alone and afraid in a foreign country. It's completely unacceptable. If Erasmus claim to dish out grants for the whole year, then they need to actually provide the cash for the whole year. Regardless of whether the student is working or not, most of us choose to remain living abroad as long as possible, in order to continue improving our language skills - that is why we are on a year abroad in the first place.  There also seems to be the completely unrealistic expectation that students who move country will have consistent and immediate access to the internet, a scanner and a printer within the first week of them being there. Perhaps in Germany these expectations are realistic but I can safely say that finding these three things in Italy has proved near impossibile. Again, on emailing the Erasmus office I have been greeted with that stern 'you are an irresponsible student leaving this to the last minute' 'why didn't you print off a dozen copies before you left England' 'you clearly haven't read all the guidelines in the year abroad pack' response. What is the point of this office if not to support and encourage students on their year abroad? No one wants to be a penniless, frightened British hobo in a new town, where your only potential support comes from other penniless, frightened students. 

Erasmus need to up their game when it comes to their work placement students, because it is a fantastic cultural experience and enriches the European community. It is also an incredible way to learn another language and it would be a shame if financial difficulties prevented students from participating in this scheme. And to Erasmus offices everywhere: a little bit of kindness won't cost you.

RANT OVER.

Getting Lost and Eating Grapefruit

Yesterday I tried to go to church. I rang up a guy who's a friend of a friend and stumbled through the conversation until I got the times of the services and the road of the building, then I spent ages looking it up on various map-applications until it was finally time to head off. Except I got very lost and found myself cycling around in the sticks just outside of Parma. Thankfully the weather was warm and spring-like, so if I hadn't been rushing about trying to get to church, I might have actually enjoyed the cycle. It turns out that the church building is on the exact same road as the theatre I'm working at and I definitely didn't hear the guy on the phone properly because the morning meeting had been cancelled and replaced by an afternoon celebration at 17:00. It was pretty disheartening, because I've been craving fellowship for over a month now, but I hopped back on my bike and decided to find God in the beauty of the morning. I captured a thousand photographs in my mind, photographs that were completely sensual, photographs that evoked smells and touches entwined with a releasing spirit and a glorious freedom. I promise you that not one physical photograph could have captured the beauty that I saw and felt. It's moments like these when I realise how much this year abroad is changing me. The old me would have felt so frustrated and not being able to find a church, frustrated at her plans being changed at such a short notice and she would have carried that frustration around with her for days and days until it rotted all her joy away. The new me had an itchy-inside feeling for about five minutes before deciding to relax and find what I was looking for elsewhere, she even bought a grapefruit and sat eating it on a grey, housing estate by the supermarket. She then cycled home, hands sticky with red grapefruit juice, heart full of the wonder of God's creation and mind peaceful at the fact that my faith is not confined to a building or a church service, but to a lifestyle and a global community I call my family.