The second week in Paris consisted of settling in with the culture and the natives in the city of Paris, at home within the host family, and the workplace. One of the first things that have been engrained within me is how to communicate, “What is this?”, “How do you call this in French?”, and “What does this mean?”. It is a completely new and interesting experience to witness my growth in learning a foreign language abroad, especially in high stress or formal situations like work and in relaxed informal situations at the host family house. When learning a language in a foreign country in different circumstances, the language sticks into your memory more because you’re in survival mode. The language slowly starts to become a reflex without having to translate in your head multiple times, which is a process that I have never experienced before, since language acquired at birth and during childhood require a different kind go processing. Experiencing this bizarre feeling was new and uncomfortable but also reassuring that my hard work was paying off—the new language was starting to slowly but surely become a part of me. 

            During the second week of the internship, I was introduced to tasks ranging from organizing company contacts through excel to constructing a new poster and a program for the next season of performances. The organization of contacts through excel is a beginner works but requires concentration to get the details correctly, such as putting in the contact’s name, position, address, phone number, etc. The poster and the program require the same amount of concentration but also creativity to construct something that is appealing and inviting. The two tasks also have ranging deadlines with the former being due earlier than the latter, but also the former having a softer deadline because new contacts keep coming in. Softer deadlines make me want to do things at the very last minute. However, with the combination of schoolwork and internship work, I am able to keep myself busy by setting my own goals on the side doing a little of everything every day.

            There are several ways in which I keep up with my goals and my tasks. The simplest way to organize my time is to simply put the tasks in the order of difficulty. For example, if I find that some tasks take more time to complete, I will put them aside and complete tasks that are easier and faster to accomplish. Tasks such as organizing the company contact sheets and adding new contacts are examples of easier tasks. However, tasks that may take more time, such as making a new poster or a program flyer require a chunk of time set aside for the day to make smaller progresses towards a deadline. New tasks have been added this week, things ranging from sending emails of rehearsals to start planning a new website for the company. Sending emails will be done immediately when asked but planning and starting a new website will be integrated into the daily tasks to slowly make changes and adjustments to the website. 

            Aside from the daily internship tasks and schoolwork, I also came to Paris with a desire to explore and experience the city as much as possible and to accomplish my personal goals. It is more difficult to explore and discover the city of Paris when coming to Paris for two months for work as opposed to a week as a vacation. When traveling as a tourist, since each day is precious, you cram to see famous monuments and museums every day in spite of jetlag to. However, personally, I tend to waste more time as I have more time on my hands. As a student in Paris primarily for studies, I had to incorporate sight-seeing and personal objectives within my daily schedule as an intern to be as effective as possible . During my time in Paris and in France, I had planned to see as much as possible, such as visiting the Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, L’Arc de Triomphe, Champs Élysées, Notre Dame, The Centre Pompidou, as well as sight-seeing within France such as visiting the famous cities within Northern France including the city of Lille, Bordeaux, Havre, as well as Mont Saint-Michel. On top of the sight-seeing plans, internship, and schoolwork, I also plan to work on my personal objectives, such as daily language learning, engaging in daily active conversation with French speakers and putting myself as much as possible in a language immersive situation. With these objective and goals in mind, my plan is to use my time effectively as much as possible by slowly building my patience and competencies.