It is now day two of this internship. I am currently sitting at my internship with nothing to do. The people who are in charge of my during this internship (at least for the time being) are not here, so I figured I might as well be typing some kind of document to make it seem like I am doing some work. Actually, I will not be typing right now because it is lunch break and I’m not supposed to be looking like I am working on something.
[Intermission]
And now I am back and shall resume pretending to do work. I am actually trying to do work—but the lack of stable internet connection has been preventing me from effectively working. My job right now is to teach myself AutoCAD. One of my co-workers here was kind enough to give me a plan of a building for me to copy into AutoCAD. I have actually been working on this for the past couple of hours and I’ve gotten a good chunk out of the way. I don’t really have any idea as to what I’m doing except drawing straight lines and what not, but I guess it seems to look alright. I probably could have done it the same way as to how I would draft by hand, but I didn’t really do that. I did use construction lines though, so I guess it wasn’t that bad. The people here expect me to pick up AutoCAD in a couple of weeks—I plan on figuring this program out by the end of this week. I am confident that I won’t be able to work as fast as the people who work here, but hopefully I’ll be able to know what I’m doing.
The work schedule here is pretty long—M-F from 9am-6pm as well as a half day of work on Saturdays, which totals to 50 hours a week. On top of this, there is my two hour commute per day for another 16 hours a week. I am hoping that I won’t be exhausted too much by the end of my internship.
The work environment here is definitely much different than the ones in America. Architecture firms here are a lot cleaner and more organized than the ones in America—but I feel like there are a lot more free-flowing ideas in American firms. By cleaner, I mean that there isn’t paper scattered everywhere around the entire firm and there really isn’t a “studio” vibe anymore. I hate how there are some people here who smoke as they work. Fortunately, there aren’t any of those people on the floor I work, but I can still smell the smoke. There is also a clear hierarchal system in place at this firm while it is less so at American firms. However, there are also some similarities. Trace paper aplenty! The work environment is fairly lax and people are conversing back and forth both about work and about other things. People joke around a lot. And there are also a good chunk of people who listen to music as they work.
It is now 5pm—one more hour until I can head back home. I actually arrive home later than my mom does and around the same time as my dad. Yesterday, he just happened to get off of work by the time I arrived at the metro stop so he picked me up. Hopefully it’ll be the same case this time, but I kind of doubt it. At least it’s nice that we can leave the house at the same time so he can drop me off at the metro station.
One of the guys here started talking to me because he wanted to speak in English. He attended Pratt for his masters and hasn’t really had a huge chance of speaking English since he came to work in Shanghai. He’s also the one who gave me the AutoCAD template for me to work on. He said that I seemed a bit nervous—which I guess could be an accurate description. I have no idea what I’m doing really and I’m out in the real world instead of a classroom. He also seems to understand why I don’t know AutoCAD after my first year of architecture. There are lots of nice people on this floor of AutoCAD draftsmen.
My wireless mouse is dying on me. It is still working fine, but it is now blinking red instead of green. I think I am done working on AutoCAD for the day. I have lost focus anyway because of a headache from the smoke. I think I am also done typing here too. There is only about half an hour left before I can leave anyway. I really need to work on my Chinese.
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