Eight Days Left

Only eight days left….

This will probably be the most difficult week so far! I am very excited to go home but I do not want to leave Australia.

Things I’m looking forward to at home:
There’s a lot but the main things I can think of right now…

• My Family!
• Friends!
• Senior year at U of I!
• My birthday 8 days after I get home! The Big 21!
• Being back in Chambana and campustown!
• The organizations I’m involved in including 1867 Society, Alpha Zeta, ACT,  Pi Phi and AAF… great organizations to be involved in!
• Living in my apartment with my roommate Lauren 
• Every sunday attempting to cook for my friends Cory, Carl and Alfred so I know how to cook my favorite dishes when I’m back in Australia … aka Mac and Cheese haha… these are brave men… just ask Terry.
• Also my dad’s famous sweet corn!
• SUN!!!! I’m so pale! I’ve literally gone from winter/rainy weather in the States to winter/rainy weather in Australia….
• Excited to share all the new things I’ve learned and continue developing my skills!
• American food!!!

Thing I’m going to miss about Australia:
Again there’s a lot but the important thing are…

• *<3 Terry <3*
  • (even though I’ll see him soon after I return… only 4 months apart… that’s not long at all)
• Terry’s family and friends
• Everyone at The Land and everyone I’ve met during my internship!
• Driving on the left side of the road
• Driving over the Syndey Harbour Bridge
• Tax included so I know exactly how much I need to pay (Ex. McDonalds ice cream in Aus is $0.50 …. in the US it says $1 on the menu but it’s really $1.12)
• News… the news here is so much more informative than back home… I know more about what’s going on around the world and in the US than I ever have watching or reading new in the States.
• Not worrying about tipping people
• Winter is more like early American Fall… so it’s not that bad…
• The wonderful landscape and evironment when driving or walking around
• The beach …. only went once but I don’t have beaches in central Illinois.
• TimTams! =D

Things I wont miss

• Vegimite
• Beetroot (sorry Terry)
• Crazy people on public transporation that always seem to find me

Norway

There as been so many tragedies this week. The one that I can’t seem to stop following is the bomb and shooting in Norway.

My heart goes out to the country and all of the survivors, families and friends and anyone affected by this terrible act of violence.

This is the most recent article from SMH with a girl texting her mom during the shooting. http://www.smh.com.au/world/people-are-dying-here-daughters-texts-to-mother-during-norway-rampage-20110728-1i0tl.html’

It is almost unreal to think about what the mother and daughter were going through.

It also makes me thankful for the technology we have today that can help in these situations. Though with all of the hacking stories, technology today is also a bit scary.

I was watching an interview of one of the locals who helped save some of the students. She said when she was driving up to police officers the 7 students in her car were yelling and screaming telling her not to stop, because the man shooting had disguisedas a police officer.

Another article/video discussed the psychological state of the survivor. It talked about the biggest problems they will face are the guilt they will feel and how hard it is going to be to get over that anything can happen at any moment.

The great thing about this is how the country and everyone comes together for support. Over 100,000 people participated in a rose march.

Again, my heart and thoughts are with those in Norway.

As the Aussies say, “Least We Forget”

(hope that’s in the right context)

If you are interested in reading more weekly/daily stories you can follow my personal blog at vfrobish2011.blogspot.com

Only 3 weeks left!

At this point I have really mixed feelings. I am really enjoying what I am doing and this experience has been so great! I also really love Australia and of course enjoy speding time with my boyfriend and his family.

On the other hand I am finding myself getting a little home sick. Things I am missing are my family, friends, certain American foods, random appliances like my parents washing machine and dryer (I have a washing and drying machine to use but it’s just not the same) haha and I’m surprisingly really looking forward to my classes and for uni to resume. Oh and the sun… I really need to start coming to Australia during their summer.

Being involved in a lot of organizations at University I am also having to think about things I have to do before I get back and things to do once I am back. This has been harder than I expected because I’m half way across the world and I’m busier here than I thought I would be too.

Email, facebook, and skype have helped a lot keeping in touch with everyone so my home sickness isn’t really that bad but it does get to you every now and then… especially when you love mac and cheese and you can’t find the right cheese to make it.

If you are interested in reading more weekly/daily stories you can follow my personal blog at vfrobish2011.blogspot.com

I love designing!

Last week I spent time at the Rural Press office in St Leonards. It was once again a great experience!

This office does most of the advertising sales for the Rural Press papers in Australia. They also do other things including research on their readers.

The office

The office is a lot smaller and not as overwhelming as the Pyrmont office. It was only a few blocks from the train station which was also great especially when is was raining. It took less than an hour to get there from Glebe. The people are all very friendly and made me feel very welcome. Even people that I wasn’t really working with took time out of their day to chat with me.

Work

• They weren’t sure what they had for me at first though I was very lucky and smart for bringing my laptop because they didn’t have a available computer for me and I have all the design programs on my computer. This really came in handy when they asked me to design an invitation for a client! =D
• One of the women in the office does the research on the readers of all the papers and one of the things she’s been concentrating on is Rural Health. There are a few companies that she wants to present to and have example of their ads in our papers to show them how and why they should advertise in the rural papers. She asked me to create some ad mock ups for her.
• To create ad mock ups I needed to first research the company and get pictures of their product from the internet. Then I created an ad in Photoshop…. after that I used InDesign to layout pages to look like The Land (thank you sub-editing experience at The Land! and Dr. Abrams for making our class learn how to use InDesign!)

I only had four days at this office but it was the best 4 days I’ve had! I really like designing and using these types of programs! It also gave me some more things to add to my portfolio!

I’ll try to post some of my work or add it to my online portfolio! =)

If you are interested in reading more weekly/daily stories you can follow my personal blog at vfrobish2011.blogspot.com

iPad Fun

Fairfax Digital has been working on improving their two apps “SMH” and “The Age”. They’re both big news papers in Australia, SMH (Sydney Morning Herald) is in NSW and “The Age” is in Victoria.

This week I was supposed to start work experience at the Fairfax office in St Leonards but on Friday one of the CEO’s came to me with a project and now I am spending one more day at the Fairfax office in Pyrmont.

One of the things (of many things) the digital office does is run and work on the apps for the iPad. The advertising people create really cool interactive advertisements that show up while you’re using the app. Another section of the office works are uploading the stories to the app. The SMH app and The Age app are currently uploaded in the different offices.

My job was to look at the stories in each app and see which were the same but had different headlines or had slight differences. Their working on uploading the same stories on both apps but right now it’s a bit difficult to do when each office is running their own applications.

So for two days I have got to have my laptop and two iPads in front of me I love technology!

I would definitely check out the apps if you have the ability too. I think you can get all the information you need at smh.com.au or theage.com.au

If you are interested in reading more weekly/daily stories you can follow my personal blog at vfrobish2011.blogspot.com