A little Christmas DIY

Far from wanting to make this another DIY/lifestyle blog, I still wanted to share this with you: such a great way to wrap Christmas presents responsibly! I used a Starbucks takeaway bag here but I'm sure there's other pretty bags out there you could use. Most of all, it's eco-friendly: all those gift wraps just land in the garbage can anyway, so why not save money and save trees at once? Plus, you can easily personalize your presents as I did (and believe me, I really can't draw, so if I can do this anyone can). Triple win!

I also did a version with a Starbucks takeaway cup, but I forgot to take a picture. Just make sure you wash it well! I covered it with a piece of paper and a rubber band, like those old jam jars. It looked pretty sweet! If you are annoyed by the logo, you can easily cover that by sticking a piece of paper on top of it and writing a personal message on it. The people I have tried it with loved it so far!

Fast forward

Yes, I should probably have put up a blog post neatly every week of my internship, to update you on my progress and all that, but time flies and I procrastinate, and here we are, on Christmas Eve, on my second-to-last day of work at the opera house. So I'll need to do a retrospect post instead.

Did it go well? I think it all went fairly well, even though it was probably not the best time to do an internship here (a lot of stressed people, the passing away of a superior of our service, this is not a place to go into great detail but it was not the easiest time for sure). We had our good and our bad times, the opera house and I, but that's how it goes I guess.

Did you learn a lot? Yes. I would say I learned a lot about the working world, life as a full-time employee, the way a big company and a cultural institution is organised, and what it takes to keep it running. I've seen a lot of good things, I've seen quite a few things I don't agree with, and I've seen many different reactions to all those things. I mainly gained a lot of insights through working here, and that is the most important thing I've learned. When it comes to practical skills, the actual job content, I can't say I've learned such a great deal there. I did get to improve my French and my organisational skills - but I could already write, use social media, and answer a phone before I came here. Overall, I think the insights I gained and the experience I've built are the most valuable things I will take away from La Monnaie.

Was it worth it? Yes, I think it was worth it. I am glad I got to work at La Monnaie, I got to know the opera house from the inside, I got to know Brussels, I got to know a lot of people.

Would I do it again? I would do it again with what I know now, only maybe a little shorter.

So have you found your dream job? No. I love communication, but I've found out I hate promotion. That thin line between trying to help people by offering them information, or trying to make them buy your product by throwing information at them, is one I've found I do not like to cross. Promotion gives me headaches.

And so the journey continues. Expect an update about my next job search soon!

PS. Sorry for staying vague about this whole chunk of time that's just passed. I promise I'll do better on my next job!

Beginner's luck

Indeed, I got hired at the opera house. I could never have guessed that my first job application ever would be so easy, but it was. I was quite nervous for the interview, but it went very smoothly - no weird questions to test my knowledge about the opera house, and even speaking French went surprisingly well after not speaking it at all for three years.

Also, my interviewers were not exactly intimidating (by which I mean nothing bad) seeing as they were two nice girls of barely a few years older than me (I would later find out that they were indeed 26 and 27 or thereabouts). I was supposed to go for a second interview with the head of department a while later, but that got cancelled and I just got hired right away. (Looking back I am glad it did get cancelled, as the head of department is actually a French lady, and it would have been a lot more stressful to have to do everything in French rather than switching between that and Dutch).

So I got hired, for a four-month period, September to December. This meant I could start my summer holidays without having to be stressed about finding a job. And of course I was very excited to find out what the opera house would be like. What is also very convenient, is that I could make the internship count for a number of ECTS for a Cutural Studies master's degree. I was not planning to really do the degree this year, but by doing the internship already, I could keep the official status of 'student', which makes things a lot easier when it comes to administration and all that jazz.

Sounds like a lot of beginner's luck all at once, right? I think so too. Must be good karma. I hope it's not all downhill from here for the rest of the year.

Easy does it

So, the decision had been made, I had come back home, and exams had just begun. The plan was to do a paid but irrelevant summer job (going on an Erasmus is not good for the funds, believe me) while looking out for relevant internships and placements starting from September. But first of all there were exams and a final paper to be completed. I was not on the lookout yet at all.

Plans about what to apply for were quite vague; I knew I would like to try something in media or journalism, and possibly also in a cultural sector. I knew I would love to find something abroad again, preferably in the UK or Ireland. My expectations, I think, were realistic: I expected the process of applying to be long and stressful, even more so because I'd never applied for a job before - except for some student jobs, but that can hardly be called applying at all. I believed it would be very hard to find a job in the fields I was aiming at, since they are notoriously popular and usually pretty saturated. And I predicted that I would probably not get paid for the kind of jobs that really interested me.

I was wrong on most points.

By mere chance, I stumbled upon an ad on my university website for an internship at La Monnaie Opera House in Brussels. The internship was at the Promotion & Communication department, it was unpaid (at least I was right about that part) and three-month-long starting from September. It seemed like a perfect opportunity, in short. I did not hesitate long and started working on an application (even though I still had a couple of exams to get through; the opera house would close over the summer holidays, and it was mid-June by this time).

Although I put quite some effort into it, looking back I would say I was not very well prepared - my CV, for one, was a little messy (no wonder, there was nothing very interesting to put on it except for the likely prospect of a BA degree), and my cover letter was written purely on intuition. (I can see that now, having just spent quite a while researching CV's and cover letters.)

But I just went ahead and applied anyway. I had a lot of excitement and little to lose; and apparently, sometimes that's enough.

And so it begins

First of all, this blog comes way too late. I'm aware of that. I should have started it when I started my year-of-experiences - not five months later. Granted. I shall start it now however, if it please you.

When I was in Galway on Erasmus exchange, I was very, very happy. It took me a while to find out why exactly, but I know now: I just love new experiences. Landing in a situation where everything and everyone is new, and where you have to find your way around and discover everything for the first time, is simply the best thing on earth for me. Contradictorily, it feels like a natural habitat. So Galway was the best time of my life so far.

Quite soon, though, I also started realizing that coming back to Belgium and readopting all the old patterns and habits would be very unpleasant. A vague idea started to take root in my mind. Luckily, I voiced those vague ideas to a friend with a lot of life experience quite early. She thought the idea, however vague, was BRILLIANT (thank you Kathleen). From that moment on, the idea was no longer all that vague, and I had decided.

You need to know that in Belgium, most people consider a bachelor's and a master's degree as one single unit, not two separate things in which the second is optional. The general idea is that a bachelor's degree alone is useless and will not get you anywhere - that it is, in fact, a waste of three years of your life to do only that bachelor's degree without adding a master's. I was not aware of how strongly rooted that idea is here. Once I had made my decision, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to me, and like the best decision I could ever have made.

Unfortunately, this could not be said of most other people.

Luckily I have amazing parents who have a lot of confidence in me, and who always support me to the maximum. I also have a lot of amazing friends - some who were very enthusiastic about my scheme, some who did not like it at all. Fair enough. But then there were all those other people - acquaintances, family, new people I met who, of course, would ask what I do in life. Most of those (luckily not all of them) just pretty much think that I'm out of my mind, and that it's a disgrace my parents are letting me do this. I find this odd. I never even asked my parents, I told them. I feel that by now I'm quite capable of making my own informed decisions. (Which does not lessen my gratitude to my parents for being supportive.)

Oh, well. The decision was made and doubts about my sanity are not going to make me change my mind. It was the best thing I could do for myself at this point in my life. I'd rather spend a year doing many different things to help me find out what I really want to do in life, than spend a year doing a master's degree which doesn't interest me too much at the moment and of which I have no idea if it will lead me anywhere in particular. People tell me I will never find a 'proper' job if I don't have that master's degree. They may be proven right at some point. But if so, nothing stops me from getting that degree after all. It's not like I'm embarking on some irreversible journey into the great nothing. (Also, their ideas of what a 'proper' job is might just differ from mine. Just maybe.)

One thing I know for sure is that this will never be a wasted year. I will learn so much - I am learning so much. I would even dare to argue I'm learning more, or at least things more useful, than I would when doing that inevitable master's degree.

And so it began.

PS. Comments are most welcome at any time. Telling me I'm insane is fine too.