Week 1 // Blog Question #1 – What did you learn from your first week at your internship? Did anything surprise you? Who did you meet and what do they do? Did you engage in any code switching?
From the first week at my internship, I learned many things about working at a dance studio. I learned that there are more than just teaching choreographies when you work at the studio. My expectations was just dance, dance, and dance before I started working but once my shift started, my sponsor told me to count the inventories and merchandises. Not only that, I am now in charge of the emails and paperwork. I have to update the emails of the new students’ parents and print out new sign up papers. I realized there’s more than just teaching students how to dance. Although it’s been a week since my internship started, nothing has surprised me yet since I don’t get to do anything excited during work. However, I was surprised to see many amazing dancers at the studio. I saw many different dancers with different styles, I was surprised at how creative they are. As soon as the music start, many just bust out break-dancing and did many cool tricks and techniques within just 30 seconds! I was also surprised at how “chill” the people are. I met four people in total, including my sponsor, within this week. I met Cruz, my secondary sponsor. I also met two other dancers who are always at the studio practicing their dance. They are all really “chill” about me working there, they don’t expect me to be all uptight and professional-like at all. They consider me as a friend that can coolly talk to them about anything. Working at a place like this, code switching do not occur that often. However, I do expect myself to talk professionally when it comes to my sponsor to show respect.
Week 2 // Blog Question #2 – What was the best thing that happened this week at your internship? How did it make you feel? What else makes you excited about this internship?
It has been a couple of weeks since I started working at B-Boy Factory. There isn’t much to talk about since everyday felt the same. Every time I come to work, I either have to do a lot of physical labor work such as cleaning the mirrors/windows, hanging up pictures, etc… or stay in the office and do my homework after doing a a couple things for my sponsor on the computer such as Photoshop or ordering things that’s needed for the studio. To be honest, I kind of lost interest since I did not feel as enthusiast as when I first got this internship. I cannot feel that excitement as when I first came to the studio and fold t-shirts for three hours long without complaining about anything. However, it is not because of the people there. In fact, the reason why I am motivated to go to work is because I love seeing the people there. It’s just that the work that my sponsor gave me isn’t exciting and it is not what I expected before I joined this internship. But, I think the best part about this “worst week” was being able to understand the “behind-the-scenes” work of someone who owns a dance studio. I learned the reality behind one of my dream jobs and because of that, I’ll be able to prepare for it in the future if I decide to continue on this path. Beside that, I haven’t been able to interact with anyone in the studio beside my sponsor. I was either too busy with the physical work or stuck in the office doing nothing when I could get up and go interact with the other dancers but I couldn’t due to my shy, antisocial personality. I hope I will be able interact with other dancers in the studio soon since it is basically part of this internship– get to know your co-workers. Just the thought of me being a little bit braver to go talk to another dancer or another dancer approaching me is exciting. I am excited for that one day to come, the sooner the better because it’s getting quite lonely in the office. I’m excited for that one day when I could be able to learn how to dance at work with other dancers in the studio. Recently, I am slowly breaking out of my shells by happily greets my co-workers whenever I come in or leave. It’s a slow progress but I’m certain that one day will come and it will motivate me to go to work even more.
Week 3 // Blog Question #3 – How do your actions affect your workplace? Did you contribute positively? How do your co-workers action affect your internship? Which co-workers are you connecting with?
At the workplace, how I am being treated reflects on my actions. Usually, I come to work with a positive attitude no matter what. Whenever I greet my co-workers with a smile, they would respond back the same way. However, I tend to get a little bit too serious while working. When my sponsor give me a duty, I expect myself to finish that duty perfectly without wasting any seconds. Because of that, I tend to get very quiet and keep myself in a bubble; I do not talk or make eye contacts with anyone until I get the job done. Whenever my co-workers saw me working like that, they tend to distance themselves from me and the same goes for myself. My guess is that they do not want to bother me while I am working. For me, I want to get the job done while not bothering anyone around but it is completely fine if they approach me. Therefore, my actions do affect the “vibes” around the studio. With this in mind, I should have a more positive attitude even when I am working around other dancers so I can contribute to the workplace more positively. For example, I could at least smile or ask how was their day if I happen to encounter a co-worker while working. Vice versa, the same goes for my co-workers, their actions affect my internship experience. All the days that I’ve been working there, the only interaction I get with my co-workers is when we say “hello” or “goodbye” to each other. By that, it does makes me feel a bit lonely and left out. I want to be apart of the studio but I feel like I don’t belong there because every dancers hangout and talk to each other so freely and comfortably beside me. However, everything changed about a few days ago. There were two co-workers, Ryan and Imran, went into my office and asked if they were bothering me, if not, was it okay for them to talk and hangout with me for a bit. Just a small action like that from them brightens up my day. I got to learn a few basic moves and some freezes from them and they were extremely friendly by making a bunch of jokes. I am still awkward around them but I can see that they are trying to get me to be comfortable around them. That was actually the first turning point of how I feel about this internship because if I get to dance with them every now and then, I would look forward to go to my internship every week. Their small friendly gesture makes me finally feel like I belong there. I hope my relationship with my co-workers will get better before this internship ends. In conclusion, my actions can affect the vibes around the studio and my co-workers, and my co-workers actions can deeply affect about how I feel towards the internship.
Week 4 // Blog Question #4: What are you responsible for at your workplace? What do you think is your main contribution to your work site? What do your day to day duties look like?
At the workplace, I am responsible for and in charge of getting the studio clean and small jobs to ¨perfect” up the place. To explain that, my day to day duties usually goes like this. First thing first, I would always greet my co-workers when coming in then go straight to my sponsor´s office to say hello to him first then ask him what is my duties for the day. Some days, there would be labor works such as: cleaning up the merch cabinets, counting the t-shirts, cleaning the mirrors and windows, and hanging up pictures. Other days would be chill since I do most of the work in my office such as: practicing on how to Photoshop, ordering accessories for the studio (ex: light bulbs, canvas, etc…) and updating the email list. Therefore, I think my main contribution to my work site are just those small little things that I could help out my sponsor with. Other than that, I do not think I can contribute anymore than that even though I want to do more than just cleaning the mirrors or updating the email list. Sometimes I feel like I do not belong at my workplace since most of the time at the internship, I just do all of those things that is listed above then go home after 3.5 hours. I feel like I am just that small extra help at the work place that does not matter if I am present or not. However, I still have to take responsibilities and be responsible for all the duties my sponsor assigned me no matter how repetitive the work is day to day.
Week 5 // Blog Question #5: How do you feel like your internship is going? What are the highlights and “lowlights”? Do you feel like you are making connections with your co-workers? What can you do to improve your experience?
It’s been five weeks since the internship. So far, I feel like this internship is going very well but not in the direction that I was hoping for. However, I found the highlight–my favorite part–of this internship. Rather than being connected to other people, I feel more connected to the small dance studio in the back. Sounds weird but it actually help me found my passion for dancing again. Usually nowadays, I can only focus on studying and doing my homework for the rest of the day once I am home from school, I rarely have time to do anything else. For days that my sponsor didn’t give me any duties, he gave me permission to the small dance studio in the back for 3 hours while I am there. After the first day of using the studio, I thought I would just sit in there and listen to music until the shift is over but my body get energized right away when the music started blasting from the speaker. I danced for 3 hours and immediately remembered why I fell in love with dancing in the first place. I was only able to use that studio two times so far but I consider it one of my favorite place to relive stress now. I would often try to finish my duties as fast as I can so I can have permission to use that room. Now to the “lowlights”, a few weeks ago I was able to connect with my co-workers for about half an hour and that was honestly one of the best day in this internship experience but now that connection just seem to broke off. I feel like there isn’t any “chance” for me to go talk to my other co-workers. They are just doing their own things and I still have that feelings of not to disturb them even though they say it’s okay and vice versa for how they feel about me. I don’t have that connection with my co-workers like I hoped for before I joined the internship. I think the experience so far is going well thanks to the small dance studio but regardless of the connection with other co-workers, I don’t think I am ready to go up to them and start a conversation yet but I hope to at least break the ice by the end of this internship.
Week 6 // Blog Question #6: How do people at work treat you? How does it make you feel? If you have an intern one day will you treat them the same? What have you learned so far from your co-workers and sponsor?
At work, people usually avoid me. I don’t know if it is because of my shy personality or my “neutral” facial expression that appears to be unapproachable but no one would really talk to me. Everyday going to work, I feel lonely because I don’t have anyone to interact with for 3.5 hours. My sponsor only talk to me when he need to assign me the daily duties. Other dancers seem to be busy dancing and doing their own thing so they don’t go up to me and start small talks. Interacting with my co-workers has been my problem since the first day at the internship but it seem to get worse day by day. It’s not that I’m “anti-social” or “introverted”, I am actually very open towards other people but I can only do that if they open up to me first for a couple of days. I learned that my co-workers and sponsor are in the same situation as myself. They are very friendly and open towards everybody but they cannot do that to me because it doesn’t seem like I want to open up to them. This is the first place I’ve experienced in my life where I cannot talk to anybody and be myself. Surprisingly, to most juniors at my school, they know me as someone who isn’t afraid to be loud and quirky. I didn’t have a hard time opening up to people and being myself at school because mostly everyone I knew opened up or interacted with me first. This is the only conflict I have at the workplace that I cannot solve unless I have the courage. Although, it is not easy to have the courage for someone like me to randomly walk up to somebody I’ve worked with but never talked to and asked random questions to make a small talk and not expect to have an anxiety attack. Just last week, I overheard someone, not sure who it was, saying “Somebody need to tell that little girl to go home.” in a frustration tone. My ride was late for a few minutes due to traffic, they wanted to close the studio but they could’ve asked politely for me to leave. Maybe because of that phrase, I am afraid to talk to anyone there because in my head I am having negative thoughts about what they actually think of me even though they are not and it is just one person. Personally, if I were to have an intern working at my place in the future, I would try my best to make them feel comfortable working there and give them a fun experience out of it. If they are shy like me, I would be the one to initiate and talk to them as much as possible so they don’t have to feel scared about working at a new place with new people. I would also offer them to do something fun that is work related once in awhile and not trap them in a room.
Week 7 // Blog Question #7 – What is the difference between working on personal art projects and working in a creative business? What have you learned about working in a creative business?
There are many differences when it comes to working on personal art projects and working in a creative business. The first difference is considering the audience. Most personal art projects are for yourself, the artist, to see so therefore you do not have any limitations on yourself when creating these arts . However, when creating a creative business, you must consider your audience and what is appropriate to show that certain group of audience you are targeting to. Another difference is when creating a personal art project, you can be creative with using different colors, shapes, etc… and they don’t even have to match or blend in with each other but when it comes to creative business, you must consider other’s point of views and know what is pleasing to the audience’s eyes. Overall, the difference between working on personal art projects and working in a creative business is that for personal art projects, you can be as creative as you want and there are no limitations for what you want to create but for creative business, you can also be as creative as you want but there will be a limit to what you can create and show to the audience that is targeted. In the past week, I’ve learned a lot about working in a creative business. As I mentioned, the creative business that I am in is very creative such as making different classes for different styles to dance to one genre of dance (ie: toprocks which is mainly using your legs and feet to dance). However, there is that limitation is that the business could only be about break dancing and not any other types of arts or even any other types of genre for dance because the business is mainly targeted for bboys/bgirls.
Week 8 // Blog Question #8 – How is your internship project going? Describe the progress of your project. How did the conversation about your project go with your sponsor? Did they have a good insight into how to improve or expand the project? How does your project bridge what you do at your internship and what you like to create for yourself? Has your relationship with your sponsor evolved as you have engaged in a creative dialogue about your project? Are there any challenges you are experiencing, planning, or doing your project?
As of right now, I think my internship is going great so far and is on track to being finished. First, I was undecided of whether I wanted to do a dance time lapse video of myself or create a short “documentary” about the place and my experience working at the studio. I decided to do the documentary because film is my second type of art and I would like to cooperate both of my favorite type of arts in one project. Then, I went around to different places around the studio to explain in the video how those places in the studio affected my experience for this internship. After doing that, I went to talk to my sponsor about the project and he gave me permission to record the stuff around the studio. Not only that, he also gave a permission to record an interview with him to put in the documentary. My sponsor helped me a lot throughout the whole making of this project. I was afraid to ask other people to be in my video by doing a quick interview, my sponsor noticed that and initiate first by asking if I wanted other dancers to be in the video and he went to those dancers and ask them for me. Not only that, the studio is usually dark so I could not record many clips of the dancers dancing so he went to turn on the lights and ask the dancers if they wanted to dance in my project. I would say that our relationship improved by a bit because I never talk to my sponsor this much before. This project bridge what I do at the internship because I will explain it through the video but the main point was for me to be able to interact with other dancers. Before the project, I didn’t have the chance to talk to any other dancers or even my sponsor, but by creating the “interviews” for the video created a chance for me to talk to other dancers even just a bit or a chance for me to talk to my sponsor through the project. So far, there isn’t any challenges for me for this project, the only challenge I could think of is how I can finish recording everything with only two shifts left.
Week 9 // Blog Question #9 – What have you seen or experienced in your internship that has inspired you the most on your own artistic journey? Has this experienced changed your artistic ambition? How?
Something that I saw last week that has inspired me the most on my own artistic journey is seeing people from different age groups dancing together. I got a chance to participate in two classes at my work place for the first time and it was an amazing experience. I got to see young kids with amazing abilities despite their young age to adults who already has a career but came to the studio to learn how to dance as a hobby. It inspired me in my artistic journey from just seeing everyone dancing together because it makes me realized that I can continue pursuing my career as a dancer whenever I want to and my age cannot stop me. At one point, I would think to myself that pursuing a dance career would be childish and unrealistic and would lead myself to give up, however, I now know that this career path is open to me whenever I am ready to pursue it. The experience of working at the BBoy Factory has changed my artistic ambition. A few years ago, I was extremely determined to be a dancer to prove to everyone that I can pursue a career in art but as time pass by, my determination went downhill due to growing up and learning more about the reality. After working at the Bboy Factory, there were times where I get to dance in a room by myself or learning how to dance by others, my determination boost up once again since I was able to find that passion for dance that I had lost. However, working there also made me want to change a career path because working at a studio wasn’t a very good fit for me. I realized the type of dancing I want to pursue isn’t very popular in Colorado so if I continue living here, maybe finding another career path would be better.
Week 10 // Blog Question #10 – Has this experienced been a rewarding one for you? Why or Why not (keep it positive, if you had negative experiences, focus on what you learned- make yourself look good!)? How has the reality of your internship matched or contrast with your expectations? What is the most important learning you did during your internship?
The experience of working at the B-Boy factory has been a rewarding one for me. To me, every learning experience is a reward. In this case, working at the B-Boy Factory has been a rewarding because I was able to make new memories, learned essential skills, met new people, and gained more knowledge about this career. I learned that even though there will be times where everything is stressful, you still need to come to work with a positive attitude. To me, that was the most important skill that I learned through this experience. There were days where I was piled with work from school and other things that stresses me out to the point that I didn’t want to come to work and just stayed home but I never once missed my shift and always throw away the negative attitudes that I had right when I walk through the door. I felt that if I am able to do that as an intern, I will be able to apply that skill to when I get a job when I am older and my chance of getting hired will be higher. Another thing that I learned was during one of the dance classes. During the dance class, this person noticed how I was not engaging and interacting with other people because I was shy, she didn’t hesitate to call out my name and asked me to join the group. There was times during the internship where I felt extremely lonely since I was too shy to interact with anyone but I learned that it shouldn’t be that hard to say someone name and maybe asked how their day was going. I should be braver and use the skill of interacting with my co-workers to when I get a job because it is pretty essential. The reality of my internship didn’t matched my expectations. I expected everyone to be friendly first so I could be more comfortable but that´s not always the case. The thing that I expected before working there was that all I have to do was dance but I didn’t expected all the side jobs a dance studio has to do such as buying supplies, counting inventories, organizing list of students, promoting the studio, and cleaning the studio. I learned that there are many things that a dance studio owner have to do to maintain the studio.