Writing the Application

My experience with the application letter I made, was that most companies didn't really look at it, they seemed to be far more interested in my CV instead. It made me feel that I had wasted a great deal of time writting it and translating it to German as well.

My first application letter looked like this:

Dear …

I am an International Communication and Multimedia student of the University of Aarhus in Denmark, seeking a company for my internship, and I find your company very appealing, giving me a chance to better my skills.

I come from a family of leaders, so I have good experience with working both alone and together with others. Else from that I am a fast learner and I have a good ability to figure out how things work by myself. I am innovative, but also critical towards my own work, in regards of strengthening my skills and evolving my talents. I always strive to look on the bright side of life and take whatever obstacles that may come, from a positive perspective.

I have experience within the field of communication, marketing and multimedia, both through education and work experience. I am a hard worker that strives to do my best every day and always seeks a challenge to improve myself.

… seems to be a company that can teach me new skills and improve those I have already gained. I believe I can find challenges within your marketing and/or media department that would help me grow professionally. Working at your company will not only teach me how to put theory into practice, I expect to develop myself personally and create a professional network.

During my education I have gained extensive knowledge within communication, marketing and multimedia, as well as working with them combined (see my CV for more knowledge about my classes). I will be able to bring some of the newest knowledge to the table, a fresh pair of eyes and a new mind to whatever challenges that may lie ahead.

I will be available to start my internship at February 1^st 2014, and work with you for a whole semester (15-20 weeks).

If you would like to hear more about my experience and past projects, I am available for an interview at your convenience.

Best regards

Denise Brødløs

Most companies just gave me a response saying they didn't have room at the moment. When I in my desperate situation of finding something in a hurry, after I lost the one I had originally gotten, I changed my application a bit into this:

Hi,

I am an International Communication and Multimedia student at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, seeking a company for my internship, with the goal of getting international work experience.

I come from a family of leaders, so I have good experience with working both alone and together with others. Else from that I am a fast learner and I have a good ability to figure out how things work by myself. I am innovative, but also critical towards my own work, in regards of strengthening my skills and evolving my talents. I always strive to look on the bright side of life and take whatever obstacles that may come, from a positive perspective.

I have experience within the fields of communication, marketing and multimedia, both through education and work experience. I am a hard worker that strives to do my best every day and always seeks a challenge to improve myself.

I seek a company that can teach me new skills and improve those I have already gained. I have a great passion for intercultural communication, and I wish to find a place for my internship, that will allow me work with it, either as training to be a consultant and/or as part of other assignments. I believe I can find intercultural challenges within a communication and/or marketing department, which will help me grow professionally. An internship will not only teach me how to put theory into practice, I expect to develop myself personally and create a professional network as well.

During my education I have gained extensive knowledge within communication, marketing and multimedia, as well as working with them combined (see my CV for more knowledge about my classes). I will be able to bring some of the newest knowledge to the table, a fresh pair of eyes and a new mind to whatever challenges that may lie ahead.

I will be available to start my internship at February 3rd 2014, and work with you for a whole semester (15-20 weeks), with a workload of 35-40 hours/week. The start date is flexible.

If you would like to hear more about my experience and past projects, I am available for an interview at your convenience. Feel free to ask for my portfolio, if you find it applicable.

Best regards

Denise Brødløs

Online CV, LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/denisebrodlos

You can contact me if you would like a copy of my printable CV, to get an idea of how I have made it. I went to a CV course at the university, and have made it look much more professional compared to what most beginners have today.

Travelling to China

My flight to China was pretty long, but it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I flew of from Billund around 7 in the morning and landed in Amsterdam around 8.30, we where a bit early, so I had a little extra time to find the next plane. It took me almost an hour to walk to the gate with my next plane though. It flew off in the afternoon and I landed in Beijing early in the morning, where I sadly became very stressed as I had to pick up my luggage, check out of the international part and check in to the domestic part. The flight from Beijing to Zhuhai took about 3 hours. In Zhuhai airport I was picked up by Morgan, my contact person at InternChina. We took a bus to Zhuhai city, which took about an hour, and from there we took a taxi to the address of my host family.

Just a suggestions, if you can change your boarding pass to business class from economy class for not to high a price, then do it. The chairs in the plane look much better, and I definitely plan to do it myself when I am going home, if I can.

From Deviantart Journal - 17-02-2014

So, it seems that deviantart isn't blocked, that is a relief to all the other things there is. Until I got the Internet sorted out and finds a way to unblock it, this will have to do. I will move this journal to my blogspot once I got it unblocked.

So, this is the begining of my fourth day in China, it is very foggy outside, even though I am on the 16th floor, I cant see anything out of my window. Yeasterday was warm and sunny, and the weekend when I arrived was very cold. The buildings here are built in some way that makes them very cold inside.

I have been eating strange food, some tasted good and some was not as good... Especially not cooked pigflesh. Ibeat riceporridge for breakfeast every morning, it is cooked on water, but does still remind me a little of home, where we eat it cooked on milk. But sadly I am growing tirednof the Chinese food quickly and miss normal Danish food. I talked with my hostmother about trying to cook something Danish for my hostfamily someday, and she found it to be an exiting idea.

Yeasterday I had my first day at work, I wasn't there for long, it was mostly introductions and getting into the system. Today I will have a much longer workday, and will hopefully get something good done at work. I am very exited to get started. When I was going home from work, Ingot on a bus, I took the right number, but got of at the wrong place, so I had to take a taxi to find my way home.

I am more jetlagged than I thought I would be. Though I do get a bit more sleep every night so far, I still wake up, unable to get back to sleep. 

Im off to the policestation now, I will write more tonight. 

---

So the fourth day is slowly ending here, the time is just around ten in the evening. I had a very interesting day at work, including some great meetings. When I go to work tomorrow, I will have to find all the links I had looked at again, because I forgot to save them. But I don't think that it will be hard.

Tomorrow I will also have my first Chinese lessons, I am qurious about how fast I will learn it, it is a good thing that I have my host family to practice with. I did learn how to tell the taxi driver where I want to go, but I alreadu forgot the words again. And I more or less got off at the right busstation today, though I did have to take a little walk to get home, because I got off one busstation to early, good it wasn't far. 

Im planning on sleeping a bit longer tonight, hopefully it will work this time. Then I will be free of jetlag very soon. I am going to the market with my hostmom this weekend, to see if we can buy another matress to me, one that is much softer. I think that will help on the jetlag and generally on how much sleep I am getting.

I was at the policestation today to get registrered, just like we have to do something similar back in Denmark. So now everything is in place, and I got a good deal of paper I need to have on me at all time. But it is only to make you secure.

I will go to bed now, see if I can get some more sleep this time, good night everyone, talk to you tomorrow. 

First few days in China

Don't worry, I got more blogs planned about how I wrote my applications and other things. :-)

So, I have been here for two days now, and I am starting on my internship tomorrow, Im a good deal more jetlagged than I had expected I would be; I go to bed in the evening, and wake up in the middle of the night, unable to fall back to sleep, quite irritating. I actually cried myself to sleep the first night, the cultural shock was very overwhelming , and I felt very much alone, even though I was with my host family.

My host family is very kind, there is Sophie, my host mom, Effie, my host sister and Sophie's parents in law, though I haven't been told their names. Sophie's husband, Wu, wont be home for another two weeks, so I yet got to meet him. It is only Sophie that speaks English, so we use body language to communicate the rest of us, when Sophie isn't there to translate. Once I start on Chinese classes, it will probably go much smoother.

I feel very restricted by the block on some webpages, like Facebook and Google+, but I hope I can get some help at work to unblock it. The Internet at my host family is sadly limited, I only succeded getting my tablet to connect to the wifi, neither my smartphone nor my laptop seems to be able to connect properly.

I have been eating Chinese homecooking, it is very different from what I am used to in Denmark, and Sophie's parents in law seem to think that I eat funny. I do my best to use the chopsticks, and have gracefully denied being given a fork.

I should probably get back to sleep, it is 4.20 in the night here now, and I need to get up to work tomorrow. Lets hope I can fall back to sleep this time. :-)