This is it

Seeing as tomorrow, 15th February, is a public holiday here in Malaysia (for the Muslims, it will be the birthday of Prophet Muhammad), today would be my final day as an intern here at Faradale Media.

I never thought that this day would come. No longer would I have to wake up at 6am to avoid the jam to reach to my office in which the day starts at 8am, no longer would I have to endure traffic to and fro from home and my office and no longer would I have to pay toll everyday on the highway.

Yes, I am happy that my time here has finally come to an end but at the same time, I can't help but to feel a little sad that I'll be leaving this place by 5.15pm. Throughout my 2 months here, I have learned a lot. Although I didn't learn anything different, but the experience here is worth keeping.

I am fortunate enough that my colleagues are not like ones on TV! My colleagues are nice and friendly people who make me feel welcomed and comfortable. At the same time, they know how to respect my privacy and all of us minded our own business, which is good.

I enjoyed writing articles and contributing to Rakan Sarawak and covering events. The experience enabled me to see an event from the media's point-of-view seeing as I have to arrive on time, collect the media kit, take pictures, write down notes and record speeches. While being here, I learned to be professional and punctual. Seriously, my time management has improved quite a lot!

I have also learned that although you don't like what you're covering, it doesn't mean that you can do a half-hearted job on it. I cannot begin to tell you how I have yawned in boredom while covering events. But I still am professional about it and gave it all my all while writing the article for it. In the end, I ended up having fun writing it. Surprise, surprise!

I am still surprised at how fast time flew by. I started in December 15th 2010 and now, 2 months have already passed and when the clock strikes 5.15pm, I will hand in my card pass, clock in my card for the final time and step out of the office for good.

Yes, yes, I am being melodramatic. But what I would like to say is thank you to Faradale Media for giving me the chance to catch a glimpse of working life and to take me in as an intern. What I have learned, I will put it to good use and one day I hope that I have done the organisation proud.

For those who are finishing their internship in a short while, I just want to say congratulations for making it this far! Give yourselves a pat on the back! For those who still have quite a long way to go, I am sure that you are doing a good job! Don't worry, time will pass by quickly and before you know it you'll be like me; waiting to end the day.

To all LUCT students in my batch, see you in 2 more weeks! I hope to exchange stories with you on your internship experiences!

Happy Chinese New Year!

First of all, a very Happy Chinese New Year to all those celebrating! I hope that you have had fun during your break because I know I have! Today is my first day back on the job after my Chinese New Year leave and it has been such a refreshing change.

At the moment, I don't have much to do because there is probably not much events going on seeing as everyone is just fresh out of the long weekend break. But instead of going online to Facebook or Twitter, I have decided to spend my time reading up on online news sites; especially CNN and The Star. Truth be told, I seldom read the newspapers because of the following:

• I don't want to get my hands dirty from the ink.
• Newspapers are not stapled, so it's really tiring to maintain your arm's position when reading it so that papers won't come falling down.

Which is why I have decided to settle for reading news online. Not only does it make my online time more productive, but I can learn so many things. Now, I log on everyday to keep track of some heavily-focused on issues such as the protests in Egypt, the voting decisions of the people of Sudan and so much more.

Not only am I informed on what is currently happening around the world, but I can see how the media handled these news. Also by reading the readers' comments, I somewhat know what to expect when writing an article and it is safe to say that not everyone has the same views! Which is why this is very important to ensure that you don't offend anyone when writing an article.

That is all from me right now. Seeing as next week I officially end my internship (bring on the party hats!), I will post one last post about my experience here so far.

Take care and HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR to those celebrating!

2nd blog post for this blog

It's been a while since I've posted in this blog. For those who don't know, I'm currently sick so I took a day off from work but at least this gives me time to post here as well as to comment on other people's entries.

So, my internship here at Faradale Media is coming to an end soon. So far, I have done a lot of journalism work and a fair bit of PR but all in all, it's been fun. Last week, I wrote an article on the development of women in Sarawakian politics and it was quite a personal piece for me because I strongly agree that there should be more women leaders in the politics world.

Last week was the launch of the Yayasan Perpaduan Sarawak (YPS) program which you can read about here. The company I work for is one of the organizers for it and one of the events which is organised for the YPS is the logo design competition which I helped to write the rules and regulations for.

Also, Faradale Media publishes Rakan Sarawak; a monthly publication for the Sarawakian Chief Minister's office and my editor asked me to help contribute to the "Fun and Games" section last week. It was fun and a nice break from writing articles. One of the themes for the puzzle was Public Relations" and as you can imagine, I had to keep myself from using all those fancy PR terms.

This is what I can update for now, keep on the lookout for my next post!

First post for this blog.

My name is Doreen Ling and I am a student from Limkokwing University of Creative Technology. This internship is for my PR393 module and this is my first entry for the blog.

I am interning at Faradale Media, a publishing and media management company here in Kuching, Sarawak. The company has two headquarters; Wisma Bapa and the MAA Tower. I am currently stationed at Wisma Bapa, which is a government building and a lot of government agencies are located here as well.

This is my second/third week interning here since I started on the 15th of December 2010. So far, this is what I have done:

1. Covered a few government-related events.
2. Wrote some feature articles.
3. Contributed jokes to Rakan Sarawak, the monthly publication of the State Secretary Office which Faradale Media helps to publish.
4. Came up with ways on how to create awareness for a youth program.
5. Helped come up with the rules and regulations for a logo designing competition.

That's it for now, I will update again if something comes up. There's nothing much going on in the office right now, so there's nothing much I can do.

Cheers!

Doreen Sharon Ling Yee Mei (14463671)