Hey how are you. Wipe your feet on that mat right there and come on in. Want a cup o’ tea?

So this is my….237981th blog, if I count correctly. But this one’s gonna be special, mainly because it’s specialized. See, this  blog’s gonna be all about my internship at Global Rhythm Magazine. It’s a publication geared towards world music, culture, and travel, among other things.

I started working there approximately during the last week of winter break, and I immediately found it enthralling. The people there are so laid back and have a sense of humor about them which was refreshing. Not only that, but my managing editor, Bill, even trusted a newbie like myself to start writing for the magazine’s website on my first day. It felt as if I’d arrived.

When Bill first showed me how to use the word template and upload news stories onto the site, I was a bit overwhelmed and befuddled. However, once I tried posting a story on my own and mastered it, the rest was quite easy. Which is saying a lot, because I was never all that good with technology. Unless you count my iPod, but even that goes haywire on me now and then.

Basically, to upload a story, you log into the admin site and click “New Story.” There’s a space for the title, teaser, and main body of the paragraph, respectively. The pictures must be about 120 pixels, square in shape. Bill showed me how to adjust and add pics with Adobe Photoshop– again, a program which I formerly found confounding, but upon some hands-on experience, was able to master without much difficulty.

I was afterwards given a stack of CDs from which I had to choose 2 to review for the magazine, which excited me beyond words. I’d like to think music reviews are my forte, as I’ve been doing them regularly for the Pace Press since freshman year.

The difference between the Global Rhythm CDs and the Pace Press ones, however, was that the former was totally incomprehensible. There was a Cuban CD. A Spanish one. Iranian. Egyptian. I panicked as I popped each CD into my stereo– how was I to critique something I couldn’t even understand?

So I did some research. Read up on old issues of Global Rhythm, studied the press releases– then I decided to discard everything I learned. I leaned against the wall and simply…listened. And believe it or not, after a while, I started to know what the artists were singing about, without knowing a single word of their native tongue.

In the end, I chose to review Iranian singer/guitarist Pouya Mahmoodi’s CD, entitled, Mehr and Spanish band Pacifika’s Ascunsion. The former CD wasn’t perfect, but it was hypnotic. I didn’t want my review to be all positive and sugary, so I chose to review Mahmoodi because of his music’s imperfections (i.e. His monotonous voice suited some songs and lulled me to sleep in others). And I chose Pacifika’s CD because I’m a closet fan of electronica and felt it time to come out with it. The music was sensual, transcendent, and altogether very stellar.

In the following days at the office, I did more news stories and started uploading back issues onto the site– a process that is similar to uploading new stories, only the pictures are adjusted to a smaller size and the reviews are simply copied and pasted– less imagination required. Most recently, I updated tour dates on the website as well as publicity information for various international artists.

So far, Global Rhythm as been treating me well. I still make small blunders now and then as per my tepid relations with computers, but I eventually catch myself and am able enough to fix them. It’s a great work environment to be in, and I find myself very fortunate to have found this internship opportunity. I’ve always been a fan of music. I went from my Celine Dion phase in grade school to bubblegum pop phase in middle school to underground rock phase in high school. Now, I’m a little bit of everything. And my experiences at Global Rhythm has no doubt opened my eyes and ears up to all kinds of music out there which I never even fathomed liking. And yet I do, because music is universal, language barriers aside. Everyone there is so passionate about music and the arts in general; it’s hard not to feel as if I’ve finally found my niche.