#gnh intern

[gnh-annapetersen]

Post internship rambles

It's now been two weeks since my internship at Kost, motion og sund fornuft ended. I've had time to take a step back and really look at the whole process and journey. 

To put in short: It's was a bumpy ride. 

Why? My first internship host went out of business and I had to quickly find somewhere else. I found a place but my AA was busy so I got it accepted right before the deadline. 

Some of the task my internship host and I had agreed on wasn't possible as she didn't have any clients but worked on the business and prepared for a new run of clients. This meant that we had to come up with some tasks along the way. Because I had been taken on to perform one kind of task and now had to do something else, I couldn't always deliver as she expected which led to some frustration which was amplified by bad communication and stress. She felt like I had lied about my abilities and I felt like she hadn't listened to what I told her. All in All... not a positive situation. I used this as my challenge. In order to solve the bad situation and handle the challenge, we sat down and took a good long talk about how things were and how they should be and what needed to be done with the rest of the internship. This helped and we agreed on a plan for the rest of it and agreed on how to communicate so it went through the same mail every time. 

It was very difficult for me at the time to keep miscommunicating and feeling like I was a disappointment to her. It costed me great grief and I worried I would fail my internship. Now I look back and am actually somewhat glad it was so hard and affected me so greatly. Why? Because I learned a lot, probably a lot more than I would have if all had went easy peachy. I got to see and feel where my weaknesses and strenght was at. I got real experiences of how the working world is tough. 

One of the best things about this internship was that I wasn't alone. She had three other interns from other educations which meant we were able to use each other as sparing partners and develop new knowlegde across of professions. I got insight to marketing and administration and they got insight to training and nutrition. This and that I got to train people were, the highlights of my internship and things I plan to really build on. 

So the ride may have been bumpy, but I learned how to hold onto the seat and bump along when we hit holes in the road. 

[gnh-annapetersen]

The skinny on strenght

I promised to upload something about my second clients Jonas and his progress. 

Jonas increased his strenght by 14% over four weeks. He had a split strenght program he follow with three days of strenght training. In his spare time he did crossfit on his own where he actually had an older GNH student as the class instructor. Donavon from the year above me teaches crossfit at field fitnessDK. 

Jonas learned some new exercises and got his form checked on some he already knew. 

Below is him during curtsy lunges with dumbbells. 

Last time he performed this exercise, he had problems keeping his balance. This had improved greatly so we added some kilos.

Jonas' flexibility also increased during his four weeks program. It wasn't a goal and we didn't make specific exercises for it but maybe the deadlifts improved it anyway and the increased flexibility also improved his deadlift.

Other clients:

I made a program for the internship host which is two days with focus on upper body mostly as it is there she is challanged. She's a spinning instructor so her legs gets worked during that. She has some injuries and are weak in her arms and shoulders so we didn't use weights like the programs I normally make do, we used resistence elastics instead to take the pressure of the wrists and give her great options to vary the difficulty depending on how she feels that day.  New clients

At the network meeting I go to on Thursdays with my host, I informed them that I do free strenght training programs and if they were interested I could give them my card.. which was a piece of paper with my name and mail on because I don't have cards and didn't expect to need them. 

Four people were interested and I've already gotten a mail from one. I'll thus keep training people after my internship ends. 

This internship have really opened my eyes for teaching and I will take additional cerficates when I can afford it so that I can be a certified personal trainer and work with it as a "side dish" to my education. 

[gnh-annapetersen]

Different kinds of illustrations I've made for the articles. I really liked having to find of quicky ways to illustrate things and I liked how they turned our despite not being my finest work (I actually know how to draw but paint is right at my hand)

[gnh-annapetersen]

Sick.. + survival tips

Who had the kindness make me sick?  I've had more sick days (three days) during this internship than I expected. Maybe it's because I've been under a lot pressure and pushed my body to its limits.  Today I got a message saying that if I am sick for longer periods, she'll inform the school of my sick days or as she calls them "negleted days" which I think is a strong word. I'm not neglecting my internship, I'm absent due to illness and if she sees that I'm working elsewhere, training or am outgoing, she will end my internship immidately. Which I will fight not to be, because the longer I'm sick, the longer I can't train and train the clients the internship have given me and that's what drives me right now.

Maybe she thinks I'm faking it because she saw me yesterday and I seemed fine but I've been feeling slow, unfocused and extremely exhausted all week except yesterday. So I guess my body was signalling that something is off. 

I haven't been entirely happy with my internship. I'm feel like I'm missing challanges and just doing the same thing which is writing post/articles for her blog, going to a morning meeting every second Thursday and training the clients (which I love).

It is partly my own fault that I can't find tasks to perform but since it's a one man business, she is the only one I can ask for help or talk with about tasks and she is stressed out and have three other interns which she also have to activate. 

I just feel like I'm intruding and interrupting her and I don't know what tasks I can take on because she keeps to herself for a bit because she is so busy. 

In my next internship I want to work with a larger business where hopefully I have someone who can help me, have time to talk to me and I can work with so I'm not just left alone behind a computer. 

I'm learning that I have to be more careful of how I chose an intern place. 

For future GNH students going on internships I'll share my survival tips in hopes that their internship can be more fulfilling. 

Come to a clear agreement about what you expect from the internship, the host and what the host expects from you. 

Talk with your host throughout your internship, if you're in doubt and feel like you're treading water, ask him/her what you can do. 

Decided if you want to be in a small or big business, in a small business, the host are handling so many tasks that he/she won't have much time to help you. 

Apply in time and inform your school advisor. Right before your internship, the teachers are handling the BA exams and won't have much time to sit down with you. Have your internship in place before that.  Google the business you apply to. Check out your host on LinkdIn, if it's a business with more departments, get clearification about what department you're in and google the hell out of that department or side of the business. You can never know too much. 

Once again, COMMUNICATION IS KEY! I can't stress it enough. I would have wish I had more face-to-face communication as it's easier to determine what needs to be done and what the other person is actually saying. 

That's it for now. Maybe I'll come up with more at the very end of the internship. 

[gnh-annapetersen]

The final frontier

The internship is almost over, only two more weeks to go and the eight weeks have almost flown by in no time. 

The past two weeks I've worked from home because my host is stressed out. I've been writing articles for her blog so that she have a database of posts to upload later on so that she doesn't have to stress over it. 

I've also trained clients. 

I had a new client the other day and it was a challange for me to make her program. 

She have to work out at home. She has arthritis in her wrists and hands so she can't get down on the floor because she can't put weight on her wrist or flex them which makes it hard to get up again.  She's not in very good shape and she lacks motivation so it's interesting to see if she actually sticks to the agreed program.

She live just around the corner from me and I'll do the follow up after the internship ends or at the very end. 

Wednesday I have to train my host and her follow up will be after the end of the internship but I'll post about it here. 

[gnh-annapetersen]

Working from home

This week and next week I have to work from home. 

It was going well until I forgot a network meeting early this morning.  I had gotten the notice that the intern host needed some time free of interns and somehow my logical sense decided that this meant totally free from interns as in "see you in two weeks, mail me with your assignments". I guess not and I'm a bit ashamed I didn't check up on it. 

Because I'm working at home, my "day at the office" have changed and left much more room for training and free time as I can work at whatever hour of the day I want. 

My client yesterday cancelled two hours before I was suppose to met her which was a shame because training clients is my favorite part of my internship.  Tomorrow I have a follow up session with Jonas and I'm excited to see his progress. 

[gnh-annapetersen]

Challenge and how I dealt with it

Like I mentioned on yesterday, I was having trouble, communication with my internship host and I was feeling really sad.  Her and I had a long conversation where we found some common ground and made some guidelines for how to work together. 

She understood it as if I was good at grammar checking other people's materiale and I had only said I was decent. I however suck at proof reading my own stuff, just like I can't read a book twice because my brain memorizes it and I don't see the words. 

Now I'm aware of what she want and expect from me. Now I know where my weaknesses is at and what I need to keep an eye on.  Now, let's have 5 fab weeks! I'll try to make the most of this and make sure that my internship host also benefits from it. 

I'll keep doing updates about how I deal with this challenge. 

[gnh-annapetersen]

It's tough and I'm challenged with this

This whole internship experience isn't as easy as I thought it would be and I'm emotionally and mentally drained. 

I've had two sick days already and I feel like poo. 

A challange I'm faced with is writing articles. This isn't usually a problem for me, but the communication between me and my internship host aren't that great. We keep misunderstanding each other and I can't seem to deliver what she want from me. 

I'm really trying to work this out and write in a manner that she wants. It is just very difficult to have to write like somebody that you are not. I can't write like her, because I am not her so our way of communication will always be different.  It wasn't until last friday that she clarified that she wanted the articles written in a story telling way. She said she talked about that at our first interview but that was months ago and we were brainstorming, not deciding tasks as far as I understood. 

I fear that she will discharge me as her intern as it seems like she feels like she isn't the right intern place for me and that I don't benefit from my internship which I have to disagree with. 

I've learned more about communication and miscommunication.

I've learned more about promoting things to an audience.

I've practised my sports didactics which I absolutely love.

I've gotten insight to how much work it takes to be an independent health professional and what kind of work that has to be done.

Of course it annoys me very much and affects me deeply when I can't deliver what she want but it is also difficult to figure out what that is when she's the kind of person who jumps between topics and doesn't neccesarily give clear directions or expresses her wishes in a clear and understandable matter.  I believe it would be easier for me to just start things on my own if I had been in a larger firm. 

I'm just really stressed out about all of this and I don't really want to continunie when I can't live up to the expectations and when it seems like she wants to cut me loose.  What will happen if she does? I'll fail the internship and get delayed in my education or maybe spent my summer holiday redoing it all?