1. Easier said then done
Easier said than done, doing an internship. If you are doing it my way, anyways. I was, and still
am, on an adventure being an intern at Woedend, a Amsterdam based communication
company. But what took it to come this far?
The story of the not-so-average path one has to take to ensure the internship of a lifetime...

2. Not a real choicemaker
Picking roads and making decisions has always been quite an assignment for me. I’m always a little
unspecific, on purpose.
But some times in life the choice is not up to you to rather not make a choice. Internship is one of them.
As much as I wanted to 'just do communication stuff', I had to choose.

3. I had to rethink some things.
As always, I initiated the organization of my internship way past the now-is-a-good-time-to-start deadline. But that
was not all. After I all figured it out, the one company where I had decided to go for, turned me down
unexpectedly.
I had to rethink some things. That, and the fact that it was a mere 1.5 weeks before the supposed start of the
internship with no place to sleep that was a little closer to Amsterdam, made me decide it was best to focus on
some other things and try again in September or so.

4. Turned out different.
Turned out a little differently. As I was planning my next few months 'on my own', I discovered that everything I
wanted to do could also happen at Woedend, which already had said yes. One phone call was enough to start the
most hectic week I had ever experienced: told my girlfriend, told my mentor, searched for rooms, traveled across
the country, found a guy that could babysit my apartment, talked to many people, even paid to say I was looking
for a room, got one, moved important stuff over there in a backpack, managed a bad and a desk from second
hand stores and began my internship. Yes, it really went that fast.

5. There I was, trying to be an intern
So it began. A mere 24 hours after I left hometown, here I was, sitting behind a desk at Woedend, trying to be an
intern. A new environment, just moments after I paused my life here in Leeuwarden and started the double life in
Amsterdam. The first few days were all about adjusting and setting up. They were kind to let me work on the
platform I enjoy the most, Macintosh. I am the only one at development that works on a Mac. And I can tell ya,
you kinda feel the minority then...

6. Unsure about my skills
If you think that is the only bit I was unsure about: this is only the tip of the iceberg. I was virtually unsure about
every little bit. The fact is that I never did TNW here at CMD. All my webdevelopment skills came from self-
schooling and an above average interest in programming. But I had to make a decision, about what to do as an
intern, remember? I knew I had a history with web-development and it had my interest, so it was one of the things
I thought would be appropriate to persue.

7. Whadayadoinʼ
what did I do, assignments, other tasks, lunch, analogy with alt.lønch, fun to do at first, later on routine and just
accepted as part of the job.
Woedend website
Amstel 3e helft
ABN Amro nieuwsbrieven
Intranet
Eveline Halprin portfolio
Intermediair mailing
Met dier meer mens restyle
Mariette Fehmers placeholder
Backup tapes

8. the Amsterdam adaptation
Now all this requires quite some adaptation at first. The traveling, the long days, the busy streetlife of Amsterdam,
the metro / tram. I still went most of the weekends back to Leeuwarden, if only for the mail to check and see my
girlfriend.
But as I became more familiar with the city and I came to know more people over there, I started to stay
weekends over there. That was already as expected, by the way. I never hesitated to decide to stay, as long as
there was something to stay there for. Parties, events, holidays, that sort of things.

9. using the power of the social web
During my internship I praised myself lucky with being born in the information age. What a blessing it is to be able
to stay in touch with friends and loved ones through Skype, MSN and the good old cellphone. I knew I’d really
miss all the friends over here to socialize with. Thanks to services as Twitter I could still follow most of the
whereabouts of them and join in on what they were doing in the weekend. Besides that, I used the web also as
my venting channel so to say. I tried to keep up video blogging as my means of communication to the outside
world how I was doing. Although I sometimes failed to do it in a regular interval, I do believe I made quite some
logs that give an idea.

10. A tough time fitting in ʻthe real worldʼ
Half way, what did I learn already? Made some discoveries, had a tough time fitting in 'the real world'. Tried not to
be brainwashed believing 'this is it, get used to it'.
I also learned that my knowledge is actually not that bad. My intern coach actually said early on that he admired
my power to adapt to a system I had never seen, learn it quickly and without that much help. He even mentioned
to the ceo “Can’t we just hire this guy?”. I, of course, was quite flattered when I heard that.

11. time to move
Then, as I was just beginning to settle, I decided it was time to discover my housemates were not that pleasant to
live with, so it was best to look for something else. It was the beginning all over again. In more or less the same
timeframe I went looking for another place to sleep somewhere near Amsterdam. I ended up in Amstelveen,
where I still am. Although this hasn't been a totally smooth ride either, It'll do just fine for the time it lasts.

12. learning to code in a fast paced environment
back to where we came for: learning how to code and behave in a fast paced environment at the same time.
Somewhere in the first half I quickly put together a plan for my internship, which stated I would like an 'internship
assignment', a sort of project that you work on during your internship. Something real, a prototype, 'this is where I
all did it for' kind of stuff.

13. a unified portal for everyone
That became an internal project, the intranet of Woedend. Place where everything is supposed to come together,
a portal for everyone to find its way inside Woedend. Showing demo at the end of presentation, just wait a little bit
longer.

14. social distraction every now and then
So, I was working 8 hours a day, was in a strange city, in a strange house. Did I have some social interaction
besides all that, or what? Well, yes, fortunately I did. Thanks to my earlier investments in contacts all over the
country (networking so to say), I was able to actually have some social distraction every now and then. Much
needed, of course. Although I had plenty of things to do after the long days, I didn't like the idea of sitting in my
little room evening after evening.

15. I wasnʼt doing enough already
"Doing other things than playing intern? Isn't that enough already?" you might say. True. But that didn't stop me :).
No, the fact is that I put things in motion just before I realised I should go take the internship after all. As I didn't
want to loose valuable projects, I decided to do those as well. That resulted in the beginning of Shift Happens, my
own company, as a freelancer. It was a big step for me, but necessary for the things I am working on. It felt like a
great adventure as well, and I seem to have an apetite for them ;).

16. aim: proof of concept app at end of internship
Back to the intranet. I am doing this project with other intern. Woedend has given us quite a bit of freedom to craft
the system we see is appropriate. We aim for a proof of concept build of the application at the end of my
internship, in about 3 weeks. What we want to show is our idea, our concept. Not a product ready to be used by
end users. We figured that if we can demonstrate what we had in mind with the app with one so called "service",
we will capture the motivation to continue this idea and work out more services to merge into the intranet.

17. the W! culture
Woedend is (and certainly was when founded) really one of a kind. It's name, it's size, it's location, it's website...
All breathe a sense of informality you scare many businessmen with. The people that work at Woedend are
serious, yet intense, informal yet highly professional, young yet incredibly wise... It is as close as you can get to
that authentic "attic" feeling when at the same time doing projects for big names as ASICS, Kia, Amstel and
Vodafone.

18. knowledge growth
svn, javascript, html/css, OOP PHP, complex databases, working with much more different disciplines at once,
project management.

19. things I learned
Apart from some crucial programming skills and the dynamics of a real company, I also learned the things you
can only discover when trying the real thing. Is development truly me? What is it like to work? As I expected, it is
like a minor, only more is at stake and therefore the pressure is way higher. Although I don't mind to work, I'd like
to do it my way. Being at the office all day is just not me. I like being freelanced, define my own hours, work where
I want to work. Decide what to do and what not.

20. To sum it all up
So, to sum it all up, here's the recap. In 5 months time I:
* Moved three times * started my own company * spent a total of 140 hours in public transport traveling from and
to Amsterdam (that's nearly a week!) * met and connected with more people than you have fingers * thought it
was time to buy a new laptop almost worth 2 years of college money * Worked another 85 hours as freelancer in
the late hours * switched from Orange to nothing and finally to T-mobile with an iPhone as my mobile phone after
being disappointed by a never arriving iPhone via Marktplaats * witnessed all the dynamics of Amsterdam with
Queens day, festivals, tourist season and the 2dn world war memorial ceremony * oh, and I had an internship at
Woedend for the extend of that period.
So, was it worth it, you might ask. Hell yes. Thank you.