************************************************

Synopsis for Today

Meeting this week MEPs from TRAIN committee debated the European Commission proposals to modernize selection procedure of trainees in the European Parliament. They agreed with reporters Indre Liepuoniute (Social Singers Group, Lithuania) and Lelde Krasnā (Liberal Dancers Group, Latvia) that “we have to develop cooperation in the European level” to solve all the problems. We asked reporters to share their thoughts.

5 months in Montoyer building: starter‘s kit

Networking

• Networking. This is the key word we learned here. How? This is your creativity thing, guys…And we don‘t talk about the social networking on web (not yet), but the REAL contacts you make here…
• One office next to yours in the first floor, there are stagiaires of the Copy/paste Unit. Be happy you were not selected for copy/pasting.
• You are in the ground floor where you have neither supervisors, neither other colleagues, try to learn how to manage this freedom. What happens in the ground floor, stays here!
• Go clubbing with other EP stagiaires just if you want.  Choose officials’ parties. Stagiaires are all about fun, officials are about your future here.
• Thursday the Parliament goes to take A beer on place LUX.  No matter that there is no possibility to move, to talk or to breath, you go to PULLMAN. You can just say „Let‘s meet on plux this evening?“
• In Parliament there is one place you can really relax. This is the Library. We will let you find it yourselves. No networking there.

Lelde, Lady and Indre

Working

• This is not what it looks like: Copenhagen and Lisbon are not just the great ideas for travelling. Just the same about Tapas. Ask them.
• Stagiaires are not allowed to ask anything during committee meetings. But you can always try.
• “We must”, “we should”, “we have to”, “to combat”, “to develop” “to increase”, “to cooperate”   – magic phrases you will know by heart after following some debates. Use these as much as possible when communicating, it will always work.
• Another magic word „Strasbourg“(actually this is the city in Eastern part of France). Trip to Strasbourg means more than networking. It means trying to feel „plenary`s atmosphere“. Go to have some coffee in “flowers bar”, try choucroute and don‘t pay for your dinner (in this Unit „trainees never pay for their dinner in STR“).
• Don‘t use the phrase „we are JUST the trainees“, when something bad happens to you… it leads nowhere.
• There are million reasons to remember one’s name. Nice e-mail with your name and surname could be right in time. And sign your mails with your name not “trainee”.

We learned also other formula: 100 CV sent = 1 invitation for an interview.

Lunchbreak

• You are in Montoyer building, but that doesn‘t mean you are „outside“. You just do all the hardest communication work, no matter that you go for a lunch in the central Parliament building and you look like a visitor with your coat.
• In the Parliament canteen you have a reduction. If you want some advice how to manage five dishes for 2.5 Euros, do not hesitate to contact us. If you don’t want to pay at all, free food and drinks can be had at various receptions around Parliament. Check the schedule.
• After lunch you have to go to take a coffee not just because in your building there is no place to drink a real coffee, but more also to feel the atmosphere. Go to Mickey Mouse (it‘s a bar in the Parliament, don‘t ask why they call it like that).
• You don‘t have a kitchen in your floor, but you are always welcomed in the kitchen upstairs. Right, there are still 6 floors which have kitchen. Try first and second. In the first sometimes you have some sweets to „enjoy“. Enjoy!

Future

• Being a trainee doesn‘t automatically guarantee you a MEPs assistant place (think how it is stressful for these assistants to receive all these mails with your CV). But you can always try by sending your CV. We learned also other formula: 100 CV sent = 1 invitation for an interview.

The most important: things we learned about this Unit

• Say „tu“ for Thibault instead of „vous“. He insists.
• You are involved in very large scale of activities here.
• Work starts at 9 (at least) and finishes at 18 (at least).
• They say „write an article as you would write for your grandmother“.
• Face…what? Do not have a Facebook account? Create one, you can delete it after your traineeship.
• If the colleagues editors come to your room, don‘t panic and don‘t switch off your Facebook page. Surfing on Facebook means „working“here!
• At the beginning you could not know smth., but there is google translator..
• If you are really lucky, they could ask you to tweet. This is a sign they trust you. Not everybody can tweet!
• If you are asked to cover debates, this means they trust you even more!
• If your name appears in the editorial schedule, it is getting serious.
• You can always find how to be more creative, even if your task is to find friends in MySpace or to check if MEPs are on Facebook.
• Always take some sheet of paper and pen to the meetings to look professional.
• In the editorial meetings try to look as you understand everything even if some things pass near your ears (update the focus, embed the video….).
• BTW we also developed some specific language code downstairs…if you have any interest in shooting theory, we can help (only for guys).
• You missed the Christmas party at the Head of Unit’s house. Ha!
• People are really nice here. Be nice with them too.

Fact box:

• 5 month of traineeship
• 2 Euros for a beer on Happy hours in Place Lux
• 5 % of sunny days in Brussels
• 11 o’clock Editorial meeting on Fridays

Links:

Welcome to my country (Latvia)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RuNWWdhHSo

Welcome to Lithuania

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQUi2k4ek3E

Traineeship at the European Parliament.

This art opens to a technological progress

Opera online is a recent phenomenon. For boost a popularity of this lyrical art nowadays it is possible to watch it on the internet…so, almost everywhere! While staying in bed bed, in train, in coffee places. Just take your laptop…For example, last year Puccini’s “Traviata” was streamed in TV and internet directly from Zurich railway station  by Swiss televisions in cooperation with Arte TV. The aim was to attract more audience, especially young people, to listen classical music. You can also go to New York Metropolitan opera’s web site and look some operas online. This art opens to a technological progress. Does it mean that the high, elitist culture is going to be democratized? Increase an access to this ‘serious music’ and by doing so enlarge the public this could lead to a cultural revolution?

“Increase an access to this “serious music” and by doing so enlarge the public this could lead to a cultural revolution?”

But is it really very new? Let’s take a look to its historical roots. In XIX century opera was visited almost each day, according to a guide of opera Monnaie which is in Brussels. You could even have your dinner and discuss during the performance. At that time it was a part of everyday lives. Back to XIX century?

She chose traditional media

The different supports – press, radio, TV, internet have different uses and meanings according to different temporal and spatial contexts. Is it the same effect when we read an article in a newspaper, when we hear a radio programme about it, when we watch a television programme or we read a blog in the internet? We can consider that there are some differences. Not only in different uses of it (your hearing is more activated in one case, your vision – in another; you need to make a gesture when you turn the newspaper’s pages and it is enough to click when you read in internet). It also depends on differences between the associations that these media have.  

From my personal point of view, these associations are constructed socially but also depend on personal experience. For me, the ‘traditional’ media could not be replaced by www. Why? I remember my grandparents’ summer house where at an exact hour my grand father turned on the radio (national Lithuanian radio) and started listening to the news. It was like a sacred hour, something ritualized that had, and still has, a meaning for my grandparents. My parents watch the news on national television in 8.30 pm every day and I could not imagine that they could replace it by the articles on the internet. As you can see, even the medium can have a special meaning for people.

I also have some special feelings according to different media. For example, pleasures of reading a ‘real’ newspaper (and smelling this new paper) that I don’t feel when I am using the internet. Maybe it is because while reading newspapers or magazines, I concentrate on it more, but I have also a feeling of being in a ‘real’ world. For example, I have my coffee on a ‘terasse’ on a sunny day with a newspaper. Or I take the new Elle magazine with me to the beach; I read magazines on trains or books in a bed. I am in this world.

Even if we stay open-minded, we need some benchmarks and sometimes it is difficult to reach them in a virtual space.

Am I in the same world when I go online? Of course I am. But the problem lies in the associationsof this huge informational machine.  I feel as if I am in a different space with lots of information that you need to…manage somehow. My anxiety is about the ability to concentrate when you read something in the internet. Sometimes I have a feeling that I read all the day different things on the internet but I can’t remember any essential thing. It’s a paradox but when you read an article in a bus or on the beach, you hear people talking, laughing, but as a result you are more focused than when you read on the internet. Maybe it is because this kind of information from ‘traditional’ media is a finished product? Something framed that gives you a certain feeling of security? I would like to use a “house” metaphor. We need to frame our space of living; I think it is the same for thinking. Even if we stay open-minded, we need some benchmarks and sometimes it is difficult to reach them in a virtual space.

Whereas sometimes I have a feeling that I lose control in the internet, that the information controls me and it is difficult to reach  stability there. It is true that what you find in the internet, you could not find in any ‘real’ newspaper. What is new is that you can quickly compare information you read: this article says this, another interprets the same facts differently; in this magazine you can feel more this ideology… While reading one ‘real’ newspaper or listening to one radio could be dangerous because you have only one image of life. But…how to choose your own manner to consume this huge (‘new’ or ‘old’) world of media?

First departure

My first departure abroad for longer than one month was in France, in Paris, for studying via Erasmus exchange programme. During the first days I “captured” every moment, everything – people, streets, buildings, and various details drew my attention.  And all these stereotypic symbols of Paris: Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Montmartre, St Germain, Champs-Elysées…I’m wondering how the imagination, reinforced by films, books, music, touristic guides contributes to the city’s experience…

I'd like to be a tourist, but not in plastic.

You see that elegant lady walking with her three dogs in a park? Real Parisian women! Look at this waiter in a bistro! It’s seems to me that I’ve seen his face in some movie…Weren’t you in the Parisian market on Sunday? For the first time I was seeing it like a cultural event. Yeah…it is more than “just” a market. People go there to communicate, talk to each other. Oh, and these nice jazz clubs in Quartier Latin when you can go and listen to a good concert on Wednesday, for example! And Sorbonne’s Library, you enter there and the reading gets a different meaning. Too many “clichés”?

Sometimes I had an impression that I was watching a theatre play. People – actors and Paris – a scene with its decorations (streets, buildings etc.). I felt like a spectator watching all these manners of communicating…You understand in some cases that there are some cultural elements which you can’t find by reading books or watching films, but only in living in that country.

And after…

So what’s next? Then you start living a “normal” life, step by step you create your own life’s environment, you find a constant activity, some of the new people you met become your friends, you know very well how to access there or there, you know all the shops in your surroundings, you avoid “touristic” places…You choose this jazz club with jam sessions on Tuesdays… (And not the touristic one in Quartier Latin)
You get this “metro boulot dodo” (metro, working, sleeping) attitude where sleeping takes a more important place. You fall asleep…
 
Are you still walking in the city just for walking? – I don’t have a lot of time…Still you go to Montmartre with “baguette, vin, fromage” for watching a beautiful panorama of Paris? – Oh, it is a bit far from my quartier…let’s drinking a glass of wine near to my (your) house or let’s meet in “Café Universel” like almost every Tuesday…

You have your own role now, your “trajet quotidien” and you forgot that you used to be a curious observer. You are losing that “external” view which you had in the beginning.

Do you still live in that Paris you arrived in when you were trying to “taste”, to stop and look at each element from it? Could you have become a part of this urban spectacle? You have your own role now, your “trajet quotidien” and you forgot that you used to be a curious observer. You are losing that “external” view which you had in the beginning.

It’s a natural thing. I came back to everyday life. And now I’ve just arrived in Brussels. In this huge institutional world. And at the moment I feel more a “tourist”, a spectator than a “real player”.
However, I would like to keep a bit of this “touristic attitude” during all this traineeship. It is more interesting, don’t you think?

For the end:

Interroger l’habituel. Mais justement, nous y sommes habitués. Nous ne l’interrogeons pas, il ne nous interroge pas, il semble ne pas faire problème, nous le vivons sans y penser, comme s’il ne véhiculait ni question ni réponse, comme s’il n’était porteur d’aucune information. Ce n’est même plus du conditionnement, c’est de l’anesthésie. Nous dormons notre vie d’un sommeil sans rêves. Mais où est-elle, notre vie ? Où est notre corps ? Où est notre espace ?
Georges Perec