PHOEBE's <3
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Havent blogged in a long long while... haha so many things happened and just couldn't bring myself to type everything out... im too lazy haha... im sori but i've been working like hell since i'm away and i still am....
Anyway peeps... kk first things first... here we go... i'm back, infact ive been back for arnd 2 wks alrdy... on the 15 May... couldnt blog when i was there as i have limited access to the the internet... somehow they charge differently from us... we go by time but they charge by the amount of downloads... will even surfing net will download pics rite? afterall it was 7 of us with 7 lappies using the same wireless network and the moment we exceed the limit its really really expensive...
so heres what happened throughout the course of this internship... before we were even enrolled by this company, we were alrdy hearing a lot about our mentor of his proj... 2 of our lecturers knows him. Well... i shall say we havent been hearing gd comments about him...
i was worried, knowin that he is not someone easy to work with, but even so was eager to travel overseas for an internship... i mean... well it sounds cool doesn't it ? it was a dilema... hence i said a prayer... i told my lord that he will decide for me according to His will to what he wants to happen and i will not be difficult to whateva he decides...
And bingo!!! all five of us got in... and oh well i will say things have been very messed up... initially when we were enrolled to the company and when the school approved of this proj we were supposed to do bags... but on our first day of internship it was changed to unisex apparels instead... better still, out of the 5 of us, 4 of us were yelled at on our 2nd meetin, half-way into our first wk of interning... to top it up, we were told one wkend before we flew to cambodia that our mentor might not even fly there to oversee the proj due to some disagreements he have with the co that he threw up a hysterical fit. the school wasnt even informed tt the proj brief has been changed until the day before we fly and tt was alry a wk plus into our attachment...
we were supposed to be in cambodia for 28 days with the first 2 days off as it was their new year... so we have around 3 wks to complete wateva we hav to do there... the guy didnt appear till the first wk plus there had passed. me n my fellow designer , dragon bascially went there with next to nothing... and to our horror... there were alrdy sewers there waiting for us to teach them how to put our garments together... they hav to be paid even if they r doing nothing waiting for us to teach... it didnt take more than a couple of days when we decided to talk to the manager there and send the sewers back to their village...
the rest of the time before our mentor came were sent trying to figure out the proper fit and how to out bottoms and menwear together as we havent been trained in these areas being 2/3 into completing our diploma... to think we had nothing, no measurements no nothing, other than a set of basic draft for both top and bottom we took from sch...
sad to say, after he came, he scrapped everything i did as the fit wasnt ideal. till this point in time, theres 2 wks left in cambodia and the last is reserved to teach the sewers. so come to think about it, i have 1 wk to get everything... the fit, 6 tops and a bathrobe to complete b4 the sewers comes back.... btw tt a deadline tt impossible in the industry... i didnt know tt till we got home... so i could onli try to do whateva i can... at least i dropped the bathrobe to dragon... man... i'm glad she's around... thanks dragon... u've been a great help...
sign... i could hav been able to complete everything if he didnt scrap everything i did 4 days b4 we fly home... gosh... of course i didnt hav time to let him approve everything b4 i proceed wif work though... even so i was told i dun need approval for everythin and tt i can go on wif whateva i had to do cos it was 'your' proj. mine? since when did the proj became mine?
kk somethings happened in between too... i did voice about the very limited time left to do so many things... but was told not to redirect responsibility instead... k i dunno if he was rite though... afterall it is true tt it is not his responsibility to whether i finish my work... but still y r we sumhow doing his part of job since he is the designer of the proj... while he..er.. knits a sock in the corner? hey hey he really did k ?
in the middle he somehow got sum links to try recommend my designs for the asian leaders for sum event then again... he told me " it will be best to sew up all ur garments" err.... u onli told me tt 1 and a half day b4 she is steppin in to see the designs... on top of tt i had to do another two more by the same deadline to calculate the yardage of fabrics needed for collection... man... who can sew 5 garments in less than 2 days? not me for sure!
plus i didnt know what was expected for the asean leaders anyway... there was no design brief for tt... oh well i'll admit it i'm not a star designer... still it will be a bonus if my design really got selected but then again it didnt...
so guess what? he fumed... most likely he could have had sum credit if they really got chosen of the fact tt he is our "mentor" so he overthrew everything i did... it was 4 days b4 we fly home... he turned really nasty... much more than how a "mentor" shld behave... vulgarities, threaten personal attacks, bitchiness... haiz... he feeds on my fear... everyone agreed wif tt...
he said: " well... these designs u did where were nothing, i could have done them myself. then y do i need u here for? this is an internship." mind u... internship u say... then i'm supposed to assist and learn from u instead... then y the hell do i need u here mr designer ? we were doing everything oursleves from designs, to paper patterns, to experimenting and production. my last few days in cambodia s**ked... it realli but tt was precisely y i learnt the most during tt period in time ...
Still... theres one thing i odd to realise... i'm in the fashion industry... its a tough industry... sure ppl tell me tt things like tt r common in the field... its still better to experience them with all the politics behind first hand while i'm still a student... under the protection of the sch b4... its a taste of the real world out there...
talkin about tt... it was one day b4 we fly home after contacting my lec on how bad things were for me tt we were called for meetin wif our sch director the day after we fly home... haha tts sure a turn around of the situation isnt it ? sumhow theres a lot of complications when the asean thing is concerned... somhow... things were really really messy things got complicated and more ppl were added along the way... we were doing things not considered part of our internship... sumhow i dunno y... ask tt guy instead... so screwed... haiz im not in a position to jugde i guess afterall im onli a student, an intern... i really hav to leave it to the sch...
i cant be anymore thankful if it wasnt for the sch... i dunno wad will happen to me... lets put it this way... i needed and perhaps i still do need the sch to protect me... things were out of my control and abilities in cambodia... too much games goin on...
heres a big thank you to the sch ... i dunno if i shld mention ur names here but u know who u r... if it wasnt for u all i'll be at such a loss... THANK YOU <3