By Neena Strichart
Owning a camera no more makes me a photographer than having a lawnmower qualifies me as a landscape artist. Although we love running photos in the paper, we don’t always have the very best quality, and I don’t think it’s the camera’s fault— I’m sure it’s the one snapping the pictures— usually me.
If you’ve noticed that our pictures have been especially crisp and well framed lately, it is because we have been blessed with an intern from Switzerland whose hobby is photography. The young man, Julian Rothen, was brought to us through Nina Vafaie of Embassy CES Los Angeles in Long Beach— a private English-language school.
Nina contacted me back in October, asking if I would be willing to take on an intern who was in this country learning English as a second language with CES. She assured me that Julian was, in her words, “a charming, English-proficient young person seeking a chance to be immersed in an American business environment.”
The commitment was for seven to eight weeks with the understanding that we (the staff at the Signal Tribune) would do our best to indeed teach him about the typical workplace in America. I don’t know if you would call us “typical,” but I was especially anxious to meet him since Nina told me he had an interest in journalism and photography. It sounded like a perfect fit.
After meeting Julian and introducing him to the rest of the people in the office, it was clear that he was going to be an asset to us. After spending nearly two months with Julian, we hate to say goodbye, but he is heading back to Switzerland tomorrow. He has brought us laughter and joy and a work ethic that is hard to match. We have enjoyed watching him marvel at people, places, things, words, and just the basic madness that goes on around here. He learned to love sushi, Flame Broiler rice bowls, and Subway sandwiches, and he even had a chance to visit Las Vegas, where he won quite a bit of cash.
Workwise, he created some fabulous photos for us to run, and he wrote two great pieces— one on a local fashion show and another about a beautiful building that houses the Little Owl School— see the front page of this issue. We’ve been lucky to have him.
As he flies back to his country and heads home to his village of 600 residents, I hope he will think of us often. I know we will NEVER forget him.
