natalie and chanel

Natalie and Chanel, both 17, from Benoni, are spending the first week of Feb at seventeen HQ in Cape Town! Here’s what they’ve been getting up to so far…

Day 1
This morning we got up early (way too early!!) – I guess we were just really excited. We’re staying only a few blocks down from seventeen’s offices, so it’s a five-minute walk, but we left early just in case we got lost again. We were extremely early – our intern day only starts at 10am – so we went to KFC for breakfast, they were supposed to open at 9am but they weren’t…gosh! We did meet a cute guy who was also waiting :p. When we got to seventeen, we saw the kind of people that came in and out the door and they looked really chilled so we weren’t worried at all. Our first job was to sort out the seventeen magazines from all the different countries, we had no idea there were so many, we thought only us South Africans had the privilege of being able to buy seventeen every month, but apparently not… guess everyone needs a little seventeen in their lives☺.
After that we looked at the February dummy book and had to write letters about any topic that we wanted.

Natalie: It was really hard to pick one article to write about because they were all so good. But I found one that I related to, so I wrote on how sports can change your life. I thought it was pretty cool that we get a say in what we did and didn’t like about the issue… I loved it all. Since I was 12 I’ve wanted to become a desktop publisher and work for a magazine. Now I’ve got the opportunity for a week and I’m not nervous at all. I wanted to see if this was something I’d really enjoy as much as I thought I would and I’ve decided from the first minute of being here that it is. Everyone looks so happy here, it looks as if it is more fun than work. And if you enjoy your job you never have to work a day in your life.”
Chanel: “I take Design at school, this is my last year and then I’m done with school, but Design has taught me the sorts of things I’d use in this industry. This week ahead may just help me decide if this if what I want to do for the rest of my life. I love design and after today I think it would be cool to be a designer. I don’t think its possible to get bored if I worked here. You get to guide the youth of today, how amazing is that?!” Today was just awesome☺

Day 2
Today just flew by, before we knew it, it was lunchtime already. Today we had to sort out things for recycling… seventeen also do their bit for the environment☺. We also did some filing and then went to lunch. When we got back, Carmen, the features writer, had arranged for some boys to come into the office and smell all these different shampoos for a story in the April issue. They each had to choose the one they liked and had to say why. Wow, there was chocolate, watermelon, kiwi and another one that smelt like medicine!
Chanel: “I had a lot of fun today, its really interesting how the office works like a well oiled machine, everyone has their part to do when it comes to the magazine. It’s amazing to sit and watch how the magazine is put together, its not quite what I thought it would be.
Natalie: Today was awesome! I spent most of the day watching the things the girls do. This is almost too much fun to be called a job :P And the amounts of products sent here to be tried out is amazing. It was quite funny to watch the guys pick the shampoo they liked and to come up with a reason as to why. The fashion department are short one reader for tomorrow’s real girls shoot so they asked one of us to help out, which is going to be something remembered ☺ Can’t wait for tomorrow!
For behind-the-scenes pics of seventeen's fashion shoots, go to www.seventeen.co.za

Sorting out seventeen's library!

Helping out with recycling!

With the boys at their shampoo test!