We have an SMC student internship program here at KCRW and we get great students to come help us with the daily grind. One such intern was Ladan Abdiaziz, a friendly, slightly shy gal who came to our doorstep with lots of curiosity. Ladan has since returned to her homeland, but not before coming out of her shell and making tremendous progress with her English skills. Here is her story in her own (unedited) words:
My first time in Los Angeles and my time at KCRW.
My name is Ladan Abdiaziz and are 22 years old and are from Stockholm Sweden. I left Sweden last year 2010 the end of January to go to Los Angels get to some life experience and also start doing stuff by my own and not getting help from my mother. And to become better in English since I was pretty bad in English. So when I came to Los Angeles for the first I felt like it took forever to just to get out from to the airport I remember that I was there for maybe 2-3 hours just to get pass the security and to get my bag. I have never waited so long and it was many security to go trough in Sweden was just so easy to get out from the airport. So when I finally came out I was standing outside and waited for Maria who also from Sweden and Nye who was from New York. We lived at Palms in Culver city. Since my English was so bad I was quite for 1 month and tried to run away from conversations. I remember when the manager used to knock on the door to talk with us. I used just stand at the door and smile and pretend that I understood what she was saying and just nodded the head and answered yes and no when I really didn’t understand what she was saying .. And when the manager left I used to ask Maria what the manager said.. It was so many moments where I did not know what to do . I felt like I needed a translator since I had very hard to understand what people was saying. Not even did I not talk that well I also had problem with the understanding. There was so many times I felt like I should have study more English before I left Sweden. After being in Los Angles for couple weeks I felt like it was harder then I had expected not only was the language hard but also being in a country where everything is new. I kept asking myself If i did a right choose by leaving Sweden. After while I told myself to just give it a chance. And after being in Los Angeles for 1 year my English had improve so much that some people think im American. The first time I took contact with KCRW was through my teacher. One year ago I had a speech in english where I was going to tell what I wanted to work with . I said that I wanted to work in radio station. So during the Christmas my teacher send me a email that KCRW is searching the people. So I send a email to Connie and as I thought it was too late to search I had a interview with Connie and guess what I was too late to the first interview and at that time I really thought that I would not get the job. But I did! I was working at the music library with Eric J. Lawrence. Before I even started at KCRW I really didn’t have any idea how a radio works or how a music library look like . When I started at the music library I was kind of surprised. Because I never have seen a room full with music and the music was everywhere. Every shelf was full with music. And even knowing that all these music have played at KCRW. There was so many music in different places and from different countries. I could also find music from my country such as Lykke Li, Detektivbyrån and so on.
