Learning Diary of Erasmus Trainee Pauline
Week 1
My first week in Northern Ireland was full of so many new experiences that these seven days felt like three. Getting accustomed to our new place, a new city, our new work place with new tasks left me and my colleague with a lot of impressions to sort through. It helped a lot that our Trainer: Christine’s first task for us was to write our #LearnuaryNI-To Do Lists, but I’m afraid I wasn’t too good at coming up with as many as 31 learning goals. Christine advises that this is ok though as there is new learning to be found in every day if you have your eyes and ears open. What I can strike off the list now is handling WordPress at the beginner’s level. Following a quick hands on tutorial by Christine – founder of the TrainingMatchmaker.com platform, which is hosted on a wordpress template, I have found that it’s now a lot easier to navigate through the options and set up the font and structure of the text and I can independently create new blog posts, add photos and their alt tag descriptors to assist readers who could potentially be blind. Lina and I gained a little bit more experience of taking photos that either win you over by aesthetic appeal or telling a story. We have also researched the date and time options available to us to attend the free #TodayAtApple photography courses in the Apple store in Victoria Square in Belfast. On another note, we both learned about and handling of the google drive to assist us with working collectively as a team. (Again, I can’t stress enough how nice it would have been to learn such things in school.) Since we both like to cook and think that getting to know a country works best by trying the local food, we made plans and did research on traditional Northern Irish food to start trying them one by one in the time to come. We scheduled our work and the cooking by using the google drive again. This also supports TrainingMatchmaker.com’s work with client: Mid and East Antrim Borough Council. TrainingMatchmaker.com have brought together trainers: Debbie Deboo, Tina Calder and Christine Watson to co-create and deliver a brand new course called: “The Secret of Creating Fab Food Photography That Drives Business”. Apart from that, we managed to see many parts and sights of the city and all in one walking tour – we had originally planned to visit these places independently on a one by one basis. We had a busy first weekend with clear, nice crispy cold weather and we’re both excited for our upcoming time in Belfast, Northern Ireland.Week 2
This week was busy and full of a variety of tasks. It required my colleague Lina and me to do a lot of planning on both our upload routines and our cooking and food photography plans. We started using the Google drive again, sharing our documents and creating a time table. We seized the chance to do further research on traditional Northern Irish dishes and decided to try and cook some ourselves, starting with the Irish Stew and also trying Dulse – namely Carnlough Dulse – this, our company host: Christine brought back from a business meeting in Ballymena – a place which lies within the region of TrainingMatchmaker.com client Mid and East Antrim Borough Council.
We had the opportunity to go to the MAC and see the art exhibitions, a free to attend experience located in the Cathedral Quarter of Belfast.
On the weekend, our colleagues scheduled visiting St George’s Market and a trip to Murlough Beach and Newcastle. I had a great time on the market, but my week’s highlight was the long walk on the beach with stormy wind and bright blue skies. It was a stunning experience to walk through the dunes, seeing the Mournes in the distance.
Week 3
On Monday, Lina and I took the Apple Photo Walk, one of the free face to face learning opportunities which we found out about as a result of our research on TrainingMatchmaker.com when we were planning our #LearnuaryNI plans. The tour, facilitated by a Tutor from the Apple store in Victoria Square, Belfast took us around Cathedral quarter in search of interesting backgrounds. We had a lot of fun on our way and learned a lot. On Thursday, I painted Valentine’s Day cards to assist with marketing communications messages on this day and to help with copy I did a little reading on the origin of the Valentine’s Day. You can find my creations used on the TrainingMatchmaker.com Instagram page at:And
Blog written by Pauline from Germany,
hosted by TrainingMatchmaker.com
trainee at the Erasmus+ exchange program
in Belfast, Northern Ireland 
