Intern Chick

For the last three years, thats exactly what I've been doing--interning my ass off.  I've had four internships, and will soon be starting my final one before I graduate college and move on to the big world of working for a paycheck.  When I started out, I knew absolutely nothing about the inner workings of the Music/Entertainment industry I was trying to work for, but more importantly, I didn't know how to be an intern at all.  My job experiences included working as a camp counselor and getting paid to sit on a couch at my school's radio station.  I'm writing this blog while I complete this last internship in New York for anyone who, like me, needs some guidance or at least some idea of what to expect.  Three years later, and I'm still learning new things.  But how did I get to the point in my life where it was time to intern?

I was raised in New England, but never lived the typical New England lifestyle.  I am not a big maple syrup fan, my parents never parked a Jeep in our driveway, and we never vacationed in Cape Cod.  My parents worked hard and long hours to give my sister and I a fair chance at life, and when I was very young, I hated that my mom worked so much.  I never had a cool lunch box with a matching Thermos, my lunch box was a blue bag with my father's company logo written across the top, and there was never a note from my mom inside--one time I even wrote myself a note in my very best "mom" handwriting just to fit in with the other kids.  But as I grew older, my parents instilled in me the value of dreaming big and pursuing that dream, and I've always kept that close to my heart.  They taught me that just because I was a girl, it didn't mean that I had to sacrifice my goals so that I could learn how to sew, cook, and raise a family--and my mother was living proof of that.

I always remember being hopelessly in love with music.  I remember being 6 and sneaking into my older sister's room to listen to Biggie, Tupac, Snoop, Boyz II Men, All 4 One, and Salt N Peppa.  I felt safe enveloped in the sweet sounds of that music.  In middle school, I attempted to master every instrument I could get my hands on:  viola, clarient, viola again, the guitar and the piano, and then voice lessons.  I even made a valiant effort to make the recorder seem like a serious instrument, but nothing came naturally to me and I realized I had to give up the music thing and chalk it up as just a hobby.

I thought about being an artist, a teacher, a lawyer, an architect, an interior designer, a psychiatrist (that lasted about a week), and finally just someone who worked in "business," but none of them satisfied me.  It came time to start picking colleges, and I went back to the simplicity of my childhood and decided that I would pursue my dream.  I declared a music business major and although my parents supported me, a lot of people in my life told me it was going to be a waste of 4 years of my life.  It was hard enough getting to that point, and I had no idea what lay ahead of me.  I tell this story to say this: not every dream is realized by taking a direct path.  Sometimes you have to try on some other things in order to figure out what's right for you.  And as good as the dream feels, no one ever said the road to it was a smooth one.