Intern Chick

I really strive to be the type of intern that has my sh*t together.  I work hard to be the one with all the answers for my boss, to know where everything is when he/she can't find it, and to always be ready for whatever the powers that be may throw my way.  And most of the time, I like to think I succeed.  But when you're focusing solely on one part of your life, other things start to fall apart.

I can remember the summer before my very first internship.  I had a ton of friends and a new boyfriend and was always hanging out and talking on the phone with them.  I didn't have much else going on in my life and so at that point, my friends were my life.  Then I started interning.  I commuted three days a week into Manhattan and the other two days I worked a part-time 9-5 in my home town.  On the days I went to New York, I would wake up around 9, get on the train, work until 8 or 9, and not get home until 9, 10 or 11:00 at night, if I was lucky.   I stopped having time for a social life and to this day, my friends will mention a wild night out or a traumatic experience and I ask myself, "Why didn't I know about this? Where was I?"  The answer is always the same..."Oh...that's right, I was working."

I'm okay with that, really, I am.  It's just the nature of the music industry game, and I'm no second string bench warmer.  The next year when I did my internship, I moved to Brooklyn and then I really never saw my friends, who wanted to visit me in the 'hood anyway?  I made new, New York, friends but still I was always working.  I again had two jobs so I would come home from my 4-day a week internship, and work from home through all hours of the night.  Even when I did have some time off, I really wasn't in the mood for anything but sleeping, reading, or TV watching.

And the same thing happened this last time I interned, not that I was really surprised or anything.

Its something you have to accept is going to happen at some point or another.  Maybe you'll balance it after a while, maybe you'll slack off at work so you can hang out with your friends, or maybe you'll be a loner like me and start an intense love affair with your cubicle.  Its just important you face the reality.  And that reality is, there will be a time you have to make a decision between the two.  

Is there a right and a wrong decision?  I don't think so...either way you're going to lose something.  But whichever you choose--charge that to the game.

So I moved outta New York, celebrated a few holidays and a birthday, and before I knew it, I was unloading my things into my on-campus apartment.  Oh, how I love/hate school.  Learning about all kinds of things I will never actually use?  Reading textbooks for no reason?  Taking notes I'll never study with?  Love it.  Group projects?  Three hour long classes?  Students who think they know better than you and the professor?  Random, pointless, guest speakers?  Hate it.  But like I've said again and again, there are always going to be things you don't want to do.  

I'm graduating in May.  It's going to come quicker than I know it, and though I'm not yet scared, I sure as hell am not counting down the days either.  This is the start of my last semester.  In August I started this blog at the start of my last internship.  I feel like all these chapters in my life are ending and nothing new is starting.  Its been a really long time since I've been at the point where one book is closing and another is just being written.  Its a really scary place to be. 

I used to play this game when I was little called Thin Ice.  In the game, you put wet marbles on a tissue using tongs; eventually the tissue gets too damp and if the marbles fall through while the tongs are in your hand, you lose.  That's kind of how I feel right about now--that at any minute, the bottom is going to drop out and I'm going to lose.  Lose at what?  I don't know.  Could be anything, maybe even something I want to lose at.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in love with the excitement of the whole thing.  I kind of feel like when you spend all day at the boardwalk in the arcades and finally get to cash in all your tokens and tickets for the biggest prize there is.  All these years of hard work are redeemable for one, big prize.  I'm just a little worried I'm going to take the prize home and realize its not all it was cracked up to be.

These are just my thoughts as a college girl 4 months away from walking out of here with my diploma in one hand and my resume in the other.  I think I'll always be an intern at heart.