Today we worked at the Brooklyn Expo Center (which is awesome because it’s half a block from where I’m staying and the office is in Williamsburg, a 20 minute bike ride from me). It took ages to set up and we still aren’t done, but we have another day until the show on Friday.
I thought I’d compile a list of a few things I’ve had to become adept at/some general tidbits:
1. Explaining why I’m not in school (“My school basically doesn’t make us take classes for the fourth quarter of our senior year if we do internships or otherwise justify how we’re using that time”). Everyone says they wish they had it. I wish everyone got to have it too.
2. Remembering to check in for my Southwest flight exactly 24 hours ahead. (Just kidding because I’m actually 0/3 on this one but I’m really hoping I remember this time)
3. Generally figuring out how to get places and budgeting time. I give myself an extra twenty minutes if I need to be someplace on time and I just grab a coffee if I’m early. I’ve almost been late a few times, so I can’t imagine what would’ve happened had I not left twenty minutes early.
4. Surreptitiously checking Apple Maps so that the other people on the bus don’t know that I’m not from New York or Washington.
5. I’ve become quite good at consolidating the 18,000 reasons why I’m going to St Andrews into two or three sentences.
6. Learning the dress code from how everyone else dresses. The rules vary SO much between Edward Jones, the House, and now ADC. No one outright says it–you have to pick up on it from everyone else.
7. It’s SO important to be friendly and talkative and to let people know you. Oh my goodness. I’m so glad that I’m of the extroverted persuasion because if I hadn’t been, this whole project would have been 100% less fun, exciting, and fulfilling. Which leads me to:
8. Planning a project you’ll actually enjoy is so important. I think a lot of the stuff I’m enjoying about my project is totally by chance because I did not plan it as well or as ahead of time as I could’ve. But I have enjoyed these past four weeks like nothing else. But most people find that their senior projects teach them which fields they don’t want to go into–I’ve found quite the opposite. I have so many uber exciting dreams now and I don’t even know what is realistic and I don’t even want to know because the weight of reality is often so burdensome and awfully incorrect. So here I am, sitting on a couch in a really cute brownstone in Brooklyn and I. Absolutely. Cannot. Wait. For the rest of my life.
This is so wonderful and the last one is my favorite. So true about reality. Imagine finding a perfect balance between reality and idealism.
Do you think you’ve found something that might be something you enjoy doing for the rest of your life?