Summer 2012

It's been almost two years since I've written on this blog, but there's some stuff I want to write down and share with you all. God has been doing so much in my life lately and I have been doing a poor job of telling people, not because I'm afraid of their reactions but more because I am lazy and don't do a good job of organizing my time. I just got back from an awesome mission trip to Toronto and learned a lot about sharing our stories and glorifying God through our words and conversations. I would love to sit down with everyone who is close to me and just have a good solid conversation about what is going on in your life and tell you about what is going on in mine, but life is busy and life is hard so maybe we can't sit down and have a conversation but I still want to hear from you and I still want to know what's going on in your life.

Well first of all, this is my last semester of college and I cannot even believe that it has gone by this fast!  The years have flown by and I've spent a lot of time this semester just reflecting on all that I have gone through and how I have become such a different person than the girl that walked onto campus four years ago. God has molded and shaped me into someone that I am amazed by every day. I want to bring you up to speed but I don't want to overwhelm you with information. The turning point really came last year while applying for a summer internship.

For my program we are required to do an internship the summer before our senior year and it's this big scary thing that intimidates everyone because if you don't find one you won't graduate on time. That being said I was selected as one of the top three from my Computer Aided Design (CAD) class to send my portfolio from the class to Chico's headquarter's as a possibility for an internship, a paid one too might I add. I was so excited and overjoyed that my professors liked my work and thought I would do well and I had a ton of pride about it and thought I knew for sure that I would get it. Well, you can guess that I ended up not getting the internship, one of my friends that I studied in Paris with got it instead. I was excited for her but also really scared because now I had to start looking for internships and I had no idea how to do that and really didn't even know what I wanted to do. I spent a lot of time looking up internships on every website under the sun, all I really knew was that I didn't particularly want to go to New York and the idea of going somewhere super unfamiliar intimidated me beyond belief. So I was looking in places that I either had family or friends. Found an ad on Craigslist for a full time technical design position in Chantilly Virginia and on a whim sent them an email saying I was looking for an internship and wondering if they had any openings. I didn't even know the name of the company! Exchanged a few emails over a very long period of time but ended up having a phone interview with the vice president of production and sourcing.

In our emails I was told that the position would be unpaid, which didn't surprise me as most internships are only for school credit. During our phone interview I was told that I would actually be paid minimum wage. After some more time with the deadline fast approaching and hope for any other internship pretty much dead I finally found out that they would love to have me and couldn't wait for me to get there. Now I just needed to find housing in Northern Virginia that wouldn't break the bank. This whole time I was really praying hard and I had gone on a mission trip to Atlanta and learned a lot about depending on God and finding strength and peace in Him no matter what the circumstances so I knew that God had a plan and I knew that the pieces would fall together if I trusted him, so I did.

I searched all over for places, since I grew up in the area I debated living with someone but didn't feel like that would be right, I wanted a little more independence than that. I went back to Craigslist, it's not as scary and sketchy as some people might think, and found an ad for a lady that would let someone live in her house for free if they would take care of her dog. I love dogs. I was completely sold on the idea and we exchanged quite a few emails and then she suddenly dropped the bomb that my schedule wouldn't fit well because she needed someone there for a little longer period of time so I was back to square one, which meant back to Craigslist. I found an ad for a house that was right by my middle school that some grad students from Mason were living in. I emailed the girl and told her I was interested and she sent me this detailed questionnaire that I had to fill out along with some references. It was intimidating but I knew that if she was like that they were probably good people that didn't want a sketchy roommate.

After making it through the hoops and talking with some of the other roommates they said they would like to have me as a roommate. After sending one of my friends to drive by the house and make sure it was real and not creepy I sent off my rent deposit. I kid you not, the very next day I get an email from the lady with the dog that the other girl she had found wasn't going to work out and she wanted to know if I was still interested. I so wanted to email the new place and tell them to tear up my check, but it didn't feel right. I had a peace about living with those girls that I definitely did not understand, but I knew somehow it would work out.

I finished my semester, finished my fashion show which was also a really cool experience, packed up my stuff and me and my Mom drove down to Virginia to see what the summer would have in store for me. When I first got to the house I met one of my roommates and she immediately gave me a hug and helped me unpack stuff, you have no idea how wonderful that was, to know that I not only had a cool roommate but I possibly had a new friend. After moving in we decided to find the office where I would be working so I plugged in the address and we went hunting. The GPS said it couldn't find the exact address, but it does that a lot so we picked one close by and figured it was a new building that my GPS didn't know yet. We drove around for a really long time not finding anything and my Mom was worried that I had been fooled and this company didn't even exist or anything. Turns out I had just written down the address wrong, oops. So we finally found the building which was not at all what you would picture for a fashion company it was just in a normal office building with a college above it, barely taking up a quarter of the first level. But we found it and it did exist so my Mom was able to head home happy.

One of the big reasons I was so excited to be back in the area I had grown up was that I was able to go back to my church and see all my friends that I had left. It was such a blessing to have something familiar around when everything else was so new and different. It had obviously changed, which was a surprise but should have been expected, and I struggled with finding where I fit in now that I wasn't in youth group but didn't really feel like I fit with the other groups. I ended up finding a college bible study to be a part of, and also joined a little bible study that my roommate was a part of which was super cool. Gosh there's so much to tell but I'll try to stay on point.

So I started my internship, went in the first day with dress pants, a blazer, and heels and quickly found out that they are a lot more casual than that. The company, who I won't mention just for their privacy and mine but if you ask me I'll tell you, was quite small and probably had a total staff of 30 people, which is insane for an apparel company especially for all that they do. But my boss walked me around and introduced me to everyone right away and kind of laid out the expectations and what the internship was going to be like. She was so wonderful and really wanted me to learn a lot, she didn't want me to just be some cheap labor, she wanted me to learn and grow and understand which I loved!  The whole summer was marvelous, I got to do some really exciting things and I worked super hard to do my best and be the best which everyone seemed to pick up on by giving me more and more stuff to do. I quickly became a part of the team and a vital asset to my boss, especially when she found out she was pregnant! The whole atmosphere of the company really fit me well and I loved every minute of it. When I got my first paycheck I found out that instead of getting paid minimum wage I was actually getting paid about $10 an hour, which was a huge blessing in my life and definitely a God thing.

The summer went by fast and I became really close with my roommates and colleagues and some of the friends that were back in town, but now I had to leave it all to go back to Michigan. The last week was so sad, and it was so hard to leave such a wonderful company and such wonderful people, not knowing if I would get to come back and see or work with them again. My grandma took the train down so she could ride back with me which was such a blessing to have someone else along for the ride.

The summer taught me so much more than I ever expected to learn from and internship. I really opened up and learned how to be a hard worker, how to balance fun things, how to reach out to people, and how to be satisfied in being alone. I know this is a long post but I'm glad you took the time to read it, I'll try to be better about posting things because there is so much I want to share.





When there's nothing left, who are we?
Black Box- This Beautiful Republic