I Can Do This.

Cinque Terre, Italy

Hey guys, I'm going to go here.

In May.

So like in 12 weeks.

Yep.

I got accepted to the study abroad program. My dream come true. What I have been working for for two years now. I got accepted.



Now I just need $10,000 to do it. Except there's this problem. I don't have it and have no way to get it other than a loan. I have tried the parent route (they still seem to think I'm joking. Seriously.). I've tried the scholarship route and they must think I must be some strange anomaly because I fit into zero criteria. And the financial aid people must think I am joking too, because apparently my parents make enough to put food on the table so why the hell would I need "aid"? Right.

It doesn't help that my parents have all but completely cut me off and I have around $150 in my bank account right now. And that I have never had to deal with real money before and have no clue what I am doing, and can't pay for even a dinner out with friends but I am expected to go out anyway. Do you know how humiliating it is to have to tell your friends they have to find something free to do and you are broke? To have to sell plasma for basic spending money? Ugh, I hate this constant stress and tension in my mind and body over money. Something so stupid.

School is rough right now too. I feel like I have no time. Every day has something scheduled. But I can handle that. I can handle school stress. I've been handling that for years. I'll get through it. But money stress? That's new territory for me. I will just have to take the same strategy for school stress and apply it here. Don't think too hard about it.

Deep breaths. Focus. Go.

Okay, I will get a private loan. Supplemental FinAid apps are out in March. I will do that. Forget about scholarships and parents. I have approximately $2,000 saved, I am a quarter there. I will get a $9,000 private loan to cover what FinAid won't. This leaves me plenty. I will return from Italy and take extra summer classes here and get a job. Then another school year will begin.

Plan. Go. Nothing else matters or will interfere. Just do it. Stick to the plan, worry about paying off loans later. And most of all remember: You are NOT alone.


(P.S. but if you all would like to make donations, by all means go ahead. kay? thanks bye.

Summer Epilogue: One month later

Grand Valley: I'm baaaaaaaack. Thank goodness. I was going to say the only thing I missed about that island was him, but as I typed it, I realized it was not true. There are a lot of things I miss and a lot of things I don't. Yet, he is the biggest factor. I wish I could stop thinking about it, but I can't. It's getting easier everyday. He did not break my heart, but he could have been a little more gentle. And I could have been a little more honest.

I am a different person now than I was last year. It is so obvious even to myself. I don't know how one person could change that much. Multiple things happened on that island that changed my life forever, in little ways and big ones. But I see the person I am now and I like her so much more. She's confident, outspoken, more culturally aware, brave, questioning, intelligent, mature, informed. She's ten thousand steps closer to being the person I have been imagining myself as that I thought I would never be.

thanks again, stumbleupon for bringing me this:

Oh yea, that's why I did it...

Today's discussion board question for HTM 290-02:

What would you say influenced your decision the most when selecting this internship? Was it the fact that it was paid or unpaid? Was it down to the location? Was it the opportunity itself? Was it the result of positive networking, or do you feel that you took the position simply to fulfill the class requirements?

Yes, I definitely needed to be asked that.

My answer:

I knew I wanted to work on Mackinac Island this summer even before I had decided on my major, or knew I had to do an internship. It was finding the job here, and my desire to work here, that led me to finding the HTM program and deciding that this area was right for me. I had been coming to the island for vacation many times over the years and decided that it would be so cool to work here, live here, and own a hotel here. My aunt actually worked for the Grand Hotel for a couple of years as a night auditor so she helped me get in here. I had applied for almost every hotel on the island months before I was getting ready for an internship. I chose the G**** Hotel because of the fact that it is the G**** Hotel. It is considered the best hotel, it is very up scale, it is the world's largest summer resort and has been named in many lists as one of the best hotels and resorts in the world. So what better name to have on my resume than the G****'s? Even though I am just a hostess at one of their multiple restaurants, I am learning so much just by being here, interacting with the other hotel employees and managers, meeting the owners, and living and experiencing life on an island that is a resort in and of itself. It's been hard, but I am sure I made the right choice.


What I didn't add: 


I now want to flip my HTM major and Business minor to an HTM minor and Business major. Just because I hate how this internship locked me into a job I want to get out of. But that is only part of the reason.

I have never believed in Fate more than now, because of how I found this job, this major, and how it all worked out. 


*I took out part of the name of the hotel to keep things private, though I am sure most people can figure it out. I cannot name the hotel. 

Whoa, we're halfway there...

...whoa-oh, livin' on a prayer! (thanks Bon Jovi)

Halfway done on the Island. Ready to get back to school. But it's funny, now I am actually comfortable here, made more friends, feel less alone. But I still feel useless at my job. I am good at it, obviously, I could train a monkey to do this job. I need something that requires more brain power than that of a peanut. I need a job where I am working with people I feel more comfortable with. Not that the ones I am with are bad, it's just so different for me. Which I guess is a good experience if nothing else.

I have officially decided to change my major. Instead of Hospitality and Tourism Management major and a Business minor, I'm going to be a business major and HTM minor. It might take me an extra year to graduate, but I think I can squeeze it into four years. Whether or not I kill myself trying is a different matter.

This "internship" has done nothing but confuse the shit out of me. It has made me even less sure of what I do want and more sure of what I don't want. I don't want to work in a restaurant ever again. I just don't know what to do. As soon as I've got down what I want and have made a plan something new pops up and I want that.

“I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.” - Mitch Hedberg

End of the Year Thoughts

I have 6 school days left before the end of my freshman year of college. 6 days. This year has gone by way to fast and in less than 2 weeks I will be on the island all summer, missing my friends, making new ones. I will be working, playing and hopefully have a much more eventful summer than school year. I have done a lot of things and grabbed a lot of opportunities in college that I normally never would have, but I still feel I missed a lot.

I have much to look forward to, and I plan on making the best of it. I will go to Italy to study abroad next summer. I will save half of all of my internship earnings each year and then go backpacking after graduation. I will because I can and I am young. I won't ask my mother for permission, but rather for support because I am an adult (a little lesson I learned from Gossip Girl last night). I can do it. I want to so I will. I just have to make it happen for myself rather than get it handed to me like I normally do. This is something that I have learned this year. That I can do it if I want. I can be independent. And I can not wait for my backpacking trip. :)

Greek

So my 19th birthday has come and gone, fairly uneventfully. My first college spring break is in full swing and I am at home doing nothing. I procrastinate summer job apps because doing them means the real world is coming. And that's just scary. I am halfway through the second semester of my freshman year of college and I have not seemed to do anything of significance. I have not partied, have not had a boyfriend or even a hook up, and my grades certainly have not stood up to the level of high school. Not that I am doing bad or anything. I have friends, I am part of student organizations. I am moving forward. But I moving to fast and I just want to slow down.

I just finished watching the series finally of Greek on ABC Family. It made me sad. And not just because of the terrible ending or complete out of the blue cancellation. But because I have been watching that show since the beginning and I guess it sort of set some expectations in my head. Expectations of what college would be like in addition to my own expectation that it would be different and better than high school. But so far, my college experience has been just like high school just with less stupid insecurities about my hair. I haven't done anything different. I am still an honors student, in a student council, not partying and doing nothing but watching movies on the weekends with friends. And there is nothing wrong with that. It's just not different. It's the same.

Greek of course like any TV show is a complete exaggeration since you only see anyone actually go to class or study like twice in the entire series, but still, the point is there. That college should be trying something different and fun. And I am trying but opportunity doesn't seem to be presenting itself at all. Opportunities, great ones, have come my way by they are school, and honor society, and future related. As great as those are I feel like I am missing out. Like the world it purposely only giving me these opportunities to force me into the future and adulthood to soon. Maybe it is. Maybe that's it. The adults running this world are making the consequences of the little things we are expected to be doing harsher to scare us away, they are putting more pressure on us finishing school and doing research and getting jobs and ultimately robbing us of our years because they need us to fix their screw ups. The adults in the world screwed up the national debt, the politics, the diseases they spread with out cures, and they expect us to figure it all out because we are the next generation and we have grown up with technology, we will have or be able to have all of the answers. So they rush us. And I feel rushed. And not the Greek rushed. Not the rush that will lead me to a thousand great memories and happy times. But rushed into the real world. I, and every other college student and most high school students are in the process of being robbed and there is nothing we can do about it.  Is there?