Pause to breathe
My last few weeks have been nuts. I'd really like to have been updating my blog on the recent chaos, but a definite lack of time or motivation at the time held me from that.
Anyways, its Thursday, and I've got one quick paper to write (which this post had to interrupt), and tomorrow I take my last exam to complete my 5 years at UW-Eau Claire and get myself a degree in Business Administration and a degree in German for Professions. I've not had time to get sentimental about this being the last time I'll see many of my friends who have been a regular part of my life for the last couple of years. I generally don't get sentimental at all, so maybe that too is why its all seeming to just not be happening and it just being the beginning of another summer vacation, where I'd see them all again in September.
But this year it's not.
My parents are coming at 5 tonight to completley move me out of my house and take me to the airport in Minneapolis. At 2:30 tomorrow I'm flying to Berlin, Germany to begin a 6 month internship. The first week will be spent with 25 other American students in Berlin leraning about the German Business/Political environment, a bit of travelling, a bit of brushing up on our business german, and then we all go off on our own ways to start the actual internships.
After a roller-coaster of a placement process, I was placed at a company and given a pretty lame internship, "address-management" was the name of the department at this mail-order catalog company. I was offered a very nice salary and the company had found me an apartment already. As attractive as the pay and the apartment were, they were merely superficial benefits of this job, as I'm going to Germany for the experience to learn and grow professionally, not the money. Although this internship was given to me about two weeks ago, I had to tell the organizing group that I couldn't take it, and I wanted them to find me something else...even if it meant not starting right away. It was a hard decision to make, because this organization had already done so much work for me in the placement process, and I felt like a dick for not accepting it, but I told them my feelings on the position, and I believe they understood.
Two days later, I got a phone call from Adidas, and I eventually got offered a position in their European Business Development Department! Pay had not been mentioned, and English is the official office language, which was disappointing, but now I'd be in an truely international environment with people from 40 different countries working together--that's what I want to do, and that's more valuable of an experience. After I accepted the job, I found out that it, INDEED, is paid!! Although its nothing extravegant, its 50% more than the previous internship, and having thought I was accepting a non-paid internship, it feels like I just won money!
I've got that nervous excitment thing happening right now. With this door closing a new one is definitely opening, and I'm very much looking forward to exploring in it.
Anyways, I've got a paper to write, a shithole of a room to clean up, bags to pack, passport pictures to be taken, farewells to bid, an exam at 9am tomorrow, and a flight to Germany to worry about...
Anyways, its Thursday, and I've got one quick paper to write (which this post had to interrupt), and tomorrow I take my last exam to complete my 5 years at UW-Eau Claire and get myself a degree in Business Administration and a degree in German for Professions. I've not had time to get sentimental about this being the last time I'll see many of my friends who have been a regular part of my life for the last couple of years. I generally don't get sentimental at all, so maybe that too is why its all seeming to just not be happening and it just being the beginning of another summer vacation, where I'd see them all again in September.
But this year it's not.
My parents are coming at 5 tonight to completley move me out of my house and take me to the airport in Minneapolis. At 2:30 tomorrow I'm flying to Berlin, Germany to begin a 6 month internship. The first week will be spent with 25 other American students in Berlin leraning about the German Business/Political environment, a bit of travelling, a bit of brushing up on our business german, and then we all go off on our own ways to start the actual internships.
After a roller-coaster of a placement process, I was placed at a company and given a pretty lame internship, "address-management" was the name of the department at this mail-order catalog company. I was offered a very nice salary and the company had found me an apartment already. As attractive as the pay and the apartment were, they were merely superficial benefits of this job, as I'm going to Germany for the experience to learn and grow professionally, not the money. Although this internship was given to me about two weeks ago, I had to tell the organizing group that I couldn't take it, and I wanted them to find me something else...even if it meant not starting right away. It was a hard decision to make, because this organization had already done so much work for me in the placement process, and I felt like a dick for not accepting it, but I told them my feelings on the position, and I believe they understood.
Two days later, I got a phone call from Adidas, and I eventually got offered a position in their European Business Development Department! Pay had not been mentioned, and English is the official office language, which was disappointing, but now I'd be in an truely international environment with people from 40 different countries working together--that's what I want to do, and that's more valuable of an experience. After I accepted the job, I found out that it, INDEED, is paid!! Although its nothing extravegant, its 50% more than the previous internship, and having thought I was accepting a non-paid internship, it feels like I just won money!
I've got that nervous excitment thing happening right now. With this door closing a new one is definitely opening, and I'm very much looking forward to exploring in it.
Anyways, I've got a paper to write, a shithole of a room to clean up, bags to pack, passport pictures to be taken, farewells to bid, an exam at 9am tomorrow, and a flight to Germany to worry about...
5 Comments:
nice dude
taking the reindeer costume?
alas, the reindeer costume only exists in memory, as the actual costume (read: the pointy/dangerous antlers) is now property of the MPD
hey, eric! good luck with everything tomorrow! sorry tuesday did not work out!! can't wait to read about your new experiences on here... you better update!!
yeah, you better update.
we'll meet up, sometime. probably sooner than expected.
congrats on finishing. here's to your new adventure and praying that you don't get the same letter that i did in the mail :)
adios, senior.
and i just thought of a great pun to make about the title of your post... only a few weeks too late. i guess i would have said something like... "yeah, I suppose you have to pause to breathe more often than us shorties since the oxygen is much thinner "up there" ;) lame-o, i know! you better update soon... can't wait to hear about adi-das...
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