All moved in!

I'm finally here!  I got to Washington D.C. around noon and after three hours I am completely done unpacking!  My apartment here is absolutely wonderful...there are six of sharing the apartment, and it's really spacious.  I'm sharing a room with three other girls and I'm definitely going to have to get used to sleeping on the top bunk, but living in Pi Phi for two years has more than prepared me for this.  Our bathroom and walk-in closet have plenty of room for all of our stuff, and we each have our own dresser and huge drawer under the bed.  The living room has the most comfortable couches and chairs (currently one of my roommates is passed out on one), and we have a flat screen TV which is currently set to the news to keep us posted on Hurricane Irene.  I'm not too worried about my safety in D.C. but I will probably be stuck inside my apartment until tomorrow afternoon.  Our apartment has a dining table, a nice modern kitchen, tons of storage for our suitcases, a giant pantry for our food, and our own washer and dryer.  Two of my roommates are sharing a room and they have their own bathroom too, so I'm really thankful our apartment is so spacious.

I've only met two of my roommates, Jevanna and Terassa, and they both seem really down to earth and sweet!  I'm guessing we will spending a lot of time together this weekend because of the hurricane, so I'm excited to get to know them better!

I had a great time in Maryland and got to spend a lot of time with my grandma, aunt, and all of my cousins.  My cousin Felicia who is only a year older than me took me to get Mexican food at her favorite place on Thursday, and although it was good, their fish tacos didn't even come close to the Mexican food at home.  I might have to stick to seafood while I'm here, which I can't complain about.  After that we went out for drinks and watched the Ravens/Redskins football game at a sports bar, and it was a lot of fun catching up with her.  I'm very fortunate to have family out here, and I look forward to visiting them when I'm not working.

I'm reading the book "The Hunger Games" right now and it's amazing.  I stayed up late reading because I couldn't put the book down, so I'm pretty tired already after waking up early and unpacking all afternoon. The grey sky and rain isn't helping me stay awake either.

Below are some pictures of my apartment and my trip to Maryland, and I'm praying for everyone on the east coast to stay safe in the hurricane.

Tomorrow!

I can't believe the day has finally come!  I leave for the east coast TOMORROW!  I've been packing and cleaning like a mad woman, and even though I feel like I'm traveling light I still have 2 suitcases, 2 carry-ons, and 2 boxes that I will have to fit into my apartment! I'm arriving in Baltimore around 2:30 and then my aunt and cousins are picking me up and bringing me back to their house to see the family.  I'm leaving for the airport around 4:30 AM tomorrow and I'm guessing I won't be able to get much sleep tonight, so hopefully I can fall asleep on the plane.  I'm hoping, praying, and crossing my fingers for a safe flight with no turbulence...I can't even begin to count the number of times I've flown in my life, but it's still my biggest fear.

My last to-do of the night is to paint my nails! I want to start this new adventure looking my best, and that includes freshly painted nails...my best friend Amanda would be proud! I've been wanting a nude polish for a while now so I got a new OPI shade...feminine, subtle, and way more professional than the sparkles and crackle nail polish I've been sporting lately.

I'm officially moving into my apartment in D.C. on August 24th...Capitol Hill, I'll see you soon! 

Internship assignments!

So I found out this morning that I am going to be interning for CBS Weekend News!  Obviously it will take some adjusting to working on the weekends, but the intern coordinator at CBS said the weekend staff is small so I will be helping out a lot.  She also said the Weekend News needs a really strong intern, so I'm flattered that she chose me for the position.  Additionally, she said she may have me help out the politics unit, as well as do research for Face the Nation. Overall, she said I'd be able to get a lot of first hand experience with multiple departments and get my feet wet in several different areas, so I'm really excited!  My first day is September 8th, so I'll have plenty of time to get familiar with the city before I start. I think I finally have everything I need for the big move after making three separate trips to Target and Walmart in the past three days.

 Goal number one once I get to the city: Figure out how to use public transportation.

Less than a week!

That's right, only six more days until I leave for the east coast!  I'm really excited to stay with my grandma and aunt in Maryland for three days before I move to D.C., and I'll also get to see the rest of my mom's side of the family.  It's been almost ten years since I've seen some of them, and my cousins who were little the last time I saw them are teenagers now. We will hardly recognize each other!

Until then, I'm just running errands like hair and dentist appointments and spending time with friends.  I'm spending the night at my friend Allie's house tomorrow, and I'm so excited to hang out with her and her roommate!

I took my watch into Nordstrom to see if there was anything they could do about the gold wearing off of the watch links, and they offered to replace it...again.  Nordstrom has the best customer service I've ever experienced. However, they didn't have my watch in stock, so I figured I'd change it up and go for a different watch instead.  I'm looking forward to debuting it on the opposite side of the country.

The date is set!

I’m officially moving back to the east coast on August 24th! I am flying into Baltimore and staying with my grandma and aunt until the 27th, and then moving into intern housing on Capitol Hill! My apartment is supposedly close to the metro, a grocery store, and is only a few blocks from the nation’s capitol, so I couldn’t be more excited about my location.  I should be getting all of my roommate information tomorrow, but as of now I know I’m sharing a room with 3 other girls and most likely a few other girls will share the apartment with us. It’s going to be a tight squeeze, but D.C. housing is ridiculously expensive, and I figure after living in a sorority house with 53 girls for 2 straights years, I will do just fine!

I’m really happy that I’m living in intern housing because the people I will be living with will all be on the same page.  We will most likely all be out of state, college-aged interns who aren’t familiar with the city, and I think in a sense it will be like living in the dorms again!  Fingers crossed I have laid back roommates who have a good balance between work and play.  It will definitely be hard competing with my roommates from senior year, but I’m optimistic that things will work out well.  I’m obviously in D.C. to further my career goals and gain more experience in the news industry, but I turn 22 at the end of September and want to have a few fun girlfriends who will celebrate with me and will want to get a few drinks every now and then to let loose on the weekends (that is, if I’m not assigned to the weekend news)!

I should be finding out more about my living situation and my CBS internship assignment soon, so I will definitely blog once I know more. Until then, I have to start packing, running last minute errands like dentist and hair appointments, and of course, shopping for work clothes.  D.C. is an extremely fashionable city so the pressure is on to find cute yet sophisticated work clothes…I’m thinking H&M and Nordstrom Rack will be some of my first stops. At my last internship with NBC, I could wear anything from dress pants and a blouse to cute Summer dresses with a sweater, and I rarely wore heels.  But D.C. is a big news market, so who knows what interns out there will be wearing.  I also have to factor in that I will be in D.C. from the most hot and humid part of the Summer to mid Winter…that definitely won’t make packing any easier!

The weather forecast for next week in D.C. has temperatures in the 80′s and 90′s, with a few scattered lightening and thunderstorms throughout the week…as much as I’m ready to say goodbye to San Diego for a while, it’s going to be hard competing with this beautiful weather.

Mind made up

Early last Spring, after waiting over a month, sending many emails, and being very frustrated by not knowing whether or not I was accepted, I was offered an internship position at CBS News in Washington D.C.  When I found out I was ecstatic…I was loving being part of a real news crew with Oregon News, I was co-producing DuckU News, and I felt confident taking on a new internship after spending last Summer interning with NBC 7/39 in San Diego.  However, after moving out of my house in Oregon and coming back to San Diego, my mood changed quickly.  I missed my friends, hated not being busy all the time, and questioned whether news was the right industry for me.  I decided to start applying for jobs, and if I found one that paid well and that I liked enough, I would take it over my internship with CBS News.

Days went by, I was still unemployed, and I started realizing that I had to make a decision soon.  I was scared, and part of me wanted to turn down the internship in hopes of finding a job that would pay, rather than pay thousands of dollars I don’t have to move across the country and intern full time for no pay. I introduced myself to a girl who works at my gym and is interning for ABC in San Diego this Summer, and her stuck-up personality and snooty questions about my reporting reel made me fear that everyone in this industry was going to be as self-centered as she was.  But I kept thinking about my favorite professor who wrote me a recommendation for the internship and even called me to congratulate me after I got it.  I kept thinking about how I received an $1000 scholarship from the UO Alumni Association of Washington D.C. to help with my living costs, and I kept thinking about how I would be closer to all of my family if I moved back to the east coast.  But I was still scared. No one, I mean no one hates failure more than I do, and to be honest, I am pretty bad at handling rejection and not feeling like I’m good enough…and part of me thought that would happen if I moved to D.C. all on my own.

I had to make up my mind about what I wanted to do, so I finally reminded myself thateverything happens for a reason.  If I wasn’t supposed to go to this internship, I would have gotten a job in San Diego that would have paid me enough to want to stay. God works in mysterious ways, and finally, out of nowhere, I got the courage to mentally commit to this internship.  I even applied to two different intern housing locations in Washington D.C. earlier today! I’m keeping my fingers crossed that one of those work out…I think it would be really fun to be surrounded with other interns my age who are interning for different Congress members, the White House, and hopefully even other news stations.

My mind is made up.  I’m moving to Washington D.C. in the Fall to intern with CBS News, and as soon as I figure out where I’m living, I’m booking a one way ticket to the nation’s capitol.