A One Way Ticket

Do you ever have that second, right before you start a long drive, when you take a mental note that when you finally are those 6 long hours down the road it is going to be hard to remember what you were thinking and feeling as you left the driveway?

It’s a surreal moment. Knowing that your state of mind will have changed enough by the end of your journey that it’s going to be strange remembering where you were mentally and emotionally at the start.

The term is on its last legs. Fall is painting its best watercolors all over the city and I’m feeling the desire to drag my feet. Usually in the last five minutes of the drive, or in the last few days of a long experience away from home, I’m just flat ready to get back to the easy streets I know. This time is a little different. I’ve made plans to not only drag my feet, but to fill my boots with cement and stick out here for awhile. There’s just so much left to do. Time flew as always. September to December and I still haven’t seen the Smithsonian Museums.

I have a good feel for my job as an investigator now. I’m comfortable asking uncomfortable questions, knocking on strangers doors, or sitting in the witness box. Those are little accomplishments I want to build on.

I finally know street names in other quadrants of the city. I can walk to my friends' apartments without stopping in the hallway to text, “Which number is your room again?”. And for a guy who is notoriously bad at remembering names I know people well enough now to tell stories to other people without saying, “You know the guy from…No, I mean the girl that works at the…”. Those days are over and I’m not ready to let the D.C. comfy go.

So I threw my bait out there…short but fairly accomplished resume, impassioned cover letter, and college workshop polished interview savvy, with the hope to catch one of those big fish. If I manage to reel one or two in there is a good chance I will get to meet those of you who will morph from the curious college caterpillar, clicking away at prospective student links, to become butterfly or man moth Washington Center Interns...not to be gender exclusive with my species of flying insects, I just didn’t want to call myself a butterfly in a publication with my name on it :)

Point being, take some time to consider this trip. It can be a semester in the big city or it can be an opportunity to begin your professional career in an organization you would have initially thought was out of your reach. When I left my college in Walla Walla Washington, I could never have imagined where I am now emotionally and professionally as I settle in for the finish line here in D.C.

Hope to meet you in the Spring,

Ian