Forth! And fear no darkness!: Ok - I'm a little bit worried.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to spend the entire semester playing tennis and basketball. For about a month my roommate Patrick (who I’m reasonably sure is mentioned in every single one of my blog posts so far) was preparing for or undertaking interviews for summer internships. He was eventually offered a summer position with Wells Fargo Investment Banking and is currently working with them in Charlotte. Oddly, one of my good friends from Kansas City, Thomas Henry, was also offered the same job in Los Angeles.

Right as Pat was done job searching, my job search kicked into full gear. I applied to a few different places, and had more success with some than others. The Davidson network in DC is quite broad, and I spend plenty of time on the phone with people trying to work out connections. There was one particular lobbying firm where I was told I made it to the top two candidates, but they chose to go with the other guy because he had a connection to one of the partners. That’s how it is here – it’s all about who you know.

In the end, I ended up accepting an intern position with the Eleison Group. They also oversee a non-profit organization, The American Values Network. A further explanation of what all we do and what my specific job is will come in another post or two, but basically this is all to say that for a while Patrick and I were busy at different points during the semester. Obviously we still saw each other often, but things were a little hectic and we didn’t get to hang out a whole lot.

*Edit* In March for their spring break my family came and spent 4 or 5 days with me in NC. It was a little bit warmer than home, and it as nice to see them because I didn't have that much time at home over winter break due to my delay in London. The day they left, Katie Mixon, a friend of Patrick and I's from abroad who lives in NC, came to visit over her spring break. It was really nice to see her and we went and saw a few people she had met when they came to visit Vienna and then just hung out for a while. Good thing I left these all out the first time, right? Sorry!! Anyway, it was great to see all of them, and I hope next year a few more people from abroad get to come again. I'm looking at you Dürergasse 18/6 roommates, Morgan, Julia, Allison (given), Michelle, Annie, Ashley, Roger...was I friends with any other guys outside of my apartment? *End Edit*

Anyway, as the course of the semester went on we both secured summer internships, as did most of our friends (Paul Britton was the last one, but in the end he still got one so he was happy…I think). This made April pretty fun as most people were content to relax a little bit between securing an internship and finals. We beat Elon in club tennis and lost good matches to Wake Forest and UNCC, both of whom we could have been with full lineups. Actually, I lost both my doubles and my singles matches in tiebreakers and we lost to UNCC 7-5 – after we choked against UNCC at Sectionals. Still, I made the decision to play our lone senior at #1 doubles and sit our top team, so I’ve no doubt that next year we’ll beat them. But I still wasn’t particularly happy, and it kind of reminded me why I don’t miss playing competitively.

For Easter we get an extra two days of classes off, so for the second year in a row a few of us went to the beach. This year, Jonathan Fisher’s aunt (he will be known as Fish from here on out in any and all of my blog posts he shows up in – he lived across the hall from me freshman year) was nice enough to let us stay at her place for free. This means we only had to pay for gas and food, which made it a far cheaper trip than last year. On this trip was Fish, Patrick, Paul, and myself, as well as two girls – Minisha Lohani and Nicole Haug. The water wasn’t particularly warm (meaning it was pretty cold) but once we got in it was ok. After driving down on Friday we spent most of Saturday learning to skim-board, swimming, and building sandcastles.

I got absolutely fried. My shoulders were the color of cranberry juice. It certainly minimized my farmers tan, but not in the exact way I wished. The next day I could barely be outside for 15 minutes before it just hurt too much and I had to go back inside. We did play our traditional round of mini-golf, which Paul unfairly won (a – he plays golf, and b – no one has ever had that many lucky hole-in-ones in a single game of mini-golf in history). Two other girls had joined us, Molly Crenshaw and Jenna Ptaschinski. We had a great time though – plenty of long laughs and hilarious quotes, and Tuesday and the drive back came all too soon.

The rest of the year went by as the end of any semester does. I had a weird combination of finals, papers, and projects due over the last couple weeks, but I successfully turned them all in on time, got good grades, and was done by my birthday on May 10th. For those who don’t know – I turned 21.

Two days later I flew home to drive up to my cousin Sarah’s wedding in Minneapolis. Though it was rainy most of the time, their wedding was great, they’re really cute, and it was wonderful to be around all of the Peterson family for a couple of days.

I spent the next 2 weeks or so working at the country club, spending time at the lake, and hanging out with friends. Eventually, I got everything packed up and ready to go (and by eventually, I mean all day on June 3rd I spent getting ready). On the 4th of June I flew to Baltimore where I was picked up by my aunt and uncle, and I stayed with them that night. The next day I moved into my apartment on the campus of George Washington University – but that starts a whole new chapter - which I will save for another post. Here a few pictures – I’ll hopefully be caught up to real life by the end of the weekend!