Yes, Reader, I am so clever with words, indeed.

In the unlikely scenario that you have not been diligently following my blog, my internship with IBM in Minnesota is near its end, as I have less than a month before returning to full-time student-ship. I have been searching for the end since I started my internship in May, which may sound like I have not enjoyed my time here, but on the contrary, the time that I have spent here has possibly been the best experience of my life. This post (and its sequel) will give a brief synopsis of my seven (almost eight) month journey in Rochester, Minnesota.

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With the exception of becoming a princess, winning a job with IBM was my most unlikely dream to be realized. In the past nine months, I have made at least five life-changing decisions, and the first (1), and best decision was accepting this job. And even though I did not fully understand what I was getting myself into, I tried to welcome the foreign experience with open arms and an open mind.

I took my chances on a random roommate, Ashley, a move which turned out to be the second (2) best decision I have made. Moving to Minnesota left me on completely foreign turf with no one and no where even remotely familiar. I spent my first four days alone, wandering around Target, and lapping the Rochester Mall. I had been warned that finding a random roommate could be disastrous, and when I first learned more about Ashley– well– we had literally nothing in common except for being the same gender and having similar hair-lengths.

I do not exaggerate when I say that we had nothing in common, as our differences were more significant than, “She likes blue, and I like pink” or “She plays the flute and I played the violin,” but our similarities were so few and far between, the beginning did not seem even remotely promising. Reader, I’ll spare you the romantic details, and since this is my second best decision, I’m sure you are sharp enough to realize it had a positive outcome.

Despite our extremely vast differences from every possible angle on the surface, from sheer natural appearance and personal fashion to the blazing differences in our personalities, it soon became clear that we had a lot more in common than either of us could have suspected (that was a solid book-cover line right there!). It turns out that beneath (pretty far down) our social facades, we have remarkably similar core principles.

Ashley has been a fantastic roommate, and grown to be a truly phenomenal friend, for which I will never forget. In a completely non-romantic way, it has been so personally inspirational to find myself in someone so blatantly different from me. This blog is already sounding like a love ballad to Ashley, but she was the most imperative ingredient in my positive journey these past eight months.

To be continued….
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LOVE,

Rachel

P.S. I know I said this would be “Brief”– but my internship was 7 months long, what did you expect? Also, I will try to not make the sequel so gushy. Thanks for doing your job, Reader!