You don't get MLK Jr. Day off after graduation

Monday came a whole lot faster than I expected (and I was a little upset that all my friends had MLK Day off and I didn't, but I guess that's what happens after graduation huh?), but it went by just as fast as it came.

Southwest offers classes to employees as interns through their University for People. Monday started out with a class for the communication interns about how to communicate the Southwest Way. This class was interesting since Southwest has a very unique writing style and even their own style guide (which varies from the standard style guides we have been taught all through school). It is going to be a challenge adapting to writing differently than I have my entire life but will be fun to get to play with the different terms and phrases that are unique to Southwest.

After our writing class we had an intern meeting to learn about one of the greatest perks we have - TRAVEL! As interns we have free travel privileges on any Southwest flight as standby passengers, which means there is an art to traveling as an intern. I could not be more excited for this opportunity and get to see all of the places in our beautiful country that I haven't, and get to visit friends and family!

On Friday I turned in my first draft of an article I was assigned to write for our internal publication Onboard that is produced for the inflight crew. Monday I had gotten my draft back with feedback from the editor - which was positive! :)

After work on Monday was a Deck Party (another AWESOME perk for interns and employees). Deck Parties happen every Monday after work and are basically a company wide happy hour. It's a great way to unwind after the day, and makes a Monday, not seem so much like a Monday. It's also a great way to meet people in other departments or get to know other interns.

I was so drained from the weekend and the start of the week that I was actually IN BED before 9 p.m. and dead asleep before 9:20.

Even though I was asleep so early, Tuesday morning came all too fast. Getting used to this waking up at 5 a.m. thing is taking some getting used to, but the commute isn't as bad as I expected (I will regret saying this). I'm starting to get a routine down in the morning, even though I'm half awake.

We are still learning how to do some basic things that our position requires like how to upload the communication materials we are making to the proper outlets and the ways that those differ for the two departments we handle. Tuesday was mostly comprised of that. I did however get to make another digital sign, which is one of my favorite things I've gotten to do. Digital signs are displayed on monitors in each of the bases and throughout headquarters to serve as reminders or things to come. I enjoy making these because it allows my creative/design side to show.

Every Tuesday is our department meeting where we all touch base on what were working on and get assigned new tasks. Each day we are being given more responsibility, but they are doing a wonderful job of not piling on a ton of new information at once. Everyone is also so helpful and nice, it's not scary to admit you don't understand something or to ask a question.

Tuesday night I was pretty lame. I pretty much came home, made one of the best grilled turkey sandwiches ever (it had sautéed peppers and pepper jack cheese on it too) and watched the KU game with Jason. I was also in bed again before 9 p.m. As Jason said to me "welcome to being an adult!"

A Hard Day's Night

I have the goal to update this every day or every other day but this week has been crazy busy adjusting to an entirely new routine and schedule.

So here are the highlights from my first full week of work!

Monday I woke up at 5 a.m. for I think the first time in my life (that wasn't for enrollment) for my first day at Southwest! I was nervous/anxious/excited basically every emotion you can have all at once. My cousin, Jason, woke up early and made breakfast for all of us, he and Sara really take good care of me, and then I was headed off to my first day! The day started with Intern Orientation, where we learned the history of Southwest and more about what the NoLimits Internship has in store for us. I also learned that the 65 of us were picked out of about 6,000 applicants. That was insane to find out. After orientation our departements came to pick us up and show us where we would be working. The other intern in my department, Cristin and I were greeted by Lori and Cindy. Lori and Cindy showed us to our cubicles that were completely decked out with ballons, welcome signs and our favorite snacks. Then our department took us to lunch and we continued to get to know each other better. Our department is made up of five women and two interns. It's small but I really like it and everyone is super friendly and helpful. The first day ended with a "Deck Party", these are usually outside on the third floor deck but in the winter they are held upstairs in the cafeteria. Deck Parties are basically a happy hour hosted by a different department each time for the entire company. Theres drinks, snacks and even a DJ. It was so much fun and such a great way to end the first day - a few interns and I even did the Wobble with four older employees!

Tuesday I was greeted with a wonderful sleet/snow mixture as I walked out of the door. For some reason I hadn't thought to check the weather and wasn't really expecting snow in Texas but I have learned my lesson now. I was worried about being late but everything ended up working out.

Wednesday there was a happy hour hosted for all of the interns after work, another fun way to get to know people!

The rest of the week was nuts. Getting used to waking up so early everyday and packing my lunch and making breakfast has been quite an adjustment. I do think I am starting to get a system down though. I have worked on something different everyday but love what I am doing. I have done work in Photoshop, InDesign and started my first writing assignment for one of the internal publications we are responsible for. Each day a group of interns meets to eat lunch together, which has been a really great and easy way to get to know people and find out what projects other departments are working on.

Friday a group of interns decided to get together and go out in Dallas for our first weekend here. We met at two girls' apartment, hung out and had some pre-going out beverages and then headed to Uptown! We ended up at a place called The Den and literally never left the dance floor. It was a blast! Since I don't live close enough to down town to go home after a night of drinking fellow interns, Elly and Erin, graciously let me crash at their apartment for the weekend.

Saturday was a lazy recovery day followed by a small group going to dinner in Uptown at a really nice mexican restaurant called, Mi Cocina. If you ever go there I recommend getting the drink the Mambo Taxi, it was a little pricey but it was the best frozen margarita I've ever had.

I finally returned home to Jason and Sara on Sunday for a lazy day of food and football.

This weekend was fabulous! I am having so much fun with the other interns and can't wait to start traveling with them next weekend!

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram: @tessrannosaurus

Getting used to Change

Friday was my last weekday to sleep in, obviously I took advantage. I knew that I had a pretty decent sized to do list to finalize some paperwork before I start work on Monday but I felt I deserved to relax a little before I started on that.

When I realized the Pre Hire paperwork I needed to print off and fill out was 54 pages long, I went out in search of a FedEx/UPS Store. Luckily there was one right down the street that was conveniently located next to a Panera. I spent the next few hours at Panera enjoying a bowl of my favorite brocoli cheddar soup, fuji apple chicken salad and many cups of english breakfast tea while filling out my Pre Hire paperwork and completing my online orientation.

While filling out my paperwork I found my self having to re-read a few of the things I was signing, I've never understood why pre-employment things are as confusing as they are but I managed to get through it. Then I did my online orientation, which got me super pumped for my first day! I am so excited about all of the opportunities that I am about to embark on, in many of the materials Southwest says "get ready for the flight of your life" and after all that I've done today I am more than ready! I can't wait to see what the next three months have in store!

Most of my friends returned to Pittsburg today since the new semester starts on Monday. I got a little "home" sick seeing that everyone was getting back together and realizing that I really wasn't going back, it was a little bit of an emotional afternoon.

This is why I'm extremely grateful to be staying with family. Jason and Sara didn't know I was having a rough day but they asked me to come to dinner with them and I was so glad. We went out had a couple beers and a great dinner together, totally took my mind off missing my friends.

Saturday an intern planned a get together so that we can all have a chance to meet each other before our first day. We met at Katy Trail Ice House that was close to the Uptown area I found earlier in the week. There was about 20ish interns that came (there are about 50-60 of us total). I loved getting to meet everyone and enjoyed getting to learn where everyone was from and how they ended up here. There are people from all over the country and world, it's going to be great to be around so many different backgrounds.

Sunday was a lazy day centered around phone calls home and football. I got to FaceTime with my mom for over an hour this morning and see my Tucker man. Being this far from home has been hard so far but I love that we can FaceTime because it feels like I am right back at home hanging out with my mom. Then my day got even better when my girls from Pitt FaceTimed me! There are six of us that are very close and they celebrated my friend Cassie's birthday this weekend. It was hard to not be there and be apart of everything (we make birthdays a big deal and I was bummed to have to miss it) but getting a  FaceTime call from all of them this morning was awesome, I felt like I was back there with them as well. God bless Apple and Steve Jobs for making moving away easier. I even got to talk to my dad and grandma today too, touching base with everyone today was so great.

I am missing my Tucker man a lot, luckily Jason and Sara's dog Oliver is just as much as a snuggle bug and has been hanging out with me all weekend - so I'm still getting my dog fix in.

All of these changes happening at once are a lot to take in, but having all of these awesome people supporting me is making it easier. Tomorrow is my first day at Southwest! I am beyond excited, I don't know how I'm supposed to sleep tonight. I'm sure I will have a ton of new experiences to share in the week to come.

Low Key Day

I have been going non-stop the last few days so I decided that Thursday would be a day to just relax and take a break from all of the driving I have been doing. 

I slept in and made my first "meal" in my new home! It was my first time trying to learn my way around the new kitchen and finding where things are, which was a little weird. I made my old standby turkey bacon, egg white and cheese sandwich on an english muffin - it's one of my favorites and very WW (weight watchers) friendly. 

Then I decided to explore the park that is just up the street from the house and get a little exercise in. I went for a walk/jog up around the park. 

The park has several different ponds and trails throughout. This was probably my favorite with the water fall and bridge that went over it. 

It was cloudy so this picture doesn't really do it justice but in the middle of the park was this memorial for the armed forces. It reminded me of a miniature version of the one outside the Recreation Center at Pitt State. 

I saw this little guy trying to make it upstream, I felt bad for him, he wasn't having much luck. 

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, I came home and found that one of my favorite childhood movies, Annie, was on - so I watched it and reminisced about how I used to watch it and sing along to every song all the time with my mom. Then due to my stimulated interest in the Amish from the drive down I thought I would check out what Amish Mafia was all about. I have even more questions after watching and seeing that the "mafia" literally breaks every rule that the Amish religion is built on, it all seems very hypocritical to me. 

Jason and Sara brought home some Papa Murphy's Delite pizzas (these are some of my mom and I's favorites!) for dinner for all of us and Sara and I bonded over our attachment to Grey's Anatomy. It's so nice to live with someone who watches the show exactly the same way I do. There is absolute silence, rewinding if something is missed and we are both extremely invested in the characters. 

Sara and I ended up staying up till about midnight talking about all kinds of different things (this is the second night in a row this has happened, I'm a little worried for when I have to start waking up at 5 a.m. next week). 

I just realized I sound extremely lame in this post, and felt even more lame when I got this text from one of my friends:

Thursday nights in Pittsburg is karaoke night at one of the bars, I miss my friends so much already but love that they are thinking of me when they are out :) 

Hopefully I will have some more exciting stories to tell tomorrow, if I feel like getting out of bed. 

Posters from Paris

Today was a day for some more exploring! Since I don't start work until Monday I thought I'd take advantage of the free time I had to get to know my surroundings.

Southwest has made a group for all of the interns to be able to get connected with each other on facebook and I ended up planning to meet up with a fellow intern today and went to the Dallas Museum of Art.

Now I can't really remember the last time I went to an art museum but I was excited to do something out of my comfort zone and to meet someone else in a similar situation as me.

The museum was HUGE and had so many cool things in it. The visiting exhibit was called the Posters from Paris.

They were so amazing. This was definitely my favorite thing we saw today. If you are at all interested I would highly recommend doing some research about this art form, I learned so much today!

This was one of my favorites, however this doesn't even come close to doing it justice. Seeing it in person the colors were extremely vibrant and beautiful. I almost couldn't believe it was real.

At the end of the exhibit there was a chance to make our own poster by placing different parts of famous works on a clipboard and placing a transparency over them and tracing the outline with dry erase markers, then placing another transparency and coloring in the outlines, a third transparency is available to add whatever you want to your poster. I used the third one to color in the background. Once we were done designing our poster we handed it to the staff and they completed the process. I'm not exactly sure how they transfer the color from the transparencies to the paper but it came out really cool!

The beginning:

The final product:

After we made our posters we continued to wander around looking at all sorts of different works of art. I was amazed by the amount of things in the museum.

After the museum we met up with another fellow intern for lunch. We went to Fadi's Mediterranean Grill, a Greek food restaurant. I've never really had Greek food so I was a little confused, but the girls helped me and I ended up getting chicken marinated in some sort of oil and sautéed veggies, potato wedge types things, a Greek salad and sweet hummus with pita bread. It was a ton of food but it was sooooo yummy!

Then I decided it was time to head home. It just happened to be rush hour so I got to experience that again. Getting used to driving down here is going to be a little bit of a challenge. I do well on the highways at home in Kansas City but down here the traffic is crazy and no one, I mean NO ONE, uses their blinkers.

Gertrude has also been quite testy lately. A little back story on my car, the front end has some sort of short in it which affects the radio, cigarette outlet and tells me something is wrong with my airbag. So the radio likes to turn all the way down randomly, completely on its own or change the radio station or just beep over and over again. I just got a new FM adapter for my iPod because the CD player is basically shot as well and that has been acting up when Gertrude decides to screw with me. Dealing with all of these distractions while driving AND in a new city has proven to be an entertaining challenge. I just wish someone else could witness it.

I've also been using the new Google Maps app on my phone to navigate my way around. The lady that tells me where to go also causes some frustration due to the fact that she will sometimes forget to tell me when to turn or will tell me to turn after I already have. I have decided to call her Gretchen because I need a name to say when I'm yelling at her for getting me lost.

Everyone should be sad they don't get to witness Gertrude and Gretchen irritating me and me talking to my car and GPS. Wow, I have GOT to meet some people.

I'm trying to get better at taking pictures to go with the stories I have so just bare with me on that :)

Whirlwind

The last few days have all happened so fast that they have run together, so I'll try my best to explain all that has gone on.

Friday I had some of my closest friends over for a "going away party" if you will. It was a great night filled with good friends, reminiscing and beverages. lots of beverages.

Saturday after everyone woke up and headed home I started the daunting task of packing everything I thought I couldn't live without for the next three months. I was dreading this, and we weren't hitting the road until about 6 a.m. the next day, so I started packing around 4 p.m. It was probably the best idea I've ever had. Surprisingly everything was packed up and loaded in to my car by about 8:30 (not to shabby for the day I had). Then I hit the hay, I was exhausted and had an early morning.

There is literally something shoved in every nook and cranny of this car!

Sunday was the big day! My mom and I had decided we wanted to be pulling out of the driveway at 6 a.m. so we woke up between 5-5:30 and somehow didn't leave the house until 7. There were a few last minute things to be done and we forgot to calculate in breakfast. Finally after a stop at QuikTrip we were on the road at 7:30.

There are a couple different routes from Kansas City to Dallas but we decided to take the more scenic one which was 69 Hwy to I-44 to 75 Hwy. This lead us to the Hard Rock Casino in Tulsa, OK for lunch. My mom and I can be very productive people in society apart, but when we are together somehow two positives equal a negative and we get so sidetracked and focused on a good story or what a fun adventure something might be that we forget the original task at hand. This is what lead us to have a two hour lunch at Hard Rock that consisted of beers, slot machines and admiring all of the awesome artifacts on the walls.

My first time at a slot machine!

The outfit Britney Spears wore on her Oops I did it again Tour in 2000, an epic part of my childhood :)


Once we were back on the road we were more focused on our destination, after five different bathroom stops. Those that know us know that we are awful on road trips due to always wanting something to drink and our freakishly small bladders.

Our discussions on this road trip were quite interesting. We passed a lot of Amish stores so naturally we discussed what it would be like to be Amish, why the people in the show Amish Mafia get to drive cars and of course the awesomeness of their stores for selling "FUDGE, CHEESE AND BUTTER". I feel like Paula Deen is somehow behind this operation.

We finally arrived to our destination around 5 p.m. I'm actually staying with my cousin, Jason, and his wife, Sara, outside of Dallas in Allen, so we didn't have to fight the traffic the entire way in to downtown Dallas.

Gertrude (my car) was unloaded fairly quick and since most of what I brought was clothing I got things put away in no time at all. Mom and I, without hesitation, decided we should go get some wine and beer to celebrate the move. We stayed up fairly late talking and drinking with Jason and Sara. I'm so grateful they are letting me stay with them, being away from home is going to be hard for me, so it's nice to be with family. The room I'm staying in is even decked out with all different types of gorillas (the Pitt State mascot - my cousin graduated from PSU as well), things that are significant to Kansas City (Chiefs, Royals and Boulevard Brewery) and family pictures (one of which is of our grandma that passed away when I was 10, I feel like she is watching over us). I feel very at home in my home away from home :).

Monday was a day for exploring. My mom and I left the house to find out where I would be working, I also had a meeting later that day so I wanted to be sure to not get lost. We found Love Field with little to no problem and had some time before my meeting so we found a Whole Foods to go to for lunch. We both follow Weight Watchers and were craving a fresh salad so we hit up their GIANT salad bar. After my meeting we decided to do some exploring and ended up in Uptown, a district in Dallas. I fell in love immediately. The main stretch we found had bars and restaurants lining the street and a real trolley that went up and down the 6-block stretch. We stopped in a couple places and had a drink or two and decided it was time to head back to the house so we could treat Jason and Sara to a dinner out.

Today was quite an emotional day. I'm not exactly sure why, but knowing that my mom was leaving this evening and being moved in and realizing just how much I don't know about where I'm at got to me. We started the day off by grocery shopping, and finding out that it was raining after we left the house. Then more exploring, we went to lunch at a place similar to Panera (I was slightly disappointed because it was nothing close to the deliciousness of Panera) and then headed off to explore some more.

After getting lost and stressed out we ended up back in Uptown and at Sfuzzi, a little pizza place/bar. The inside was awesome - dark wood, dim lighting, very cool old fashioned style red chandeliers and a ton of different types of seating. I ordered a Boulevard Wheat since I was starting to get freaked out about being away from home and then so did my mom and we decided to split some bruschetta and artichoke dip. We ended up hanging out at Sfuzzi for a little over two hours, making friends with the bartender, until I had to take my mom to the airport.

Taking my mom to the airport was pretty emotional, I cried at least a little bit every time I left home to go back to college, so you can imagine everything going through my head at this point. My mom and I are very close, sometimes I forget that she's my mom and feel like I'm with my best friend. We have already talked another three times tonight and she even FaceTimed me so that I could see my doggy (his name is Tucker and I constantly refer to him as Tucker Man. I'm not really sure where that nickname came from but I love the crap out of him).

So much has happened in the last few days that I plan on sleeping in a little tomorrow and then probably so some more exploring!

Good Things to Come

I am a 21-year-old recent college graduate about to take the leap in to “the real world” and don’t want to forget anything that I am about to experience. So I thought there is no better way than to start a blog about my transition. I will write about everything from learning how to cook to figuring out what time I’ll actually have to wake up in the morning - since I’m no longer able to roll out of bed, throw on sweats and look acceptable for the day.

Here’s a little background about me so that my future tales actually make sense: I attended Pittsburg State University in Pittsburg, KS (the very southeast corner of Kansas), where I graduated December 14, 2012 with a Bachelor of Science in Communication. I loved every single second I spent at Pitt State. I was very involved on campus and in my sorority, Alpha Gamma Delta. Through being Greek I met some of the most amazing people I get to call my best friends (or even a second family). The hardest part about graduating has been leaving the people I’ve spent every day with for the last four years.

I’m originally from Overland Park, KS, a suburb of Kansas City, and Pitt State was only a short hour and a half drive from home, which is the farthest I have ever lived from my parents, until now.

This Sunday I am loading up basically every article of clothing I own in my ’95 Dodge Intrepid (her name is Gertrude and that is pretty much the only way I refer to her) and am moving to Dallas, TX!

After a long semester of applying for jobs and internships, I came across a posting for a Communication Internship with Southwest Airlines, and the entire application, interview and accepting their offer process happened in about six days. All during finals week and graduation.

These are the kind of whirlwind things that happen to me that made me want to create this blog and document every bit of this I-graduated-college-and-am-moving-nine-hours-away transition that is about to happen.

The last three weeks have been full of all the errands, questions, phone calls, emails that come with moving this far away and starting an internship. This happened over the holiday time span as well so to say I have been running around non-stop might be an understatement.

I’m excited for this journey I am about to embark on and can’t wait to see where it takes me!