Coast to Coast and Back! (Part I)

First Stop: Dallas, TX

After my internship in NYC, I decided to lug half my shit across the country and retreat with my sister in Dallas for five days. “Late nights, early mornings — it’s how we roll” seemed to be the catch phrase of the time there. We of course partied it up at the very trendy and sleek W lounge for my brother-in-law’s birthday, satisfied our sushi craving at the fabulous Kenichi Sushi Bar where celeb Ja Rule was spotted, hit up the Scream Fest concert featuring T.I. and Ciara, and fared the slick track at SpeedZone.

Aside from the fun and games, I spent the day at my sister’s chiropractic office where she and her partner have started their practice for about two months now. I was fascinated to learn that starting this clinic grew out of a rare opportunity while finishing up her doctorate degree. Her partner, who previously worked as a computer networker for seed money, was looking for a fellow chiropractor to go into business with out of their graduating class of 80. Conveniently, my sister was looking for a way to finance her clinic and had originally settled on the idea of working for someone first to get enough funding. Luckily, things worked out for the best for both of them.

I got a chance to see how she conducts business during her 9 am-6 pm work day. She treats an average of seven patients daily, spending roughly an hour with each. In the downtime between patients, she’s heavily bombarded with paper work and on the phone arguing with insurance companies to get paid. Owning a business involves a lot of overhead, but seems to be worth every headache and bump along the way. My sister clearly recalls the days of working in phone triage for a health insurance company and being micromanaged by IEX — software that literally told you when you could take a bathroom break and yelled at you for returning late! The benefits of being able to set up your own schedule and to dictate what goes on in the office are far more rewarding than working a 6-figure job and being managed by someone or something else.

So what have I pulled from this? For one thing, I know that life is full of unforeseen opportunities. There is nothing to say that what you are doing now or planning to do with your degree is actually what will happen. Maybe it’ll become seed money for a passion you have later down the road. Perhaps it will allow you to cross paths with someone who will introduce you to an entirely different field or open the door to your next big break. The possibilities are limitless. Time can only tell.

Color Me Blue

What a way to start a blog, eh?! Go ahead, call me a Debbie Downer – I’m allowed to be this week after surviving a heart-wrenching break-up, especially one that had nothing to do with feelings, but everything to do with circumstance. =/ But that’s life…and life’s good at jabbing you in the ribs from time to time to remind us all that we’re human. Thanks, life.

In other news, it’s been a noteworthy week after experiencing the mild panic of a steam pipe explosion just blocks away from work, seeing the best free concert ever (John Mayer & Eric Clapton), and being randomly reunited with a childhood friend (third reunion yet in NYC this summer!).

So with all these events, I finally mustered up the motivation to start this blog, not necessarily to vent about why my week was so shitty, but rather to add some insight hopefully to my own life and ponder the bigger picture.

This past Thursday, the JP Morgan Chase interns got the opportunity to have an engaging Q&A session with the bank’s CEO, Jamie Dimon. In regards to a woman stepping down from an executive level position to a less aggressive job for work/life/balance reasons (yes, we all love that buzz word, don’t we interns?) and receiving a pay cut, he quoted the following: “You can have it all, but you can’t have it all at once.” Later this week, the same idea pops back up after watching an episode of Sex and the City where Carrie states, “In New York, they say you’re always looking for a job, boyfriend, or an apartment. So let’s say you have 2 out of 3…why do we let the one thing we don’t have affect how we feel about all the things we do have?“

In applying this to my own situation, I wonder why it is that my relationship couldn’t withstand the external pressures of timing, distance, and family (not to say that I’m loving my job either, but more on that later). Is it true that you can’t ever have your cake and eat it too? Perhaps this great love I had was brief in order to open up doors that I would’ve nonetheless closed or ignored (I sense you nodding right now). But do you just simply let go of something you once believed in because it’s just too risky, even before getting a valid sense of what it’d be like?

With two quarters left at RIT, I’ve begun to think about post-graduation life. How do people decide where to go? Do you build your life around someone who you think you could potentially be with or do you pursue that career you’ve always wanted? And why can’t you do both?