Swallowing my pride (dedicated to Adrian :) )

I am a 28-year-old intern. As in, I am doing the thankless work usually relegated to those 22 and under (aka, my former students' peers). For free.

And while I have to swallow my pride and giggle slightly ashamedly when my... what do I call them? Coworkers? Mentors? Masters?... ask me about my background and I watch the concerned surprise manifest in their eyes, it's honestly not that bad. It's a great, small company, and I'm getting a lot of hands-on work and exposure. The bad part, however, is the fact that, as I am unpaid and as we just moved in (lord, now THAT'S a story) to a very expensive apartment, this will be a very busy summer of trying not to fall asleep in front of the copier in the morning and slinging drinks behind the bar at night and on the weekend (yes, I have actually gotten good enough behind the bar that they have promoted me to a few primo shifts). But, hey, in the past 24 months, I have worked about 5, so I obviously have zero to complain about.

The eternal teacher, however, I want to use this as a teachable moment. Kids, always follow your gut instinct. The funny thing about me and Karel is that, among our many similarities, we chose not to pursue what interested us at an early age and spent a good amount of time being aimless before finally settling into what we really have wanted to do since we were kids. Karel always loved to cook. When his father suggested applying to cooking schools as he prepared for college, he laughed him off, saying, "Dad, I want to work in an office when I graduate. I want to wear a suit. Besides, cooking's not serious." (I swear, that's really what he said. Fortunately, he changed.) After graduating with a degree in economics and spending some time in San Diego working with sailboats, he finally decided to listen to his father and his gut and go to culinary school. As for me, my mom can testify that I've wanted to be a writer my whole life. Yet in college, I thought Communications was too frivolous a major. So I studied... International Relations. And... Wait for it... Anthropology. Obviously highly useful. I should point out, however, that at Tufts at the time, Communications as a major was only offered through the Experimental College. Would you have been comfortable with a degree from the Experimental College? Don't they train clowns there? Instead, I experimented on my own, teaching (which I did love, but not as much as writing) and traveling, before I finally came here to New York and decided to try out the whole thing for real. My internship is at a book publishing house, which is not exactly writing per se, but it's books, and I love it.

I am, however, very poor. And very over-worked. And very tired. Especially this week, after Tuesday night's game (yay Celtics!). So, kids, learn from me (perhaps your former teacher. Any former students out there? Hi! Miss you guys!) and follow your gut. Unless you, too, strive to one day be an unpaid intern pushing 30.