Now that my excitement of my accomplishment has been contained, I guess I'll start off at the beginning.
I'm Marissa, of Davis, California, formerly, Yreka, California and after 21 years, 9 months, and 22 days I have moved away from my beloved state of sunshine, mountains you can ski on, beaches you can sunbathe on; the best coast, the west coast. I left all that and moved 2,150 miles away, eastward to the great state of Illinois! Specifically the Southern part, where the plains are flat, the corn is tall and the people all talk with slightly southern accents and ask if you would like your iced tea sweetened or unsweetened.
WHAT?
That's the typical response I got when I told people I was moving out to Carbondale or, Salukiville as I like to call it. But you see, there is a method to my madness...
I'll give the quick version as I'm already on day 5 here and this is my first post...but basically I had a job at UC Davis working in Intramural Sports. That job led to me joining this thing called NIRSA, a big group of us sporty, college recreational, people who like to play and get payed for it. That led me to needing a thing called a graduate assistantship in order to get my master's degree and climb the professional ladder (i.e. become my boss). That led to me going to a conference to find the assistantship. That led to 13 interviews and a couple of offers willing to pay not only my tuition to grad school but a stipend as well, as long as I worked for them in their recreation department of intramural and club sports. That led to me choosing Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, as my best and final choice.
So in a nutshell, I'm getting my Master's degree in Business and Administration (an MBA) and enough to live off of in exchange for running a rec program where I work with college kids and play various sports for FUN. Let's just say I couldn't say YES!! IS THIS REAL LIFE?!? YES! fast enough.
And BAM! I'm here.
All that pre-Salukiville stuff happened in March. I graduated from UC Davis, traveled, played intramurals, worked (which was pretty much playing I'll be honest), and had definitely way too much fun in the time between then and now with my friends and family in California.
Me and my dad drove out together on July 31st. We started at my home and we trekked it across 6 states (7 if you count the part of Cali we had to drive through) in my little Subaru Impreza, Pearl. My entire life had to fit in that hatchback so I did some serious filtering of my stuff that accumulated over the years to make sure Pearl wouldn't collapse from weight. That road trip was pretty fun albeit really, really, reallllllly long. Kinda like this blog post. ha.
But we saw some really cool things along I-70 and Route 50. Some cooler than others and some not that cool at all and rather boring. But I probably will never have another experience like that with my dad, and those moments where he shared advice, memories of growing up and us laughing at everything and nothing meant the world to me and so I'm grateful he and I were able to go on that trip together.
I did manage to catch a few cool things on my camera. Don't mind my nasally voice, I had the sniffles the entire road trip (whether or not they were from an illness or from sadness of leaving that is my secret that I'll keep and you can decide for yourself). This was in the middle of Kansas. There was a massive storm right before and we had joked about being lifted off to the Land of Oz because we're cheesy like that and we were rewarded with a rainbow!
After lots of bad fast food, gas station goodies, sketchy hotels and John Grisham books on audio we drove into Carbondale, Illinois. After getting into my new unfurnished apartment, spending an obscene amount of money at Target (everything is just sooo cute though!) I took my dad to the airport so he could fly back home.
That was the worst goodbye in the history of all goodbyes.
I cried and cried and cried as the realization that over 2,000 miles would separate us finally hit me like a nuclear bomb. I'm a total daddy's girl but he was the type of dad that told his daughters that only the weak cry and that we were to be strong and independent and to never waste our tears. But then even he, my hero, the strongest, toughest man I knew broke down and cried while he hugged me.
I fucking lost it.
While I watched him walk away and disappear into the airport I almost, ALMOST, ran inside to scream "Just kidding! I changed my mind! I don't want you to leave me here! Don't make me stay!" But I didn't.
I drove 2 hours by myself back to a town I barely knew; a new school, a new job, new people, a new life that I had to live; ready or not.
Oh and did I mention I had my first day of Grad School the next day? Yeah. Grad School.
You know how high school is supposed to prepare you for college but it really doesn't? College kinda does that for Grad students. You come in thinking, you've got a Bachelor's degree, they all said college was tough but you passed, you got that diploma! You're hot shit, you're the face of the future, that's what you've been told you're whole life, why wouldn't they be right?
They're wrong. Really wrong.
Grad school is not for the weak, and my business and administration degree may just be the death of me.
To be continued!
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