Dear College, thanks for the memories

College – the highly coveted four years that most every middle/upper class kid experiences. Attending is not a possibility, but a requirement to make proud parents prouder and to prove the level of one’s education. Sure, school choice matters – Harvard and Yale, or the University of Florida and Florida State. But we all continue our education for the same reasons: the college years provide the perfect canvas for the transition to maturation – four years (or maybe more) away from home, an excuse to procrastinate a real-life job, a time for self-discovery, and perhaps, a place to acquire a more concentrated skill set.

People always refer to their college years as “the times of their lives.” They warn you to enjoy every moment, promising that the four years will fly by. They urge you to stay summers and get involved. They tell stories from their hay day, which must be missing the essential details that make the stories funny in the first place. They can’t help but reminisce. Is it because of the great educational experiences they encountered? No. It’s because of the friendships they created, the places they went, the bad choices they made, the independence they gained, the tailgates and football they watched.

Everyone seems to know, but no one really seems to care that college life is more about self-discovery than it is about higher education. Memories of sorority functions and weekend away trips to football games fill the spaces in our brains where statistics and comparative politics knowledge should be. Still, we leave our university, diploma in hand, only slightly smarter than we’ve ever been, but with more confidence, self-esteem and stories than we knew possible.

I sucked the life out of orange and blue. My time at UF can been categorized as anything but dull. Summer B, I took advantage of meeting new people, ordering pizza and pokey sticks for late night snacks and adding a second major (political science) after thoroughly enjoying my first international relations class. By the time fall semester arrived and rushing a sorority took priority over classes, I was well acquainted with the campus.

My journalism major made it acceptable for me to be curious about every hidden nook and cranny in Gainesville. I traveled to High Springs, Starke and Alachua looking for stories to write and people to meet. The only “A” in my entire collegiate career that I didn’t receive was, ironically, in Intro to Journalism (B+). I learned never to skip extra credit assignments, no matter how solid I thought my grade was.

Odd jobs defined my time not in class – a Texas Roadhouse hostess for two days before I quit (who likes to clean bathrooms?); a door girl to collect money on Thursdays at a downtown Gainesville club, where I’d watch bloody brawls take place; a beer tub girl at Gator City, where the lower my top meant the greater my tips; a tutor for Advanced Learning Centers, in which I tutored a first-grader twice a week in reading; a freelance food and restaurant critic for Examiner.com that allowed me to try each and every Gainesville restaurant my heart desires; and an ice-cream seller at the Gator football games in the alumni section, with weekly regulars. Attending games meant selling ice-cream, not watching.

I studied abroad – twice – with a greater emphasis on the “abroad” than on the “studying.” On my journey spring semester of junior year, I ended up on a fourth-floor “piso,” or apartment, in Barcelona, Spain, for four months. I lived with a host mother who spoke Spanish a-mile-a-minute – the most apropos breeding ground for misunderstandings. Dinners consisted of my broken chit-chat and offensive slurs. I would say accidentally that I was pregnant instead of embarrassed, or talk about my anus instead of my age. Despite my inevitable flaws, I practiced, and my trip became an on-the-go education. Spanish class took place in cabs and small boutiques. Home economics occurred mid-afternoon as I watched a woman scale fish in an open market, and my new Spanish friends taught linguistics – more aptly Profanity 101 – as we enjoyed tapas. By the time I shared my final meal with my Senora, Spain had become my home, and my educational experience became part of my life lexicon. I traveled to Paris, the south of France, Italy, Amsterdam and all around Spain on weekends, learning there’s more to life than school. I returned from gallivanting halfway around the world to realize that the love of my life was my best guy friend, and we would begin a relationship that makes others envious.

My second journey, 10 days in Icapuí, Brazil, with Pulitzer-Prize-winning photojournalist and professor John Kaplan for the coveted, invite-only Florida FlyIns class taught me the wonders of international journalism. I combined my love for travel and writing while producing a story on a Brazilian fisherwoman and getting class credit.

Internships, the mantra of UF faculty, became my goal. Us Weekly, Universal Republic Records, the Guardian Ad Litem program, Vertical Textiles, The Gainesville Sun, a stringer for The Independent Florida Alligator, and a freelancer for Tea Time magazine each became bullet points on my ever-growing resume.

The rest of my college experiences were a potpourri of this and that that I somehow found the time to accomplish/do. I was president of my sorority, a member of the prestigious Freshmen Leadership Council, a campus diplomat. I won an AT&T scholarship for three years. I was named the John Paul Jones, Jr. award winner for excellence in writing, as nominated and voted on by the journalism faculty and administration. I became an Anderson Scholar for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences because of my stellar GPA. I graduated Summa Cum Laude (highest honors) and paid $45 just to wear the three cords at graduation. One of my professors dubbed me "a human highlighter." I created my first two blogs: KP in the City and Fork First Spoon Later. I went on a road trip to South Carolina for a Gator game. I spring breaked in Coast Rica. I “dated” my TA.

Only once I’ve cleared my head of each life-changing experience that has already become my college story, can I remember the classes – classes like food politics, in which I wrote and published my first book, "The Taste of Culture," and MMC2100 (Writing for Mass Communication) with an instructor who, to this day, remains one of my most valued mentors. I can think back fondly on once-dreaded papers and projects that have made me expand my personal boundaries while helping me to discover myself.

With a tear in one eye and a wink in the other, I pop the college bubble that I’ve been living in and prepare to tackle real life – Teach For America in Baltimore - where waking up at a normal hour is socially acceptable, working anywhere other than a bar or a club is smiled upon and going out nearly every night of the week is impossible. I leave feeling scared, yet ready to face those challenges ahead. Nostalgia for years past sets in and I long to relive it all over again. I wish I could go back to college.

Legally a guardian angel

I used to have a joke with a friend that I was a guardian angel - as in someone who seemingly magically appears at the opportune time to serve as a reminder that the core of life is good. I always shrugged his compliment off because to me, guardian angels were figments found only in the la-la land of childhood movies, like Whitney Houston and some guy named Duddly in "The Preacher's Wife."

Now, a little bit older and a lot bit wiser, it is my genuine belief that everyone has a guardian angel and everyone is one to someone else, even if they never realize it. Whether we help each other with personal problems, relationship issues or simply provide a friendship, it’s the human interaction that keeps us afloat through our toughest times and provides the advice we so desperately need to help us carry on.

I never took my friend to be a soothsayer, so I don’t really know when our joke became a prophecy, but somehow I have become an actual, legal guardian angel. Well, sort of. I’ve become a guardian ad litem thanks to my summer internship with the Guardian ad Litem Program in South Florida. With hopes of attending law school and needing to do research for my senior thesis, I wanted to combine my love for the community and children with my political science background.

The Guardian ad Litem program, funded by the state, provides children, from infants to 18-years-of-age, with assistance in the dependency court system. Thus, it is my job as a law intern to represent children alleged to be abused, abandoned or neglected and work in their best interest regarding legal aspects of their lives. Essentially, I play a big role in a little person’s life.

While jeans and winter boots and weekend getaways to the French Riviera or Amsterdam seem like dinosaurs in my not-that-distant past, it’s back to the real world, business attire and all. It’s time for me to give back to those who will most likely never get to experience even half of the wonderful things I’ve done. By meeting with and representing these children, I am not only helping them, but I am also paying a huge thanks to all those who have been my angels-in-disguise at one point.

'Tis better to give than to receive. Now if only I could sing like Whitney Houston.

...More like KP in Heaven

Somebody pinch me.

No really…pinch me. I am sitting at my desk in my chic flat for four - well I don’t know that you’d call “old and rusty” chic, but it’s certainly feeling fabulous.

Just to set the mood, I am overlooking Union Square and peering into about 20 other apartments whose tenants seem to have forgotten to shut their shades to keep my wandering eyes from escaping my 8th floor milieu. It doesn’t get better than this. OK, maybe if I were eating a chocolate-covered apple it’d be better. But I am eating left over pad thai and I’m hoping that you’ll keep me company.

Cue lights.

Well, don’t cue lights because my room seems to be lacking many of those. Instead, cue Pandora and a little Jack Johnson. Heck, grab a bottle of white zin and come on in. Get cozy ‘cause I have been without a computer for five days and lord knows I love to chit-chat. Welcome to my humble abode…aka my little piece of heaven.

Let me give you the grand tour. First door on your left is the bathroom. Two of my roommates, the random ones, who actually turned out to be not that random, have taken it upon themselves to decorate. I am now proud to announce that they replaced the molded shower curtain with a cute blue one, purchased a matching floor mat and put out some blue candles for show. But enough of the bathroom. The rust and mildew can wait ‘til tomorrow when I shower in my ever-so-stylish shower shoes.

Next stop – the kitchen. Also old and rusty, but hey, the stove is gas. Makes my eggs cook quickly. Pretty cool if I do say so myself, despite that fact that I single-handedly broke the pilot light (whatever that is) within two days of living here and needed to have it fixed. And what’s that you see from the window over the kitchen counter? That’s right. The kitchen table and….ah yes, my room. I take that back. My and Jessica’s room. I know what you’re thinking and it’s just as you suspected, the dining table is located at the head of our room. Way to be innovative NYU. Thanks for making our room even smaller.

Jess (remember that name – she is a staple in my life) is one of my best friends from college who is my partner in crime this summer. Not only did we plan to live together, but we also work together some of the time (more on that later). We share a closet, sleep in beds that are fit for dwarfs and our bedroom doubles as the living room as well, but we still love it whole-heartedly.

So now the only places in our apartment you have missed are the balcony and my roommates’ room. Though you’d probably love to see the balcony, you can’t. NYU has taken it upon themselves to nail the sliding glass door shut (once again, thanks NYU). And I like to respect the privacy of my new roommates so let me just tell you their room looks just like Jess’s and mine…except there is closed off like a normal room.
Anyway, it’s the four of us. And we love it. It’s slowly coming along and we hope to somehow decorate the stark white walls in good time. Plus I have to remember, though my make-shift house is great, it’s only a small portion of my NY experience. No need to obsess over where I live. It’s only the stem of the big apple out there waiting for me.

Hope you’re comfy. Day one on the job was brutal. Monday. 6 a.m. I wake up to get ready for my first day at Us Weekly. Yep folks, Monday was Memorial Day but yours truly still had to work. By 8 a.m., I am out of the house heading to the subway, just like I practiced with Jess the day before. I have to admit I probably looked goofy pretending to a “true New Yorker,” walking quickly and leaving my sunglasses on in the metro. So while I was silently chuckling at myself on my 10-minute ride, I realized that everyone in NY is pretending. Or rather, acting. They are all acting like they are New Yorkers, pretending to be reading or pretending to be interested in the ground or their shoes. They act like they don’t care so no one bothers them. With this novel insight, I zip back to my high school instincts and do what I did best then – perform. New York is my stage. The subway is my scene. I act like I don’t care, and suddenly, I am comforted.

I get to work 30 minutes early because we all know the early bird catches the worm, or at least, a good first impression with the intern coordinator, right? I get to work by checking celebrity gossip blogs, checking the Internet Movie Database and checked old issues of the weekly magazine for the past two years. I guess you could say I am a checker. And it literally takes me hours to “check.” Hopefully, I’ll become an expert checker at some point, but only time will tell. Guess I gotta dream big so hopefully they can king me soon.

Because it’s a holiday, the company serves everyone breakfast, lunch and dinner for free, which most people would see as generous. However, this “generosity” meant that I couldn’t leave the building. And everyone in the office eats at their desk while they work, scarfing down food like vultures who haven’t eaten in a year, only to get back to doing more work, just at double the speed then they could while eating. And practically no one talks at all throughout the day. This is a foreign concept to me. As if eating at my desk and being in silent, solitary confinement isn’t enough, the air conditioning in the building is off for the holiday and I am wearing jeans and jacket I can’t take off because the shell underneath is way to skimpy. To reiterate: I am Alone, Silent and Sweaty. I’m pretty much an ASS, which is only accentuated by my next task of the day, or rather the night.

At about 8 p.m., Sarah, my supervisor, sends me on the office coffee run. I trek three blocks in my heels to pick up two “travelers” – one regular and one decaf – which I swear are 10lbs. each. I then trek back to the office and set it up for all the editors, artists and production staff of the magazine. In case you didn’t catch on, I work until 9 p.m. on Mondays. From 9 to 9. 12 long hours on deadline. By the time I take my line home, I am dead and apparently, so is my computer.

My not-so-faithful lap top caught a virus and wouldn’t even get past the startup screen. Thank God my dad had a spare and over-nighted it to me. Even though I really wanted to update the blog, my computer had crashed. So did I.

Time for a refill. Hopefully Pinot works. My next internship finally puts NY on my top 100 Billboard list.

Day two and three. Tuesday and Wednesday. Universal Republic Records. Jack Johnson, Colby Caillet, Flobots, Hinder, India Arie – just a few of my clients. Maybe not mine, but my company’s.

It is with great honor that I introduce you to Sam Brenner, my totally cool, yet even cuter than she is cool, boss. Though I would love to tell you exactly what I do for her, I do so much that I can’t even remember every task in between stuffing CD mailings, shipping packages, organizing the office, running errands and redoing bulletin boards that serve as shrines to the artists on our label. All I know is my days from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. pass like seconds, especially because Jess is also interning with me. And that I have to wear flats every day because I couldn’t even last in my heels for an hour.

The highlight of the experience, thus far, was meeting with the president of the company. He invited the eight interns in my department to this music lounge with plush couches and a performance stage that serves as the heart of our office. He talked to each of us about how our seemingly measly tasks are a part of the bigger picture of the radio promotions department. A genuine guy, nice enough to take time out of his ridiculously busy day to meet with “lowly interns” definitely took the number one spot on my ratings. Plus, the living-esque room is where our entire office can watch private concerts given by the artists on our label when they stop by the office…it’ll be unreal.

The rest of the office folk are young and wear casual clothing. The atmosphere is completely lax. And honestly, there is no where else I would want to intern. Jess agrees. We both enjoy going to work early together and we don’t even care if we stay at the office an hour later than we need to, as we have on both days so far.

We have, however, learned to understand the city’s obsession with coffee. We start each day with at least a medium-sized cup of Dunkin’ Donuts and walk briskly so that we get some exercise (obviously, there is hardly any time for the gym!).

My secret desire to be a restaurant critic can really flourish in this city. If there is one thing there is not a shortage of in Manhattan, it’s food. Every other door is an entrance to a restaurant. I have indulged in sushi at a chic, upscale sushi joint, Thai food at a cafeteria-style Asian-Fusion restaurant, a pound-worth of salad at my beloved Whole Foods, a hole-in-the-wall sandwich and salad eatery, “sinless” ice-cream and yogurt at the praised Tasti D Lite and Pinkberry and, of course, famous New York bagels. I even found a chocolate-covered apple from a vender at a farmer’s market on the street. Pinch me please. This is all too good to be true.

Yep…It’s official. I am in heaven. And, actually, do me a favor - don’t pinch me too hard because I’m not ready to snap back to reality any time soon.