This will come as a complete shock to anyone who has spoken to me in the last, oh, four to six years about where I saw myself after college.  I have been bound and determined to end up in Fort Wayne.  I love this city.  Yes, even with all its flaws.  I mean, it’s Fort Wayne.  My favorite description (not because I like it, but because it’s accurate) is that Fort Wayne is a large small town.

So, I had this conviction that I would be here.  My first year of college, I took care of homesickness with photos surrounding me and subscribing to The Journal Gazette’s RSS feeds.  (I grew up on The News-Sentinel, but they didn’t have any RSS feeds at the time.  They do now, but one that I can find.  The JG has different categories.)  Man, I was more up to date on what was up in Fort Wayne than my dad.  Then sometime during my sophomore year I discovered Fort Wayne bloggers.  Since I love getting info from blogs, a whole bunch of them ended up in my feed reader, too.  During my junior year, I was so excited to be up to date on what was going on in FW.  I have lived out of Fort Wayne since graduating high school, and since this past summer I have been home.  I knew what was up, and had all sorts of plans (which about 25% occurred).

Then I began to look for my “Real Job” as I have tagged all the related emails.

Now, I had done serious legwork in the past three years searching out opportunities in Fort Wayne.  In fact, that’s why I was home this summer and fall: two internships.  Also, I found a company I was totally excited about the prospect of working for.

At first, I applied to companies outside of Fort Wayne to have better chances of obtaining a job offer, and because the jobs found via DePauw are all outside of Fort Wayne.  When things started to get serious, I had a conversation with Kenny that completely caught me off guard: “Ashley, you were the one who wanted to live in Fort Wayne.  I am fine living elsewhere for a while.”

Oh.

Then it dawned on me I could get a job ANYWHERE.

Whoa.  Whoa, whoa, whoa.  Anywhere?  (Okay, so Kenny’s probably really glad it didn’t actually end up being ANYWHERE, because I was totally feeling the desert climate of Arizona during GHC.)

Now, back in May during the Imagine Cup, the Microsoft Campus Recruiter for DePauw sent a, “Hey, I exist,” email.  We were smack in the middle of the competition in Boston, so I went, “Oh, that’s sweet,” and promptly forgot about it.

Then at the end of the summer, the Campus Recruiter contacted me again to see if I was interested in applying.  Sure, why the heck not?  It’d be sweet to be able to say, “I got an offer from Microsoft.”  (Obviously, at this point I was totally still staying in town.)

I did my phone interview, it went well, a Redmond interview was mentioned, and then a month and a half went past.  In this time frame, the job hunt ramped up in terms of getting to the point of receiving offers from the companies to which I had applied.

Then out of the blue I received an email detailing my on site interview at Microsoft in less than two weeks.

PANIC.

It was shortly before that when I realized I could work anywhere, and that this wasn’t just for props anymore.  I had serious reservations about living elsewhere, specifically because I felt I was giving Kenny no choice since he still had a year of school left.  It took him a long time to convince me that he’s totally cool with that big of a distance from Fort Wayne (I still don’t fully believe him).

So, next summer I will begin working as a Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) on InfoPath at Microsoft’s Redmond campus.

It hasn’t sunken in yet.  This is mostly because my uncle had his heart attack less than twelve hours after I got back from the interview, and I’m in wait for next change (end of internship) mode.  But I have now officially accepted the offer, and can begin letting folks know.  This is to attempt to avoid another situation such as how Ed found out.

Ashley: “At least Kenny will like that it snows less in Seattle.”
Ed: *silence* “What’s all this talk about Seattle?”

Go me.  (I was planning on tell her in person, and instead told her over the phone the day I was going to see her.  FAIL.)