I was super pumped after graduation.  I could finally change my Twitter profile.

Okay, so this wasn’t my immediate thought upon receiving my diploma.  But it was the first time I sat on Twitter afterward.  (Which was totally a good three days later, since my sister, boyfriend, and I went road-tripping less than 24 hours after graduation.)

“Waiting to finish college. Ready for new things.”

Admittedly, I had a blast my last semester on campus.  But I’ve been itching to be officially on my own for ages.  At DePauw we’re required to live on campus, meaning every summer we’re required to move out and completely on the school’s schedule.  Before college, I hadn’t moved before in my life.  I am no fan of the temporary feeling this created for each living arrangement I’ve had for the last four years.

Frosh school year in a dorm, that summer in a duplex on campus, soph year in a dorm for first half and a house for second, apartment in Indy over the summer, house junior year, home for summer and fall, same house senior year but had to re-move everything in.

Then I opted to live at home for this summer prior to my big move.  Don’t get me wrong.  I am super glad I stuck around Indiana and specifically Fort Wayne one last time.  My high school gang was all home,  which is truly a rare occurrence.  Plus, taking the summer off allowed for some traveling and doing fun things like attending WPC and being on a panel for the SPIRIT project at Purdue.

“College finished. Moving across the country for new things.”

I about tagged this post “Life After College”.  I still might.  It just made me pause.  I made it to what I’ve been waiting for what seems like ages.  Past four years, my one goal was to have a job after graduation.

My nana, who has no short term memory, asks me every time we talk about me moving away, “How long will you be gone?”  I enjoy having no answer.  I mean, my boyfriend and I are already planning on him joining me after next summer, and I plan to stick around for the full cycle of the product I’m working on.  After that?  No clue.

It’s just nice not already planning the next move.

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.)

This week must be better.

I would say it’s already off to a significantly better start. I never explained what was up, and since we’re keeping a public blog to provide people updates, I’ll quit being so vague.

My uncle Rick who is only 46 years old suffered a massive heart attack on Sunday, November 8. Sunday my mom woke me to the news. Monday my mom woke me to say he got worse. Tuesday and Wednesday he wasn’t getting better, and Wednesday night they put him on a ventilator. Which the nurse really wanted my family to call a “higher form of oxygen therapy” since TV shows only show ventilators being used as life support. Thursday my mom woke me AGAIN and thus far that was the worst day. The previous two times of being woke up, members of my family took time to shower. This time after simply visiting the bathroom to pee, brush my teeth, and wash my face, everyone in my house was gone.

That day he was transferred from Fort Wayne to Methodist in Indianapolis in the case he needed a heart transplant. HOWEVER, since that day we’ve stopped receiving more bad news than good. On Saturday they removed the balloon pump they had put in his heart the previous Monday. Today they finally took him off the ventilator! Which means he’ll finally be weaned off sedation! Man, he’s in for quite the shock about what’s happened since being put on the vent.

So, please hold for a moment while I do a happy dance.

*Dance Dance Dance*

Alrighty. Today I leave for PDC, which is kinda rough seeing as I missed way too many days of work last week. However, I am determined to enjoy this week as the stress from last week was exhausting. (Meaning, Rick, you best continue on your upswing. Just saying.)

More details to come!

I know I’m overwhelmed when I can’t look at my email except for immediate action items.

Everything was dropped for the family member at the hospital. Nothing else mattered in that moment. It was just making sure all the family was okay or as okay as we could be.

This also now involves monitoring Facebook. First, my sister found out via Facebook from the youngest (10 years old) cousin’s status update, since she left her phone upstairs. (It did make her finally call us.) Now, my younger cousins and my younger brother have vaguely referenced said family member being in the hospital. There’s a section of my family that I just became Facebook friends with in the past six months, and we don’t often see each other despite living in the same city. It consists mostly of my dad’s cousins, and they see the random mentions and go, “What? Is that family member alright? What hospital? What happened?”

I sent a detailed FB message to the oldest cousin, since I don’t have her email address, and asked her to let her siblings and families know. It was a rather disjointed message, but I’m pretty sure it got the important details. I’ll send her another update tonight, since at this point it’s “good” news.

It’s really bizarre spreading that information via Facebook. But it’s not like we’ve had some organized means of spreading the information in the first place. It’s also hard deciding what information is appropriate to share, but I figured sending a message is better than no information at all. This also saved the immediate family and parents from dealing with inquiries. At least, hopefully it did anyways. We’ll see what my parents have to say on how I dealt with it. I just know, I’d want to know what the heck was going on.

I think I may bring a print out of the shout outs of thoughts and prayers on said family member’s wall to the hospital. If the family member is asleep, it’ll be for the spouse and kids.

Unfortunately, I already felt behind at work due to time off for the job hunt combined with my upcoming week in LA for PDC. And I’m starving. I was walking to a meeting with frozen food, and I needed to put it in a freezer. A co-worker told me to put it in this fridge on the floor I work on. I did, except that used to just be an employee’s lounge and now doubles as a conference room. So I’ve been waiting for a meeting to finish. I may give up and interrupt, cause my hunger is distracting.