Sunday, June 15, 2014

Working Girl in the City

My first week as an intern at Deloitte was a success. This week was mostly spent training and learning about Deloitte and their processes for certain things. I met a lot of my fellow interns, most of which are from the tri-state area. I was surrounded by some awesome accents all week! I was also told I don’t really have an accent for being from Texas. I’ve never really felt I had a strong accent but most of the time people up here can tell I’m from the south. (I say y’all A LOT!) I also got a lot of shocked faces when I told people I was from Texas. (When I followed that up with “I go to Texas A&M” I either got an “Oh okay” or a Johnny Football comment, surprising right?!) Many of them wanted to know what I was doing up here. I just explained it was always my dream to live in NYC and now I’m getting to see if I could actually do it. On the first day, we had a partner at Deloitte come and talk to us and, as it turned out, he was an Aggie too! It was so crazy to me that I was all the way up here and on Day One, I encountered another Aggie. I went and spoke to him after we wrapped up that afternoon and he was so kind and encouraging. There truly are Aggies everywhere!

All in all it was a good week, albeit an extremely exhausting one! Going from being a college student who sleeps in until 9:00 most days and takes frequent naps, having to work 8:00-5:00 was perhaps the most challenging part of the whole week! It takes some time to adjust to that kind of schedule and because of that, I’ve been living a bit of a boring existence, unfortunately. When I told my mom about how all I did the past week was wake up, go to work, go home, eat dinner, go to bed, and repeat, she said, “Welcome to adulthood!”

This week did allow me to get better acquainted with the subway system here in New York. I also got to experience several rush hour subway rides coming back from the Financial District. Getting on the subway at Wall Street at 5:00 PM GUARANTEES you’re going to feel like a sardine in a teeny tiny little can! I had several people in my bubble for several stops until I was finally able to squeeze off the train and walk home. The first overcrowded ride I had, there was an older man with sunglasses on and a bit of a beer belly standing next to me. Pretty much the entire ride, his belly was up against me and I couldn’t get away because I was surrounded on all sides! He didn’t seem to really notice. I DEFINITELY noticed. I don’t like people in my bubble! The next day was better, but I fear there are a lot of crowded subway rides in my future. No doubt by the end of the summer, I won’t even mind it when an old man’s beer belly is invading my space!

On Friday afternoon, all of the Deloitte interns had a welcome event where we got to network with interns from different functions and meet our advisors and counselors. It was a really fun time filled with mini-golf, food, and conversation. Friday night I went to dinner to celebrate a new friend of mine’s birthday. We went to a delicious Italian restaurant called IL Cantinori that’s not far from my place. There was great conversation, yummy food, and delicious cheesecake to end the night.

Yesterday one of my roommate’s and I spent the afternoon shopping on 5th Avenue. We decided to make a pit stop at Magnolia Bakery, which is very well-known for its delicious sweet treats. I got a red velvet cupcake, which was divine, and a vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream, also delish. I would recommend dropping in for a treat there! We did have to wait in a line outside of the shop but it moved quickly. After we picked up our cupcakes, we went to Five Guys for burgers and fries. This was my first Five Guys experience and I quite enjoyed it! The burgers are really good, as are the fries!

June 14th also brought forth major milestones for two of my best friends since elementary school. One of them welcomed into the world a beautiful baby girl while the other got married to the man of her dreams. While I couldn't be there to celebrate these events with them, they were on my mind all day long! I am so happy for both of them and am so blessed to still have them both in my life. 

Today the skies finally cleared from a week of rain and the sun is shining! It’s truly gorgeous! I’m going to church later this evening at St. Joseph’s, which isn’t far from my dorm. Tomorrow is the first day I will be at the client’s office whose engagement I will be working on all summer. Due to confidentiality, I will refer to my client as Company ABC. So, tomorrow is my first day at Company ABC and I’ll be meeting the rest of the engagement team there. I’ll get to begin doing actual audit work and really seeing what it would be like to work in public accounting. It’ll be a long week but I’m looking forward to it!

In all of my down time in the afternoons where all I want to do is be lazy, I've been able to watch all three seasons of ABC’s Scandal. If you haven’t watched this show, I would HIGHLY recommend it! The acting is incredible and the writing and storylines are intense and, well, scandalous. Olivia Pope is a character every girl would dream of being like, except for maybe the whole affair with the married President part. I finished the third season this morning and now I’ve got to pick a new show to watch. More details on what I choose to come next week!

Also, Happy Father’s Day to my amazing dad! His constant encouragement and support is what got me to where I am now.  Love you, Dad!!!

I hope everyone has an amazing week! I’ll be writing up something new next Sunday! Stay tuned!

With Love,

Alex

P.S. Here's a picture I took yesterday afternoon of the Freedom Tower. It's a beautiful thing to be able to look out of my window and see.


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