Sometimes my days (or weeks) are a series of unfortunate events. I feel it’s best to just share it with you.

Graduation does not mean I have yet to learn anything about this real world. Until day one at my internship at LPK. Not sitting at a desk in a classroom doesn’t mean I can’t learn the basics anymore. Unfortunately for me, I’ve learned something new everyday – usually at the cost of my humility. If you know me, you know this is no shocker. As mature as I wish I was, I still make rookie mistakes, like forgetting to put a filter in the coffee machine or running out the door with two different shoes. But that could be due to the fact that I was awake before the sun.

My best friend, Jordan, & I getting coffee on the first days of our work for the summer/fall.

1.     God made flat shoes for a reason. Usually because you chose to wear wedges the previous day.

This is probably a no brainer to anyone, but I mean it. I’m no different than any other girl that has to go on a shopping spree every time something new pops up on the calendar.  I couldn’t resist throwing on my newest pair of shoes. Which happened to be 3-inch wedges. It’s a rookie mistake, I know. Day One at an internship usually consists of tours and walking around to meet everyone. My building is 8 floors. To make matters even better (or worse) We have a building across the street as well. I think I had to peel my shoes off by the time I got home. Coincidentally, I wore flats the rest of the week.

2.     Take a look at what’s on the other side of your wall.

Like I mentioned, this building is 8 floors. I need a Maurader’s Map for this place. I find a new door (Room of Requirements, perhaps?), or a statue hiding a staircase every other day. All on accident of course. There’s nothing like walking into a janitor’s closet when you’re looking for a bathroom.

Anyway, my favorite coffee maker is on the fifth floor, just one above mine. To get there, I can either take the elevator in the middle of the building, or the staircase located right next to the elevators. Let me remind you, both of these are in the middle of the building. My desk is all the way on the other side. For a few days (and by a few days, I mean an entire week), to go one floor up I’d walk half way across the building. Until one day, I took a wrong turn (which I’m still doing), and viola, a staircase on the other side of my wall. If I were Hulk and could punch through a wall, I’d be touching the stair rail. A mere 7 steps.

3.     Look good while you’re looking like an idiot.

Everytime I walk somewhere I turn the wrong way. And there is always someone else there to witness this obvious debacle. I’ve mastered the stop in your place and turn around while maintaining some grace. But when someone else is following me off the elevator, and I’ve realized I turned the wrong way, my practice does not come into handy. An awkward spin around a few times in place is hard to avoid. I’ve circled these floors and met a ton of new people by avoiding this awkward jig just to get to the opposite end of the building because I didn’t want someone else to see my mistake. Coffee maker on the left? I oughta go check out the view on the right first, guys.

4.     Bring clothes to paint in.

On the second and third day of my internship I had to paint the walls in my boss’s office. Again, my BOSS’S OFFICE. At a design agency. Where there are artists around every corner. I’m sure I held the paint roller wrong. Since I’m about as clumsy as an elephant with four left feet, I was really expecting the worse. We were working on a paint project with one of our clients, which allowed for us to repaint a few of the offices. Believe it or not. I didn’t spill. Unless you count accidentally painting across your sweatpants a spill. Then I may have done that… The whole project is below.

5.     There’s no such thing as crooked glasses looking suave.

But really. If your glasses are even the tiniest bit crooked when you sit them on your nose, get them fixed. I didn’t realize how bad my glasses were until a friend pointed them out and now I’m too embarrassed to wear them. I look perpetually confused all the time. It also means I can’t see a damn thing. Meetings that require us to look at a screen (which is all of them) have me sitting front and center. Squinting like I’m 75. Consequently, this is what my drivers license looks like, too. The photo would probably scare a small child.

6. Ohio wind will never do you any favors.

There’s those who aren’t photogenic. Then there’s me. I never take good “professional” pictures or headshots. So when I finally had a chance to take a new photo for people that did not know me nor have ever seen one of my terrible pictures, I actually spent more than 5 minutes on my hair and make-up for the first time in months. So when I sat down on the Metro, I didn’t think to look at the guy next to me and see that his window was as wide open as can be. Nothing like a nice smoggy breeze on I-71S to freshen up the look. Needless to say, I look like a wind-whipped Medusa in my picture for LPK.

The park between the two LPK buildings.

Needless to say, it’s only the end of week 2 and I’m still learning things: Make nice with the IT folks, redo my hair at noon to avoid looking like a hot mess and carry a Tide pen for those four mornings a week I’ve spilled coffee on myself.

Until then, enjoy my embarrassment, so you can avoid these mistakes, too.