Over the summer I found myself thrown into a completely different and new element. I spent three months living and working in downtown Washington DC. This was a culture shock from everything I have ever been used too, considering I grew up in a typical suburban town in North Carolina. Upon arriving I quickly found out that the internship that originally brought me up here was not going to materialize. So the next logical step in my journey was to find a job that could help me sustain a functional lifestyle in my new concrete surroundings. Over the next week I was making phone calls which eventually got me an interview that lead to a server position at Hudson Restaurant and Lounge. This was a classy little fine dinning establishment not far from Dupont Circle. Keep in mind I have never worked in the restaurant industry in my life. Now do they know that? Of course not. My plan was to never let them find that out while learning on the run. Over the next month in a half I was pouring wine for World Bank employees and even politicians and their constituents. This was certainly a great experience but I was still looking for an internship that would give me valuable knowledge that would be marketable for my career. I was networking with anyone that would listen and some that wouldn’t. This took a little over a week, but the next thing I know I am interviewing with the owner of a fitness company where I spent the rest of my summer learning the inner workings of a successful business model. Even better I only had to walk two blocks to get there. I did everything from billings, general administrative work, to even painting the walls of their office building. The moral of my story is: you control your own destiny, do something about it!