An Update

As I lay here in bed sunburned and tired from a fun weekend up in Louisville, I'm not too creative tonight so it's going to be a quick update.

When I last left the blog, I hadn't been doing anything at the internship but wasn't too worried. But on Monday when the other intern got a call to do some stuff on top of what they already had her doing and I was still sitting there, I got extremely frustrated. There's only so much I can take of doing nothing when everyone else is doing a lot of stuff so I kind of had a silent freak out and started questioning some things. Thankfully, Tuesday I was given a lot of things to do so the questioning was short term.

With all of the Olympic short lists named, we have been working on an Olympic team website so I spent my week writing and updating team member bios in addition to other stuff. Friday was another boringish day, but after spending the three days prior to that doing a lot of work, I was okay with the break. 

Friday night, I headed to one of my best friends' houses to stay with her and her fiance for the weekend. She was extremely eager to introduce me to bison lasagna, something I hadn't had yet. Let's just say Friday's dinner  was amazing.

Saturday we headed to Churchill Downs for a day of racing including the Debutante and it was so nice to be back at the track. We also went to the Derby museum between some races and let's just say, it made me once again think about some stuff but that's for another blog.

Today, we went and visited her horse which was desperately needed on my end because I am having massive equine withdrawal without a horse to mess with all the time. I got home around 5 tonight and spent about 3 hours putting up some of the pictures I took Saturday because I just can never stop working. I have one folder done and have one more to go before I'm totally done but that gets to wait for another night because I need to rest a bit before morning.

Until next time,

Mel

The First Week of Work Wasn't So... Full of Work

After nearly six months of waiting, I started my internship with the USEF on Monday. In my head I had grand ideas of immediately being given a long to-do list of articles to write, interviews to conduct, videos to edit, etc. Instead, I waited in the office for an hour while the secretaries tried to find out where I belonged since my boss was on her way back from the Festival of Champions in New Jersey and the human resources head honcho wasn't in yet.

I would be lying if my week got any better on the ideas I had at the top of this blog, although I did get to find clips of a Canadian event rider who had been named to the Olympic team so we could send it to one of the canadian channels to air for a segment. The office was maddeningly busy except for me. The other intern was doing stuff for an event she's been hired solely to work, my boss was running around trying to get stuff ready for weekend two of Festival of Champions, and I was sitting at my desk waiting for an order. At one point, I actually built the two bookshelves that had been ordered (with the other intern) because it gave me something to do.

During the first few days of the no work, I was getting frustrated. After all, I had drove across the country for this internship after waiting for six months to start and all I was doing was sitting at a desk doing nothing. But then I put everything in perspective. 

    * First, the USEF internship is something that not everyone gets to do. In fact, right now there are only three interns in the whole office. That's a ton of space and not a lot of interns.    

    * Second, I came to the USEF partially because it is an Olympic body. Sure, I may not be getting any experience at this particular event (the selection trials for London are being held at FOC) but I am able to observe how everything works around the office and prepare myself for the next organized chaos. 

   * Third, I am here for six amazing months and am already in love with the place. In the grand scheme of the almost 26 weeks I am at the internship, this is only 4% of the opportunity. Sure, I may not have had the chance to shine this week but I did put myself out there and let everyone know I was willing to work so it wasn't a total bust.

Today I got a brief "tour" of the Horse Park when we ran magazines out to the racks at three different places and even got a chance to watch a few jumping rounds when we had some issues with the gator and needed to be rescued at Rolex Stadium. This is the stadium where I've seen amazing things happen on television but have never seen it live, let alone actually seen an event in it. 

 One of the jumping rounds in the Stadium today.

So while this week didn't go as planned, I have 25 more weeks to experience and hopefully, if I'm lucky I'll be allowed to stay here. There's no doubt in my mind that I want to work in the equestrian field now and that I want to stay in Lexington if at all possible. After spending a week "researching" all the talent we have on the US teams in addition to the up-and-comers, I am truly excited for the future of equestrian sports and want to stay at the national level where I can really be a part of it all. And if I can do my part to bring retired racers into a second career here as well (in addition to possibly investing myself into one of these disciplines), then all the better.

So yes, this first week may have been challenging for much different reasons than I expected, but it was definitely a learning experience and probably a good break before the chaos starts. Hopefully next week will bring a little more work and a new lesson that only working at an organization like this can teach me.

Until next time,

Mel

Kentucky Highs... and Lows

Well I've finally gone and done it. I've arrived in Kentucky (I've actually been here since Tuesday night) and am settling in. I still have a bit of room arranging to do but that will probably come tomorrow and Sunday, along with some other things on the to-do list.

The first day spent here was basically relaxing after a long five and a half day trip while we waited for my new roommate to get off work. The next day was spent buying me an actual "bed" (aka a very comfortable air mattress) and stuff that I needed. But today was the big day.

I've talked in the past about my love for Three Chimneys, Point Given, and their communications director Jen Roytz. Well Jen and I have been talking a lot back and forth over the last few months and when she offered to show me around Three Chimneys and have lunch with me, I jumped on the chance.

My stepdad and I started off this morning at the repair shop as my car has an A/C problem. After discovering the compressor is out on it, I'm making my summer an A/C free summer because there's no way I can afford that... what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger, right?

But our next trip was to the first "sightseeing" thing we've done all week, our tour with Jen at Three Chimneys. Jen knows my love for Point Given and we've had many conversations about him and his retired son Point of Impact that she is training off the track so of course, the first place she took me was to the big man's stall. What she didn't know is that Point Given got me into racing as a 2-year-old in 2000. 

When I was at Three Chimneys for their Open House in November, I had gotten my picture taken with him in the background but hadn't got a chance to really pet him or anything like that as it was a show but not touch type of deal. So when Jen learned that I hadn't had quality time with my boy, she asked for him to be pulled out so I could get a proper picture. Of course, I also got to love on him and admire the horse I can pretty much thank for this move. Imagine meeting your favorite athlete or actor and getting to talk to them, that's what this was like for me.

It'll take a lot to top this moment!

Our next tour stop was to see Flower Alley, sire of this year's Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner I'll Have Another. I'll Have Another's connections created a fundraiser before the Belmont where they would donate $20 to the Thoroughbred Charities of America for each picture posted on their Facebook page of toe nails painted purple. Jen and I had talked earlier in the week about posing in front of Flower Alley's stall with our painted toes so last night, I got the nail polish out and prepared the toes.

Jen decided to cheat with getting Flower Alley to come over to the door for our picture and grabbed mints which immediately got his attention. I did an extremely bizarre thing for the picture, taking off my shoe and sock in a barn (and a multi-million dollar stallion barn at that) for the picture while Jen was smart and wore sandals. Here's the end result of our extremely fun picture.

Not only did I get an extremely fun and unique picture, I also got a picture with someone I've looked up to for a long time!

 
As we were leaving the barn, we heard about I'll Have Another's injury and scratch from the Belmont. Of course, our happiness in this picture shot down to utter disappointment and I don't think I'll ever forget Jen saying "Bye Bye Triple Crown" as we walked back to the office. With this development, we had to reschedule lunch and walked away from the farm with a bittersweet feeling.

Our next stop was to the Kentucky Horse Park and the United States Equestrian Federation. I went in to the office to introduce myself but since almost everyone was in Gladstone for the weekend, I only got to meet a few of the cool people I'll be working with. 

I'm second guessing my abilities now that I've graduated but I'm sure I'll be fine after getting in the groove of how everything works. My goal is to learn as much as I can in the next six months while getting all the real life experience I can. If the last few days are any indication of the future, I don't think I'll ever want to leave here.

Tomorrow morning, my stepdad flies home and I continue this adventure by myself. I'm both apprehensive and excited. Hopefully it lives up to every expectation I have and more! It will definitely leave me with some great memories either way.

On the Road Again

Time for a quick blog update while on the road to Kentucky!

We started this leg of my summer journey on Friday bright and early (for me) at 7am and literally spent the day driving through three different states (to be fair, we were only in Washington for about 20 minutes until we crossed into Oregon). We covered about 700 miles in a 14ish hour drive and passed out in Idaho Falls.

Yesterday, we explored Yellowstone and it was AWESOME! It took a ton of time and set us back about half a day or so on the traveling but it was well worth it. We got to see multiple animals on the road and got to see two different types of geysers go off (including Old Faithful, below). Trying to put that visit into words would take way too many pages on this blog.

However, we got set back even farther with an ummm.... interesting side trip that our gps decided to take us on. It took us on an alternate highway that is closed during the winter. Usually that's not too bad, except for the fact that it was straight up the side of a mountain at a 10% grade. I already don't like heights so going up the side of the mountain from about 4,000 feet to 9,000 feet was not a good experience for me (or my car as we were putting up the mountain at about 19 mph). We did get to see some cool things when we hit the top of the road but it is not something I would like to experience again.

That white area is part of the road we went up.

Today, we visited three landmarks in the Wyoming/South Dakota area. Our first two jaunts were to Devil's Tower (which has a really cool legend attached to it) and the famous Sturgis (a must for my biker stepdad). We had an awesome lunch at Sturgis' Knuckle Saloon, I highly recommend it if you are in the area. 

However, the best part of the day was going to Mount Rushmore. I'm a very patriotic person and going to a memorial that honors four presidents was awesome. It reminded me of why I'm moving to Kentucky for my internship and made me even more excited to get there. Like Yellowstone, I can't put my Mt. Rushmore thoughts into just one blog so I'll leave it with a picture.

We have a few more days of traveling before we roll into Lexington sometime next week. If anything else exciting happens, you can bet that I'll try and include it in my next blog.

Until next time,

Mel