The letter to my mother

I emailed my mom to update her on everything, that it came out to be kind of a humorous email that summed up the last 24 hours (when I'd written it yesterday). It's been absolutely crazy this week, and this just about sums it up:

Hi Ma,

A lot has happened in the last 24 hours. I'm alive and okay but still coughing a lot from my throat.

The first thing that happened was on the way home from Tim's concert. I stopped at Colleen's to grab a cup of coffee with her and then left. It was snowing, but not really that badly. I got in another accident but I didn't hit anything and nothing hit me. What happened was there was a car far ahead of me (we were both probably going 60-65) and I watched it spin out pretty badly. I was trying to slow down and anticipate which way to veer off to because she was in the right lane spinning off to the left and I was in the left lane. I started to brake and try to move over to the right and my car lost control and I started spinning until I landed in a ditch at the far right. I called 9-1-1 and then Bryan and finally got out of the car. This girl who turns out to be my age ran over to see if I was okay. Turns out, her car hit some black ice and spun from the right lane over to the left, across the median, across the westbound lanes, and into the ditch on the other side of the highway. No one was hurt and both cars are in completely okay condition, with the exception of one of her bumpers. My car is drivable and totally okay too.

The other thing that happened to me is that I had a meeting with the global marketing director (who reports directly to the CEO in the UK) and our legal counsel (also from the UK). A long story short, Raul is planning for me to go to the UK this summer as a business development/marketing intern :) We already sort of discussed pay, range of dates, and possible mentors and activities for me to be involved in. He even asked me if the US offices reimburse for tuition, and I told him no. He asked me how much tuition is a year, I told him how much and he wrote down the number in the notes he was writing on the copy of the resume I gave him, and he said he would talk to HR there to find out if they can "take care of it"! He also gave me the names of a couple other business development/marketing contacts from other locations and recommended that I contact our bus dev/marketing representative in our new China office. I'm going to need to write some emails to the HR recruiter in the UK who deals with internships, but he was very adamant about letting me know that he will back me up fully and make sure that the HR department keeps on top planning the details of my internship.

I know, crazy right? I'm still trying to digest it.

I didn't mention to her, though, that it took us over 3 hours to drive what usually takes 1.5 hours after the accident (I followed BGS the whole way back... he's such a trooper I don't know how I deserve him). I was absolutely terrified and made BGS get off the highway with me a few times, and every time I was passed by someone or tried to pass someone, I would flip out and becoming convinced that I was about to get in another accident. We got to A2 at 5:30am or something ridiculous like that, and poor BGS had to be at work in less than 3 hours. I felt so bad he had to go through that ride home with me, but I'm also sure I would not have made it back by myself.

As for the next day's meeting with the UK bus dev/marketing director, it went so well I could not wipe the smile off my face the entire rest of the day. I went into the meeting with the same mindset I had when I walked into the meeting with Dean (the US president) that I had to convince and prove to him that he should decide to support me. To my surprise, this director responded completely different from Dean and even told me he respected I was "taking the initiative to further an ambition of mine with the company I've seemed to have grown to love". Rather than spending the meeting trying to convince and prove to him that I deserve this internship in the UK, he seemed to quickly have made a decision to tell me he already decided I would have this internship in the UK, and instead, we spent the meeting time discussing the details of the internship. He also offered really awesome (I mean I was seriously in awe of this man) insight about DTC's new direction and new management.

Anyway I'm about to fall asleep. Ack.