Dear Ryan,
I am assuming you’re lying in bed reading this and it’s either your last night in Detroit or your first night back home and you just want to reminisce and reflect on this brief, but incredible chapter of your life. Am I right? Thought so. I am sure you’re smiling right now thinking back to how excited you were to start the program, how happy you were after your first couple days of work, and how grateful you were to have met some awesome people right from the get-go. And after reading that last sentence, you’re probably grinning like a buffoon as all of the memories you have made at the Michigan Suburbs Alliance and those made outside of work with your new friends just fly through your head, each one replaying over and over again in your mind.
Hopefully, you’re now a self-proclaimed master “South-east Michigan Municipal Finance Master,” believing you hold the key to correcting our local-governments’ financial issues, and eager to see your work utilized by the Suburbs Alliance moving forward. As of the time this was published, you were committed to working your butt off and gaining a full understanding of this system in your pursuit of improving policy; hence, I am sure you’re self-proclaimed “South-east Michigan Municipal Finance Master” is well-deserved…well at least a little bit. But for real, I hope you enjoyed your first professional work experience, impressed some folks, made a few connections, and learned some skills that will serve immensely useful to you for years to come.
Also, I hope you continued to enjoy you’re time spent with your fellow DCBRPers as much as you had after the first few days! I mean, you and your carpool sang Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” today on the way home for work, sooo I would assume you continued to have a good time with everyone haha;p Again though for real, I hope you guys did some fun stuff and made the most of your time in the D!
Speaking of the D, I am supposed to address my current perception of the D in this post. Well, regarding my perception, I believe Detroit is an up-and-coming city that is looking to put its recent history behind it, move forward, and become one of the world’s great metropolises yet again. I couldn’t be more excited to contribute to that metamorphoses, and I know that you couldn’t be more grateful to have had the opportunity to play a role in restoring the D to its former glory.
Regards,
You
Hi Ryan! Wow, I’m quite impressed by your writing style. This post was so fun to read. You really made it sound like work is already going super well for you! I’m so happy you’re enjoying working with Michigan Suburbs Alliance and living in Detroit! I can’t wait to get to know you better and go to tons of fun events with you. I think your goals for our internship are perfect at this stage, and I really hope you make some great working relationships and have lots of things to take away from this experience. Good Luck with everything these next few weeks!
P.S. I’m so jealous your car pool sang Don’t Stop Believing!
Hey Ryan:
I think it is really cool you are working with municipal finance systems. I’ve been reading many city charters, ordinances and audits, and I think that we’d have some interesting notes to compare about municipality organization. I’m sure this summer is going to hold all you hope and more.