Your boy Fenwick is going to work for EWTN!

Fenwick said:

... Most importantly though it gets me on the opposite coast, closer to my girlfriend, and propels us further towards matrimony. I'm hoping to propose on March 19 (the feast of Saint Joseph) since he's an important figure to both of us...I can't wait for that!...

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Fenwick said:

Okay @Michie - here you go, I can finally give an update!

I finally just got internet in my apartment after a week of basically living like Little House on the Prairie. Whew! All I've had was my iPhone and that only has about one bar of service, I was lucky I could stream anything on it (barely) otherwise I would've been going completely nuts.

So tomorrow (Sunday, 1/24) will be the two week mark since I touched down in the DC area.

The first 24 hours were terribly rough. I was second-guessing everything, my sister thinks I was suffering from imposter syndrome. I came within a breath of bailing on everything and going home last Tuesday. It was just such a dramatic change, having never lived outside of my hometown let alone across the country. I talked with my folks and I was preparing to walk into my job the next morning, tell them it wasn't working out and book a flight back home to California.

It got to the point where I was feeling suicidal, I just respond that poorly to substantial change like that. The whole thing was a shock to my system. The job was daunting, the environment was a sensory overload, and I just generally was questioning whether any of it was worth it.

I could hardly muster a prayer but eventually I eaked out a Hail Mary and maybe that somehow got me through. The next day I got up and rather than going in and quitting, I just decided to see through the day. I ended up enjoying it, my supervisor seemed understanding of where I was at skill-wise and that I would be reacquainting myself with the software, etc. They also indicated that they really want me there and were worried about me cutting bait just because the shows can be intimidating (I hadn't indicated any of my own issues to any of them so this was strictly coming from them).

Last Saturday I checked out of the hotel I was living out of in Chinatown and took an Uber out to Fairfax where my apartment was waiting for me. I got my keys for that then immediately went to a local dealership to lease a car. For the past week I've been living in this apartment with no furniture, sleeping on an air mattress, and almost no internet access or entertainment of any kind. What made it even more difficult was I basically had a five-day weekend because my boss didn't think it'd be worthwhile for me to commute into the city given all the heavy restrictions, roadblocks and checkpoints that had been in place with the inauguration coming. So I stayed home through Wednesday and I was going a bit stir crazy (although I did take a drive out to Front Royal one day and see the Christendom College campus. Pretty gorgeous place, especially their new chapel that's almost finished!)

Overall the job itself has been enjoyable, I'm working my way through understanding their processes and systems and adapting what I'm used to doing to their way of doing things. I've sat in for three of their main shows: News Nightly, the main one I'll be working on, Pro-Life Weekly, and World Over. Everyone who works there is very very nice, culturally it's like night and day compared to my old job. The talent especially. Working on broadcasting for a while I've gotten used to on-camera folks either being rude or just generally ignoring me completely, with a few exceptions. But so far all of the on-air people have been very warm, welcoming and conversational. Just yesterday I rode the elevator up with their Capitol Hill correspondent and he struck up a conversation with me about where I was from and what my background was, very friendly guy. Most on-camera people I've encountered wouldn't have even bothered.

The facilities are great, I can't wait for COVID to die down so more of it can open back up. It's so much fancier than my old place. Obviously going from a local small market station to a network is a big leap, their offices are in the American Psychological Association building in DC, it's all art deco in the lobby and we're on the 11th floor, which is pretty cool. They have a gorgeous rooftop garden where you can eat lunch and such when the weather permits. Great views of the Capitol rotunda from there too.

So anyways, TL;DR - I'm doing better than I was. It's been a wild ride so far, I still miss home terribly, but I'm starting to settle into the job and living here in NoVa. I miss my family like crazy but I'm much closer to my girlfriend. Sadly she and one of her kids tested positive for COVID two days before I left for DC so we haven't been able to see each other since I got here. But on the bright side she just got a negative test yesterday so we may be seeing each other next weekend...also, T-minus 54 days until I propose on March 19!

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Fenwick said:

Yeah I imagine you're right. If I at least didn't give it a fair shake I would always ask myself "what if?" so I'll try my best to see it through. The apartment thing has been rough. To be honest I've been suffering from some serious demonic attacks since I got here - that's what the episode was the first day, I'm sure of it, my parents are sure of it, my girlfriend is sure of it.

Being alone has really opened me up to demonic attack too. With all this time to sit here alone and ruminate over things it leads me to doubt things, worry, panic, etc. I'm grateful that her friends have a nightly rosary call on Zoom that I can join, which connects me with some people. But I'm really isolated right now, I've been able to call my family every day but they're 2,500 miles away now so I still feel a profound sense of loneliness, but hopefully that goes away over time.

Yep, March 19! The feast of Saint Joseph. Since he has so much significance to us and our relationship it kind of came to me during adoration last month that his feast day is the day. So I have a whole plan drawn up in my head for how I'm going to carry it out, I hope it works! In the meantime I need to sit down with her dad and then her kids and ask for their respective blessing. Less than two months already, time flies!

Click to expand...

Fenwick said:

Okay @Michie - here you go, I can finally give an update!

I finally just got internet in my apartment after a week of basically living like Little House on the Prairie. Whew! All I've had was my iPhone and that only has about one bar of service, I was lucky I could stream anything on it (barely) otherwise I would've been going completely nuts.

So tomorrow (Sunday, 1/24) will be the two week mark since I touched down in the DC area.

The first 24 hours were terribly rough. I was second-guessing everything, my sister thinks I was suffering from imposter syndrome. I came within a breath of bailing on everything and going home last Tuesday. It was just such a dramatic change, having never lived outside of my hometown let alone across the country. I talked with my folks and I was preparing to walk into my job the next morning, tell them it wasn't working out and book a flight back home to California.

It got to the point where I was feeling suicidal, I just respond that poorly to substantial change like that. The whole thing was a shock to my system. The job was daunting, the environment was a sensory overload, and I just generally was questioning whether any of it was worth it.

I could hardly muster a prayer but eventually I eaked out a Hail Mary and maybe that somehow got me through. The next day I got up and rather than going in and quitting, I just decided to see through the day. I ended up enjoying it, my supervisor seemed understanding of where I was at skill-wise and that I would be reacquainting myself with the software, etc. They also indicated that they really want me there and were worried about me cutting bait just because the shows can be intimidating (I hadn't indicated any of my own issues to any of them so this was strictly coming from them).

Last Saturday I checked out of the hotel I was living out of in Chinatown and took an Uber out to Fairfax where my apartment was waiting for me. I got my keys for that then immediately went to a local dealership to lease a car. For the past week I've been living in this apartment with no furniture, sleeping on an air mattress, and almost no internet access or entertainment of any kind. What made it even more difficult was I basically had a five-day weekend because my boss didn't think it'd be worthwhile for me to commute into the city given all the heavy restrictions, roadblocks and checkpoints that had been in place with the inauguration coming. So I stayed home through Wednesday and I was going a bit stir crazy (although I did take a drive out to Front Royal one day and see the Christendom College campus. Pretty gorgeous place, especially their new chapel that's almost finished!)

Overall the job itself has been enjoyable, I'm working my way through understanding their processes and systems and adapting what I'm used to doing to their way of doing things. I've sat in for three of their main shows: News Nightly, the main one I'll be working on, Pro-Life Weekly, and World Over. Everyone who works there is very very nice, culturally it's like night and day compared to my old job. The talent especially. Working on broadcasting for a while I've gotten used to on-camera folks either being rude or just generally ignoring me completely, with a few exceptions. But so far all of the on-air people have been very warm, welcoming and conversational. Just yesterday I rode the elevator up with their Capitol Hill correspondent and he struck up a conversation with me about where I was from and what my background was, very friendly guy. Most on-camera people I've encountered wouldn't have even bothered.

The facilities are great, I can't wait for COVID to die down so more of it can open back up. It's so much fancier than my old place. Obviously going from a local small market station to a network is a big leap, their offices are in the American Psychological Association building in DC, it's all art deco in the lobby and we're on the 11th floor, which is pretty cool. They have a gorgeous rooftop garden where you can eat lunch and such when the weather permits. Great views of the Capitol rotunda from there too.

So anyways, TL;DR - I'm doing better than I was. It's been a wild ride so far, I still miss home terribly, but I'm starting to settle into the job and living here in NoVa. I miss my family like crazy but I'm much closer to my girlfriend. Sadly she and one of her kids tested positive for COVID two days before I left for DC so we haven't been able to see each other since I got here. But on the bright side she just got a negative test yesterday so we may be seeing each other next weekend...also, T-minus 54 days until I propose on March 19!

Click to expand...