Time changes everything except something within us which is always surprised by change. --Thomas Hardy

Last day at work. Although I am going on to my dream career, I really will miss the office I've been working in for the past 3 years. I mean, c'mon, we're talking about the girl who gets nostalgic about middle school. Who even likes middle school, much less wants to remember it!? Me.

As I'm going through all my stuff at work, I've realized that I have a lot of things to bequeath. So here we go:

• To Mary, I leave my (almost empty) bottle of eye drops, a toner cartridge, and a whole bunch of vouchers I've been meaning to give you. I know your birthday's coming up -- I'll give you something more fun then (wait for it!).
• To Matt, I leave your Czech coin that rolled under your desk and somehow ended up on mine.
• To Jason, I leave one of my favorite gifts-that's-been-passed-down-from-person-to-person. It's a pity gift. So are the two front row tickets to see Bruce Springsteen.
• To Joel, I leave the only surviving copy (besides Don's) of the "Zian Leadership Tenets" (I made an extra). Hope they're good for a laugh now and then.
• To Amanuel, I leave my clappers and my purple Mardi Gras beads. I don't care if you hide them in a drawer somewhere, but you BETTER be wearing them when I graduate from ConGen.
• To Brian, I leave the X-Wing Rogue Squadron book. I don't need it back 'till my brother gets home from his mission in August, so take your time. It's the least I can do, considering I'm leaving you alone with folks who don't even know Boba Fett's father's name or what planet Wookies live on. Or what TIE stands for in TIE fighter.

(Guys, all this stuff is in the cabinet just to the right of my desk).

I've also been reminiscing a lot about the past 3 years, and all the fun times I've had working here.

• Role plays, role plays, role plays. One time I had to play three people at once during a crisis simulation. Crazy! And my fellow intern pretended to pass out in the hallway. Yeah, we got some weird looks.
• Most of my internship (as good as it was) consisted of me falling asleep (that's what happens when you work full time and you're a full-time student and tourist. I fell asleep during a brown bag with an Assistant Secretary (with only 15 people in the room), and I fell asleep during a Q&A with Secretary Rice (with only 100 people in the room). Oh, and I fell asleep on the bus every morning while I was trying to write school papers.
• I had to box EVERYTHING in our office, move it down the hall, and move it back, when our suite was renovated. And I actually enjoyed it. Sometimes doing things that take no brain power are rather nice. Ah, the life of an intern.
• I watched several "flag days" where people got their "calls." I saw one girl cry (not for joy) when she got called to Abuja, Nigeria. I realized, it doesn't matter how much you want to go to a certain place, you need to be ready to go anywhere. And to be surprised about it without crying. I've had my friends practice calling out posts to make sure my reaction isn't tearful when the big day comes (April 10th, by the way).
• Football during lunch. I have a mean spiral.
• Playing a State Department spokeswoman in a CNN mock news clip. And I still had braces. Awesome.
• Giving a tour of Arlington Hall to folks who had worked there with Army Intelligence when SIGINT cracked the Japanese Purple code. That was really humbling.
• My internship farewell with ice cream cake. I literally could not believe that my coworkers would do that for me. Ice cream cake!?!
• After I graduated from Intern-ness, I kept on having a great time in this office. One of my favorite moments was getting an unexpected award for creating a wicked (awesome) PowerPoint slide. Hopefully I'll get to see it one day when I go through training!
• Dressing like Kate for Leadership Day. Definitely a highlight.
• Going through all our zany purple decorations with Cathy, grateful to find another person who likes spring cleaning.
• Winning the women's division in our eating competitions. 30 pieces of sushi, baby!
• Watching 'Airplane' for Ed's farewell. And having my coworkers walk up and down the aisle, offering beverages. Hilarious.
• Touring the Ben and Jerry's factory in VT with our workshop participants. And getting the bus driver to come with us. Fantastic!
• Being sick as a dog during the conference I was supporting in Tunis, but being able to go to the pharmacy by myself and get the right medication (all in French! The pharmicist was kind of concerned, though, when I couldn't understand what she said the price was. She was like "do you understand how much to take? Do you understand!?").
• The farewell Kate threw for me, and the hilarious fly-away kit my co-workers put together for me, complete with water purifying tablets, Immodium, a flashlight, and "words of wisdom." Priceless.

• And of course -- meeting all the spectacular people who work/have worked in this office. Just awesome. I can't think of one person who I haven't learned something valuable from and who hasn't changed my life for the better. Now I'm humming the song from Wicked. But I digress. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!