Dormcubator Week 1 (June 28,30)

This summer I was asked to participate in a 6 week pilot program run through the RI chapter of the Association of Independent Colleges and University (AICU) called the bRIdge and/or Dormcubator.  The program participants consist of students from colleges all over Rhode Island including Bryant, Roger Williams, Brown, RISD, and RIC. When I first heard about the program, I was told I would be helping develop a smartphone app to help college students navigate the city and to find events going on and networking with people in the community. The perks were that we were all to stay in the Snowden Hall for 6 weeks and given a meal plan. My thoughts were that I would have somewhere with A/C to sleep, meals, and an opportunity to meet some new people. The program was thrown together last minute and you could tell that no one knew what was to come of this. We are nearing the end of the 6 weeks and me being the flaky blogger I am, I thought I would back track and blog about my experiences.

The first meeting awkward as usual, especially since nobody knew exactly what they had gotten themselves into. We realized who all of involved in this and we met our group leader you could say, Andy Cutler. I am not really sure how he got involved but he seems to be quite involved in the community in many capacities. The soon found out that the program was an initiative to reverse "brain drain" in Rhode Island, meaning to convince students to stay in RI post-graduation. The theory is that if students wander beyond the gates of their university and engage with the community and the businesses in the community, they are more likely to stay. After we went around the table and introduced ourselves, Andy asked us to go around again and tell him what we wanted to get out of this program. We all said the same thing, we all wanted to expand our networks. So through the next weeks of the program, Andy did his best to expose us to his wide network of people and organizations.

Turns out Andy is on the board of the RI Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (RI-CIE) which hosts many programs that have to do with helping local entrepreneurs and they have an incubator program called Betaspring which is a start-up accelerator for young entrepreneurs with a business they want to develop. They hold networking events weekly (I think) and that was our 2nd outing. We met the group Hope Street Media who we would be helping develop their smartphone app and many other start-up companies as well. I met someone from DealBird and Sexy Period just to name a few. Many of the students are from the Brown engineering program but also students from schools all over the country. I met a group of nice guys from Kentucky too. All of them have one thing in common, they have taken a problem and fixed it using technology the free market system. Good thing I had WaterFire to talk about, otherwise I would have had nothing to talk about with these people with start up companies.

While the networking event was awkward, it did restore my faith in traditional liberal arts education because while they do learn for the sake of learning, right now, they are the innovators. Through a career education, we learn what we need to learn to do a job, but not necessarily to create a new kind job titles, unfortunately. 

to be continued...

Jet-setting and Apartment Dwelling

Again, I have proven to be a flaky blogger. An entire month has passed and so many things have happened. Exactly one month ago, I was killing time in Westport with Professor Ure while we waited for our second chance to catch a plane over to Sweden after missing our first one due to a series of unfortunate events. Within the last month, I have traveled a combined 50,000 miles between Providence, Boston, Stockholm, San Diego, and Oklahoma. I can't even tell you the hours I spent on an airplane. But the stories I have to tell is worth every minute spent in airport security, waiting for transportation, and time spent crammed on an international flight. After my travels, I started my internship with WaterFire, started settling into my new East Side apartment and my friend Madison came to visit! I apologize for the long post...

Just to give you the highlights of each trip:

Stockholm, Sweden (May 22nd-May 30th)
When Professor Ure and I finally got to Sweden a day after the rest of the group, we jumped right in and got to work. Despite our big plans to get all of the work done in the 11 weeks of class before the trip, we of course put it all off until we left the country. It was our second year to partner with Bergh's School of Communication in Stockholm (one of the best communications schools in the world) and they were phenomenal. They were able to get us an awesome opportunity to create a marketing communications campaign for Electrolux, pitch it to them at their world headquarters and showcase our project at the Bergh's Annual Exhibition. The Bergh's Exhibition is a showcase of their students' final projects for other companies around Sweden and the opening night draws in a crowd of VIPs in the communications world around Sweden and Johnson & Wales played a part in it. After much dispute, our booth turned out wonderfully and we made it through our pitch to Electrolux. I have to say that I am truly disappointed in us for blowing that awesome opportunity. I do admit that I got caught up and completely spent on JCPenney and the Ad Team project, I just did not put in the effort the Electrolux campaign deserved.

Luckily, our schedule allowed for the ad team presenters to enjoy the city for the weekend after completing our project. I must say, Stockholm is a beautiful city with fantastic food, great people, great transportation, and beautiful scenery. I do hope to visit Sweden again.

One minute it was sunny

The next, it was raining

San Diego, California (June 2nd-June 4th)
After taking a short breather after getting back from Sweden at Professor Ure's house, Addy, Christie, Ure, and I were off to the airport once again to go the American Advertising Federation's (AAF) Conference called ADmerica and the National Student Advertising Competition (NSAC). This time we met up with the other key ad team members and Prof. Monahan (Tom). We flew transcontinental on JetBlue airlines...which I love, watching tv really makes the trip fly by. We checked into our hotel and decided to explore San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter before starting the conference the next day. In the midst of all of the excitement of making it to the nationals, we had to try really hard to not forget what we were there to do, to win.

Our first few run throughs were a bit rough and people were getting nervous for the presenters, but after some quiet time away from the rest of the group, we pulled it together. The day of our presentation, we slept in, ironed our outfits, ordered in room service, visualized success, and catch a little bit of the national spelling bee before heading downstairs to compete. It was just what we needed!

Mmm room service breakfast

Visualizing success

Ryan's motivational speech

3rd Place!

We delivered a flawless presentation and once again became a crowd favorite (Addy especially). Once we were done presenting, the rest was up to the judges. The next day, they announced the winners at the luncheon. After much anticipation, they announced 4th place as Butler University, then us as the 3rd place winners! Ithaca College won 2nd and Miami University got 1st place (well deserved). The professors and a few students flew out that night and the rest of us had Saturday to enjoy San Diego and fly out later that night. Saturday was very fun, we slept in, ate lunch, and rented a boat! Made great memories and bonded with our fellow ad team members more than ever.

We're on a boat!

Tahlequah, Oklahoma (June 6th-June 12th)
After one strange day spent in my apartment on the couch, I got on another plane and headed home for a visit. The point of the trip was to unwind from the craziness and spend some time with my family and friends because I wouldn't get another chance to go home for quite some time. And I went home to see my oldest friend, Ben, get married. My time at home was exactly what I wanted it to be. I got to see all of my friends at home, spend time with my mom, and got to relax. I didn't have anything to do but hang out all day for 6 days. It was fantastic. I got to reconnect with one of my best friends, Katelyn. We used to be neighbors when we were kids and we started drifting senior year of high school and then I left for college. Glad to have spent time with her reminiscing, we walked the neighborhood, went to the river, and she came over and watched tv with me then stayed for dinner just like old times. I also got to spend time with Janessa before she left for Falls Creek and got to see Emily and her son Declan. Unlike most of my trips home,

I barely saw my guy friends except for at the wedding. When I got to the wedding with my mom, I realized all of my friends there were in the wedding party...a bit awkward, but we made it through. It was a very nice wedding in front of the historical Murrell Home. Right before the ceremony began, heavy clouds and wind moved in and looked like it was going to storm. Luckily it never did rain, it was actually a blessing because it cooled the weather and made the outdoor wedding not so hot. After that, I boarded on my last plane for a while and headed back to my real life, not in Oklahoma.

Ben & Ceyeli Corbett
June 11, 2011

Providence, Rhode Island (June 12th-Present)
The rest of my time has been spent settling into my apartment. I spent a lot of my free time browsing Target, Home Goods, TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and IKEA looking for just the right things for my new home. It's such a womanly instinct to want to create a home. I loved every minute of shopping for things. Madison flew in for a few days to come visit and help me settle a bit. So glad she got to come. It's cool that we both don't live in Oklahoma anymore, but I can say with full confidence that we will be friends for a very long time. Also I have a summer roommate, Nicole Bomba. She's great! She's subletting for a few months and although we had never met before, we have mutual friends and get a long great.

I also started my internship at WaterFire. As the development intern, I get to see a completely different perspective of putting on an event. My department is all about finding the funding for each WaterFire and building good relationships with sponsors and donors. On my first day, I sat down with a list of phone numbers of restaurants and hotels in Providence and asked for them to offer deals to our best donors. This is going to be really good for me to learn to not be afraid to ask for something. That's always been my one fear, asking a question that I do not know the answer to, and getting an answer that I do not want to hear. Still no paying job...but it's gonna be a great summer!


That's all for now...until next time...

Year End Frenzy Pt. 2

And the time has come again...another year of college ending. And once again, I let reading days just slip by without barely cracking a book to study. I get a few free days and suddenly I can't help but schedule stuff to fill the free space. Busy as usual. Good news though, I got an internship with WaterFire the summer. I'm super excited about it. I'll be working with 2 JWU alums, and one of them being a former Ad team member too. But before any of that happens I still need to do so much and travel so much. Needless to say, I will be quite the traveler by the middle of June.

This past long weekend was filled with activities of course. I had the chance to network with administrators, share my student experience with University Admissions Marketing, retreat with the new executive board for UIB, go shopping at the outlets, work at Future Affairs Productions, and socialize with the UIB/sailing gang as well as the SES/PLC crew. Not very much packing got done...

I am so pumped for finals to be over so I can focus on what really needs to get done. I need to get my life straightened out before leaving for Sweden on Sunday. That's right, I'm leaving for Sweden this Sunday. That means I should have a job lined out, my apartment partially ready to live in, and prepare for an international trip with a national advertising competition to follow.

Lots to do, but I am surprisingly calm about all of it. Maybe too calm? Regardless, it always gets done in the end. Wish me luck on this week!

Year End Frenzy

Gosh, I can't believe that we are already well into the month of May. Funny  how time never moves at the speed you want it to, it either moves to fast or too slow. Something feels like it's either yesterday or forever ago. But one thing is true, I am about 2/3 finished with my college degree, it's crazy because I was technically a freshman last year. 3 years is short, but I'm sure 4 years fly by as well.

The academic year is wrapping up nicely. Stress level is pretty normal. I am taking things one day at a time and making most of every moment. A forte of mine is definitely my ability to focus one day at a time without losing sight of the future. People are always trying to find a balance, because you cannot always just live in the moment, but you cannot only focus on the future without ignoring the present. I have lots of exciting things about to happen in the next few weeks that my mind just cannot even process right now. Once I finish up all of my school work and pack up my apartment, I will be jet setting to Sweden for a week, then heading to San Diego, CA with the Ad Team to compete in nationals.

In the mean time, I am scurrying around trying to find something useful to do for the rest of the summer. I am determined to find some really awesome experiences this summer, especially one that pays. I have a place to live, I just need a job or internship. The worst part about the situation was that a few weeks ago, I was struggling to chose between more than one opportunity, and now I am left with none. Hopefully it is all a crazy coincidence that will lead me to an awesome opportunity. The last minute notice may either work in my favor or not. Smaller start ups may be just realizing now that it may be nice to have an intern. I sent my resume to about 12 different opportunities in Boston I found on Craigslist (which is always a toss up). I also sent my resume to Waterfire Providence for their marketing and development internship, it's unpaid, but I don't have to receive class credit and it looks like a great internship. I will be meeting with them this Thursday to discuss further. Now if only the others would get back to me. A handful of the positions I applied for were social media positions. I like to think I am pretty well versed with social media, but there is so much more I want to learn! It is an awesome tool, and still quite mysterious. Businesses may not fully understand what it is and what it can do but they know they have to have it.

Just a few things bouncing around my head, until next time....

Happy Mother's Day

My mother and I have had an interesting relationship throughout my life. I think most first generation Chinese girls have a hard time with their mothers and their parenting style in comparison to their American friends. The different parenting style compounded with her working and a lot and me either taking care of myself or hanging out with other people's families made it even more of a difficult relationship. 

She had to sacrifice time with me to support me. Today in church, we watched this cute video narrated by little kids answering questions about their mom. It ended with the question "What is your favorite thing about your mom?" All of the little kids say things like how she plays with me, kisses my boo-boos, cuddles with me, etc. The video hit a heart-string with the whole congregation including me. Even though I don't remember my mom doing all those things with me, I still know she loves me and I am special to her. She just shows it differently. She was a single mom for most of my life and was able to give me everything I ever wanted. While she didn't understand why I did all of the extra things  besides school, she paid for them and let me do whatever I wanted with my life. She let me move all the way to Rhode Island to go to my dream school. 

So these are my favorite things about my mom, she is...

• Strong
• Generous
• Hard working
• Smart
• Unconventional
• Practical
• Her "Can do" attitude
• Obsessed with her little dogs
• Shows love by giving

As I have gotten older and moved far away from home, I have been able to appreciate her more and more every day. She never told me the things I wanted to hear. She never let me feel satisfied, there is always room for improvement. You can always study more, work harder, and achieve more. My mom is the strongest person I know. I joke about her a lot, but I really admire her. While she is a very small and intimidating woman, she has the biggest heart and is so giving. And the more and more I learn about leadership, the more I realize how great of a leader she is. She owns the restaurant and does the majority of the cooking in the kitchen. She spends well over 40 hours a week in that restaurant and manages to keep up her home and garden and still finds time and enjoyment to cook and entertain guests on the weekends and major holidays. Not to mention, she barely needs any sleep and is an expert power napper. She never gets sick and is in peak health condition. 

Also, the older I have gotten, I realize that I have many Shirley tendencies. I can't name them off the top of my head, but they are there. And I am okay with it. She never ceases to amaze me. I owe her so much. 

Happy Mothers Day, Mom.

Love,

#wahoo11

Part two of my past weekend consisted of me working the Wildcat Wahoo Concert Sunday. You know me, I never get to take a breather, I'm always somewhere doing something. Last year's Wahoo Concert, I was the Artist Hospitality Chair meaning that I was in charge of getting everything (except the booze) on the artist's contract riders. Last year we had a number of acts like 3Oh3, Cobra Starship, Travie McCoy, and I Fight Dragons. This year we had Snoop Dogg. This year, since I am the vice-president of UIB, it was implied that I be in charge of the concert in some capacity but I did not really have a title.

It's a really awesome opportunity to be a part of the production of a major concert and an opportunity that only comes to someone my age through my involvement in the programming board. The day of the a major event is never as hectic as you anticipate it to be. Besides the talent being late, everything else went very smoothly throughout the day. Since I had no real responsibilities during the day, I declared myself the social media manager for Wahoo. My job was to make our Facebook fans and Twitter followers feel like they were there with us setting up for the concert from the comfort of their dorm room. Throughout the day, I sent out live tweets and posted pictures of the progress of the set up of the event and the goal was to get #wahoo11 trending. Unfortunately, JWU hasn't really jumped on the Twitter train yet, they don't really get it. My side job was to be the runner, so if anyone needed to get something off campus, I would go. My first errand was to pick up lunch for the volunteers from the Subway in Narragansett, RI (about 30 minutes away) not the one off Narragansett Blvd (across the street from Harborside campus). Then I was sent on a mysterious errand to the ATM from Snoop's manager to withdraw the maximum amount of cash. And then I picked up dinner for the volunteers from Chipotle.

*side-note* My one complaint about Chipotle is that the online ordering process makes no sense for trying to order for a large amount of people. They offer many options, but none that were very feasible for me. You can either place individual orders online, fax in a burrito by the box order, or do a group order by sending out email requests for everyone to fill their order. For one, I was not going to sit and make 40 individual burrito orders, second, I did not have access to a fax machine, and third, there was no way I could send out an email to every volunteer so they can fill out their own individual burrito order. Because of this I had to call the store and make a very large and complicated order to a woman who was very busy and did not speak english very well. Chipotle, why can't it be easier to make large orders online??

Due to the nature of the artist and the show, we were forced to open doors an hour late. This caused some problems, especially when the crowd boo'd the opener off the stage before Snoop Dogg had even arrived. This forced the crowd to have to wait in the gym for an extended amount of time, and there was no re-entry so the attendees were trapped essentially. Finally Snoop arrived around 7PM when he was technically supposed to arrive at 10AM. He literally came in through the back door, picked out a pair of sunglasses, and walked on stage to perform. It would naive to assume there would be zero drug use at a Snoop Dogg concert, but I had no idea the students would hot box the gym. If started off with a few clouds of smoke here and there in the crowd then eventually the whole gym was filled with smoke. Interesting experience...
After the show a select few of us got the chance to meet Snoop Dogg himself. Also interesting.... I wouldn't say I'm one to be starstruck, but I had no idea what to say to the man, especially since I'm not like a crazy fan. It didn't seem like real life that Snoop Dogg was in the room that we hold UIB meetings in weekly.

Despite the elements that we beyond our control, it was a great event. The show was followed by a long night breaking down and loading out the stage, sound, and lighting equipment. Lots of heavy lifting, but since the Carnival and Concert were split into separate days this year, we got home earlier than we would have if it were all one day. All and all, great experience. Does is make me want to get into the music business though? Not anymore.

Until next time...

#winning

My posts have been about my balance between Ad Team and UIB lately, and I have just about reached the end of this saga. I have decided to split up the posts because I just made it through the biggest weekend of my life. For the past 2 months, I have worked tirelessly alongside my fellow ad team members as well as my 3 fabulous professors on the National Student Advertising Competition Case for JCPenney. We have spent every minute of free time during the week and every hour of the weekend in the ad lab working on this campaign for JCPenney, and it all paid off this past Saturday in Boston at Hill Holliday during the NSAC District 1 Competition. In order to accomplish this, I had to make sacrifices. I could not be there for my fellow UIB members during Spring Week or Wildcat Wahoo Carnival. I could not mentally wrap my head around other school work, or my other involvements, and I wasn't a very good employee during this time.

Countless presentation run-throughs and 5 presentations to classes, alumni, and administration later, we were ready! We left Providence for Boston Friday afternoon. The school was kind enough to put us up in a hotel and feed us a nice dinner the day before the competition. After dinner, we did a quick practice run-through and went to bed early (at least the presentation team). Saturday I woke up feeling great! Never in my life, had I ever been 100% prepared for anything until this. We all walked to Hill Holliday together (one of the largest ad agencies in New England). Everyone was in such a good mood, minimal nerves, and great vibes all around. The Hill Holliday office was amazing, located in the center of Downtown Boston on the 35th floor, the office has the best view of the city. We delivered the BEST presentation we had ever done, we had fun with it, and we engaged the audience as well as the judges. In the Q&A, the judges had nothing but praise and suggestions for the next time we deliver this presentation. Our biggest rivals Boston University and Emerson College went on back to back after lunch, their presentations were shiny and used emotional appeals to reach the target, very different from our campaign. Once the time came to announce the winners, the AAF had a bright idea to announce the top 4 via Twitter. Good in theory, but failed in execution. It just resulted in an angry crowd waiting for the person in the front of the room to finish typing out each tweet on their iPad. First thought that came to mind when Emerson and BU were announce 4th and 3rd were "who the heck got 2nd?" then we found out Roger Williams got 2nd, we were 95% sure we were going to be the next tweet, and we were! So many emotions leading up to this moment, there was screaming, hugging, crying, laughing, instantaneous retweeting, you name it - it happened. JWU Ad Team is going to San Diego for nationals!

We could not have done this if it weren't for the tremendous amount of teamwork and lack of inflated egos in the team as well as our 3 awesome faculty advisors who were there with us throughout the entire process. You know your professors love their job and care about the success of their students when they are working in the ad lab with you at odd hours of the day instead of spending time with their families. Words can't express how lucky we are to have them and just how much they care about this program. That also goes out to our other supporters from all levels of the University.

It's surreal to think that in exactly one month we will be competing at nationals in San Diego, and in less than a month we will be in Sweden, and even less than that I will have to have my life packed into a small storage unit.

Stay tuned, there's more to come...

An Oklahoma/Family/Chinese Buffet Wedding

Delayed recap of events:
The weeks just continue to fly by and I don't seem to be getting much accomplished. Last weekend, I flew home for my long-time family friend Richard and my cousin Jiao Jiao's wedding. Yep that's right, after all of these years of referring to him as Uncle Richard, he's now my cousin. It was a quick trip home, and I attempted to balance seeing friends with family/wedding things. Funny how every time I go home, it doesn't feel like any time has passed.

My mom put on the entire wedding, from decorating the church to the reception, and she even cooked all of the food at the reception too. It occurred to me why I love special events so much, it's genetic. It was a beautiful Chinese themed wedding at the First Baptist Church and the wedding reception, of course, was at Grand China. While she did a great job making the wedding happen, Shirley could work on the communication skills. I felt so useless when it came to helping with the wedding, and I didn't even told I was the maid of honor until I got to the rehearsal.

This could be a lot of people's family situations, but it's always interesting trying to explain mine. Since pretty much all of my family lives in China, we have a lot of unofficial family through long time customers of Grand China as well as former employees and current employees. It is a crazy mix of people. It would make a really great NBC Thursday night awkward comedy, if you know what I mean.

Week of big fails, but great accomplishments

I have been planning on sitting down and writing about last week for a week now. Since it's way after the fact, I'll give you the highlights and move on.

Last week began and ended with all-nighters and the in-between was me playing catch up. I had reached the verge of my breaking point several times. I launched a 12 hour tshirt design voting contest at 3am without consulting anybody on UIB, scheduled 3 meetings at the same time on Monday, I forgot about a test, I put off a research paper 'til the last possible second, and I failed to tell my Relay for Life team any basic details about the event. In the mean time, I needed to finish the plansbook for Ad Team, interview UIB Eboard applicants and appoint them, figure out my job description for Commuter Relations, plus the my weekly chores of sending out emails and schoolwork and such. Last weekend was busy with Cupcake Wars, UIB Launch Party, and any time between was spent in the ad lab. I spent all Sunday night into the morning in the ad lab finishing the plansbook. I spent all Friday night into the morning in the gym for Relay for Life.

First late night clock pic!

7AM!

Team UIB

The week ended nicely with a quiet dinner with Rae and Dara at McCurdy's Junction House and dessert at the Duck and Bunny. Both great places on Wickenden St. I highly recommend it.

The best part about blocking out the entire weekend for Relay for Life is that I had time to catch up on myself. I had time to do my laundry, clean the apartment, cook meals, and jog around the east side.

Hopefully this week won't so hectic. Until next time...

UIB Launch Party

Friday was UIB's First Annual Cupcake Wars, put on by Emily Greagori, the Travel and Recreations coordinator. She did an amazing job orchestrating the whole event despite all of the hoops she had to jump through to make it happen. We ended up with 15 team applications and 8 participating teams for the competition. Round 1 took place on Friday in the lobby of the new Cuisinart Culinary Center for Excellence building. It was my very first time in the building. It's awesome. Round 1 required the teams to just decorate 12 cupcakes according to the theme of JWU Spirit. The finished cupcakes were presented to a panel of judges from Residential Life and Experiential Education and Career Services. The judges pick 2 teams to compete in round 2 where they actually bake their own original recipe cupcakes. Like the Food Network show, 2 two final teams bake 100 cupcakes as well as a structure to hold the cupcakes and the structures were presented at the UIB Launch Party the next day. The team who receives the most votes at the party wins $200 for the team and second place receives $100.

Chris Ayer

On Saturday UIB launched our new brand and announced the Wahoo performer at our launch party. The event was exactly how I had imagined it from the start. The event served 2 purposes: 1. to showcase the UIB brand and allow people to experience the brand and everything we do in one evening 2. to announce Snoop Dogg as our performer for the Wildcat Wahoo concert as well as promote Wahoo in general. Attendees arrived at Pepsi Forum at 6:45PM eagerly awaiting at the door. At 7 when doors opened, I walked into the hall and the stairwell was packed. Nathan and I welcomed everyone and encouraged them to pick up their free water bottle, go around and visit each committee's tables around the room, vote for their favorite cupcake team from Cupcake Wars, and most importantly stop by the UIB table to learn about the new features we would be adding to our advertisements. The night continued with comedian Ben Hague as the emcee and Chris Ayer as the music performer of the night. The two teams for Cupcake Wars each baked 100 cupcakes and their structure according to the theme of UIB. All night we had 2 UIB members walk around with nice cameras taking pictures of attendees and directing them to our Facebook page to see the pictures. We started a loyalty card system so for every UIB a person attends they get a whole punch in their card. When they attend 10 events they are entered into a raffle at the end of the year. Another addition we made to the UIB brand was adding QR codes to all of our posters that would direct people to our Facebook event page so they can RSVP on their smartphone. We had around 200 attendees by the end of the night. We collected all of their emails in order to send out UIB event reminders to all of the for the future.

UIB Table

Every E-board member had a role in the planning of this. Each committee had their own table promoting their events, Nathan was the main event coordinator, and I declared myself the social media director. I was live tweeting throughout the entire event. I understand why people get paid to be a social media person, it's exhausting, but really cool.

At the end of the night we played our original viral video that promoted the launch party and then we played pt 2 to announce the Snoop. I could explain the whole story to you but its better if you just watch it for yourself.

2010-2011 E-Board

It was by far my favorite event of the year. Mostly because the re-branding initiative was something Nathan and I had worked on all year and the concept of the launch party was my idea. I'm proud of how it turned out. It was the best because unlike our other events, where it is run by one committee chair and the rest of us are there for support, every committee had a piece in the one event.

We were all thrilled about how successful the event was, but I am so glad it's over. It has been a big weight lifted from my shoulders. That was only a piece of my weekend. More to come..

Awaiting Spring...

Awaiting Spring... by joyliu on Polyvore.com

and a paycheck.

My life is Ad Team, no UIB, no I have no idea.

Where has the month of March gone? I cannot believe there is only 1 week left of March.

This past month has been insane. On top of my regularly busy schedule, Ad Team was added on top. Any spare moment of mine has been spent in the Ad Lab (or Idea Lab). A group of 20 or so of us have been working endlessly on the JCPenney case. It has been an awesome experience. It is one more thing that reminds me how much I love all my life decisions. It is astonishing how passionate my advertising professors are about their jobs. They work right along side us through those countless hours in the Ad lab. I really enjoy sitting back and just listening to the 3 of them discuss this competition like it is real life. They discuss JCPenney as if they were our real life client and we are a real life agency. So cool. It was fun to apply the knowledge I learned from my classes so far and use them towards the project. I worked mainly on the research and media team. I helped spend a hypothetical $100,000,000 on buying advertising space alone. I have become somewhat of an expert on current television shows and their ratings.

On top of that, UIB has been in full planning mode for our Spring events including our Launch Party. The day has finally come, the day we unveil our new logo. I must admit, I have let my fingers slip away from this project and I am disappointed in myself. I don't think I set unrealistic goals towards this re-branding initiative, but I may have assumed everyone working on it was able to read my mind. I have come to realize that I don't know how to express my ideas and thoughts to their full capacity. I don't enjoy being the dictator of ideas, but I also don't like when my ideas aren't carried out the way I wanted it to. So what do I do? Is it just my personal taste? Is it ever okay to tell someone they have bad taste?

After taking a step back from all of the craziness, it has made me realize that it may be time for me to chose. Activities that come along with my major seem to always conflict with the extra things I do that have to do with student affairs and/or events. I feel like I am always having to compromise myself and spread myself thin to be able to do both. I had to step down from heading the Wildcat Wahoo Carnival because of the Ad Team competition being held the same day. I can't be in my office for the full amount of hours because I spend it working on the JCPenney campaign. Don't event get me started on my opportunities I have to chose from for the summer or the other leadership roles I have taken on. I am never one to put all of my eggs in one basket, but that has caused me to officially spread myself out too thin. I am not performing up to my full capacity. I love what I do and I don't like feeling like I have to chose between the two. So do I cut some things out? Or do I learn to manage my time better? Is that even possible? If there were only more hours in the day.

Just venting a few thoughts, until next time...