Tweet.

This entire week at FutureM has been absolutely amazing, but for now, this is all I have to say about yesterday...

Living My Life Like It's Golden

At times like these, I need to do two things.

1. Sit back, reflect, and be thankful for the amazing opportunities that have come my way.
2. REMEMBER this moment during the times I feel discouraged.

As a result of the Jack Brand Camp (which I still need to talk about) I was informed of the FutureM event that is happening this week. I am now home from the first two days of workshops, panels, and networking and recharging for the rest of the week. Let me give you a run down of what my life has consisted of the past few days.

Sunday: Photo shoot with SERAi Hair and Makeup Artistry at the Bridal Garden in East Greenwich. As soon as we walked in the door at 4pm, Gessenia and I played Bride-To-Be: trying on dresses, picking out jewelery, and getting our hair and makeup done by Samara and her team. Our session of playing dress-up was followed by a photo shoot that would have made anyone feel like a celebrity!

After a rush of flashing lights and enough lip gloss to last one million kisses, we left there like two teenage girls who just met Justin Bieber. It was so incredibly fun and Samara was absolutely fabulous. However it wasn't long until the reality sunk in that we were leaving for Boston the next day and had a lot of preparing to do. We attempted to do work at her house, but we didn't even make it an hour before our eyelashes seemed heavier than before and called it quits.

Monday: Woke up at 6:45am to meet Gessenia at the office to print our resumes and business cards. Blasting Adele in the background to calm the stress of our "To Do" list, Adele helped us through a dozen failed attempts to align the business card paper correctly. Exhausted, frazzled, and laughing at our situation, we left with only copies of our resume in hand. Dave picked me up at 9:00am and we were finally Boston-bound. The first event Dave and I attended was The Future of Marketing in Sports Entertainment. It was awesome. People from Hill Holliday, NESN, the Patriots, and a Non-Profit were there sharing their marketing wisdom about the one thing that unites people from all over the world-Sports.

One parking ticket later, we headed over to the Microsoft office to Tap Into Gen Y- a panel led by Edward Boches from Mullen. This event particularly got me excited during the segment where it talked about how our generation "brand" themselves while looking for a job via social media. (Hey! Gessenia and I know all about it!) After that event, Dave and I somehow managed to lose the car which took us 65 minutes to realize it was parked only two streets away. (Thank God I took off my heels). We later picked up Gessenia from the Back Bay train station with a surprise in hand...her Mom went to Staples and printed out our business cards!!!! So proud, we headed to the FutureM kick off event where we met a wonderful woman, Alison from Smarterer. She connected with us immediately and offered to help us in any way possible. It's people like her that keep us going!
 
We grabbed dinner and drinks at Red Lantern before making it back to our hotel.

Check out our Business Cards!

 














Tuesday: We woke up bright and early to make our way back to the Microsoft Headquarters for our first event, Massachusetts: The Future of Marketing is Here. A panel of entrepreneurs, venture capitalist and marketing professionals discussed the ways in which they can keep and attract the talent to Boston in order to grow and foster better businesses in the area. Brilliant people with great ideas.

The last session we attended was by far my favorite, "Boston's Digital Showcase." Young entrepreneurs discussed their career paths, and up and coming success stories presented their elevator pitch. The one that made my jaw drop? Krush. Look them up. This guy is a genius. (I could go on and on about these sessions but for the sake of interest, I'm trying to keep this short!) We ended the day on a networking event that directly followed, and met more fascinating people. Boris: CampusLive. Peter Stringer: Celtics Social Media Guru. We made some rookie mistakes during the next hour, for example: when I was asked "Where are you from?" I replied, "Exeter, RI. You know, closer to the southern end." ....He was looking for where I worked... there were a few more- but hey! we are still learning.

While I am gasping for air, I have to say the first few days of this week were an overall success and I cannot wait to go back for more tomorrow.

Bostonians

7:30am: (401): So excited for todayyyyy! I'm on my way...Boston here we come!

7:55am: After getting to her house, Gessenia and I spent a considerable amount of time deciding which shoes she should wear to her informational interview. It was between her reliable "mature" white shoes or her stylish nude suede heels. After weighing the pros and cons, we obviously agreed on the latter...(it may be an interview, but you still have to look fabulous!) With the assistance of her mom, Gessen's outfit was complete and we were ready to catch the 8:38am train.

8:38am: We're only at exit 20 on 95. "Looks like we're taking the 9am train!"

8:45am: We purchased our tickets and it wasn't until we stepped out of Cafe Le France (or whatever it is) that we realized he said the next train was at 9:48. What?! Not possible. Turns out we somehow managed to read the schedule wrong the night before. After a brief moment of panic we did what he had to do and paid the extra money to buy another ticket for the 9:16 Acela.

9:05am: As we were waiting outside for the train I grabbed my camera off the ground to snap a pic of the State House. Silly me forgot I was using my camera to keep my ticket from flying away. Sure enough my ticket took off. As it drifted toward the tracks I had a moment of poor judgment and envisioned myself doing whatever I had to do to get it back in my possession...even if that meant jumping down to the tracks to grab it. Thankfully I caught it just as I stepped onto the yellow section. Gessenia and I died laughing at my frantic scramble and it wasn't until we read the sign "Caution live wires below" that we fell silent. That could have been bad.

9:48am: We arrived in Boston after numerous mock interviews and the extension of our Boston dream. We had just enough time to find New Directions on Oliver Street and grab a multi-grain bagel at Starbucks.





12:00pm: I got quite far into my book, Firefly Lane, while I had waited for Gessenia outside on a park bench down Oliver Street. When she finally walked out of New Directions it looked like a whole new level of excitement had come over her. She was reassured, motivated and was so excited to share the information she had learned during the past hour and a half. (I'm sure she'll go more into detail in her blog to follow)

We lost track of time for the rest of the day and it only continued to get better. We walked around Quincy Market and found Gessenia the perfect graduation party dress at Urban Outfitters. We grabbed lunch at a little Mexican restaurant where we discussed our next move (career wise) over apps and a pitcher of white sangria. We made a lengthy check list and decided to step our game up even more (after the 4th of course!). After we paid the bill and checked our statuses in the mirror, we took off-with no plan in particular just to make the most out of our trip. We hopped around from place to place, even tried watermelon flavored beer, until Gessenia got a call from a friend (who saw her tweet- that she was in Boston) and we made our way to The Landing. It was so exciting to be in the Boston crowd, mixed in with people who were just getting out of work and really feeling like we belong here.

After too many drinks and too many laughs my boyfriend scooped us up after his night class at 10:15pm and we headed home. It was such a perfect day....and we still have unused tickets back!

I'm in love...with Jack

I couldn't help but grin when the elevator doors opened to the fifth floor of 142 Berkeley Street in Boston.

 This is exactly the type of place I'm looking for.

My boyfriend and I left Rhode Island at 9am yesterday for my 11:30 informational interview with Jack Morton. The entire trip up there I couldn't get out of my day dreaming mode. I have been following Jack Morton on twitter as well as keeping up with their blog, but I still had no idea what to expect. How will the interview go? What are the people like there? Who will I meet? What will the place look like? Will they like me? Is it as cool as I think? Let's just say it was better than I imagined. The women I met with were absolutely wonderful, gave me great insight into the company, and could not say enough great things about Jack Morton. Lucky for me, a woman from HR stopped in to say hello and informed me that they were interviewing for an open Freelance position....even though I wasn't there to be interviewed, she said I would considered if it was something I was interested in....(how exciting!) so we'll see what happens! Overall I left there beaming and was sure to snap the above picture before the elevator doors closed on me.

I extended my stay in the city and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Boston with my boyfriend. He took me to lunch at Salvatores (where we spent our first Valentine's together!) and we window shopped on Newbury Street... something I'll be doing one day with my bff during our lunch breaks ;)

It was such a perfect day....and I can't wait to soak it all in again this Thursday with Gessenia.

We Got The Cup

After Picking up the boyfriend at 10a.m. at Logan, searching frantically for a place to park and to get on the T, taking the blue line to the green line- we made it to Boylston st. Not to mention front row spots to the parade, and getting to see the one and only MVP Tim Thomas of the Boston Bruins with the Stanley Cup. One of the best times of my life!