Decisively Spontaneous

If there is one thing that Gessenia and I are amazing at (besides blogging) it's making the most out of a day spent together.

This past Monday, the Tripod was accompanied by my sister for a night out celebrating the new job (AHH...I still can't believe it's real). We got drinks and apps at a bar called Zooma in Providence and since we're graduates, two drinks were enough to make us laugh a little louder than usual.

Thursday we celebrated Dave's 23rd birthday at Scorpion Bar at Foxwoods. Unfortunately I was slightly out of commission seeing as though I had two of my wisdom teeth removed earlier that day. By the end of the night, everyone knew I thought something was funny when I would slap my leg repeatedly, however there was no code needed for when I was feeling the music. We all took over the dance floor when  the DJ played Avicii- "Levels" followed by Rihanna's "We Found Love"




Yesterday, it was a record 80 degrees outside- so obviously not wanting to waste the amazing weather- Gessenia invited me to take a trip to Newport for their annual Oktoberfest. It's still a mystery whether we made it "there" or not. We were never greeted with ginormous mugs of beer or crazy music (something I had pictured) but we did make our way around town grabbing a few drinks along the way. It was a perfect afternoon catching up and enjoying Rhode Island. We headed home just in time to witness an awesome sunset over the Newport Bridge. And let me tell you, the water looked pretty amazing.

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.

City Lights

Here we are back at Sophies. Walking in from the torrential down pour we couldn't help but reflect on our first meetings here at the beginning of the summer. It really put the time that has passed into perspective comparing our cold shiver to the heat we were trying to escape just a few months ago.

Today's goal- make business cards. (Don't get me wrong, there's a list of 50 other things behind that) We've been brainstorming for nearly an hour now. How can we be creative while portraying the right message? What will differentiate us from the millions of others while still being professional?

...That's what we've come up with so far, but no purchases have been made yet.

This coming week is the FutureM in Boston. Gessenia and I are registered for Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for awesome events involving Sports and Entertainment, Branding, Social Media and virtual workshops as well. While the intentions behind this production is to educate marketers and keep them on the forefront, we want to take it as a networking opportunity and be as prepared as possible.

It's been a hectic week of playing catch up all the while trying to stay ahead of the game. My trip to Oklahoma was just what the doctor prescribed. I enjoyed spending time with my family, clearing my head and finally having time to relax. I soaked it for all it was worth because the fantasy world came to an abrupt end as soon as I returned home. Wednesday morning I was off to New York for yes, my interview at GLAMOUR MAGAZINE! That day I spent 8 hours traveling for a 45 minute interview and to me, it made perfectly good sense. Thanks to the "I'm Awesome" chart Gessenia and I had worked on just a few weeks prior, some serious research on the company and a good friend in NY, I walked out of the interview beaming. Finally an interview I had no hesitation when saying it went really well. Not only that, the role of Promotion Assistant turned out to be one that I genuinely believe I could thrive in- Creative proposals, budgets, event planning, even stuffing bags- it's a position that would get me excited. I can just see it now......*sigh* (daydreaming)

Before I left the city, my sister and I had the perfect dinner date at Alice's Tea Cup on the corner of Lexington and 64th. The tiny place sweeps you into a fairy tale as soon as you step in. Fairy dust is sprinkled everywhere, the food is exotic and tasteful,and the waitstaff are super sweet.



The whirlwind of my return didn't stop there. I afforded myself 5 hours of sleep when I finally got home only to make my way up to Boston for an all day Brand Camp at Jack Morton. SO worth the lack of sleep!

...more to follow

So Many Activies!

...a phrase my beautiful friend Alicia would often squeal out.

Speaking of Alicia and the girls of K2... if there was one thing that could bring us together it was food. It didn't matter if there was an exam the next day or 8 pages left of our typical 12 pager, if you tempted us with a good meal, we would be there! Luxe Burger was our not-so-guilty pleasure during school and I returned there a few days ago with my boyfriend and mom, thanks to Groupon. I got my usual turkey burger with sauteed onions and guacamole, Dave got something ridiculously spicy (probably so I wouldn't pick at it) and my mom got the Thanksgiving burger. The food was fab and although the company wasn't the same, it was still just as great.

The rest of the weekend (which includes Thursday because I'm still unemployed) was an awesome one. Gessenia and I kicked off Thursday night at Centro, a martini bar in East Greenwich where we stuck it through the less-than-okay service for some of the best martinis ever. Hers was an Oatmeal Cookie and mine was a Butterfinger (which we decided was okay because we went to the gym before). We played catch up for the next couple of hours, talking about where we were on our job search and how her informational interview at RACEPOINT GROUP went!! (read previous blog) We laughed at my emotional state and attempted to figure out the reasoning behind some of the songs being played in the background. Anyone overhearing our conversation was given free entertainment for the night.

Friday was the annual Blessing of the Fleet, an event that everyone and their mom attends. It was a great time under the beer tent except this year there was less elbow room than ever before. As soon as all of our tokens had been exchanged for beer, or in my case, pinot grigio, we headed over to the Coast Guard House where we spent the rest of the night.

After a 4 hour nap and a 7 hour work day at the golf course, I met up with my friend Alicia to drive to Acton, MA for our friend Kelly's graduation party. It was sooooo good to be with some of my K2 girls again and thanks to BBM, Facebook, and mobile uploads it was like we were all together again dancing to Gold Dust.

Us waving "hi" to our missing 3

Last Friday Night

Sorry I have fallen off the blog radar for the past few weeks. I've been caught up with work, summer nights, and Firefly Lane. I'm finally able to add another post (in between blowing my nose and drying my tears) because I can now step away from the book that has had me in another world this past week. Firefly Lane has been the perfect escape but I have to say I'm glad it's over. I've been so caught up in it, I would race home to read more. I don't remember the last time I read a book, never mind one that effected me as much as this one.

Last week, Friday Night finally made a comeback... I guess all the stars were aligned. It was the perfect day, mid 80s, and at the last minute two of my bests from Bryant came to visit. We had dinner at Kabuki, caught up over edemame and I successfully introduced them to the eel avocado roll which is my favorite!

When we got home, we got ready all together just like we were back at school- music blasting, playing relay with the flat iron, and 4 girls to one mirror. Gessen joined us when she got out of work and after trying on a dozen outfits, snapping a bunch of pictures, we were ready to go. The rest of the night was spent at The Coast Guard House where you could find us holding our Narragansetts in the air on the dance floor. Nothing could stop us- except for the view outside that we admired multiple times that night. On the ride home we hit the highest notes our vocal cords would allow and recapped in the morning via pictures, videos and the disaster in the kitchen. Now that's the Friday night I've been looking for.

View from the Coast Guard deck

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.

Ice Queen

Another Friday has come and gone and Mother Nature once again, selfishly took away a well deserved night out. I spent the stormy evening in with my boyfriend watching Get Him to the Greek- which I really can't complain about, however I'm still waiting for that typical "summer night" and longing to get caught up in the music at the Coast Guard House. Thankfully Sunday nights have saved me and are what keep me going throughout the week. Since I've been back in the area, I've found myself at Trio in Narragansett every Sunday night. Whether it's drinks with my gf or dinner with the boyfriend, it has yet to let me down...and the perfect summer drink may or may not be found there! Gessen and I first tried it out on a whim a few weeks ago- "being decisively spontaneous" is our new thing- and it was a pleasant surprise. I ordered the Midnight Martini: Patron XO, Svedka Vanilla and Kahlua-HELLO! and she ordered the ever loyal original cosmo. Both drinks were delish but it wasn't until my next visit the following week that I was tempted to call this the place of Summer 2011. My boyfriend and I went for drinks and half off apps and that's when I was introduced to the Ice Queen. It's one of Trio's best selling martinis and I can see why! Grape vodka, white grape juice and ice wine, topped with real grapes-so perfect. I didn't hate the food either: we had their "Pizza of the Moment" and although the name sounds silly, this pie was nothing to joke about. Although I'm now in love with Sundays, there's still an opportunity for Fridays to share the spotlight.