Two Weeks Notice

Two weeks from today, I leave on one of the most anticipated trips of my life.  With a 30L pack on my back I will be flying solo over to Europe to backpack the continent plus some. Many have asked if I will be documenting my travels, so, in addition to a journal, I will be blogging periodically to update whomever wants to read. 

I guess I’ll start with where the idea all began. In July 2011, I ventured over to the land down under to study abroad in Wollongong, Australia for six months. Living and being on the other side of the world truly changes your perspective on life.  I met people I never dreamed of meeting, partook in activities that only seemed possible in films, and left with more knowledge about that part of the globe than any classroom could ever teach me.  I spent my entire life savings up to that point on discovering the outback, scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef, and drinking with friends at one of the most famous horse races in the world.   I was also fortunate enough to veer off into Indonesia and New Zealand to see more of the different cultures that make up our world.

Upon return, I contracted something no doctor could cure. This travel bug was imbedded in my system, and I knew I had to continue to explore more.

Immediately, I picked up as many shifts as I could at work, my style switched to sports bras and under armor, and my new form of weekend entertainment was watching movies at home with my cat. Traveling was the only thought I had in mind, and college graduation was the only thing standing in my way.

I talked about it for months and I gathered that no one really thought I was serious. 

“You’re going alone?”

“Have you seen Taken?”

“What about a job?”

“When are you coming back?”

Were all common questions.  Well please…bore someone else with your questions (Devil Wears Prada anyone.) Yes, I will be doing a majority of the trip alone. I have seen Taken. I have my whole life to get a job and slave my life away. I come back when the money runs out, and then I save up again and possibly start traveling again.

I finally bought my one-way ticket to fly into my starting point (Iceland) back in January.  However, it still didn’t seem real. 

So why am I writing this initial blog post now?  I haven’t left yet, and I have been stuck in my home state of Michigan since graduating from UNCW May 11^th.  Perhaps because now, I truly feel this whole endeavor is finally coming together.  All my belongings are sold, I have the beginnings of my route planned, and I just purchased a 3 month unlimited rail pass for Europe.  Despite societies disproval, watching my newly graduated friends land jobs, and the possibility of danger, this trip is happening.

So lastly, before I start this journey I want to express why I am doing this.  I don’t have a return ticket, I don’t have an unlimited bank account, and I know the dangers of traveling as a woman alone in some areas of the world.   

First, the way we live life.  The materialistic culture of our generation, the view that more is better…I hate it.  Admittingly, I am a complete offender – I utilize my iPhone, MacBook, and shoes just as much as the next person.  However, there is more to life than what we own.  Last week I sold my 2007 Mustang and to say that I was in love with it is an understatement.  However, it was a luxury - Not a necessity. The selling of all my belongings has been relieving.  There is less clutter to worry about and more money for experiences with people and places, the things that truly matter in life.  When you are on your deathbed, will you think about your possessions or the life and legacy you lived? I think the latter is true for anyone.

Secondly, I stressed myself out during the never-ending six-year college streak. I constantly overloaded my semesters with classes I didn’t even need and worked every single Friday, Saturday, and Sunday waiting tables.   In many countries it is normal for students to take gap years between high school and college and take a break.  Americans dive straight into it, then upon college graduation we immediately strive for that perfect full time job. When will we stop working? We have our whole lives to work and not enough time to enjoy the greatest gift we are given – life.

Going off my second point. When other time could possibly be best to do this?  We have all heard it. “I want to be married by 25, and have 2 kids and a fenced in yard by 27.”  Nope. Wrong. Not for me. Right now the only “child” I have is a black demon kitty.  Once you are married and have children it becomes harder and more difficult to do the things you may want to accomplish in life.  I am not saying these are bad things, they are just not for me right now, and before I give that way of life the chance to happen, I need to see what the world has to offer.  

People keep telling me “Oh you’re so lucky,” or “I’m so jealous.”  I believe that this is something anyone can do with the right desires and dedication.  As it comes down to the final weeks before departure I feel that I have prepared as much as I can, however, I know that it is not enough.  Some challenges or plans I will just have to figure out on the way.  I’m already predicting getting off the plane during the early hours of June 28^th, and thinking “What the hell am I doing?” But that is the adventure in the game, and I’m ready to play.

Post Visions

As the excitement winds down from the extravagant fest, I have taken some time to work on other school projects.  This past week I have not done much Visions related.

I have however made an assignment guideline for our official visions final and  created all the necessary dropbox accounts

Sarah and I are also in the process of wrapping up the dvd footage and editing it all together

VISIONS

I am truly just so incredibly proud of all of our hard work.  It really paid off and I think everyone could realize the professionalism that was involved and could see what the students work had produced.

Throughout the week...

Met with Matt G to do Tech scout of Clocktower - 1 hour
Went to costco with Sarah to get h20 and soda - 1 hour
met with business affairs to nail down Video race logistics and "right to film" forms - 30 min
Wrote up Gina's keynote introductory speech - 2 hour
Picked up badges and sorted our program issues with printing services - hours
Dinner at MIXXXTOOOO  - 2 hours
Had an absolute blast all day at Visions - 45 hours
Continued the fun into the Afta partayy -32 hours

Love you all

The Week

Ordered Programs and Badges from Evonne - 1 hour
Picked up Posters/Dealt with Ace Issue, re ordered ACE stickers to post on posters and went and stuck them on posters - 3 hours
Hung up posters in Fuzzy Peach - 10 min
Call for Volunteers organized volunteer schedule - 2 hours
Visions presentation to Ana Oleninas class with Ms. Sarah Reedy- 10 minutes
Ordered Balloons - 20 minutes
Scout of Clocktower lounge - 20 minutes
Created Heads of state contact list -30 minutes
AD Meeting - 1.5 hours
Group Meeting with AP/VR/Hosp- 1.5 hours
Costco trip with Ms. Haras Reedy 1 hour

A lot of my work has been email correspondence and assisting other departments with any help that needs it.  Mostly catering to Travel and After Party work

AD meeting to tie up loose ends and get on the same page with everyone 1.5 hours
Team Meeting with After Party, Hospitality, and VR 1 hour
Met with Shannon to go over budget 45 min
Assisted in After Party catering deal with Jamie 30 min
Continue to organize volunteer schedule1 hour
Sorted out logistics with Jamie about ordering from Zulma - found out that UNCW does not let us order from competing companies EMAILS
Updated travel spreadsheet to make things easier on Sarah 30 min
Finalized Catering contracts with Kristin Shelton 1 hour
Contacted Colby Hopkins via email for travel information - they have 7 people coming from Charlotte EMAILS
Sent call for volunteer info to Pat to send out on the listserv 20 min
Organized and proofed event posters with Evonne 1.5 hour

3*19*2013. SO CLOSE

As we gear up for the best weekend of our god given semester I have been becoming progressively more HAPPY. Meow.

Monday - AD meeting with Jon, Hamilton, and James. Also team meeting was very successful and we accomplished a lot. (3 hours)
Tuesday - Led Visions class and prepared budgets for finalization (1 hour)
Wednesday - Talked budget over with Shannon (30 min)
Re-did T-shirt logo and sent to Zulma for print (1.5 hours)
Thursday - Met with Jamie to order swag and Vrace stuff (1 hour)
Registered all confirmed guests for passes (30 min)
Friday - Sent Event posters to Evonne

Post Spring Break

Over the past two weeks

-Met with AD's and Shannon
-Decided on all film selections for a very long time
-Attended 90s party
-Made an awesome 90s party playlist
-Sarah and I made an awesome banner for the front of King
-Met with Team
-Negotiated T-shirt orders with Zulma
-Decided on Times for event and finalized all times with catering

2/26/13

Wooooo 90s party comin up in da house.  You know y'all are excited.  This past week the tasks accomplished were as follows...

Final planning for CFVF tour.  Great Job tour team!   - 1 hour
Met with the AD's at Java City to go over submissions and art  -  1.5 hours
Met with department to go over AP, VR, Swag, and Travel - 1.5 hours
Got $500 donation from Aramark for Catering - emails
Watched 30 films and scored.  -  An indefinite amount of time
Met with Video Race team to go over budget and prizes - 1 hour
90s playlist completed y'all. 6.5 hours  worth of the best jams. - 1 hour

ohhhmmerrrgerrg

Oh I'm so excited its Valentines Day...said no one ever.  This past Thursday was like an unplanned pregnancy. No one wants Valentines Day, but you just have to accept it and let it come.

Anyhoo this past week...

Met with the AD's to discuss updates (1.5 hours)
Met with Department to go over any updates (1.5 hours)
Made entertainment contract for After Party (30 min)
Ordered, proofed, and picked up VR posters from Evonne. We got 50 for $75 (1.5 hours)
Sent catering budgets to Aramark for final decision on catering donation (30 min)
Watched 25 movies, holla (Forever)
Met with Shannon to go over budget (1 hour)
Met with Brianna to discuss t-shirt designs (30 min) 
And attended some awesome bakesale with some weird kids outside of Randall. (3 hours)

It's raining hearts! 2/11/12

This past week was brought about with a joyous amount of readings, exams, and work.  Oh what a fun semester it's been!

Monday started with a meeting between the AD's and Shannon where we went over departmental updates (1.5 hours.)  That night I helped Jon locate emails and contacts for some of the new invitationals (45 min.)   I also had a long meeting with After party, hospitality, and video race to go over swag bags, community outreach strategies, AP logistics, and the Vrace functionalities. (1.5 hours)

I am continuing my search by speaking to numerous t-shirt companies to get the best price on t-shirts.  These t-shirts will be ordered over SB.  We will be cross promoting visions with the Carolina Film and Video Festival this year and we got their press release and logos to advertise the festival.

Friday I met with Jons team to discuss the VR poster with Brianna, our hope is to get these posters to Evonne by Tuesday. (1 hour)

The majority of my weekend was spent reading our final papers which will be discussed in class tomorrow. (3 hours)

Visions: week ending 2*3*13

Monday:
 The start of Monday proved to be a busy one.  We had our weekly AD meeting to go over necessary updates(1.5 hours) after I met with Shannon to discuss the budget and make changes.  We moved some of the funds around so everything balanced out. (1.5 hours)  that night we also had our department meetings (1.5 hours) where I met with After Party, Video Race, and Hospitality.  Jon and Brianna also came to go over any Video Race deadlines.

Over the weekend I had made contact with Zulma Terrones, who was a guest at Visions last year and is now a administrative assistant for vendors and we have been discussing T-shirt prices.  I am trying to find t-shirts around $5-6 a piece so we can cut back on some of our costs. I have also been in contact with Cindy for CFVF,  she said passes are not a problem for visions staff and I sent her all of the 6 films that will be playing at Visions in order. The schedule is now up on their website. (1 hour)

In class I collected $25 from most of the staff and created a budget for this so all your money is now logged :)

I spoke with Kristin Shelton this week at ARAMARK and gave er the finalized sponsorship proposal. She said it looked great! (Thanks Jon) and Aramark will probably donate some amount to us this year.  After I made a catering budget with projected cost to see exactly what we can afford. (1 hour)

Thursday and Friday were spent watching the film submissions for this week (2.5 hours) I hope we get some docs in because we are lacking in that department.

Visions tasks 1*27

Week 2 of spring semester proved to be another busy yet accomplished one.  One of the first orders on the agenda was sending Ben an updated bio for the website. 

I spent about 4-5 hours watching and scoring films 1- 17.  I had already completed watching 16 and 17 before the memo went out that we could now watch the original choices.  Thats ok :) just puts me ahead for next week.

A large part of this week was spent organizing the main visions calendar on our google account.  Now everything is organized and viewable online in a calendar format.  I also added to the syllabus so some of the more firm dates can be in the syllabus for next year.  This helps me become more organized with the class.

I am meeting with Shannon Monday so about an hour was spent re-familiarizing myself with the budget.  Also I am adding to our "class donations budget,"  (a reminder that $25 is due to me Tuesday.) Once I get this money we will figure out a good banking option for Visions.  I am hoping to set up an off campus bank account for Visions.

My plan is to have our ARAMARK catering locked in by next Tuesday so I have had brief discussions with Kristin at ARAMARK in hopes that we will get more donated so that we can have more money for our guests!   

Visions 3

In attempt to keep up with the Visions Film Festival and Conference,  I will be keeping track of my tasks in preparation for the upcoming Festival.  Each week, a short job synopsis/timeline will be posted, which will effectively help me organize the tasks associated with being the Assistant Director over events, travel, and hospitality.

I concentrated a majority of my time over winter break on organizing and creating a new budget for Visions in Excel.  The cells are now formatted correctly so they will automatically add/deduct/multiply any numbers when entered.  It is my hope that this document can be used for the upcoming Visions classes.

The past two weeks have been spent coordinating a syllabus for my team, and setting dates to work with.  The AD's sat down via skype and worked out calendar logistics, so that we have a working timeline that fits with all departments. Our team also met with Jon to go over his sponsorship proposal.  We discussed calendar changes as a department and are completing a master calendar to follow.

I have been in contact with Cindy from CFVF to coordinate the tour that Visions will be taking to Greensboro.  More details to come.  I also met with Kristin Shelton (ARAMARK) to discuss catering options for the day of.

Apart from that I spent last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday reading and scoring abstracts.  I also met with Will to help him fold letters to mail out.