Firstly--- How bout them Phils?! Game 1 was so decisively ours. It's a great time to be in Philadelphia, especially with all those nay-sayers...we'll prove them wrong.

Secondly-- Do you remember me talking about being on the website committee for Senior Seminar? Wellllll now the website is up and running! Check it out at sthmseniorseminar.com. I'm so proud of the website committee. Long nights at the TECH Center paid off! We'll be updating it frequently with pictures, newsletters, and events, but for now we've got a really great base.

Thirdly-- This week was the 10th Annual Women's Entrepreneurship Conference. I attended for the first time, and honestly I had no idea of some of the resources I learned about. Temple is ranked third in the country for Entrepreneurship, a huge honor, and accordingly, our Innovation and Entrepreneurship Institute (IEI), is doing big things to empower all students as future business leaders.

The keynote speaker as this conference was Robin Wilson, the founder and CEO of Robin Wilson Home (robinwilsondesign.com). Ms. Wilson was eco-friendly before it became a trend, and told us about her struggles and triumphs over the past ten years as she has developed and grown her interior design business. She was recently ranked on the list of New York's 50 Most Powerful Women, and her tales of starting off with a bang, to getting burned out, to refocusing and starting again, made me feel like I can do anything I want with perseverance and creativity. In fact, her starting line was, "What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?" and I think that is an inspiring attitude we should try to engender within ourselves.

And as a last side note! The winner of the Entrepreneurship Conference's essay contest was one of my classmates! Alina is the Project Chair in Senior Seminar, working hard to plan our 18th Annual Career Day, and her essay was chosen from the largest pool of entries the contest has ever seen. Congratulations!

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 9:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night, I was privileged to work as a volunteer for the 16th annual Taste and Tour of the Countryside, a food, beverage, and venue trade show that has numerous exhibitions, all showing off drink specials, gourmet dishes, yummy desserts, beautiful spaces to have an event, or all of these things! STHM gave all undergrad students the opportunity to help out and, clad in our red aprons identifying us as Temple students, we were able to work shifts on two different days, stuffing the favor bags with gift certificates, acting as greeters, pointing people in the right directions, handing out nametags...you get the idea.

The best part was we got to experience the show itself! Such beautiful and delicious food! My favorite were the tuna tacos, served by Currents Ballroom at Adventure Aquarium. It was so much fun to walk around with my classmates, and just have fun mingling with people from the area professional organizations (like the International Special Events Society (ISES), of which I am a student member), and meeting people from local business (like Drexelbrook Country Club, where it was held) is always interesting and beneficial.

All the craziness in the main ballroom! Photo courtesy of Traci, an STHM senior who acted as one of the student coordinators for volunteers.

Some of us volunteers! I'm in the front on the right. And Traci, who I stole this picture from too, is in the back row third from the left.

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 2:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm vigorously working with the Senior Sem website committee to learn Dreamweaver and Photoshop and get our class's website up and running very very soon. I'm commuting two hours every time I have class (and other days in between), cramming for quizzes twice a week, balancing five classes, and trying to make money at my restaurant job and nannying.

And apparently I thought it'd be a BRILLIANT decision to take the weekend and go to Boston to visit one of my closest friends from high school. And so I did, and I had the loveliest time.

Boston is a beautiful city. It reminds me a lot of Old City Philadelphia, but bigger. Every single building has character. Boston has less skyscrapers, and so the skyline is flatter, but this makes for relaxing walks through the urban part of the city, as you see trees instead of buildings when you look up (and up, and up). Boston is home to the Charles River, a shiny expanse of water that is popular with every demographic of people, and we found our way through toddlers and grandparents, and the weirdest looking dogs to spend the days eating seafood, crossing bridges, and taking pictures.

Perfect day to play tourist!

It was cool to look at Boston with a bit of a tourism planner's point of view. They've got a well-thought out public transportation system-- essential in a city run by pedestrians and cyclists; the river is so sparkly and clean, and the riverfront area offers some activity for everyone, be it the aquarium or upscale restaurants, history or dance clubs; and Boston Commons (like Philly's Fairmount Park) has copious landscaped gardens, fountains, and statues.

But! It was so hard to find baked beans. You know, we've got our glorious cheese steak. And Boston has its beans?! Except I spent a lot of my weekend looking for a place that could give me a small container of baked beans, to try the authentic thing-- to no avail. My friend ended up texting one of those services where they respond to you and answer your question. Their response? A sassy "Are you serious? Beans at this time of night?"

Oh well. Next time!

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 3:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just had falafel on Temple's campus for the first time. It was SO good. There's this place on campus lovingly called the "wall of food," sort of like a strip mall with six or seven windows for food vendors, and they've got pizza places and this sandwich place and a Chinese food place and this Middle Eastern place, home to very the aforementioned fantastic falafel. The two guys in there were flying this little flag with FC Barcelona's logo-- a soccer team from Spain. Now, my Spanish parents (the couple I lived with when I studied abroad) are Real Madrid fans, and there is a big rivalry between the two teams, so it was fun to talk about that. This time a year ago I was in Spain! And I'm still annoying people with stories that start, "When I was in Spain..."

Iker Casillas, the goalie for Real Madrid. I have SUCH a crush on him. He's beautiful, right?

Classes are going really well. They are challenging and most require a lot of reading, but I realize when I talk to professionals and other students outside of Temple how much I am learning, and it's a really good feeling. Senior Sem is just as intense as everybody told me it would be, but I feel really lucky to be in that class, to be challenged in a professional environment as I will be in just a year.

I'm also realizing that I really need more professional clothes, blazers and button downs and such. So I'm totally off to the outlets-- truly, it is necessary to shop today!

I hope it's not raining wherever you are! It is not always sunny in Philadelphia, as it's been either drizzling, misting, or pouuurrring for the last two days basically.

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 4:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sigh.

I thought it'd be a good idea to squish my last five classes into two days. Which, really, considering the fact that I'm commuting via the train, makes a lot of sense. But it also makes for some lo-o-o-ong days. From 11 to 3:20 each day, I have Art Heritage (my last core class), Organizational Management, and Senior Professional Development Seminar (affectionately known as Senior Sem). After a two hour break (oooh yeah!) I have Destination/Special Event Management (on Tuesdays nights) and Legal Issues in Tourism and Hospitality (on Thursdays).

What I like about these classes is that they are things that I never thought would fit right in my brain, but they're not at all impossible. My professors have already posted a lot of readings, and they're interesting and make sense.

This semester is going to be all about staying on top of work, pushing myself further than I have before, and taking every step to make preparations for my internship (in fifteen short weeks!). Summer was fantastic, but it is sort of good to be making some serious moves and being busy.

I'm going down the shore for Labor Day weekend! Management Chapters 2 and 3 reading on the beach, anyone? Ooooh yeah.

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have this friend who goes to Drexel and lives in Broomall (a suburb west of Philadelphia). I live in Malvern, which is about two inches more north and four inches more west of Philadelphia (at a certain zoom on Google maps) than Broomall is, which, okay, might be decently more suburban-ish than Philadelphia. But I had fought against his assertions that Malvern is 'the country.' Just a 40 minute ride from Philadelphia (when the Schuykill Expressway is feeling generous), Malvern can't be traversed by foot but I had never thought of it as the 'coooountry', as my friend would say in a rather poor southern twang.

Anyway, this summer has proved me wrong. I've spent time overlooking quarries, sitting beneath trees, driving over rolling hills dotted with cows, and recently enjoyed an afternoon on Marsh Creek, more of a lake where you can rent boats and stuff. My friends and I rented canoes and it was lovely.

I was scared that our canoe would topple and I would fall in with my camera so I don't have pictures of us on the lake, but here is an almost-sunset view,

I received an email from one of my professors a few days ago, introducing us to the course. This one is my capstone. It's called Senior Professional Development Seminar (Senior Sem) and is sort of designed to simulate a business world experience and use all the curriculum has taught you. We have a binder due a week before class that is supposed to hold details of where we have completed our 250+ Industry-Related hours over the past few years, and I'm excited to started working on it and get ready to....well, do the semester.

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 6:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Soo good for me, I got back from family vacay in New Hampshire and I've gotten out of that weird summer slump and am actually doing something with myself. This week was a GLORIOUS one. I turned 21 on Monday the 13th, and that involved celebration because everybody loves birthdays. One of my birthday presents was to see 'Grease' on stage in Philadelphia and it was SO good. The guy in the seat next to me was singing along at points, and it was a really fun atmosphere.

My little sister Kelsey and me in Quechee Gorge in Vermont

I also got a job this week, so that's cool. It's a restaurant job, and hopefully it'll continue through the school year so I can buy more dresses and more important things like textbooks. Today I'm going to visit the company I really would love to intern with in the spring. It's an event planning company that does both social and corporate events, and what I like about it a lot is that interns are trusted and given real responsibilities. If this doesn't work out, I think I'd like to look for internships outside this area...maybe Portland, Oregon, or even go back to Spain. Decisions, decisions.

Tonight my two good friends from Spain, Bethany and Alyssa, are coming to visit for the weekend! I'm very excited to see them!

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I got my tonsils out two weeks ago, and since then has been a montonous pattern of taking medicine, wishing I could eat crunchy things, watching the marathons of 'NCIS' that USA Network was kind enough to put on, aaand figuring out ways to get out of my house. I got pretty antsy waiting to feel better.

Last week I escaped with some friends to the Camden Aquarium. If you haven't been, you really should go. They renovated it a couple years ago, and they have so many cool exhibits! They have a big African safari type room with hippos (one of my top ten favorite things), and a shark tunnel, and lots of open tanks where you can touch jellyfish (!!!) and sting rays and stuff.

Touching stingrays

Octopus!

This past weekend I went to a farm in New Jersey with my dad's girlfriend, and had the best soft serve ice cream and picked blueberries and peaches. The peaches are PERFECTLY ripe, and I've already used some of the blueberries in a cookie recipe of my own design. The rain has been relentless, but this day was really sunny, and it was so nice to be outside.

This coming weekend, I'm leaving for a road trip to Hanover, New Hampshire with my mom and little sister. My mom grew up there, and hasn't been back since she graduated college. It'll be really special to visit the places she remembers.

Enjoy your 4th! Watch fireworks (another one of my top ten favorite things)!

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 8:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I went to Maine as soon as finals ended to visit Alyssa, my roommate from Spain. We hadn't seen each other since we split up to go our separate ways in the Barcelona airport in December, so it was FANTASTIC to reunite. I drove the whoooollleee eight hours all by my lonesome but it was well worth it.

Maine is green. It has tons of trees, and mountains, and towns with character. We looked out for moose, and though we didn't see the actual animal we did see a moose track! Alyssa goes to Bates College, which is an iota of the size of Temple, and it was very weird to me that she could literally say hi to every person we saw in the town. It made me wonder what my college experience would have been like if I had chosen a smaller school, but driving back into Philadelphia made me realize I picked a school with huge resources in a city I love.

On the way to the beach! Eerie fog, right?

During our moose trek.

Back to Philly!

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 12:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

On one of first truly glorious sun-drenched weekends in Philadelphia, my friend Emily and I went to play Philly-themed miniature golf. About a million another people had the same idea of us, but we let the over-eager eight-year-olds step in front of us and had a leisurely putt-putt experience. Most of the holes were made into Philadelphia monuments, like LOVE Park, the Ben Franklin Bridge, the Liberty Bell, Boathouse Row, and the Art Museum.

Me by the Liberty Bell!

Emily by the Art Museum

It's finals time. I have spent far too many late nights at the TECH Center, and am ridiculously grateful for its 24-hour Starbucks. I've got a lot to accomplish in the next two weeks, and also have the orientation for my capstone class, Senior Seminar, this coming week. I have seen and created way too many Powerpoints this semester, but for the most part the work is interesting. Like for my Research Methodology class, we had to research past studies and create our own study on student travel motivations-- why students travel where they do and what they do on vacation.

But other things, like learning the time value of money for my Finance final on Thursday....not so fun.

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 9:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)