Too big to what you ask?

Well, in my opinion, it's too big to not explore. Too big to be close-minded, to think in small-sized terms for yourself or your dreams.

Through my internship, I have been fortunate to meet people from everywhere and learn from their global perspectives. My boss is originally from Sri Lanka; just in the last three weeks I've heard speakers from France and Britain; in the last twenty minutes, as I was deciding what else to write in this blog, my co-workers told me stories about their visits to St. John, Mexico, and Iceland. Our CSM at an Orlando hotel for the March event I told you guys about might be relocating to Brazil. I've gotten emails about this blog from people from Australia and Morocco (and that is very cool).

Temple University is currently ranked as the most diverse university in the nation by Princeton Review, and I appreciate that sense of global inclusion. I've worked on group projects with people who call the Caribbean islands, or Hong Kong, or France, or Taiwan, home, and my professors come from a whole host of other countries. Temple has campuses in Rome, Japan, London, etc., and gives you the chance to study pretty much anywhere you want. Which is why I studied in Granada, Spain, and had the time of my life (to make an epic short). I have friends who have studied in Puerto Rico, Rome, Scotland, Japan, England, Egypt, (etcetera), and their stories are fascinating. Just recently, Temple announced its new partnerships with universities in Taiwan and Korea, and have more in the works in Europe and Africa. Go study abroad somewhere, just for a couple months, even if you have to delay graduation. It will be worth it!

One of my favorite professors (and also an STHM dean) collects house music from everywhere he's traveled, naming London, Milan, and Austria as some of his favorites. A close friend texts her amigos in Puerto Rico constantly, and my Facebook wall is littered with posts from Danish and Moroccan friends I made while abroad. My intercambio buddy from Spain is working in Haiti for the Red Cross. We eat food and drink drinks daily of international influence, and there is no reason we can't make the trip to have these experiences in their home countries, while overlooking those famous landmarks we have seen in movies or on TV, or those places off the beaten path that are the world's best kept secrets.

If you are a senior in high school, soon you and your friends might be scattered across the country and the world. If you're a senior in college (like me...gasp), soon you will be faced with a world of possibilities (pardon the pun). There is nothing to stop you from applying to a university or for a job across the country or across a sea or two (except, you know, a visa issue that can be easily handled). Experience something new, and be a sponge (as my boss would say) to every person and place you encounter.

Go, do, be. Because, really-- why not?

Sean and Allison in Iceland

Lindsay in Jordan

Tara in Australia

Alyssa, Jess, and Liz having snack time in Madrid

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Philadelphia. What a city, truly. It got more snow than Buffalo (I heard this somewhere, but it might not actually be true. Definitely pretty close though) just a few weeks ago, and today it's gotta be about 70 degrees (also might not be true, but it's definitely quite warm).

In the same way, just two months ago, my internship was quite overwhelming. On the other end of the phone were people I didn't know how to respond to; now I know all about organizations, destinations, projects, and even the tricky transfer to voicemail. I've met so many new people who have such intriguing careers, and understand more the intricate network of the event management and hospitality industries.

Just two weeks ago, I hadn't experienced the whirlwind of a week-long national sales meeting, like I did this past week in Orlando, Florida. Working with my supervisor, Allison, I was able to see how she puts together many pieces of an event management puzzle, and can extinguish fires before they start.

Rehearsals of the entertainment for the Ball.
Photo courtesy of my supervisor, Allison Swank, CMP, and STHM '03

In two more months, I'll have finished this internship and my senior project. I'll be 4 days away (!!!!!!) from graduation (!!!!!) and hopefully will have a better idea of what I'm doing with myself come May 14. I've had to deal this semester with all my fellow STHMers being scattered across the United States for our internships, and in two months the same things will happen with the entire class of 2010. It seems like, for almost 22 years of your life, you learn to work with people and bond only to be torn away from them at the end of middle school, high school, and again now. It's a very odd feeling, one that's overwhelming if I think about it too long, that a couple months from now, few people will be where I expect them to be. I can balance it out with the thought that I'll have friends all over the country though, lots of road trips to be had.

And maybe, hopefully, I'll be somewhere crazy awesome too. I'll have a futon in my sun-drenched hardwood-floored living room-- friends, consider this your invitation to visit.

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reader: I warn you!
What follows might look long, but...
I've had quite a month.

I'm a little over a month into my internship at an event management company. To call it an event management company is oversimplifying. I have learned so much about, yes, meeting planning, but also real estate development, marketing, networking, 'green' strategies for hotels and events, and stuff like proper email and phone communication, efficient conference calls and meeting scheduling. Being the intern means, in part, making copies, and faxing stuff, yes, but the paper chains I help maintain day to day are so necessary in ensuring that paths have been followed correctly, communication has been had, and details haven't been forgotten. I'm in awe of how organized the P: drive is, where all the computer files for the business are. Every day brings a new entry in Outlook, the email/address book/calendar program. Seriously, the organization of my co-worker Hannah's to-do lists is staggering.

On my desk standing
Like soldiers, at attention,
Manila folders

Organization
Has reached echelons anew
At my internship

I started out this month by researching a lot about green strategies for hotels and events, since my boss gave a speech at The Special Event conference in New Orleans. Since I've always really liked trees and the environment (proud member of Ecology Club all the way through high school, thank you very much), I was thrilled to have actionable ways to use my tree love in a realistic capacity. This also prompted me to focus my Senior Internship Research Project on LEED certification, and the green development and marketing of an ecofriendly luxury villa my company has been renovating and expanding in St. John.

Off to Atlanta!
Careful planning, details checked
Mean a smooth meeting

Until the client
Changes its mind, and then whoosh!
Guess we're flying home early.

A little more than a week ago, I went with our Senior Manager of Meetings and our Director of Production to Atlanta to help execute two meetings. The first was for 80 doctors, to investigate a new pharmaceutical product. It was very well, with the exceptions of unhappy travelers sometimes making slightly ridiculous demands. Still, my supervisor handled everything with ease, always with reassuring words and never with negativity. Lessons to learn, patience to gain...

The second was going to be much bigger-- 2,500 people. Unfortunately, due to problems within the client company, the meeting was postponed two days before it was supposed to start. This led to LOTS of phone calls in attempts to mitigate loss to both us and our client. So many hours on conference calls, emails back and forth, and multiple revisions of every possible word document and floor layout... will surely be put into effect sometime soon.

That's all for now. If you read this whole thing, I thank you very, very much.

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 2:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My last final (Legal Issues in Tourism and Hospitality) ended around 7 pm on Thursday. I walked out of there feeling pretty fantastic. Thrilled to not have to study ever again (unless, you know, I end up in grad school or something), thrilled to have survived this insane semester.

And then, somewhere around Saturday, I realized the enormity of that statement. Goodbye, Speakman Hall and Alter Hall-- and entering both buildings and knowing 80% of the people walking around in them, breakfast at that one truck by Tuttleman Learning Center that has these really nice bacon and egg sandwiches, doing crosswords with my boyfriend as we drink campus's most addicting coffee, complaining about Temple's ridiculous wind tunnels, Website Committee and late nights at the TECH Center, rushing to the library to print out PowerPoints two minutes before class, getting slightly nervous everytime I walk into Senior Seminar, wondering what intense discussion we'll have today, hoping I have everything I'm supposed to...

...well, Dean M did say, 16 weeks ago, that we would miss it. And I do.

I'm not one of those people who ever got super jazzed about school spirit. I don't follow collegiate sports and don't even have a Temple bumper sticker. But these last three and a half years, and especially the last semester, have made me so aware of how good a place Temple was for me, and so proud of myself for ending up in STHM. I learned more about how the real world works from a college classroom than I ever thought I could. I was fortunate to hear some well-known, really impressive people speak in my classes. I thought my professors were exaggerating, realized that they weren't, and was grateful to have the knowledge. I might be slightly terrified to not have a syllabus to tell me what I'll do for the next four months, but at least I know I'm ready.

Check in next semester to follow my adventures during my senior internship at an event management agency :)

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 8:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I really don't know what to do. I know I have work (1 paper, 2 presentations, a Dreamweaver workshop to lead, and 2 final exams, to be exact) to finish, but it doesn't feel like the end. I spent the first two years in college being heavily involved in the Honors program, and while I loved every moment, I wish I had spent more time doing STHM stuff. Weekends like the past one, at the 7th Annual STHM Semi-Formal, make me realize how lucky I am to be with so many other smart people, who are creative and dynamic and have taught me so much in the past few semesters.

Me, Tara, Angela, and Alina outside the Doubletree, where the Semi Formal was held.

Tuesday is the last day of classes for me, and that is a crazy feeling. My Art Heritage class I took as a core requirement, but I've found it really interesting and enjoyable, and can't look at any piece of art without trying to place it in one of the periods we've learned about. And I met this boy I'm dating in that class (aww, I know.)

The class I'll be most sad to see end is Senior Seminar. Before that class I knew a fraction of the STHM students I know now, and also a fraction of what I am capable of doing. It is that class that got me less scared about my senior internship and the real world, that class that kept me on my toes and up late at night, either perfecting my resume or battling Dreamweaver.

Most of my Senior Seminar class at the Semi Formal

Weird. Thank you, blogging, for being another outlet for procrastination.

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 10:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every semester, I am in awe of how quickly time flies. But this one went faster than any other one, I am convinced. I'm in that freak-out mode, the one where I am convinced that I won't get everything done, that nothing will ever be like this again, that I am not ready to leave Temple (more specifically, Speakman Hall, home to all of my THM classes) and face that real world called Internship II, what I'll be doing for the spring semester.

I know, I know. It'll all be okay. I'm more than prepared, and will be surprised at all I can acheive when I'm forced into new situations. Blah blah blah. I still have two and a half weeks (OMG THAT'S IT?!) til the end of the semester, so let me suspend all those thoughts and just tell you what I've been doing for the last couple weeks...

Remember how I'm on the Website Committee for that capstone class, Senior Seminar? Well the website is up! Check it out: http://sthmseniorseminar.com/2009_fall/

STHM's 18th Annual Career Day happened! (http://sthmseniorseminar.com/2009_fall/Career%20Day/careerday.html) Career Day is a wonderful event orchestrated by one of the Fall Seminar classes; it brings numerous vendors from the tourism, hospitality, sport, and leisure industries to campus, and students can learn about all the possibilities for their futures. My Seminar class was responsibile for Career Day this year. The Project committee was responsible for most of the planning, while the Sponsorship and Fundraising committees raised money to fund it, and the Marketing committee directed the marketing. It was a huge collaborative effort which couldn't have been done without the STHM Administration and Deans Barber and Montague, for sure.

Here's one picture of my Seminar class blowing up globes (the theme was Globalism). I'll put ones of the actual event up soon!

Pavlos, Rob, Marley, Laura, Alex, Traci, and Amanda in the back, and Caitlyn and Kathleen in the front. I'm sure they're all thrilled with me for this picture :)

One of our fundraisers was selling tickets to a 76ers game, and that was so much fun as well!

Maura, Ryan, and Shane enjoy the game!

I also recently went to UPenn's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. I didn't know it existed until my Art Heritage professor recommended it to us. My boyfriend and I went and saw awesome ancient artifacts from all over the world. There were also some more recent pieces from the American Indian cultures, which I found really interesting as well.

These heads are from the 1st Century, B.C.! Isn't that wild?

That's all for now :)

Posted by Nikki Gleason at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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)