Tuesday Theory

I have a theory. A Tuesday theory. I have decided to share my theory with the blogosphere on this fine Tuesday morning, so here it goes.

Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays are always good days because they are part of the blissful weekend.

Thursdays are the days before Fridays so the mood is generally optimistic considering you are on the eve of the weekend. Kind of like Christmas Eve, not quite there yet, but close enough to be excited!

Wednesdays are the "hump days" and you are able to take comfort in the fact that you are half way done with the week. These days can be long days, but still manageable.

Mondays are tough. However, I would argue that on Mondays the feel of the previous weekend is still fresh in your memory making the dreaded wake-up-alarm on Mondays manageable, not likable, but manageable.

And then there's Tuesday. Tuesdays leave you with no memory of the weekend past and it is still too soon to visualize the weekend to come. Tuesdays are the toughest days of the week in my opinion. Despite comments that claim Tuesdays to be the most productive day of the week, they are still in fact doomed by my oh-so-wise Tuesday Theory.

Happy Tuesday everyone! :)

Small Town Girl Meets Big-ish City

It had to happen sometime. I knew that I would eventually have to step out of my small-town comfort zone and enter the Big City Girl mentality. Public Relations is not generally a field that can be easily pursued in the small-town atmosphere.

For those of you who are curious as to just how small-town I'm talking, well I'm talking total population of roughly 6,764. We are the Dairy Capital of Georgia, and I lived 15 miles away from the nearest "city." The biggest claim to fame our city boasts is that it was the birth place of Alice Walker and Joel Chandler Harris.

Now that you have a better understanding of my background you may be better able to appreciate my apprehension about moving (alone I might add) to Atlanta. I have had a stepping stone in my journey towards big-citydom, which is Athens, GA. Home of the Bulldogs, the Classic City, the perfect place for small town people to get away from small town talk (although some get a bit carried away with their new found freedom).

But graduation came all too quickly and here I am again looking to relocate. Except this time I need bigger than Athens. I need as big as Georgia has to offer...and that's why I need Atlanta. One of the main reasons I've decided that I must relocate to the Big City (big-ish really, let's be honest it's no NYC) in pursuit of a reliable, full-time, benefit-paying, dream-fulfilling J-O-B. It has become increasingly apparent on most of the positions I have applied for that the employers post statements such as "local residents only," "no relocation," and "must be within in 15 miles to be considered."

Comments such as those, coupled with the advice of everyone I've worked with/talked to here in Atlanta is what has led me to my decision to make the big move (much to my small-town parents' distress).

However, do not fear! The small-town girl in me is still alive and well, and has swayed my big-city dreams to settle in a small-town environment within the city. Vinings is a quaint little area of Atlanta located near Smyrna with a population of 9,677. A bit larger than my small-town roots, but still small enough to keep that part of me satisfied.

I'm very excited about the move and about the opportunities that may arise as a result. Keep me posted on any job openings you may hear of or any fun things to do in the area! Big City here I come :)

A Job in itself: The Job Search

As a recent graduate with degrees in Public Relations and Philosophy I have been faced with the seeming impossible task of finding a job in this economy. Like most people in my situation I have struggled to compete with the hundreds of individuals who are actively pursuing employment.

My personal theory is that there are so many people in today's market who have been laid off their jobs after having worked for years. This trend in lay-offs is no secret, but what some people may not consider is the fact that for those companies that ARE hiring, a person with more experience who is willing to work for less money is quite the deal. This leaves the poor lowly recent grads no where to turn as the "entry-level" jobs are snatched up by above-entry-level professionals.

Despite the gloomy setting in which my career hunt has begun, there has been an increase in helpful hints and advice for the unemployed. While browsing Twitter I ran across this post in regards to Optimizing Your Online Job Search and found all of the tips useful in terms of turning the unemployed status to employed. (See number 4 in the post and you'll understand my eagerness to perk up my blog) :) I am very thankful to people like this who are willing to offer their input in order to contribute to the advancement of strangers' careers.

Luckily I have been able to remain employed since my journey through the arches. I am wrapping up a PR/Event Planning internship with the Hinman Dental Society, and am now moving on to hopefully even more exciting adventures in the real world. Initially I believed that I would graduate from college and have my dream job in 6 months time, however that really was just a dream! I have found that at times it you must take very small (maybe even frustrating) baby-steps before making that leap into full-time professional life (especially with the economy the way it is now).

My advice would be to try picking up a few part time jobs or internships. As a colleague of mine once said, "No experience is bad experience." And who knows the people you could meet while working a part-time job for a few months! Already I have truly come to appreciate the power of networking and the opportunities it has to offer. Below I will list some sites that I find useful.

• PRSA Job Center
• ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership
• Meeting Professionals International (MPI)
• International Special Events Society
• Craig's List -- I know this sounds surprising, but Craig's List can be a useful resource if used wisely.
  

Just a reminder, continue to be careful when applying to any job, and be sure to research the company thoroughly before jumping into something head-first and blind.

Good luck to you all!

"25 Things" Note that is Invading Facebook

I recently was tagged in a few notes by several different friends, titled, "25 Things." In the note the person write 25 random tid-bits about themselves and then tags 25 people asking them, in return, to write 25 things about themselves. As I complied with the rules of the note, it dawned on me that my 25 Things would make a great blog entry - highlighting the quirky and interesting facts about my life.

So here they are. My 25 Things.

1) I have a chocolate addiction. That is not a joke...I seriously MUST have some form of chocolate once a day or I get a major headache.

2) When I was a 3 or 4 years old and my brother was just learning to speak he was standing beside me and my mom while my mom was hugging me and she said "I love my two kids." For the LONGEST time he called me "two kids" because he thought that was my name.

3) I have a freckle on the back of my retina (inside my eye). This is funny if you know how many freckles I have all over the outside of me, now they're taking over the inside too!

4) I once broke up with a boy in middle school because he cussed...that was my only reason.

5) I was a Philosophy and Public Relations double major in college, which only begins to describe the dual personality that I am plagued with.

6) When I was a kid I wanted to work at Sea World and train the killer whales...my plans changed when I watched the "bloopers" where the whales ran their trainers into the walls.

7) I melt over blue eyes. Perhaps explaining why blue is my favorite color.

8) My hair is naturally curly although some people would never know because I always wear it straight.

9) While riding in an elevator with my grandmother when I was 3, I looked at a larger gentleman in the elevator with us and turn back to my grandmother and said out loud for all to hear, "Gran, that man has a biiiigggg body."

10) I wish everyday that I had never heard of cancer.

11) I made a 74 on my first test in college (it was a Biology class). I almost died because before that moment, I had never made below an A in my entire life.

12) I believe falling in love is like jumping off a cliff. You jump and everything is fine as you float through the air, and then sometimes you hit the ground (rock bottom)! But you get up and climb back up the cliff and jump off again-just in case this time you fly.

13) I love it when old people hold hands.

14) I hated Barbies as a child...and still do actually.

15) My favorite quote by my favorite philosopher, Plato, is: "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet."

16) I got my only 'red' light in kindergarten for kissing a boy while waiting on my mom to pick me up. Several years later, that same boy became my first real kiss.

17) Me and my high school boyfriend got voted "Couple Most Likely to Get Married" in our silly senior superlatives.

18) I have always wanted to kiss in the rain.

19) I once broke my brother's foot when I pushed him off the back of the couch.

20) I ran away from home once and the only things I took were my dog and a bag of M&Ms.

21) I love the simple everyday pleasure of reading what my day calender says for the day. I'm convinced it is always foreshadowing of how my day will go.

22) When I pray, I talk to God in the same way I talk to my friends on the phone.

23) I am a control freak and constantly wish that I could just have a glimpse of the bigger picture.

24) Now that I am living in Atlanta with my grandmother, I sleep in a room where there is a large painting of my mother as a young child. The painting always looks like it is staring at me when I'm in the bed...creepy.

25) My dog Madison is like a child to me. Mess with her and face my my wrath.

Reminiscing on things past...

Today I am feeling a bit reminiscent.

Have you ever sat down and just begun to reflect on where you were a year ago? Well that’s exactly what I’ve been doing today. For some reason I am unable to keep my mind focused on the present and I keep drifting into the past, so I thought I’d share.

For those of you who don’t know, I spent six weeks last summer in Oxford, England studying abroad with the Grady at Oxford program. So (as I’m sure you can guess by the nature of this post) this time last year I was in Oxford!

Oxford wasn’t the only place I visited while abroad. I was also able to visit London, Rome, Paris, Edinburgh and Wales. Before this trip I had never been out of the country except for mission trips to Jamaica.

While in Oxford I took a class with Dr. Andy Kavoori. I believe the name of the class was, International Mass Communication. As our final exam, all of the students in class were told to create a sort of travel journalism portfolio. We were relatively free to do what we wanted with the project, so the results varied making the overall presentation very unique.

All of the projects were put together to create one large conglomeration of our Oxford experience. We called it the Oxford Diaries. As my mind wandered back to my days in Oxford, I decided to take a look at my own project. I called mine, the Eye of Tourism and I thought it might be something worthwhile for me to share since it is the sum of my 2007 European adventures.

I love to talk about this trip, so if you want to know anything specifically about the pictures or descriptions, or just about anything at all please feel free to ask!

Blogging Blogs

Over the past several weeks I have been working with eight other individuals to promote our campaign, Countdown to Kickoff.

At first we did the usual research, business visits and planning. Now we have gotten into the really exciting aspect… the actual implementation of our PR plan.

As a PR student, nothing is more exciting to me than actually DOING what I have been learning over the past 3 years. And so I was eager to play my role in the process of pitching media, etc.

I was assigned to pitch several bloggers in an attempt to have them mention our event in their blogs. As I was researching each individual blogger it became painfully apparent how pitiful my own blog is in comparison to these blogging gods!

As I looked further into the world of blogging I couldn’t help but notice that my own peers seem to be more in tune with the way the blogosphere should work than I am.

Perhaps my hectic schedule is a decent excuse for my negligent behavior towards my blog with my juggle of work, class, keeping the apartment clean, the puppy and my ever-so-important social life. However this excuse does not quite work, especially when looking at the blogs of my multi-tasking professors, Karen Russell and Kaye Sweetser, who put me to shame with their brilliant blogs.

So this is my desperate cry for blogging help! Paul Young gave me a great resource to begin with, but further input would be great.

Common Questions I ask myself about blogs:

• What in the world do I write about?


• When I write, how do I keep from looking like an idiot?


• How do I make my blog more aesthetically pleasing and usable?

These are just a few of the questions that plague my mind as I sit down to blog. With my newfound appreciation of how great and useful blogs can be, I would really like to become more proactive with my own.

Use your Wordles!

Check out my Wordle! I found out about Wordle thanks to Leo Bottary's blog. Wordle is an application that allows you to turn your text into art! I decided to create a Wordle for my current campaign, Countdown to Kickoff! Check it out for yourself and see what you think!