visions of clarity...do as infinity

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Doing Nothing

Hello

For the past 2 nights, I set myself zero agenda except eating a healthy dinner and watching stuff on my laptop... Life has never been so good!!!

This week has been pretty quiet at work, things have never been busier for my team and as a result, no one really has time to give me stuff to do. (I honestly don't think an intern makes anyone's lives easier since we essentially know nothing and have to be taught everything from scratch and whatever we do has to be checked - resulting in more work for everyone around. I'm really grateful that people bother at all. ^_^") Honestly, I didn't really mind because I always feel bad hounding other people for stuff to "help them with" (like I said, I don't really think I'm helping so much as I'm bothering but I swear I try my best to be helpful) and instead, I could work on my parts of the summer project - the deadline of which is fast approaching and trust me, it's apprehension all around.

I think we essentially have a structure and the content, it just needs filtering and sorting, plus a hell of a good presentation. Having never had a structured internship in my life, the summer started with me really looking forward to the project but looking back, I feel like it was educational but not necessarily something I'd like to do again. (Probably after the internship, everyone will look back with fond memories but currently we're all dying together.) I actually cannot wait to submit it but at the same time, I don't quite want to submit it because I really do enjoy the internship and wish this summer would go on forever.

Except of course, it won't. And going back to Ann Arbor, seeing everyone again, and having a ton of fun in senior year is something I'm actually looking forward to. Even if it means that summer is over and school is coming, and after that the real world.

It's far too early right now (2 weeks too early) to be looking back on anything. I feel like retrospective reflection should be done, you know. Retrospectively. As opposed to currently. And certainly, I don't think my opinion of my internship so far will change very much from now till 2 weeks later but there's a certain gravitas to reflecting on something for real, instead of you know, simply looking back on what I've learned "so far".

However, it is never too early to start looking for a job and thus with a bit more exposure to the field, I have been looking around online, while waiting for an internet article to load for instance, or while that damn document attempts to feebly open on MS Word/Excel/Powerpoint. (I am now disturbingly good at being able to print stuff perfectly, and at making things look pretty and organized, and at being completely detail-obsessed right down to the last double-space between words you can barely see and fullstops/periods that shouldn't be there.) There are some awesome companies that are internationally located (ie: has Asia offices! Woo!) and sound incredibly fun to work for.

In fact today, my manager kindly invited me to a meeting on branding and it was fascinating. Like, seriously fascinating. (I think it was partially the guy who presented who was extremely enthusiastic and completely captured my attention...)

Just as I've always been interested in how people think, I've also always been interested in how brands build this air of mystique around themselves or whatever else it is they wish to convey. How did Louis Vuitton grow to become such a marketing phenomenon? How did Coca-Cola build itself into such an ubiquitous brand? How did Sony become the leader of innovation at one point? And so on.

Not just the advertising campaigns that surround these companies, but also the brand's image, the brand's ambassadors, the brand's essence. How were all these built into seemingly tangible things? How did we come to associate all these qualities with that brand? How can we change people's perceptions of something just by switching around a few things and having a snazzy campaign?

The ever evolving world of advertising, marketing, PR, etc is dizzyingly exciting to me. And learning more and more about the process, and who works on these things is equally interesting. Watching the senior people work makes me aspire to be like them - smart, successful, stylish! And being a workaholic - but I don't think that's a problem. Contrary to my usual lazy, messy self, getting work makes me happy and I'm actually fairly organized (apparently anyway).

I guess that's why it's ok to just sit in my air-less room some nights, and have absolutely no agenda. Like tonight. It gave me time for digestion, processing and reflection. ^_^

"If you listen to your heart the whole night through, your sunny someday will come one day soon to you."
- Pink Martini, Hang On Little Tomato

cheers
*[-witchstone-]*

[music : Pink Martini!]
[mood : tired]
[food : salad! With roast chicken!]
[grateful for : the chance to meet all these wonderful people and learn so many things]

Labels: Ann Arbor, internship, Job Hunt, New York, thoughts

Welcome

visions of clarity...do as infinity
by witchstone

My Emotible!
starry-eyed: filled with such youthful hope and optimism that one's eyes twinkle even when it's dark

Wish List

ie: motivation to save money!
- clothes
- shoes [heels! boots!]
- the perfect tote
- coats/outerwear! [Soïa & Kyo, Burberry...]
- Gackt - nine*nine
- Gackt Photobooks:
1 The Gift The Sixth Day & Seventh Night Tour Document (2004)
2 Crescent Photobook (out of print)
- Cookbooks!
1 Thomas Keller The French Laundry Cookbook
2 The Nobu Cookbook
3 Emily Luchetti A Passion for Desserts
4 Alice Medrich Pure Dessert
- Anime/Manga
1 Rurouni Kenshin
2 xxxHOLiC
3 Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-
- Proficiency at Japanese!
- Learn French for Food!

Links

My Flickr Page
spoonerisms*inc a food blog (by wendy & I)
my translation blog

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Checklist: EAT!