Post Africa Transition

Just arrived back in the United States after vising South Africa for a week. It was an amazing experience and I look forward to filling everyone in about everything that happened. I'm preparing for the transition that I will need to make over the next few days. From the logistics of needing to do laundry, buy books for fall classes and go grocery shopping to adjusting to my surroundings, I know it will probably be a tough week. After spending the last 24 hours in travel I've been transplanted from Cape Town South Africa to Burlington, Vermont. I've gone from seeing the beautiful city, to mile after mile of shacks, to airplane interior to the comfort of my Burlington apartment.

Over the next few days I hope to update about my experience, post some photos and share my thoughts about what I saw. For now, I'm going to keep myself awake by getting some sun and catching up with college friends I have not seen since April.

-Amanda

To Africa

It's hard to believe that just a few weeks ago I learned about this amazing opportunity to work with the Emergent Media Center, Population Media Center and the United Nations. Over the last few weeks I've learned so much about a culture that is not my own. I can only imagine what I am about to experience. Not many people have opportunities like this. During research I have had my fears and doubts about whether or not this project could ever be successful. I've wondered how an electronic game coupled with the Sabido Method could tackle a problem as big as violence towards women and create change. Nobody knows for sure. This is the first time something like this has been done. As the project progresses and we access new resources and find more information, I am more confident about the future of this project. I'm happy to be working with some of the greatest and most creative minds at Champlain to make this project possible.

I look forward to spending the next ten days with everyone. WHO'S READY?

-Amanda

Follow me on my journey to South Africa right here.
Follow the group on facebook and at our blog

Free three-day pass to the fair

Did I mention I scored a free three-day pass to the Cornish Fair for my work on the posters? Sweet deal. Just saved myself $24!

Site Updates

I have made a few changes to the site as of this afternoon. There is now a link to this blog on www.persnicketycreative.com as well as new work on the Digital Art page. Please feel free to take a look.


Enjoy!
-Amanda

New job and completed internship.

It's almost the end of July and I am wondering where my summer has gone. In a month I'll be back in school-mode and it will be good bye summer for another year. One tell-tale sign that the summer is ending - books titles are being posted for classes on the online bookstore. Usually I put off purchasing my books, but this year I got an early start. The week before classes I usually rush around buying books and school supplies. Why the sudden change of heart? The week before school starts I will not be in town, in the state or even on the continent. During the last week in August I will be in Cape Town, South Africa conducting market research as a part of my new job with the Emergent Media Center at Champlain College.

A few weeks ago my marketing adviser, Elaine, contacted me to tell me she recommended me to work on a project with the Emergent Media Center. The center is working with the United Nations to create an electronic game to educate young men in developing countries about violence against women. The entire project will be completed by Champlain College students. During the project I will be a market researcher. This is a great opportunity for Champlain and its students and I feel honored to have been chosen to work on the project.

Even after learning that I got the job, the idea that I would be working on a project for the U.N. was very surreal. After attending the orientation, this project and the idea of going to Africa became very real to me. Since Thursday, my mind has been racing, thinking of all the things I need to get done before I go. I've also been thinking of all of the research that needs to happen before hand.

Though the opportunity is amazing it has not come without it's own set of troubles. For the last two years I've been putting off renewing my passport because I was too cheap to pay for it. Because the visit is in one month, I had to have the passport expedited. $175 and six days later I have received my passport. I've also had to contact the travel clinic to set up an appointment for immunizations. Still on my to do list: find out what insurance will cover, contact doctors' offices for my immunization history. Though they are small nuisances, these have been the least of my concerns.

As a result of accepting this job, I may have to sacrifice another. Since the visit to Africa falls during the last week of August I will be missing the second week of RA training. This, according to the residential life office, is not okay. We would not be fully trained and would not be present for move in weekend, which are two duties of being an RA. Since this would be the only conflicting week for the two jobs my roommate, Nichole (who is also in the same situation), and I have been trying to work with the residential life office, the Emergent Media Center, and the president of the college to find ways to keep both jobs. It has been a stressful week and a we expect to hear a final verdict on the situation on Monday or Tuesday of the upcoming week.

This week I also finished my internship hours at PIEmatrix. This summer I spent 120 hours as a Marketing and Communication's intern developing Social Media Markeing and Search Engine Marketing plans as well as developing a list of influential blogs and analysts in the IT industry. There were also other assignments for the internship. The experience was not what I expected it to be at all, if anything it was better. The people at PIEmatrix took a personal interest in my education and as a result I feel I have learned a great deal about the IT industry and Social Media Marketing. I know I still have much to learn but I thank them for taking me in as an intern.

One last note. During the spare time that I don't have, I have been adding content to the flash file of my website. I expect to post the updated content within the next week or so. I have decided to hold off on adding video for now. In the meantime you can visit my youtube account and check out videos I have uploaded for classes.

Thank you for reading,
Amanda

Posters and Upcoming Events and Opportunities

Posters are finished. I created these posters for the Cornish Fair Association to advertise the Karaoke Contest and the Cornish Fair. The fair will be held August 15, 16, and 17, 2008 at the fairgrounds in Cornish, NH. Small town, big fun.

____________

So, what's next? My goal for the next two weeks is to finish my internship hours. Completing my hours will hopefully free up some time in my schedule for a little while. Maybe not. It all depends on an opportunity I was recently informed about. Last week my academic adviser contacted me about an opportunity to work with Champlain College's Emergent Media Center on a project for the United Nations. After reading the e-mail I was pretty much sold on the project. I submitted my cover letter and resume. I received an e-mail saying they would get back to me this week. I'm hoping for the best. It is a market research position and it's for the United Nations and it's for a good cause. Excited, nervous, anxious.

Unfortunately it looks like I might not have time to rebuild my site until school starts again. Sometime in the next couple of weeks I hope to add these posters and some other projects and illustrations to the site. I've been working on adding video. I've taken one web design class and therefore one class with minimal Flash exposure. My skills are novice, every time I want to add a cool feature I have to do some studying on my own, which takes time. None of this is reflected on the site now but it will be coming soon. I also have linked to this very blog. Of course I could link to my youtube account but I really want to embed the videos. Work earns me $ not time.

The Cornish Fair

The fair has always been a big part of my life. When you grow up in such a small town where there is usually nothing to do a three day fair is a BIG DEAL. Or at least to me it always was. Until the age of probably 10 or 11 I was just another fair-going bystander. I watched the spectacle; I wasn't the spectacle. The fair is where I joined the 4-H Horse Huggers. Chuckle if you must, but this group changed my life, a lot. Many people credit their elementary school teachers and coaches as early influences. For me, it was the volunteers and other 4-Hers. Because I joined that group I started riding horses; participated in county, state, and regional equine events; practiced my speaking, teamwork, and leadership skills at activities days; gained a wealth of knowledge about horses, their anatomy, their body processes and their language. I probably learned the bones of a horse's body before I learned those of the human body. But I digress. 

What I'm trying to say is that I have been a part of the fair and it has been a part of me for about eleven years now. Each year I have been involved at different levels an capacities from being a helper at the horse show, to riding in the horse show, working at the 4-H dairy booth, to being horse show secretary. I've even had many exhibits at the school ranging from floral, to garden, to photography. 

This year I will be/have/do:

-Horse show secretary

-Photos in the fair calendar from last years entries

-Photos entered in the fair

-Art show and sale poster contest entry

-Design the poster advertising the fair and the karaoke contest

This year has been different. It is the first year that I've really done design work for people other than myself, or my dad's business. I've done design since high school, since yearbook, really. 

My mom works with one of the fair directors. She told her about the poster contest. I had a concept as soon as I heard about it. This was at the end of February. Mind you, I put of actually working on it until the last week of school, so about April 21. It was due April 30. I hadn't worked with oil pastels in years, like since elementary school in art class. Those were the days when art to me was boring and dumb and I thought I couldn't do it. So my experience with oil pastels was limited to pushing down hard and pushing and pulling and scribbling on the paper until it broke. Hahahhahaha. Yeah, went for some different techniques this time. I finished the poster on the 28th or 29th at 7:00am and ended up having to mail it home. I later found out that they wanted a photocopy of it. WHY COULDN'T THEY HAVE TOLD ME SOONER? I don't really know. All of the entries were to hang in the town offices for the month of May for the town's residents to vote on. I don't know the results. Actually, May isn't over so there aren't any yet. I'm going home this weekend, maybe I should stop by and vote for myself. Or Pedro. 

Any who, fair director, posters yeah. The director also said that she needed someone to make a poster for the fair and for the design contest. When I went home about a month ago I met with her about what she wanted. She wanted something "eye catching." Honestly, I couldn't remember any of the posters from the previous years and asked to see them. She didn't have them on hand but ended up emailing them to me. I will describe them as this, red and black text, no pictures. My thought was wooooow. I was unsure of the task but knew I could do it. I figured, hey, they can't get any worse. So over the last couple of weeks I've been working on the Karaoke poster off and on. She just wants them to her by the end of June. This has allowed me to work at a leisurely rate. But I want to get them to her sooner rather than later in the event that she wants anything changed. So far the project is coming along good. I like to call them portfolio builders. Work I can show. Things I can add to my website. Posters that will actually be printed and used to advertise the event. This is my new level of involvement in the fair this year. 

Also, since I am staying in Burlington this summer I am hoping to get some great shots of the lake, some sunset photos, maybe the river. Any good photo ops really. 

One more thing. I am hoping the photo lab on campus is open this summer. I'm hoping that I can finish up all of my film and photo paper. 

Bandwagon

I've finally jumped onto the blogspot bandwagon. Actually I thought I had one but apparently I was wrong. Either way it would have been an old account. I've used livejournal for years and still do but why the sudden change of heart? A few friends got blogspots to document their travels, to talk about the conferences they go to, to spy on the people that document their travels and talk about the conferences they go to, you get the idea. So, where do I fit in. Probably one of three categories. I'll give you a hint, I don't plan on traveling or attending any conferences anytime soon. So I'm here to spy. But I'm also here to talk about my new website www.persnicketycreative.com .

What is www.persnicketycreative.com?

www.persnicketycreative.com is my personal creative portfolio site including photography, illustration, graphic arts, eventually web design stuff, etc. It is not in it's finished state but neither is any website (or that's the way it should be). I actually created this version for a final project for my introduction to web design class.

The future of my site:

In the future I hope to add more portfolio pieces to the site as well as change up the design a bit to better reflect myself as a designer as my style changes. Also since I'm a marketing major I hope to use my site to learn the google analytics interface, as well as work on some SEO. I will admit, this is going to be a challenge as it is a 100% flash site. This means I will probably have to do some research on alt tags and other web marketing fun things. But for now it's a start.

My current experiments:

I've had analytics tracking the site for a week. I sent the site to my mother, put a link in my aim profile and posted it on facebook. It told me where people were looking at it and where they were coming from. Most people are still coming straight to the site, as it can't be found in search engines. Since such a small number of people have access to it right now I've been able to narrow down who exactly has viewed it including one of my roommates from Midway and another roommate from here at Champlain. This was easy based on geographical location - Providence R.I. and Los Angeles C.A.

For tonight I think that will be all. I need to find my bed then sleep in it, for a long, long time. I need my rest, I have an interview for a marketing internship tomorrow