Life This Previous Week- Tired, Packed, Delighted

Monday to Friday, I went downtown Chicago for three days and had one-on-one conversation with many kind and helpful people, and I attended TECH cocktail to meet so many energetic IT people and recruiters on one occasion. The long eL/Intercampus shuttle/Metra ride exhausted me, but I was so inspired and so full of joy in the process.

Natalie, IMC '06 working for Microsoft, met me in the AON Center (yes, the "eraser building") for lunch and shared her amazing story about how she benefited from networking to get her current position. From our talk, however, I was so convinced that her getting the position was way beyond just lucky. She got the bright personality and talent to nail her missions.

After meeting Natalie, I met an old friend Cheryl around downtown NU medical school and loved the enjoyable catch-up with her. Hopefully I will get a job and she will get her PhD admission to Philadelphia or Seattle, so I can visit her there! Since the sun still shined, I stopped by Ivan's to pick up the presents Ann gave me and Nina. Without plan, I knew it might be inappropriate, but I still called Bee, who's also around that area, to see if I could go visit her and her lovely baby boy Anatole. He is such a big boy now!!!!! I loved him a lot when he smiled :) Guess what? He LOVES to smile!

From Post-NU Life- Anatole Baby~

Tuesday, I caught the early purple express to downtown as well to wait for the meeting with Pek Lee. She is such an energetic lady with her Kellogg EMBA and profound working experiences. She listened to my stories, provided me her generous suggestions, shared her observations about business in Asia, offered to share more contacts with me after our talk. Meeting her in Union Station for sure brightened up my day. Her strength and generosity allowed me to take a big smile with me for the rest of the day.

From Post-NU Life- Chicago Union Station

My postponed meeting with Marty on Wednesday was another hit. Never ever underestimate the power of connecting with your faculty! Marty's agency background made him a perfect person for me to consult with and to learn from when I am considering making contributions to the dynamic environment. Moreover, he was very efficient on keeping his promise- I connected with a lady called Annie in BBD Chicago that evening and set the appointment for next week already.

That day ended with a pleasant dinner with my Japanese girl friend, Rie in the Chemistry post-Doc program, in Panera Bread. She helped me learn more Japanese business culture and language. And..... if you followed me well, yes she helped review my self introduction in Japanese! Yay~

The next day I hit downtown to meet Amanda, IMC '07 working for Hyatt. Her resort marketing work sounds quite interesting and quite a perfect fit for her. Developing the kids program, golf program, spas made her work quite challenging, but at the same time full of learning. I told her I am also interested in combining my love in traveling with my work, so I would consider Expedia, Travelocity and hospitality industries such as hotel. She kindly analyze the current situation in the hotel part- with limited IMC practice. Amanda suggested me to check TravelZoo as well. To sum up, our meeting was another fruitful one for me.

I killed some time in a Cosi nearby before the TECH cocktail in the evening. And that's where I heard the song "Don't Let Me Be Lonely Tonight." Another thing that worth pointing out was an email I received from Medill. I was invited to be one of the representatives for a prospective IMC students' recruiting event. There are so many generations of alum and I have so many brilliant classmates- especially many American, but I was invited to be the person to share my experiences. That was.... unbelievably awesome!

Then, TECH cocktail at John Barleycorn Wrigleyville. Huge crowd of people. Many new startups trying to sell their ideas and to attract people's attention. Way more people working in the IT, programming, web design, social media industries and recruiters looking for talents packed there. I accidentally met some people again from Twestival last week, bomped into Howard from Chicago TAP and his colleague, Aping's summer advisor Joi, and many more cool people. The most excited one was Craig, the Founder and CTO of Where I've Been. I saw the sticker and went to ask him how come he can get one.

"Well, because I work for the company."

COOL! Can you believe that they only have seven staff? Can you imagine such a great product was initiated and operated by such a tiny group? Oh BTW his accecent reminded me of my lovely Switzerland days...... Exactly, Craig is British, currently working in an office a little bit outside of Chicago.

After many days of running everywhere, I decided to have a layback Friday: sorting out some resources and connections I got from the wonderful talks, submitting resumes, getting a phone conversation with online marketing expert Steven H. introduced by professor Jim Carey, and taking a rest. The best part of the day? Piano at night. I took Z with me because he wanted to learn to play the piano. As a lazy and non-professional teacher, I still tried my best to teach him how to play a simple song. Gradually I think he would get it. Besides that, sure did I play some songs for entertainment! It was not only for myself, but also for him and other "audiences" in the lobby area of McManus.

"You played beautifully."

"I know :) "

We finally headed home around 00:30, when it's all dark. I was certain that I went to bed with a sweet smile and had a sweet dream, because everything was quite wonderful in the past week. Hope it is always like this :)