Dear my friends,
I know the weather this year is weird, in some places it rains a lot, while in some other places it is terribly hot. I hope your life and mood is not influenced, and I hope you still have a happy time every day! My spring here in Chicago is weird with 10C most of the time, and I am welcoming my magic summer. Why do I call it a magic summer? You will understand when you keep reading....
As usual, I will start from "Study."
I finish my third quarter in early June. Since I am the one who decided on the courses to take, I enjoy the busy schedule I committed to. I have four personal consecutive case studies for "Brand & Advertising Decisions," and those really exhausted me! However, I have learned the most from the analysis. The "Tell us something we don't know" 5-minute presentations assigned by the professor also kept us updated with the latest trend. My introduction of Modu, luckily, was highly valued by the professor and classmates. Another highlight of that class was the final group presentation for QVC- a TV shopping channel. We were requested to design the marketing strategy for it, and my genius team members jointly completed a mission impossible in a beautiful way. Some shoot video clip, two did the presentation, a Chinese girl and I did graphic design for the newer look web page and presentation template. Our final work received the second best recognition from both the judges and fellow classmates!
"Marketing Public Relations," my other class that had 14 students formed three groups to work on the project for Yum!'s 2008 World Hunger Relief Week. My group was responsible for celebrity and online marketing parts, and I contributed mostly in the latter portion. "How can we make it without you!" some group member commented. One Indian girl even recommended me to the client on the presentation day. How lucky! How nice my classmates were to me!
My only data-related class: "Marketing Mix" gave us the opportunity to work on an e-newsletter marketing analysis and proposal for General Mills. I worked with three Korean classmates and I learned a lot from them. It was real that they fight so hard till the last minute!
Now, the "play hard" part. This is one of the parts where the "magic" comes from.
From time to time, I attended several events during spring quarter, including a BBQ hosted by Taiwanese Student Association. During the gap of spring and summer quarter, I flew to Seattle to visit my friend and took a bus to Vancouver to visit some long-time-ago neighbor. It was cooler there in both cities, but the beautiful view, great food and beautiful people conquered me completely. I nearly refused to come back to Chicago....I went to the special glasshouse of Seattle Public Library、the first Starbucks in the world、window shopping at the Pike Place Market、pretend-to-be so academic and thus went to visit U of Washington、appreciated salmon at Hiram M. Chittenden Lock、visited Seattle's landmark Space Needle、fell in love with night views from Queen Anne；As for Vancouver, I went to Burnaby Mountain Park、Stanley Park、and Granville Island. I ate so much great dish during my journey, and I was so lucky to join one of my school mate's master convocation with Thomas, the other elder school mate also from National Taiwan University. We went for school or work in different countries/places after graduation. It was really precious that we could gather and celebrate together in Seattle at that moment- by accident!
The great thanks went to Thomas Chang in Seattle and Rebecca Wang in Vancouver. My great impression for the cities were mostly built by them. They are the most beautiful people during my journey.
The last part of my magic summer- Internship, and go home.
Two weeks in Shanghai, China~
Jul 04-Jul 21 in Shanghai, China. Working for Yum! Brand KFC- China Division and exploring the attractive international city of Shanghai!
Route: O'Hare-> Atlanta-> Shanghai-> Atlanta-> O'Hare. So much more unpredictable & exciting surprises!
Definition: A journey that I will work hard, play hard and learn hard; make as many friend as possible, and explore China as deep as possible!
Three weeks in Taiwan!
Sep 01-Sep 22 at homeland Taiwan!!!
Route: O'Hare-> San Francisco-> Taipei-> San Francisco-> O'Hare. Plus Taipei MRT (subway), my lovely motorcycle, Mom's Verita and Dad's car, and...... countless familiar transportation vehicles at home!
Definition: A journey with beloved family (including my cat!) and friends, cheep and great local dish, familiar places and air, and........... Come on! It's HOME!
Hmmm, I think there will be so much more magic happening in my summer. I will keep you posted!
Hope you can enjoy your magic summer, too!
Wendy
