This week has been a mixed bag of all sorts of experiences, people, celebrations, and opportunities.
It was back to the office on Monday for our 9 am staff meeting where I found myself dozing off a little bit. Not because of the content, but I guess driving all over 3 states in 3 days the past weekend had finally caught up with me. Our curator Steven Matijcio, who is extremely creative and bright, presented lots of information about our upcoming Oscar Munoz exhibit, which I hope to help install when it comes in March. Munoz is a Colombian artist who works with video and multimedia, including newspapers (which I immediately connected to because of my love for collaging) and sugar cubes...delicious! :) I spent a lot of time this week thinking about how to tie in Munoz's representation of memories with concepts for Community Day and am really excited to (hopefully) come up with some cool ideas for performances, activities, etc.
Monday evening was the Winston-Salem Women's Fund Marvelous Monday gathering at SECCA. (what a mouthful!) My Aunt Patti is a member and it was really nice to see her and all 115 women having a great time. They had only expected about 40-50, so it was great for everyone (and especially our attendance numbers) that so many people came to see how wonderful SECCA is.
Tuesday and Wednesday I worked a lot on researching/brainstorming more things for community day, organizing my calendar, and taking care of other necessary tasks. I had the unique opportunity to meet with the Programs Committee of our SECCA board and the exec. director of the Hispanic Arts Initiative that is working with us as we continue planning for our Community day. I'm thankful that I've gotten to meet so many different people up here and that I'm able to see how the "bigger picture" of everything works into what I'm doing everyday.
My other main project for this week was social media!!!!! And lots of it....Almost since I started interning it seems like I've been brainstorming, refining, presenting, and finalizing my ideas for how to use our social media (blog, FB, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube) for promoting things like our concert series. I called my first "big girl" meeting with some other staff members this week, which went really well. I also made up a timeline for how to implement promotions and how to phase out 2 of our THREE Facebook pages (which we weren't aware that we had.....most had been created and abandoned-ish by other interns years back...). I got lots and lots of positive feedback on my ideas today, which was really exciting. It's kind of terrifying to put your ideas out there in an organization you've only been a part of for a few weeks....
Okay, that takes care of (most) all the worky stuff. Now it's time for the recap of the highlights of my week.....
Groundhog Day!
Why? 2 beautiful reasons.....
1. Both Punxsutawney Phil and Groundhog Gus of Athens did not see their shadows. Bring on the spring!!!
2. I got to celebrate the Chinese New Year with my cousin Jonathan, Miho, and their beautiful baby Emi. We had delicious dumplings, watched the ceremonies on their Chinese TV channel, and had a lovely evening. I also got to talk to Lina, my boss from Number One China back home where I worked for years. :)
The Chapel Bells at Wake Forest
Last night I was headed over to the WF Wesley Foundation services. If you've read some of my other earlier posts you know that I've been struggling with finding a "church home" up here and wasn't really sure about how I felt about Wesley Foundation. I really do want to build connections and friendships with people by own age, but the services haven't really been that great for me. In fact, last nights service wasn't even the reason I walked away feeling so happy, blessed, and fulfilled. It was the chapel we had the service in.
I left work at around 5, parked on campus across from Wait Chapel, and as I was about to call my mom (I had a little while till the service started), I heard the bells in the chapel ringing. I rolled down my window, letting the freezing air hit my face, and was greeted by the beautiful, complex music of the bells in the tower. I listened for a little while with that nagging feeling of "I know this song" until I realized that it was "Here Comes The Sun" by the Beatles. This has always been one of my favorite songs and I recently had been listening to it a lot because it reminds me of home, my mama, and just feeling happy and warm and sunny. It was so exciting and heart-warming that I had to call my family and hold the phone up for Mel to listen. And then.......another song came on after I got off the phone with them. The tune? "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" from the Lion King, which of course was a sign that I had to call my best friend Lisa! I hadn't talked to her in a little while since we're both sooooo busy with internships (and she's had 5 o'clock am shifts!), but I held the phone up for her to listen and we had a really great conversation catching up about our visits home in the past weekend, internship adventures, and how life was going. :) (I also have to make note that the Lion King was also one of our bus movies for Redcoats this year and the song reminded me of all my sousa and flagline family, who I miss dearly. One love!)
I know it sounds a little bit crazy, but hearing these two songs sitting in the parking lot while talking to some of the people that make me feel more like myself after just hearing their voice really made my day/night/rest of the week. I'm still in awe how little things like this can make such a huge impact. This experience reminded my of one of my favorite quotes from John Muir: "when one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world." No matter how overwhelmed we get with how big the world seems, we are each an important strand in the beautiful tapestry of life.
Valentine's Cards
I <3 <3 <3 them! 'nuff said. :)
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