Time flies

It's true... at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 24, 2008 I will have completed all the requirements of my MBA.  This leg of my adventure is coming to an end in less than a week!

The only things that stand between me and completion of the programme are one final assignment and two final exams.  I'm "working" on the assignment now... kinda, sorta...

Okay, I'm taking a break.  Again.  I'm on page 2 of 10 and moving at a snail's pace.  I can't help it if I'm not particularly motivated to write up a fictitious integrated marketing communication strategy for Land Rover.  But I have no choice.  Well, I do, but I prefer not to fail the course and have to come back for one more year to complete my degree.    And it doesn't help that the weather is absolutely gorgeous today: high of 25 celcius with sunny, clear skies.  *sigh*  I will definitely have to take a walk along Bloor St. this afternoon at lunch.  It's not like I have anything else important to do. 

This weekend is also my niece's first birthday party.  My niece had her first birthday on Wednesday, so the family is getting together on Saturday afternoon for the official celebrations.  Should be fun! 

Here's a photo of my niece on the morning of her first birthday with her crazy bed-head hair:

Yes, hard to believe that she's already 1 year old and turning into a little lady.  This is what she looked like a year ago:

Time definitely flies! 

Currently Reading The Opposable Mind: How Successful Leaders Win Through Integrative Thinking By Roger L. Martin see related

Stream of Consciousness

One of the classes that I'm taking this term, "The Opposable Mind", involves a lot of psychology and self-reflection.  The course is taught in part by the Dean of the school along side another professor, and is based on the book the Dean wrote.

Part 1 of our first assignment is to write out my stream of consciousness related to a problem that I am currently facing.  After I've written all I can, I have to go back and look at my thought patterns and see how my mind moves from one concept to the next, what I consider to be salient, and how my mind connects ideas into a mental model.  I was going to start this exercise on MS Word, but then I remembered that I used to write out my stream of consciousness a lot when I was a more active Xanga blogger.  So I've decided to come back to Xanga and let the thougths flow with as little self-editing as possible.  Below is my stream of consciousness.

The Problem: Currently I am in the final term of the MBA program, with approximately three months left before the end of the exam period.  Lately I have become very preoccupied with recruitment: I do not have a job offer yet, and I would like to have one in a field that I am interested in before the end of April.

My Thoughts: The beginning of February is almost here, and I do not yet have a job lined up.  School will be over in about three months, which means soon not only will I have to back into the work world, I will also be under pressure to pay back my student loan.  $60,000 is a lot of money.  I wouldn't be so worried about this if I had found a summer internship between first and second year.  But I didn't.  I applied to a number of jobs, interviewed at several companies, but failed to get something in marketing, the field that I am trying to break into.  Instead I ended up going back to my old company and doing a lot of what I did prior to coming to Rotman.  Even though I had the opportunity to leverage my experience in first year to put together a program for the incoming international students, it wasn't what I wanted to do.  And although it was a good experience, I feel as though I am at a disadvantage because I did not get any experience related to the field that I am ultimately interested in entering after graduating.  This becomes particularly painful when I look at job postings for Marketing positions at companies that I would like to work for, only to see under "job requirements" statements like "must have brand communication related experience" or "must have 2 - 3 years of marketing related experience".  I feel like I am in a catch 22 situation: I want to get into marketing, but in order to get into marketing I need to have marketing-related experience.

I've tried to by pass my lack of experience by applying to companies that have new graduate leadership programs, like at Labatt Breweries, Bell Canada, and Toyota.  I figure that even though they aren't at the top of my list of companies I would like to work for, they are respected and can provide the opportunity for me to learn and gain experience so that I can move later down the road.  My alternative is to apply for entry-level jobs to gain experience in my companies of choice.  But that would mean that getting an MBA was useless since most entry level jobs don't require the knowledge and skills that I've accumulated while I've been here.  It also doesn't help that the strategies that I've been told to employ, such as contacting alumni, networking, and getting involved in extra-curricular activities, have not resulted in any job prospects.  The alumni I've contacted have not responded to my e-mails.  Networking has led me no where.  And although I've been involved in numerous extracurricular activities in the past year and a half, none of these have resulted in job prospects.  Even helping to organize the Out on Bay Street conference has been a fruitless endeavour.  Resumes and cover letters are going out, but no one is contacting me.  In the past three months I've applied to at least a dozen positions and companies, but there has been no response.  The silence has been deafening and a definite blow to the ego. 

It is also embarrasing when the first year students that I am mentoring through the Speak Easy and Team Mentor programs ask me if I have already lined up a job.

I wonder if I my expectations are unreasonable at this point, and if I am putting too much pressure on myself due to my job-hunting experience last summer.  It is still the beginning of the year, and a lot of companies are just getting back into the swing of things after the winter holidays.  There could be a backlog of work that just needs to be sorted through, including job applications.  Or it could just be that there is something missing in the cover letters and resumes that I've been sending out.  I hope that the missing element is not marketing experience, although I have a feeling that it probably is.

Right now I have no choice but to continue putting effort into the job hunt.  I can't wait for job postings to appear magically on the CCC website.  I will have to continue to put my name out there, send out applications, resumes, and cover letters, and hope that someone out there will find me to be a good match for their company.  And hopefully it will happen before the bank comes knocking at my door looking for student loan repayment.

Looking back at 2007... Looking forward to 2008

2007 was a crazy year.  Just thinking about everything that happened during that period of 12 months makes me laugh.

I started off 2007 just like most people do: with lots of hope and enthusiasm for the upcoming year.  Shortly after the new year celebrations were over I was back at school dealing with assignments, recruiting for summer jobs, and then quickly after that came yet another set of exams.  My birthday came and went without much fanfare since it landed smack dab in the middle of exam week, right before my Management Accounting exam.  But once exams were over I celebrated with friends and enjoyed a relaxing reading week on my own.

In March, one of my classmates, Andreas, approached Adan and me about putting together a little conference.  The seed for "Out On Bay Street" had been planted.

The break up happened on March 28. Kind of. Sort of.

My niece, Emma Salinas-Oliveira, entered the world on April 16, 2007.  I've been spoiling her ever since, much to the chagrin of her parents. 

At the end of May my sister, brother-in-law, niece, my parents, and I all went down to Mexico.  There I became the godfather to my niece/goddaughter and had a great time relaxing, shopping, eating, and learning about Mexican culture and history.

June and July were tough months.  Although there were a few happy moments, such as Pride, overall those two moments were the low point of 2007 for me.  Being someone who is always busy doing something, like school or work, it was tough not having a job.  Never mind that I was still struggling with the breakup that happened four months prior.  I can only do nothing for so long before I start to go crazy with boredom.  I tried to pick up inline skating... I even bought the proper skates and equipment... but apparently I am quite stiff so after three or four attempts I put the skates away until next year. Instead of sitting around for the rest of the summer I went back to work for my old company in July... which set the stage for the second half of the year.

August was a crazy month.  Peter's birthday was at the beginning of the month, then in the middle of the month I was doing some work at Rotman for my employer with one of my dearest and oldest friends, Joshua.  We obviously did a great job because we were asked to come back and do some more work in September.  And on August 27, the hiatus came to and end... Peter and I got back together again.

In September, school started again.  Work on "Out On Bay Street" started to become more and more intense.  It was a crazy month: between starting classes again, working on a set of workshops with Joshua for international students at Rotman, teaching three BodyCombat classes a week, and Out On Bay Street, I had little time to do anything else.  In October, Peter and I went down to Philadelphia to visit our friend Matt.  The rest of the month was a flurry of activity with school, club related events... and then Out On Bay Street just took over my life for the last week of the month.

The conference was a huge success, thanks in no small part to Michael Went, Ariel Benibgui, Adan Campos, and Andreas Kouremenos.  I was very proud of what we accomplished, and honoured to work with such a strong team of creative, ambitious, and talented men.

The rest of November and the first half of December were a blur... lots of school-related stuff.  I also got a temp job working at Vintages (LCBO) for the rest of December so that I could combine my love of wine and a part-time job for a couple of weeks. 

New Years Eve was a blast... Offer Nissim with Matt, David, Mathieu, Mike, Ariel, and Peter.  Ending one year and starting the next with good friends... how can you go wrong?

And so 2008 has begun.  In April I will be done school, so there will be a lot of job hunting/recruiting going on in the next couple of months.  And with launching a career comes paying back student loans.  2008 will be a year of change.  It will be exciting.  It will be scary.  It will be awesome!  I'm looking forward to it!

We're Back!

Exactly five months ago today, Peter and I ended our relationship.

After a needlessly complicated and emotionally draining period, we ended that hiatus.  We're back together again.

Sometimes you have to lose what you had in order to truly appreciate it.  I think we both learned a lot since the end of March about who we are, what we want, and how much we mean to one another.  Now it's time to see what the next challenge life throws at us will be.

My Wine Blog

Hey all,

I mentioned this in my last post, but just in case you missed it, I have another blog here on Xanga now dedicated specifically to my hobby:

http://www.xanga.com/WineGeek

I just got it up and running so there aren't many posts.  Feel free to come by, read, leave comments, and/or ask questions.