January 18, 2010

Weekend Shenanigans

It’s the second week of school and I have yet to do any school work. Asked around the block and glad to find out that I’m not the only one! Needless to say, lots of exciting things have been happening. Here are some highlights, narrated by Twitpic (which I found out today rakes in $1.5 million a YEAR. Kudos!)

Highlights:

Clubs Day at the University of Waterloo

Impact’s booth at Club’s Day. Never had a such a strong brand presence, with our banners soaring high above them all, with all of our team members proudly rocking the Impact tshirts. It was a good chance for me to relive the old boothing days, back when I was with CASA – Canadian Asian Students’ Association. It was a huge success with multiple pages of students wanting to learn more about what Impact is all about!

EpCon Tech Conference @ Waterloo

@sonyajain, @laurachelaru, me (@lu_christine) & @zhang_sophia at the EpCon Tech Conference held in Waterloo. I wasn’t able to stay for the both days but overall I had a fantastic time. The team was a youthful group and put on a great show for the 200 delegates and speakers from Rogers, Infusion, Social Deck & many more. It was a golden networking opportunity as I reconnected with many old friends and made new connections. Great job to the entire EpCon team!

I was also called in by Steve Stunt, the host of The Entrepreneur Hour by CP24′s 1050FM radio station for a live interview for a few minutes to get my two cents on youth entrepreneurship and how Impact is helping students to become the nation’s next business leaders. Great big shoutout goes to Steve for having me on the show, and I can’t wait until it airs on January 31st at 10:15am on CP24 1050FM. There is also a VERY special guest that will appear on the show as well that I can not disclose yet – but feel free to DM or email me if you want to know! I’M SO EXCITED!!

2010 Impact Retreat

As cell phones were not allowed at our team retreat, that’s my excuse for not having captured a moment of it on Twitpic, but to be honest, no picture would’ve been able to capture the spirit, passion & excitement from our 2010 team. I am so honoured to have the opportunity to be working alongside and leading some of the youngest & most influential people I know this year. We had a day long of planned activities and our President, @alexshipillo ran the show, followed by a team bonding dinner at Spring Rolls, and even more bonding at our after party social. You know when you’re with the smartest youth, two of them being TD Scholars (which I had no idea but meant that they were 2 of the 20 people in Canada that won $70 000 in scholarships for university) when even at our social, we are having passionate discussions about politics, taxes and importance of starting your RRSP’s now. I love my Impact team and I can’t wait to see how we are going to continue to mobilize youth and unlock potential entrepreneurs this year!

FDA Team Meeting at University of Waterloo

As a part time thing on the side, I work in one of the University of Waterloo’s residences, manning the front desk and being the friendly face that is supposed to be all-knowing and a key resource for Waterloo students. We had our monthly team meeting and it was a ton of fun – teamed up into five different groups and given a series of challenges to compete against each other for team building. We were the Orange Tiger Cats *rawr* and came up with a team cheer. So awesome seeing how given a tight timeline and a common goal, how quickly people are able to work together and come up with something uber creative. And what a lovely surprise – I was awarded “Best Communicator” and won a $2.00 onto my Watcard! Woohoo!

All in all, an intense yet enlightening weekend. Thank you to everyone who was a part of it!

November 30, 2009

Monday Inspiration for All

Today is the beginning of yet another post-it filled week in my agenda. After an uber relaxing weekend spent at the Embassy Suites in Niagara Falls, feels surreal to be back at the office on Monday morning. Somewhere in my mind, I’m still floating on cloud 9 and sleeping in the most comfortable beds you can imagine. I was pleasantly surprised to see in my email sent by my Impact colleague, Alex Shipillo, a short story that may change your gears on how you approach things.

A genie goes up to a poor boy and tells him, “take as many pebbles as you can and put them into your backpack. Tomorrow you will be both happy and sad.” The boy obliged and he put many pebbles in his bag. The next day, every pebble in his bag had turned into a diamond. He was happy that he had so many diamonds, but sad that he didn’t take as many pebbles as he could have.

Moral of the story: How many pebbles do you not pick up every day that could turn into a diamond?

I’ve always been someone that has wanted to do everything, and be everywhere at the same time, often taking a lot more on my plate that seems impossible to handle, but somehow making it through at the end of it all. But as my schedule is seemingly becoming more and more demanding, I’ve been holding myself back on certain things and trying to prioritize my time on more important projects/work etc. This short story makes me realize that no matter how occupied you are with other things going on in your life, it’s important to always keep your eyes peeled with an open mind for opportunities that may be right in front of you.

Enjoy the rest of your week!