Happy New Years + Quebec City Day 1

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your celebrations went well.

We decided to go visit Edgewater and see if we could get a glimpse of the NYC fireworks this year, as well as get shabu-shabu. The display wasn’t as big as we had hoped, but the food was good and we were in good company.

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We then drove off to Canada, final destination Quebec City! We stopped by in Montreal for breakfast. Shout-out to the two random guys in a car that offered me weed. I appreciate the sentiment, hope you had a great New Year’s. I did not accept, by the way. We stopped into Second Cup before heading off again.

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Sniffapalooza Fall Ball 2015!

Finally getting to this post!

Sniffa Saturday Haul!

I’ve been indulging my fragrance hobby for more than a year now, but only fairly quietly in the safety of my own home and in the awkward embrace of the internet. However. This changed last Friday when I attended my first Sniffapalooza event; the free kick-off at Twisted Lily, my own local niche fragrance Mecca that I’ve purchased from before, but ever only online. The website’s treated me well though, some of my old posts like 6 Scents 6 Selves, my UNUM review, my Twisted Lily favorites review, and my Ineke A-H reviews were sourced from Twisted Lily (click on each word for a different Ineke review!)

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Iceland Day 3

Obviously, I didn’t really go through with the updating every day thing because of the lack of strong WiFi and time, but I have finally finished editing day 3 pictures, so here you go! It was a little chillier on day 3 than the previous two days, and we saw a little less civilization and a few more sheep, which Mr. Chokkattu and I enjoyed. Day 3 consisted mostly of water and ice, but there were lots of rocks and mountains as well, and I’ll include a bonus gallery about mountain flowers too!

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Field notes in New York and puppy positivity

The return of my mother and my brother from their time in Hong Kong, my productive breakfast at Lole Atelier, and a 5 minute conversation with a really nice dog owner with a 4-month-old black shiba puppy has been rejuvenating in a way I never really seem to expect, which is good, since it wouldn’t be so effective if I expected it to happen.

Highlights from:

Speaking about social media and branding

Matt Archambault: Social media and branding

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Wonuts & the first day of the rest of my life

I have just been alerted to the fact that waffle donut hybrids exist and can be had at the Waffles Cafe in Chicago. While this is wonderful, because donuts with the slight chewy and crispy texture of a waffle just goes so well with the sweetness of a donut (think cruller; those are my favorite types of donuts!) it is also terrible because I haven’t been to Chicago in years, I’m really bad at saving money, and I won’t be able to go until I have both money and time. And as the last semester of my undergraduate life is starting today, I may not have time until months from now, let alone money saved up.

Oh. Today’s the first day of the last semester of my undergraduate life.

Oh dear.

Oh.

Let’s hope this is the last semester, and I start my real adult life soon after *crossesfingers*.

Wix Breakfast: Brand Personality!

Actually called: Wix Breakfast: Life Attracts Life- Give Your Brand a Personality Boost!  IMG_20150114_081015

School’s getting closer, so I decided to retrain myself for it by going to bed ridiculously late and waking up ridiculously early for a lecture! Yay! I found it on Eventbrite while browsing and took a chance.

And I’m really glad I did. It was a really interesting seminar, a little on the short side, full of little tips I would have never thought of, like how important emotional touchstones, big and small (“anything from a big brand experience to a tweet”), are to a customer base. There are tons of examples of these connections with consumers that I can think of. Some smaller gestures include Xbox’s (T, F) and T-Mobile’s (T, F) avid usage of their twitter handles and Facebook support apps to annual events like Krispy Kreme’s Day of the Dozens, Talk Like a Pirate, and National Doughnut Days. Everyone remembers larger political gestures like Oreo’s support for gay pride, to well-established, company-wide policies like Starbucks’ C.A.F.E Practices (they work with Conservation International to keep the farming sustainable) and TOMS Shoes policy of donating a pair of shoes for every pair purchased. All of them work to improve the perception of the brand and endear its consumers to it, while actually decreasing a little of the bad in the world at the same time. And of course, little gestures like that are key for small business owners to create their own communities; Milk Sugar Love’s content on their Facebook page regularly attempts to engage users with questions and relatable expressions.

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Daybreaker Party Halloween!

http://daybreakernyc.splashthat.com/

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Today I said good bye to sleep and hello to…morning?

That’s right. I left at 5AM for a 6AM party on a boat in New York City filled with EDM music, costumes, juices, coconut water, tea, coffee, and KIND bars. And it was brilliant. There was a newscast from Univision talking to Spanish-speaking guests. CBC 2 was there, I think, and some other news channels as well.

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The sunrise was gorgeous, and the boat took us past lower Manhattan to near the Statue of Liberty. There was a helicopter taking air shots and showing off above, and the sun gave everything this rich glow that I haven’t seen in months of sleeping in. All of the food provided was decidedly healthy; veggie juices, juices with chia seeds, Runa drinks, Chameleon Coldbrew, protein shakes, coconut water, and AMAzon coconut water/tea drinks (I linked the brands I remembered!) The only solid food I could find were the KIND bars, which was considered pretty healthy as well. I think they were helping sponsor, or had an ad spot because they weren’t just set on a table with everything else, and someone was physically handing them out.

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