The Beginning of a Never-Ending Adventure

As most of you know. It is extremely hard to access facebook, twitter, and any blog system in Mainland China. Therefore, as the time passes, I will be updating my blog now that I found access. Currently I am just trying to continue to gather my thoughts and taking notes. Soon I promise….Soon!

With half my semester gone, I am starting to figure out the details of when I will be flying to China for the first time. Our program finalized our mission to China, not to take over, but to learn more about innovation. We are working for an Information Technology firm, YEAH IT! I have never been to China, but thanks to my sister and brother in law, I will have some pocket money. They went to China last summer and for my birthday, brought me back some money. In this pouch of money, I have 5-what look like 100 Euros but of course they weren’t Euros, they were of lesser value. That 100 Ren only worth $15.87 so that 5 x 15.87=79.35. But of course everything is super cheap so shouldn’t be to broke right. I hope so.

The adventure continues. The countdown should begins again.

61 Days

My program MGIM, is in the process of expanding to create a 6-week innovative internship in Hangzhou, China. I am more than excited to have this opportunity in my life. I have always wanted to visit China. This is my chance to learn about the business culture of a country that has a mass amount of innovation coming out of it. This program is expected to start right after I graduate in May. It is said once we walk we will be given 1 week until we depart to China.

Thus make sure you stay up-to-date on my blog. If and when I go to China, best believe I will be going to Tokyo, Thailand, and other Asian countries just like my journey in Europe.

Hahahahahaha! (that is my excited laughther! I don’t know why I am laughing but I didn’t feel like writing LOL.)

Yesterday was our first day of our new semester at NCSU. Back to my home university. Fun Stuff! After finishing up our innovation project in France, we arrived to campus Monday morning to meet Dr. Fred Renk, our innovation project class professor.

After my experience last semester with some of my project team members, I was a bit nervous to find out our teams were preselected. I exhaled when they just so happen to turn out to be individuals I was thrilled to be working with. YEAHHH!!!! However, that excitement was somewhat downgraded when I realized our project was something that well, I was a bit more scientific then I was desiring. This is not to say I am not excited to get the crack at getting the chance to try something new but I was hoping there was going to be a project that was more not gonna be so scientific product related. It is going to require me to think so far outside of a box that in my mind hasn’t even been created.

Thankfully our sponsor explained it so well that I kind of understand it. It’s time to start the research and for me this is going to require even more of an understanding of the product itself. That may take months in itself.

Class has began!

Have you ever woke up one morning to discover you know exactly what you want to do with your life and it has been in front of you the entire time. I did a couple weeks ago. I’m a little upset that it took me so long but I’m just glad it did.

December 15th, 2011, I finished my innovation project with Etat Pur designing a innovative solution to their website. It hit me after finishing that there is no possible way I want to go into product innovation. Innovation is not solely about the products, and what I was doing with Etat Pur wasn’t product related. It was service related.

A couple days prior to that presentation I had lunch with a professor of mine asked me one simple question that has been stuck in my mind since then. He asked me what I was afraid of. Cliche right…Very! However, giving him a cliche answer back (failure) he laughed at me and told me he didn’t agree. He told me I was afraid of success. At first I gave it 2 seconds of thinking before I agreed just to agree. But lately, I’ve been thinking. He was right. As much as I have failed, why am I afraid of failing. It’s normal. One thing that I have always secretly told myself is what’s next after I reach my goals. That’s one of the reason I constantly change my goals because I’m not sure if once I reach it I will have something to achieve afterward. It only makes sense for me to go into a service related industry because I always love to help others and you can never stop helping. Since the world will never be equal or fair, I will always have something greater to achieve.

Now, since I figured that out, time to get to work on finding the opportunity that is gonna get me to where I need to go. My goal is to do innovation marketing within the hospitality industry. Preferably for a convention center or hotel. I’m still an event planner at heart. Don’t get me wrong I still want to go into non-profits, however, lets be honest it’s really hard to pay off my student loans when you work entry level for a non-profit. One day I will get there and own my own innovation consulting firm for non-profits, just not right now.