My (Last) First Day of Classes

(Please note: this post was supposed to go live on Monday, but I experience some internet difficulties.)

This morning, my house mates and I got ready for our last first day of classes at Saint Michael's College. We wore super cute outfits. (Yes, a first day of school outfit is still important.)

My first class wasn't until noon. #winning

From 12:15 - 1:20 pm , I have Publication Editing and Design also known as being on The Defender staff. The class is co-advised by Jerry Swope and David Mindich, professors in the journalism department.

We spent the class reviewing expectations like grading policies, attendance policies, and what positions we are interested in. I am interested in the Sports Editor position, which you will probably find unsurprising. Naturally, half the guys in the class want to be the Sports Editor. I'll be completely honest with you. I am going to be rather angry if they give the position to a guy. The Sports Editor is ALWAYS a guy. Let's switch it up people!

Overall, it does seem like it will be a great class and a great team of people to work with.

My second class of the day was the MJD Senior Research Proposal with Jon Hyde and Kim Sultze.


My second class of the day was the MJD Senior Research Proposal with Jon Hyde and Kim Sultze. All media studies seniors participate in the fall semester 2-credit course, which allows students to choose an original topic of social significance (on a national or international scale) to either write a book on, create a multimedia website about, or build a documentary film on. The actual project comes together in the Spring semester. In the past, students have discussed topics such as social medias effect on sports reporting and the current craze of out-of-the-country medical procedures. My professors tell me that many seniors have received job offers based on the merits of their senior projects. By the end of this semester, I’ll have a 25 page research proposal. By the end of senior year, I’ll have written a book and created a documentary. It’s pretty crazy to think about. 

I’ll be working with my fellow blogger, Liz Murray, and we are already scheduling our meetings to discuss topic ideas. Both of us are social media fans and it has clearly become a huge part of society, so I’d love to choose a niche of social media and run with it. I’m super fascinated with celebrities, but I’m not sure I could really get access the publicists or celebrities given my current Vermont location. 

Tomorrow, I have Acting Techniques and Adventure Film Making! I can’t wait. It’s going to be  a busy semester, but I say, “Bring it on.” #yolo

xoxo
Gabbi

"Hi, I'm Gabbi and I Think We're Friends On Facebook"

I repost my first ever blog post every year around this time. It is all about my first weekend at school and what I thought of orientation. I look back and laugh at how I signed the post. Yes, I did go by Gabbilicious for a while. (The 'Licious Life is a take on that.) It doesn't get more honest than this post in terms of initial reactions to Orientation, so enjoy!

xo Gabbi

"Well, I made it through Orientation and the first week of classes. (Whew!) What a whirl wind. Let me give you the low down on Orientation...

First, I just want to say that those O-Leaders are quite the spectacle. All decked in whistles and sweat bands. :-) Second, if you want an easy move-in day come to SMC. Seriously. O-Leaders love to carry heavy objects of lots of stairs.

Okay. So, I stayed at the Days Inn the night before move in day and those whistles were my alarm clock. I could here them across the street at about 8 am. (I was really thrilled ;-) ) But it also made me very excited to come over. I got antsy waiting for the 9 am check-in at the Ross Sports Center, so I walked across the street and strolled the campus.
Promptly at 9 am, I walked in, checked in, got my folder, ran into my first SMC twitter friend, and then called my parents to tell them to bring my stuff over. Here is where the crazy O-Leaders, RA's, RD's, and all other manner of SMC staff member come in. I walked up to Joyce Hall. I was immediately greeted by screams. I then met Kate, the 3rd floor RA, who took me to my new home. :-). When my parents arrived, my family started to move things up to my room. Then the O-Leaders were on a rampage, bombarded my car, and conveniently lifted all of my stuff into my room. So like I said, if are looking for easy move-in come to SMC. Also, loft your bed. You need to space. If you like bunk beds, do that and you can fit a couch. Not that you need to know all this now, but just put it in the back of your mind.
I am fortunate enough to have a fabulous room mate. Although all the girls don't have a BFF relationship with their roomies, everyone appears to be getting along. Anyways, our room is nice and bright. The overall decor is fantastic. I went "Bright & Wild" while Ashley went floral. It blends nicely if I do say so myself. (I'll upload a video.)

Now, I am moving on to day to day life. IT IS GREAT! I'm loving it. I am very pleased to say I love all my classes and professors. But its also only been a week, so we'll see how that goes... Just to get an idea I'll give a run through of my Wednesdays.

7 am: Wake up
8:15 am: Spanish 102
10:00 am: Mass Communications
12:00 pm: Lunch with Joyce 3rd Floor girls (or who ever is available)
1:00 - 4:30 pm: Homework, Procrastination, Handstands in the hallway, or many other things that can be done on campus
4:30-6 pm: Ski Team Dryland
6:30 pm: Dinner
7:30 pm - whenever: Mass hangout session in Joyce 305.
That is a general summary of my days now. It's an awesome schedule. I like having my afternoons free. I am a morning person, so this is fantastic. And on Mondays, I am done with classes by 9. :-) Its fantastic.

Ok! One last thing I want to mention since its my first blog. Meeting people is REALLY not that awkward. My personal favorite for pick-up lines (and seemingly the most popular) is "Hi I'm *Insert Name Here*. I think we're friends on face book." Now as nerdy and weird as that may seem its really not. It's much easier to meet people when you've facebook chatted with them. And for me personally, I had LOTS of people coming up to me and asking,"Are you Gabbilicious?" That is my facebook name and it has caught on with lots of people. I also sent out a audition video to Seventeen magazine to be part of the freshman 15. Anyways, I sent that around to people for viewing. I am sure lots of people think I am the crazy chick from the you tube video.

Here is my point. It is very easy to meet people here! And I am loving every second :-)!
PS My floormates want to be in my blog so here it goes: Andrea, Natalie, Ashley, and Sarah.

There are more but we need food from Alliot. I'm starved.

xoxo Gabbilicious"

Vine Vera Launch Party and Boobie-Palooza 2012

This past weekend was my first (of many, I hope) PR event-filled weekend. I'll start with the VineVera, red wine skin care party. Ink PR Group works with the parent company of VineVera, Mazal Enterprises, doing PR for Orogold Skin Care as well. We were specifically helping with PR for the launch party and reaching out to celebrities to request their attendance. (You'd be SHOCKED how much celebrities want to get paid to show up at a party for a half-hour!) The perk of all that hard work? I got to go to the party.

Walking the red carpet

Obviously, I needed a new outfit for my first LA party. You can see it to the right. Yes, there was a red carpet and yes, I plan to walk many more of them. :)

(Side note: I am in a big DIY hair phase and I rocked a sock bun for the party. Follow me on instagram: Hall_Gabbi to see all my projects.)

My primary duties at the party included making sure the photographers were at the red carpet snapping photos, getting the gift bags for the celebrities, and enjoying myself. What a rough life! Haha!

You'd be surprised how much I actually learned at the party though. I've learned that being the PR person/staff at a party can be stressful. You have to make sure that celebrities are happy and sometimes you have to pester people to get things done. You may not be everyone's best friend, but you are working to make the client happy and you have to be willing to be a little pushy to make it all work.
I did meet Sarah Rafferty from USA's show, Suits, which was cool. She was very lovely. One of my jobs was to introduce myself and say "I'm from Ink PR. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask." She didn't need anything while she was there, so I just got to hang out at the party and soak in the strange things like this:

That's a girl in the drink table....

There were also girls in a random bath tub at the party. Hollywood is really a strange place, but they are totally "my people." They like to live large, wear great shoes, and have a good time. What more can I ask for?
I left the party after they officially announced the brand around 11 pm. The 6-inch heels were killing my feet and I had Boobie-Palooza in the morning.Yes, you read that right. Boobie-Palooza 2012 at the Ebell was an event in celebration of World Breastfeeding Week and Ink PR was in charge of PR for the event. Erica, the other intern, and I were on celebrity-spotting duty, which is harder than you'd think because they all travel around incognito and have new hair every week.

In the photo below, you can see Ashley Williams from Something Borrowed and Margin Call, and Doctor Berlin. You can imagine that this really wasn't me scene at all. There were panels on different ways to give birth and a nurse-in. There were tons of moms, dads, babies, and toddlers. While it was interesting to see how celebrities and panelists are treated and how PR works for a large event like Boobie-Palooza, I was SO overwhelmed by all of the people. By two o'clock it was incredibly busy and I was so thankful that Galit said Erica and I could head out.

After that busy weekend, I had two more days at Ink PR, which included a lot of press clippings for Boobie-Palooza as well as write-ups for One Jackson.(<----Totally wrote this one!) It was a mix of emotions when I left the office yesterday. I am happy to heading back to campus, but I'm definitely going to miss the office and West Hollywood. (I'm going to tell you more about how leave your internship on a high note in a later posts.)

For now, I'm going back to work on some video for my other internship. Talk to you all soon!
xoxo
Gabbi

How to Make Friends in College

For many of you, the same friends that started the first grade with you also started high school with you. You're thicker than thieves and nothing has separated you until now.

Now it's time to head off to college it's possible that states and maybe even oceans will separate you. One of your new concerns: How will I make friends in college?

1) My very first blog post was titled, "Hi, I'm Gabbi and I Think We're Friends on Facebook." That's how I met a lot of my classmates. Because I was in California and unable to meet people in person, I struck up conversations on Facebook. I was pretty shameless and I'm relatively sure that people thought I was the crazy Facebook chick. (Side note: my "craziness" landed me my job as an SMC Blogger and eventually all my internships.) In retrospect, it may have been the not-so-normal way to meet people, but it made it 10 times easier to approach people on move-in day and say "Hey, aren't you, insert-name-here?"... "Ya, we chatted about x, y, and z on Facebook." That's all you have to say. I'm not saying all your Facebook friends will become your best friends. I will say that one of the girls I'm living with this year, Andrea, approached me on day one and knew me as "Gabbilicious" and that I knew how to get a computer hooked up to the Internet. (Yes, that really was my Facebook name.)

2) The next great way to meet as many people as possible is to keep your door open during orientation. If you and your roommate are just hanging out leave it open. You will have a ton of people in your room in no time. It's like an open invitation for roamers to come say "hey." At one point during my orientation we had a huge group of guys from the first floor and most of the 3rd floor of Joyce in our room. We played this weird word game. It was pretty hysterical, but also gave us a year long connection. I'm still friends with many people in that group.

3) The third way is to collect anyone and everyone for Alliot meals. I'm not going to lie to you. I think the first couple weeks in the cafeteria can be mad awkward, navigating upperclassman and trying to find your group in the crowd. In fact, I still find it awkward sometimes. Therefore, I recommend you bring a group and nothing brings people together like food! My first year I would literally just yell down the hallway and say, "Who is hungry?" Girls would pop out of their rooms and off we'd go. I also always made an effort to invite people who appeared to be alone. Some people aren't as.. ummm..... loud as me. It's just the way it is. However, I wasn't always that way and so I really made an effort to include people. We were all going through a similar adjustment to being away from what we know, so why not do it together?

Bottom line: Orientation weekend is a great excuse to introduce yourself to everyone and anyone. I mean it. The whole idea is to meet people, so DO it. If there is a cute guy, introduce yourself. What do you have to lose?

Have questions? www.formspring.me/gabbismc
xoxo
Gabbi