One Spark 2015- The life of the Crowd Funding Festival Volunteer

This is the third year that the world's largest crowd-funding festival happened in downtown Jacksonville. Helped run by event director and UNF alumnus, Brent Fine, this start-up company is all about showcasing the best and the brightest in the areas of education, music, technology, social good and health/science. The festival ended today and the winners were announced on social media. I was not able to attend the event the first two years and so I wanted to make sure I understood what all the fuss was about this year. I went to the website, BeOneSpark.com, and found out how to sign up as a volunteer. I decided to be a "creator liasion" and went to the training. My job duties included helping the creators, or contest participants, with whatever issues they may have throughout the five-day festival. It was enjoyable but also tiring to walk for 3 1/2 hours each day and talk to each booth in my designated area. On the last day I volunteered, I was able to help with the 5K in the morning and in the afternoon, help visitors that wanted to vote but needed assistance. More than 50,000 votes were cast and funding goes on for 30 days after the festival. The mobile app worked for most people, but I was surprised at how many people either didn't have a smart phone, didn't want to use space to (temporarily) download the app, or hadn't done updates for the app to work. If this was a true-to-life sampling of the population, I feel safe saying that smart phone users are not as prevalent as we think. Or, at least, not as proficient as we may believe!

Networking speed-dating style

I was able to attend the Mentoring Monday Women in Business event hosted by the Jacksonville Business Journal. It was at 7 a.m. at the Schultzbacher Professional Development Center. I met some interesting and professional women. After eating breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon and hashbrowns, we watched a broadcast from the head of the Women's BizJournals that let us know that more than 10,000 women were participating in these Mentoring Monday events around the United States. We then moved to the networking portion where we got a list of the registered mentors and chose which ones we wanted to meet. We got seven minutes per conversation and I chose to talk to the head of the City Rescue Mission and the head of Broadbased Communications. They were both very gracious and helpful as we discussed internship possibilities. Before I left, I talked with the event coordinator and the editor of the JBJ about their company and a future internship possibility. It was a great event and well worth it.

Spring Break for nerds

I was really looking forward to spring break as a way to catch up on schoolwork and attend a day-long event for PRSSA members. I had babysitting lined up and schedule mapped. Then, of course, a small wrench was thrown into my spring break spokes and I needed to re-balance. New babysitting arrangements were set that turned out to be awesome and I was back on track. I spent two days at my new internship learning how things work there and one full and interesting day with fellow public relations students from area colleges learning about our chosen future profession. I was able to receive one-on-one feedback on my resume and toured three public relations agencies in downtown Jacksonville. We toured On Ideas, The Dalton Agency and Tucker Hall. The employees that gave us the tours were so gracious with their time and shared really great information to help us know if agency life is where we wanted to be. I arrived home feeling excited and with some new ideas and thoughts about places to apply for internships. I'm looking forward to wherever I'll be interning in the fall.

Come on in...the water is fine - Google Maps Project 2

Two down, three to go

It is mid-March and spring break this week. That means there are just four short weeks left in the second semester of operation "make the college degree happen." I'm surprised that this semester is slightly easier to manage than last semester while being totally different. The two online classes this semester have tested my multi-tasking and organizational skills. One way I have been tested is that different family issues have come up and it is all too easy to take care of them first while leaving online assignments to the last minute. That helps the family but causes me a lot more stress. I met with my advisor and determined the order of the rest of my classes. The end is almost in sight!

Hidden Gems Map

This hidden gem in Jacksonville is a small park with access to Julington Creek. The park is perfect for putting in a kayak or canoe.

May I leave you my resume?

I was able to attend the recent internship fair for communications majors at UNF. It was a well-done event with many booths representing corporate, non-profit and public relations agencies. I was able to speak with representatives and make some solid connections that I hope will lead to an internship. Many details will need to fall into place to work out hours for summer or fall. The simplest semester to do an internship for credit would be after my course work. That should be in the spring of 2016. It is exciting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and look forward to graduation.

Spidey Sense and Crepe Paper

https://www.pinterest.com/smill/spider-man-party-ideas/

During every spare minute this week, I've been ruthlessly preparing for my youngest child's upcoming birthday party. The chosen theme is Spiderman and I'm truly grateful for Pinterest to save my brain from overuse. I created a board and filled it with ideas that we could choose from. Since we try to avoid food dyes, this idea with strawberries is a must to get the theme and the red color on the snack table. Now that the party is just a few days away, we are cleaning out extra clutter and preparing what we can to keep the final preparations to a minimum. I'm actually looking forward to the fun! Thanks, Pinterest!

(sing with me) "Some ...Enchanted... Evening"

It's prom planning time at my daughter's high school and the parent dance committee I'm a part of is in focus mode. My job is to make "save the date" cards, fliers and tickets. It is not easy to find images that allow reuse and that will work size-wise for this project. I'm not giving up. The students are going to vote on one of two themes: Arabian Nights or Enchanted Forest. The committee is hoping they chose Enchanted Forest because there are so many easy and natural decorations that go along with that theme. This photo is one of the ones I came across in my initial search today. It looks like a magical place to hike and picnic. I wish I could go there!

Attribution:  By David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada (Enchanted Forest Nature Park  Uploaded by russavia) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Description:  The entrance to Enchanted Forest Nature Park on South Pender Island, Southern Gulf Islands, British Columbia, Canada.

Date taken: 16 August 2012

Looking for this?

Leaves Background by Sarah Miller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.


In going back to school, some technology has changed (just a little!). I'm having to learn a much more complicated version of Photoshop than what was around 10 years ago. One of the challenges is my fast-paced media graphics class is finding background images online. This is a photo I took in my back yard that seems to fit several types of projects. I plan on using it and I hope others can, too.

We've met before. Remember?

I find that hilarious moments like the one shared in this interview are all too common to me in recent years. We remember events one way and others can remember the same event so differently. Once you've been around long enough, it's easy to laugh at the silly mistakes or misunderstandings (even missed opportunities!) that happen in your twenties.

A day in the life of the non-traditional student

I wish I could say that I rarely think about the age difference between my classmates and myself. It really shouldn't matter too much. We are are learning the same things and taking the same tests to earn our degrees and work in the same fields. But it often matters. My life experience usually shows in my reaction to questions as part of class discussions. These blantant differences showed themselves in my lab class last Friday. The discussion was on freshman and sophomore demographics at our university. In naming some of these factors, someone asked about married versus unmarried students. Another student responded that no 19-year-old students would be married like it was an impossible probability. The professor asked if anyone in the class was married. Out of the 20 students, I was the only one to raise my hand. I added, without thinking, that not only was I married but I got married when I was 19. Crickets. I turned red and looked back at my keyboard to continue the assignment. Remembering the moment makes me smile now.