for my only reader

On Friday we had to go to a leadership conference for work. From 9-4 we were sitting there, just listening to people talk. It was really good but it's very difficult for me to sit anywhere for that long of a time and pay attention. Out of the 9 speakers I really enjoyed 3. One of the speakers works within the sports arena and worked with Nike for years. He talked about the importance of work and play...how a relaxed environment is very conducive for creativity. He encourages people to take on the mindset of exploration that a young child has. As children we thought we could do anything. We could sit with a box and create all kinds of games to play with it for hours. He used a quote from James Michener that I really loved.

"The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he's always doing both.”

As I'm entering the professional world, I'm very inspired to tackle this job with excellence. Not just for my sake, but for the sake of children, mothers, fathers, etc. When I am on top of my game and I'm really challenging myself to excel - people benefit from it. I have never had a job that I have been so excited about. This is very new and exciting for me. I cannot wait to tap into my creative side and use ideas and thoughts to make things happen. I like this quote a lot because it talks about how one should not be able to tell the difference from recreation and work. Not many people can say they have a job like this, but I definitely hope my turns out to be like this.

In highschool and college I never really thought of myself as someone who was very creative or innovative. I sometimes wonder why that is exactly. How did I go from a kid with a crazy imagination to a girl who thought that I wasn't capable of doing certain things? It's kind of weird to me. My family was always very musical, but my parents never really taught us or encouraged us to think outside of the box. I in no way fault them for this, it's just where they were in their own personal journey. So at 24, I feel like I'm making up for lost time. I've been playing the piano a lot more lately. I like being able to express my emotions through this. I would love to play around with some photography...to give myself the chance to learn to see the world through different eyes. My music taste has changed a lot over the last few months. I love songs with a good beat, but I find myself looking for music with more meaning. This summer is going to be a summer of traveling...I want to get out and see the world even more. If Jules moves to D.C. I will be very sad b/c she's one of my traveling partners (don't do it!!). All around, I want to experience the world around me even more. I think it's important to be in a constant state of learning. I think that we can learn something from people around us no matter who they are.


This is Cinque Terre in Italy...I dream of going there and hiking between all the five villages. They say that each village is known for something different and wonderful like the seafood, grapes to makes a particular wine, gelato, olives, etc. I love it.