Yesterday I showed you the decorations my team put up at the office and today I’m telling you about the awesome #giveback my entire department took part in… we adopted a family!!!
Instead of doing the awkward gift swap/secret santa we pooled in our money and bought a deserving family clothes and gifts for Christmas. We were also able to donate and other daily items, such as laundry detergent, toiletries etc., to help them out in the day-to-day.
This was done through the Hope for Children Foundation and is great for groups to do since providing for an entire family would be a lot for just one person. Here’s the gifts we ended up donating to the family….
Please remember to give back this holiday season and make it a wonderful time of year for everyone.
We’re having a holiday decorating competition at my work. Each team has to decorate their area/cubes and be prepared to be judged this week. We wrapped up our cubes like presents!
Here’s my cube:
And here’s the rest of my team’s area:
Cute right? And just for fun here’s my cat gnawing on our Christmas tree.
I was on the job hunt for two years after graduating from university. I had a fulltime job in the retail store I worked at while in school which I did enjoy and could have moved up if I had the mind-set to, but it was frustrating not using all the skills I learned in college and university. Around the two-year mark of job hunting I went into the unpaid world of internships, you can read my post on that experience here, but what really helped me through that transition was volunteering.
I have been volunteering with CMETrust for over two years now and it has allowed me to use my existing skills, develop new ones and work with a hard-working and dedicated group of people. In September of 2011 I was given an amazing opportunity through CMETrust, Volunteer Toronto and the Center for Digital Storytelling to make a short film on my volunteer experience and encourage others to give back.
I now have a fulltime job but continue volunteering and, to be honest, I can no longer see myself not volunteering. CMETrust, all the chapters and all of the people involved have given me so much more than I have put in. I would encourage everyone to volunteer, especially those stuck in the job hunt, whether be for a local community centre or for a cause around the world.
My tips for finding a volunteer position:
Get online and research!
Look for a smaller organization as they will likely be able to use you to your fullest potential.
Make sure you have what you want to do or what skills you have to offer top of mind. I wanted to do something pr/media relations related and that’s exactly what CMETrust had been looking for.
Let me know why you volunteer and any tips you can share on finding a volunteer position.
I got some great gifts last week, mostly for myself. Am I the only one who does this? I find things I really like and offer them to family members to give to me for Christmas. This would be great gifts for others too if you’re running short on ideas.
Stella & Dot Bracelet
I found this bracelet at a jewelry sale at my work and LOVED it. It came in white and a rusty colour as well. You can get them here.
Handmade Clock Plate
I have a thing for clocks. The more I talk to people about this the more I find I’m not alone in my obsession. I went with two girlfriends to the Etsy pop-up shop at West Elm and found these gorgeous clock plates. I bought the green rimmed one in the front and centre. The maker is Tiny Poppies and you can get or give an original clock plate here.
Alphabet Print
This is the one gift that I didn’t get for myself, it’s for my nephew Jack. This was also stumbled upon at the Etsy pop-up shop at West Elm and me and my two girlfriends all got one for a kid this Christmas. PennyPaperCo.com
Oribe Apres Beach Wave & Shine Spray
This was recommended by Sasha from Lainey Gossip, click here for the article, and I had to try it. It smells awesome and isn’t sticky and dehydrating like other similar products. This is available at Donato’s in Toronto.
And for some early holiday cheer here’s my cat inspecting the Christmas tree my roommate put up last night.
Don’t leave the intern in charge of the Facebook page or Twitter account.
I have been that intern. It’s terrifying I know. Let me explain myself.
I was out of school and couldn’t find a job. Well… a pr job, I had a retail job. My job hunt was reaching the two-year mark. I was anxious and depressed that I wasn’t using any of the skills I learned at school. I had money saved up for first and lasts month rent to support my dream of moving out and instead took an unpaid internship.
It was a dream position (social media) working for a cool and hip television station. I wrote the entrance test bio for one the stations employees in the food court of the mall I was working at. I was beside myself with excitement and happiness when I found out I got it. I would finally be working in my field.
The Facebook page and Twitter account were setup quickly and without a plan but since it was an established television station with loyal viewers the likes and followers were fast coming and eager to converse. I alone pitched new shows to the media and got articles written up in national and community papers. I was also unproductive, unsure of my direction and BORED! I needed a boss and didn’t have one. My boss was me and I had never done social media professionally before. I was lost in this dream position.
A marketing manager was finally hired about six months into my internship. She was a brilliant person. I know this because when she asked me what the plan was for the Facebook page and Twitter account and I didn’t have an adequate answer for her she was shocked. She was also very understanding. I told her I was intern and I hadn’t been given concrete direction. I said how excited I was to be working with her and to start applying the Facebook page and Twitter account to the greater marketing plan and she graciously accepted my help and took me through the rebrand the station was going through and the timing to execute it on over our social media outlets.
I left only a few months after she had been hired. I had my full-time paid job and although it wasn’t social media or pr I was happy to remain under the Marketing field.
Looking back I did an alright job as the social media intern. Both accounts are still online, active and growing. I learned a lot but definitely would have learned more if a manager had been there to guide me.
Buddy and Pedro, the bonded male penguins that the Toronto Zoo is preparing to separate for mating, have sparked a viral gay rights movement. An online petition and facebook page against the separation of the penguins has roughly 500 supporters each at the time of this posting. Fake Twitter accounts have been set up for Buddy and Pedro respectively where they discuss their dating lives and a possible connection to Toronto Pride events. The pair was even mentioned in a short skit on Jimmy Kimmel Live.
While I did think this story was cute when it first came out I’m beginning to wonder if we’re pushing our societal issues on a pair of penguins that are unaware of the commotion they have started. Are we really using these two as the new poster boys for gay rights? Has human gay rights evolved to the point where animal gay rights are the next fight? It would be different if people were going into nature to separate same-sex animal couplings because their belief was that those pairings were unnatural and wrong but that is not the case with the Toronto Zoo. We have to look at the cause not the action.
African penguins were declared an endangered species in 2010 and came to the Toronto Zoo in 2011 as a part of the Species Survival Plan (SSP). The SSP was put in place to “manage the breeding of a species in order to maintain a healthy and self-sustaining population…”. The Toronto Zoo is going to attempt to pair Buddy and Pedro up with females in the hopes they will reproduce not because they don’t approve of the bond the two have. Set-up pairing and matings happen at zoos across the world and it includes a lot of research and thought into which pairs will produce strong and healthy offspring.
The reality is that this separation might not work. African Penguins mate for life so there is chance Buddy and Pedro won’t take to the females presented to them but shouldn’t the introductions and attempts be made in light of the situation of African Penguins?
With cameras and camcorders in everyone’s pockets you can be taped and recorded at any moment and often without your knowledge. Those of us in Toronto have seen the TTC take a hard hit from the smart phone evolution with pictures and videos of drivers and fare collectors doing a less than satisfactory and sometimes intolerable job. Now Ottawa’s public transit system has been hit.
A driver was videotaped yelling and swearing at a passenger with a mental illness which ended with the passenger running off the bus.
Jim Watson, mayor of Ottawa, responded to the now viral video on Twitter.
Needless to say, most people will be disturbed by this video. It’s disturbing that a bus driver could be this rude to anyone, let alone someone with a mental illness. It’s also disturbing that the bus driver got so upset and aggressive so quickly. I’m sure even the driver looks back at this video and is ashamed of his behaviour.
We all have bad days where we do and say things we later regret to people we know and even strangers. I have seen countless riders on the subway yell and swear at each other for standing in way of the door or not letting people out of the train before getting on. We are living in a society that is getting ruder and more self-absorbed by the day. That may the plus side to us constantly recording and documenting our every living moment; maybe it will make us more conscious of each other and our behaviour toward our fellow city dwellers. But on the other hand, bad days are sometime unavoidable and who wants to be secretly taped when they finally breakdown and act out because of the stress they’ve been under whether it be at work or at home.
Smart phones and social media have done some amazing things for society. The entire world is smaller because of Web 2.0 and while we’re all connecting on a global scale we’re too buried in technology to notice the person sitting beside us on our daily commute.
Do you think the witness that taped the incident said anything to the bus driver after this unfortunate incident? Or did he just hide behind his phone and his YouTube account? Is public embarrassment the only way that we a society can correct our obscene behaviour towards one another?
I think I need to take a trip up north to cottage country where people are still able to smile and wave to each other without know the other person’s name. I hope everyone involved in this unfortunate incident needs to do the same.
