viva la VIA..! March 2, 2009
Posted by irish.lemon in Uncategorized.Tags: chicago, cod, college of dupage, howard schultz, instant coffee, marketing, nloth, no line on the horizon, starbucks, starbucks via, starbucks via ready brew, u2, via
add a comment
Well, tonight is just an eve of excitement now isn’t it? I’m supposed to technically keep my mouth shut about a particular event that happened today…at least until tomorrow. I promised my boss I wouldn’t blog or tweet about it until after the fact, so I’ll keep my word as intended, but expect more tomorrow.
already satirizing our sweet VIA display
In other news, VIVA LA VIA! Yeah, I said it. I helped to a very minor degree on our store set for tomorrow’s launch of Starbucks VIA Ready Brew instant coffee. I honestly hate to admit, Howie was right, it’s relatively delicious. Generally speaking, instant coffee is absolutely awful, unless you get the good stuff from Europa; considering we’re Americans, we have little to no concept of how to properly enjoy coffee. At any rate, the convenience and surprisingly palatable flavor of VIA has led me to keep my mouth shut and my criticisms to a bare minimum…it’s good stuff, and I’m quite thrilled to have Chicago as one of only three test markets for the product, with Seattle and London being the only others.
Also, I got my hot little hands on the new U2 album; no worries to my
happiness is new U2
managers who read this blog, I promise you I did NOT take a copy tonight. Besides, we’re not selling the $100 deluxe version, so no worries there…just took shameless photos of myself practically eating the packaging. I’ve got a bit of a rebuttal to make against the New York Times regarding the loss of U2’s relevance in the world. Look for that tomorrow or Wednesday. I was, however, very pleased to see that $1 from the sale of each copy of “No Line On the Horizon” would be donated to the Global Fund. Not an incredibly huge donation, but pending the response from customers, it could lead to something.
Enough Starbucks news, I’ve got some sad personal affairs that I’d very much like to address for the sake of my distress and discontent and the illusion that my posts are actively read by the world. As I may have mentioned not too long ago, I received the CEIA National Two-Year Student Internship Award. The award presentation is going to be – as it always is – at CEIA’s National Conference, which happens to be in Portland, OR this year. Originally, I was supposed to attend the event. Obviously, the economy keeps spiraling further into the abysmal depths of depression, there was the slim chance I wouldn’t be able to attend.
karole, casey, and myself in the ad the CEIP dept. took out in the feb. 20 edition of the courier
Well, that slim chance became far more likely when I went for the SFE Award as presented by COD. Today, I got a very apologetic email from the Co-op director. In very few words, she regretfully announced to me that the school wouldn’t cover the expenses to send me to Portland even for a day to just fly in, accept my award, and go home. Now to me, there’s something incredibly wrong with this.
I understand the slump we’re all in, but when the institution boasts about the amount of awards its students receive, how much attendance is up, and all the grants and scholarships that are being given out to students, departments, and just to the institution itself, I begin to wonder what the real reason is. So, instead of accepting my award in person, I have to wait until May to attend the Board of Trustees meeting and accept it there, where I know no one, no one knows me, and where all relevance will have been stripped from the original significance.
I’m incredibly disappointed, but I’m still the national winner in my category, however, by matters of principle, I’m very surprised that this was the road the institution preferred to travel. Again, I’m not ungrateful, just surprised, but what can you do? My Manifest Destiny’s just gonna have to wait. Besides, the Co-op department took out that nifty ad in the Feb. 20 issue of the Courier, so I can’t gripe too much.
At any rate, it’s been an interesting day. This week’s going to be absolutely insane with PRSSA elections coming up fast, four papers and a speech due by Thursday as well as my obligation to play my horn for a Taize prayer service at St. Vincent DePaul, I’m guaranteed to be a ball of nerves. Spring break, get here a bit faster please…
minor update… February 15, 2009
Posted by irish.lemon in Uncategorized.Tags: college of dupage, depaul, hsp, humanitarian service project, prssa, public relations, starbucks
1 comment so far
alright, i’ve got a little over an hour of actual free-time for once, however, i won’t address any issues in too short a time. just making it known that i’ve almost fallen off the face of the earth, though not entirely…
if i recall, the last thing i mentioned was president obama’s status as a brand…since then, i’ve been incredibly swamped with matters concerning school, both academic and administrative; i won’t get into the latter just yet considering it makes my blood boil as of late. when the ice is a bit thicker around next week then i’ll divulge openly.
on the plus side, i received two awards for my internship at HSP, one from college of dupage and – drumroll please – i did indeed receive the “national two-year intern” award from CEIA. i’m thrilled about both, but i’ve made it a point to reiterate that i’m not sure what was so fantastic and deserving that i did during my time at HSP, but i appreciate the recognition nonetheless. was glad to see the executive director for HOPE fair housing talking to karole at the awards reception last wednesday; hopefully something mutually beneficial comes out of that potential relationship…gotta love my new line of work 
. it’ll be interesting to see if a partnership of some kind develops there.
it was far more rewarding to see casey receive the award for “outstanding faculty adviser”. he deserves it more than anyone and i’m glad – even though i’m sure he’d much rather be left unknown – to have seen him recognized for the dedication he has to his students.
in other news, yes…i still have a job and my store is still open. we’ve actually been grossing profits quite nicely, but we’re inevitably victims of the labor cuts and all the other procedural nonsense that’s got a chokehold on the company. i find myself playing a wicked game of devil’s advocate that’s become quite exhausting as of late. all i really care about is that i have a job to go to everyday, money in the bank, and have the occasional opportunity to do work in the community – as well as the freelance PR – for the “make your mark” volunteer events we host each season. that’s all that keeps me going and keeps me from constantly thinking the worst.
the depaul/valpo PRSSA “taste of chicago PR” conference is finally this week! i’m happy to say we’re overbooked, so it’s should be a blast. i’m looking forward to doing some hardcore networking; it’d be awesome if this yielded some agency opportunities. honestly, i’m just geeked about spending an entire day with a bunch of PR professionals…kid in a candy store’s all i’m gonna say.
i’ll have rolling updates about all this stuff since it’s become increasingly relevant in the past few months. lots of juicy stuff about to happen toward the end of february into march. looking forward to it…
i get lost in tall buildings… September 18, 2008
Posted by irish.lemon in Uncategorized.Tags: barnes and noble, books, college, college of dupage, depaul, e follett, georgia, nato, saakashvili
add a comment
ah yes, so i finally remembered where the library is…give me a break, i haven’t been up here in over a year.
i hate to admit it, but i have little to say other than hello, i am still among the living. just been getting reacquainted and acclimated to the commuting and walking and sloth elevators etc. surprisingly, i have little to complain about other than book prices. i’ve addressed the irony between depaul and COD book prices many times before, but this quarter has been the kicker. let’s do the math…at depaul, i currently have three classes and a total of ten required texts. i’m also taking casey’s biz comm class at COD for the requirement and motivation which requires only one book. since pictures are worth a thousand words, here’s one for you…with all sales taxes included:
now i’m not sure, but i’ve got a feeling e-follett’s got a pretty sweet scam going. don’t cry for me though…i got my book on amazon courtesy of ecampus for $4.21, ha, suckers! however, i found out something relatively strange. depaul’s bookstore is provided through barnes & noble, which is nice; good selection of everything. i found out though that e-follett is either a subsidiary or an affiliate of barnes & noble…strange bedfellows there.
