So summer has officially began and my new job as a Summer Associate at the Greenlining Institute is proving to be (thankfully) stimulating and oh so interesting. I work with my partner Daniel (who's from North Carolina) on a project involving investigating corporations who receive the biggest contracts from the state of California and evaluating their corporate philanthropic practices. Greenlining tries to promote good corporate social responsibility, attesting that in a time where many programs for minority and low income communities are cut due to lack of government funding, corporations should do their part and invest back into California--especially because they are receiving the largest share of funds from the state itself. Anyhow, I'm sure most of you just glossed over this paragraph and that's cool. I just thought I'd write it out to spare me having to answer your questions of what I'm doing at Greenlining.
The other 9 summer associates are all awesome and friendly people. We are all so different from one another but we get along really great. My duties for my project have included drafting letters to state Senators and Assemblymen, researching public contract documents, writing memos etc etc. Interspersed throughout all of this are a series of business writing trainings, public speaking trainings, critical thinking trainings etc etc etc.
It feels weird to not be a part of the media academy anymore-- I still feel like I'm part of the media team and last Thursday I helped them interview a subject instead of going on my lunch break.
So this week was the Business Supplier Diversity Conference held at the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown LA. Put on by 14 major banks in the US and facilitated by Greenlining, it was a conference dedicated to increasing contracts for minority and small business owners. I won't bore you with the details, but I am still astonished on how intense networking can be. Especially those high energy networking sessions in which you meet 50 gazillion people in a 40 minute time-span. Our duties as Associates was to meet as many people as we could, pass out relevant material and basically do registration and other mundane adminstrative tasks. After that however, we were free!
One of the associates, JJ took us on an hour busride to Santa Monica pier where we enjoyed lots of sunshine on the beach and a great time on 3rd Street Promenade.
Beverly Hills 90210 Style: Back Row: Daniel, Manuel, Van; Middle Row: Anabel, Shafiq; Front Row: JJ, Me
At night we went to this really cool bar called the Library Bar-- a venue where you feel like you're in a cozy library with super cool books and drinks. Then we went to the Hotel Standard's rooftop club/bar/lounge place where they had an amazing view of downtown LA and waterbeds for us to lounge on.
View from the StandardWith that all said, you all should check out Lil Wayne's new album.
4 comments:
hhaha..I love how at the very end of your very serious talk about saving the world you say "by the way you guys should check out lil wayne's new album." haha...you make me laugh homie. Neway, to me its soooooo not boring to hear what your doing. That's such a great cause: getting big corp's to invest in minority and low income businesses. And I got to here what you actually do at this public policy place. That libray bar looks interesting also. And your pic of the city at night was AMAZING! Ohhh man ariane, I'm glad your enjoyingyour journey and greenlining so far and it seems like your learning alot about how people do business in the world world. Can you teach me and laura how to network sometime...properly haha ;). I'm pretty busy, but I have spin in mind for this week.
ohh my gosh I love that lollipop song. I'm gonna listen to more ongs on the album right now.
you job sounds pretty cool. it sounds much cooler than my job.
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