What's Up, What's Happening!

What have you been working on?

Since joining the Communications team of Ashley and Brendon, I have been doing a lot of great work. My first big project I have been working on with them is updating the SHM Media Kit. I have been working on many different tasks on this project so far and it is an ongoing project that is going to take a very slow process but it has been a great way to introduce me to SHM and communications in general. Some of the ways I have been updating the media kit is creating excel spreadsheets outlining changes for the new year, looking at other medical organizations kits and creating a mock table of contents and possible page ideas for them. Our next step for this is to email out all the departments and gather updated membership data as well as information pertaining to SHM’s growth and see what we need to include in next year’s media kit. We are also looking at new creative ways to make the media kit standout such as creating a PowerPoint for the board and making the media kit more user interactive.

                Besides working on the Media Kit, other projects I have been working on are first updating and tracking social media daily. Through this process I am drafting and posting status updates and twitter posts with the most up to date information in SHM. This has been a great way for me to learn more about SHM and the amazing things going on. Tied into the social media planning and tracking are the updates to the Communications Dashboard. This is SHM’s Communications department’s monthly dashboard that tracks the most important media information and how SHM is doing compared to last month and last month of the previous year. My role in this is reporting on the Social Media aspect and relay up to date data on the users within our multiple social media sites. Also, I am using Cision to keep track of our media mentions and tracking that in excel documents as well as a way to keep up to date information on important media mentions for SHM. Another small ongoing task I am a part of is updating the rotating web banners which you see on the main page of the website. This has given me the chance to see the process that goes into a creative briefs and delivering of a final product for the SHM website.  Finally, I am doing continuous work with Ashley on HMX in creating webinar documents and help documents for new users who are having trouble with HMX as well as doing work needed for Ashley to help make HMX run smoothly.

What’s the most exciting thing that happened in the past three weeks?

A lot of great things happened for me in the last three weeks so it might be hard to pick one! One awesome thing that happened was I went to the New York Knicks/76ers basketball game with my roommates and friend. I am a huge NBA fan and a diehard Knicks fan so it was great to go see them play! I had not seen them play in over a year and a half so it was awesome to be at the game and to see them win at the same time! Plus I am a huge Carmel Anthony fan and he was my favorite player for years now and once he joined the Knicks I almost died inside! So seeing him was really cool! Another great thing I would say is going to see the awesome plays for my Theater class. This term I took an easy 3 credit Theater class and so far it has been great. The last three weeks we have seen some awesome plays and it has been great to relax after work on Thursday nights and go see plays around the city and go to places in the city I have never been to like the Wilma Theater and Plays and Players Theater. It has been an awesome experience so far!

How did you like the board meeting experience?

            The board meeting was really great! Though I did not get a chance to meet a lot of the board, it was still cool to interact with some members and let them learn about us and see what we do here at SHM. It was also cool to see the similarities people on the board had with me and other SHM coworkers. For example, one of the board members lives around the same area as me which was really cool. Sabrina also got a chance to talk to board members from California so it was cool just to see little similarities with the board and be able to relate to them. Overall it was a great experience and a great way to feel like an important part of the SHM team.

Oh my gosh I have returned! Thanks for keeping the blog going while I was determining the outcome of lives for others (GUILTY!). 

What have you been working on? 

What's the most exciting thing that happened in the past three weeks? 

How did you like the board meeting experience?

Just because I don’t celebrate Christmas, doesn’t mean my family doesn’t have holiday traditions.  All you need for holiday traditions is a creative, dysfunctional family.  My family has a little bit of creativity and a lot of bit of dysfunction.

I guess I’ll go in calendar order, starting with Thanksgiving.  My favorite holiday takes place on Thanksgiving, but it’s not the meal.  I like to count the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade as its own holiday.  Every year, my little sister and I wake up really early and eat cookies with turkeys on them as we watch the most magical performance of the year.

 My dad cooks for Thanksgiving.  As the cook on a holiday based around food, my dad has all the power.  And since he doesn’t like turkey, we don’t have turkey.  Having a chicken on Thanksgiving is almost a tradition within itself, but my dad takes it one step further.  Before carving the bird my dad closes his eyes, waves his hands over the chicken and says “Turkey-merkey, turkey-lurkey, turn this chicken into a turkey.” 

I have a bunch of Christmas traditions, but since I don’t celebrate the holiday they are more like December 25^th traditions.  One of my least favorite traditions, that my older sister and I took part in, was working on Christmas.  There is nothing that is more boring than standing around at an empty grocery store, wishing someone forgot the secret ingredient to their mash potatoes, so you can have something to do.  Luckily, that tradition has come to an end now that I’m in college.  After work my sisters, my mom, and I always go to the movie because, let’s be honest, we have nothing else to do. 

My dad does celebrate Christmas, which I think makes my mom kind of jealous because Hanukkah isn't as flashy.   So he has to set up all his decorations in the basement.  He calls it “Christmas Town” and he spends every night in December watching old Christmas movies.  My house does get some decorations.  In case the entire town wasn’t sure of who the Jewish family was, my dad made a six foot tall Star of David out of 2x4 and blue Christmas lights.   But by far my favorite holiday tradition is being tacky:

 

Traditions

The holiday season is one of my favorite times, especially after Thanksgiving because Christmas is by far my favorite holiday. I love the cold weather, the lights, the music, the food and just being with family. I have appreciated it more since I have been away at school for sure because its great just getting together as a family. Like Sabrina said, it is hard to narrow it down to one tradition during the holiday season. There are so many things going on during that time that I enjoy but I will give you my top four traditions to do during the holiday season.

        1.  Going to Brooklyn to visit the family

This is very important to me because during this time I get to see my grandparents during the holiday season and be with them for the first time since being out of school on break. It is especially important to me because this past January I lost my grandfather on my dad’s side and my grandmother on my mom’s side and it was a big hit too me because I never lost anyone that close to me in my family and I lost two grandparents in a week. So it made me realize how precious time is and I have to make every time with my two other grandparents worthwhile and see them as often as I can. 

        2.        A Christmas Story

On a much more happier mood, one thing I always do on Christmas is watch the all day long marathon on TNT of A Chrsitmas Story. This is easily one of my favorite movies of all time and I could watch it over and over again that whole day and not stop laughing. So many quotable lines come from that movie and I just enjoy watching that movie with my parents after opening gifts and going to church.

 

3.               3. New Year’s Dinner

Something I have always enjoyed was on New Year’s Eve going out to eat with my parents just the three of us. We go out a lot together especially when I was younger and in high school but something about going out on New Year’s Eve and just spending the night with them is great. It is cliché but it just makes me think of all the great times we have had together in the last year and looking forward to the new year together

4.             4.  Seeing my girlfriend and friends

Another cliché one but my girlfriend Jackie is away at school in North Carolina and it is hard because we honestly only see each other during holidays, spring break and summer break so it is great to be able to spend time with her and all our friends back home. It is cool reconnecting and seeing how everyone is back home from college and hanging out like old times. As much as I love college and people here, the people I left home will and always be my true friends and I make sure to make as much time as I can for them.

 

This is my favorite traditions! Hope you enjoyed!

Since it's the holiday season and I LOVE traditions, what is your favorite holiday tradition (ex: holiday game nights, the food, movies, etc)? Who do you share the tradition with, what do you do and why is it your favorite?

I think it's too hard to just think of only ONE favorite holiday tradition, because I absolutely love the holidays! I feel as if the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is just always a blur, because we have SO much food during that time, that I just seem to food coma throughout November and December. But I guess...

#1. FOOD. Thanksgiving dinner is amazing. 'Nuff said.


#2. Christmas party!
Lots of food (obviously), people, and Christmas gifts and cheer. One of two times of the year where my entire family on my mom's side spend the entire day together - the other, being Chinese New Year. The non-existent aroma of our 19 year old fake tree, and the broken train tracks we try to put together every year really create the perfect Christmas, despite the imperfection of it all.

#3. Christmas carnival. Every year, all the high school/college kids from my church get together and prepare a Christmas carnival for all the little kids in the neighborhood. Though this requires months of preparation, it's a LOT of fun, and we get to create fun little games like "Ice-fishing" and "Penguin Bowl". There must be something magical about Disney Christmas songs and dressing up like elves, that really allows our community to come together and spend time with all the little ones that are our next generation!

I can't wait till the holidays! Christmas - come sooner please!

Family Traditions

Hmm. I guess I do have some traditions in my family for the holidays, but I can't label just one of them as my favorite.

For thanksgiving, my second favorite holiday (Halloween being my first, as it is the most holiest of days), everyone from my dads side of the family, my moms side of the family, and some of our family friends, all come over to my parents place for a feast fit for a king. I'm talking upwards of 50-60 people. And we never, never run out of food. It's a time of happiness and great bountiful foods. Everyone gets along great and not a word of ill is spoken. I fell that my entire extended family gets along better on Thanksgiving than they do on Christmas. (Don't get me wrong, they get along fine without it being a holiday too)

Speaking of Christmas, my third favorite holiday, we have traditions for that too. (In case you couldn't tell, this is my absolute favorite time of the year). On Christmas Eve, my family (the four of us) head on over to my great-aunt and great-uncles place for an early Christmas celebration. my family, and my great-aunt and great-uncle have a... what's the word I'm looking for... Stronger (I don't want to put the rest of my extended family down) relationship than the rest. So, instead of mixing them in with the craziness that happens next, we spend some 1 family on 1 family time.

That craziness I speak of is in fact crazy. Instead of both sides going to one house, each sides has one central house, and one side has an additional house. So on Christmas Day, after the usual family stuff in the morning, we have to go to three different houses, and we still spend a moderate amount of time at each house, like 4 hours a piece. It's crazy, but I love it.

Since it's the holiday season and I LOVE traditions, what is your favorite holiday tradition (ex: holiday game nights, the food, movies, etc)? Who do you share the tradition with, what do you do and why is it your favorite?

These guys got it goin' on!