After a long day of visiting internship sites, we met up at Bryant Park’s Pond and did some ice skating. The night was beautiful, warm, and fun. While we work hard in our jobs and internships – we don’t forget we are only here for a short time and get out and have fun.

IIB Ice skating party, Bryant Park

As part of our quality control process, we visit each internship site to meet with the internship supervisor, and the intern. This fall’s site visits started last week, where I visited with 6 interns over 2 days. Without exception I met with supervisors who were impressed with the work ethic and enthusiasm of our students – Nice job IIB!

New York, New York…

Spending two months at New Paltz was a little too much for me. I’ve come to realize that I’m a city girl, and I love it. We arrived a few days ago and so far it has been better than I expected. Today was the first internship day for many of the guys. I will start tomorrow and I’m very excited.

We are living at the International House. To be honest it is a little far from all the exciting things downtown and since we are very close to Harlem, it gets a little scary at night. Altough, the building is wonderful and the best part is that we don’t have to share rooms anymore. Don’t expect too much of your room except that it is your own. Some were lucky and got a nice view, others got sink IN the room, and some others got more space. Whatever is the case, I deeply appreciate privacy.

I can’t really explain how happy I am to be here. The city welcomed us and now we are trying to be part of it. As expected, now everyone is working in different places and minding their own business but we (the Mexicans) are trying to remain united. -I don’t know how it is like with the Swedish, I’ll have to ask.- What I do know is that I’m thankful for our culture, because we stick together to do trivial things because as Luke said† “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much….” We can count on each other!!

Guys, all the wait was worth it!! BIG TIME

Before coming to New Paltz, I was taking Italian classes, as my third language. Why Italian? Don’t know, sound really beautiful and fun, plus I love Italy, and Italians. But lately many of my friends were taking Mandarin (Chinese), since its supposed to be the third most spoken language in the world, after English and Spanish in a near future.
Well let me tell you those people are not going to have any trouble going around Chinatown.

One of the best deals of coming here, is the whole interview- internship, process. Getting excited and nervous for your next trip to New York, but it is also to find your way in the city, getting to the particular address you have. Well I have to say that ALWAYS ALWAYS bring more than 2, resumes, cover letters, cards, whatver information it is that you are giving away. I just went to the city for a couple of interviews and brought with me 2 resumes (1 for each), buut, in one of them, two people interviewd me, so I had to give my only 2 resumes I brought wih me, silly me! I know! but happens, so I was near Chinatown and I had to run to print one more, for my next interview. Could’nt read anything! All of it was in Chinese! Everything! I went to several places asking for a Internet Café , or something like that! And they were answering me in Chinese, which for me is nothing but weird noises and strange drawings!. This is the moment where I said, I shoul have taken Mandarin instead of Italian. Thank God! There’s Itouch and Tecnhonology! And some people look it up for me!
I got to the Internet Café! But that’s why you should carry several copies of everything , cause you never know whats going to happen!
Good luck with your interviews!

Dear friends,

this is my last blog entry. Unfortunately. But it is over. And it was so much fun!!! We all had a great time. We all were active and got involved! Our time is up! In fact, we are all back home again.

IIB Graduation

We had a very nice graduation ceremony with the IIB staff, our supervisors and partly, but importantly with our family members from home. It was our last time to be together and it was so much fun, but also a bit sad. I hope that we made friends for life!

I want to say THANK YOU to Jeff, Beth and Bruce from the Institute for International Business @ SUNY New Paltz.
I want to also say SPECIAL THANX to Roger and Andrea from Gibbs & Soell Public Relations New York for deep insight and a good training!

Last Days in the City

My sister came to visit me, so we hung out in the City, went to the Statue of Liberty again, to Staten Island (remember: the one thing in New York City that is for free is the Staten Island Ferry!), and went to the Top of the Rock at night. Our last days were awesome being together and hanging out in this GREAT city!

SILENCE

Back home again. Silence. A huge bed. A shower in which I can shower without my flipflops, which is clean and for me alone. Silence. Silence.

We are all back home. And we will not forget the great time we had in New Paltz and New York City. I really hope we stay in touch through Facebook and e-mail and chat and whatnot. It was great to meet you all!

Big love,

Sandra

Last week was Thanksgiving. It is an all-American holiday and it was really nice. I did not have to work for the whole weekend. However, I got up early on Thursday morning and went to Macy’s Happy Thanksgiving Parade which was along 7th Avenue. It was nice, however, I thought the inflated sponge bobs, dogs, big apples, Kermit the frogs and baseballs would be even bigger. Well, okay, they were quite big, but I thought they were as tall as one of the houses. Anyways, it was nice to see them floating through the street canyons. When I came home to the Websters, my portion of one of the millions of turkeys which were killed for this holiday waited for me already. So I had a bit of light turkey here, a bit of a dark turkey there, some stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes and vegetables. NICE!!!

Turn the music on in SoHo and I am there…

I went to SoHo last weekend on my tour which started at the Flatiron Building and led me to Brooklyn Bridge. SoHo is NICE! A lot of artists had lived here, and some are still there. You could buy New York paintings, different creations and models of eccentric rings (in fact, I tried one and could not get it off anymore until the guy told me that one ring is $220 – YUCK, almost broke my finger, but got it off then, could have only given him the last five bucks I had in my pocket), AND there was an a-capella-band. Four guys sang a nice song. It was fantastic. Great voices, good vibes, nice spirit! They definitely made my day.

Beautiful Brooklyn Bridge

The most beautiful bridge in New York is definitely Brooklyn Bridge. When you wanna walk over it, you should take the A or C train to High Street in Brooklyn and go from there back to Manhattan. I went at sunset and it was beautiful. The sun was low and the light nice and golden. It was freaking cold, but that did not matter. I will definitely go back for another walk!

“Thank You Lord” – a Sunday in a Gospel Church

If you come to New York, do not miss out on a Sunday at a Gospel Church in Harlem. There is a nice one at the corner of Convent Avenue and 145 Street which you can easily reach by subway A or C. The church is called Convent Avenue Baptist Church. On Sunday two weeks ago, there was a gospel choir rocking da house. It was beautiful. The people moved and clapped to the music. Last Sunday, there was a male choir. They all had beautiful voices! It was awesome to listen to the soloist sing “Thank You Lord” – it really touched me. My twin sister Nicola comes on Sunday and I definitely have to take her to this church in Harlem. She can’t miss that!

Time moves quickly

I cannot believe that my internship is almost over! We are here for a little bit more than six weeks now. Time goes by way too fast. So this is one of my last blog posts, yet not the last one. Please stay tuned! It is my pleasure to tell you more about my experience!

Big love,
Sandra

Hello there! I hope you are doing great! My New York City experience is huge… awesome… GREAT! There are so many things going on besides my very nice internship!

Last week, I went to a bookstore and guess who was there!? Aretha Franklin, the queen of soul was there to sign her latest album for her fans. Since I knew about this event, I went there and got two CDs signed and could take a picture of her. Yeah (I always wanted to see a celeb)!

We celebrated Halloween last Friday. Halloween is a pretty big event in the USA. So we went out and celebrated it as well. Some of my colleagues at work got some really fancy costumes. I went as a gangster lady and loved my fluffy hat! Some of the IIB family members and I went to the Village Halloween Parade which was pretty amazing. I liked all the different costumes – the Jokers from Batman, the bananas, the Star Wars characters, the ghosts and witches, the Marilyn Monroes, the Obamas and McCains and the pirates of the Caribbean and of elsewhere… we had a good time and it was definitely worth going to the parade.

Two days later, New York City hosted the New York City Marathon which was crazy. Thousands and thousands of people from different nations ran these 42 something kilometers. And I encouraged them to keep up their speed. There were many older runners as well. They all did a great job! What a nice experience for everybody!

Those experiences were good. HOWEVER, YESTERDAY WAS THE NIGHT OF THE NIGHTS!!! A very important moment in history! An event I will not forget, which was unique for me to experience: the country has elected a new president. Barack Obama is the new President-elect of the United States of America. He will be sworn in on January 20, 2009. A lot of people project their hopes on this man.
Some IIB family members and I went to Times Square to witness this historic moment. The atmosphere was very emotional. People were crying, hugging and celebrating when Obama won the different states. What a great time for all of us to be in New York City!!!

So that is what has been going on! Please stay tuned! There is certainly more to come!

Big love,
Sandra

New York – the Big Apple, “the Disneyland for adults,” or simply referred to as “the City that never sleeps.” This city, the City, that is 1,000 different smells and tastes around each corner, so many different faces everywhere, many different cultures, colors, accents, styles, people, that is: mascots on the streets, so many different stores (you can buy anything here – even McCain-Palin or Obama-Biden condoms – be safe either way…). This is it: our New York City experience! And I love it. It’s been great so far. People are nice, our internships awesome, the food is good, the rooms neat, and life here is keeping us busy which is really good!

As for me, I totally enjoy my internship experience at Gibbs & Soell! The people I am working with are great!

So far, so good, more to come SOON!

Hugs,
Sandra

Hello again!

I have started my internship with Gibbs &  Soell Public Relations – and this is AWESOME! I enjoy it very very much!!!

One of the clients at Gibbs & Soell is NFTE (pronounce “nifty”). NFTE stands for National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship. It is a non-profit organization, and they provide entrepreneurship education programs to young people from low-income communities. Their vision is that every young person will find a pathway to prosperity. They have programs in 22 states and in 12 countries outside the United States. They have reached nearly 232,000 young people since 1987.

The NFTE offers young students from low-income families an opportunity to launch their own businesses. Compelling evidence from researchers at Harvard University shows that youth who are taught about entrepreneurship show a positive change in attitude and strong success orientation, and are more likely to be focused on academic and professional achievements and aspirations and leadership.

Tomorrow, on Thursday 23, 2008, 35 students will compete in the OppenheimerFunds/NFTE National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge. The first place winner will walk away with $10,000 in seed capital to either start a business or invest in a further education. In honor of this occasion, participants of the challenge rang The Opening Bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). I was there as well and while the participants rang the bell, we watched them from the trading floor. The ringing of the bell was on Tuesday October 21, 2008 at 9:30 a.m. – and at that time, around 120 million people from all over the world watched this event!!! You missed it? No problem. Just go here and watch the video.

Being on the trading floor of the NYSE was a great experience and a nice start into my internship at Gibbs & Soell. In fact, visitors are not allowed to visit the NYSE anymore. This was changed in the aftermath of 9/11. So this was a unique opportunity for all of us!