sam's town

a good weekend

Samantha — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 20:18:47 +0000

So this past week, I graduated from Brock! I am so proud of myself for my accomplishment and I know I could not have done it without the support from my family and friends. So I wanted to take this time out to say some thank you’s….

My parents: the ones who put me in this world. They taught me how to be a responsible young adult and to live life to the fullest. I always looked up to them and would ask them for advice…and they always gave me the right advice to live by – but to also make decisions for myself.

My sister & brother: although they constantly make fun of me (darn middle child syndrome), I know it is out of love and I couldn’t ask for any other siblings.

My boyfriend: I always believe that things happen for a reason..and meeting Eric was one of the best things that has happened to me. Eric is probably the one who puts up with my crankiness the most (sorry for that, baby!) and can always put a smile on my face and tell me things will be okay!

My (hamilton & marmac) girls: each one of you are near and dear to me and I also could not have done it without you! We’ve been through some crazy wild times, and I will never ever forget that! Thank you girls!

And I would also like to shout out to my aunts, cousins, family friends, godparents and everyone else who has had a role in my life in some way. Thank you for everything you have done for me and it means so much to me that I have such an amazing support system!

summer reading list

Samantha — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 22:57:36 +0000

So my goal for the summer is to read as many books as I can, before I have to go back to school and bury my face in textbooks (I often have a hard time reading books for interest if I have readings in 5 courses). Currently I am reading Something Blue by Emily Giffin, and I am enjoying it so far!

Here are a few others I would like to read by the end of the summer:

1. Love the One You’re With – Emily Giffin [I enjoy her style of writing]

2. Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert

3. Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell [a classic, but I've always wanted to read it, and see how the Big Brother series gets its inspiration]

4. Sex and the City (the original) – Candace Bushnell [an oldie but a goodie]

5. Say You’re One of Them – Uwem Akpan [Oprah's Book Club!]

I will set my goal at five for now…but hopefully I get through them fast so I can add five more to my list! I suggest you pick them up too and get reading!

Happy reading

the blackberry bandwagon

Samantha — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 04:05:33 +0000

So, I’ve decided to invest in one of the most popular mobile phones on the planet…a blackberry! I plan on purchasing one in the next week or so. My boyfriend’s going to go shopping with me because I am blackberry illiterate and have NO clue what I should be looking for. There’s so many different models…the curve, the bold, the tour, etc., so I am really unsure which one to get. They honestly look the same to me so I’ll get the cheapest one lol. Another thing I am researching is which of the Big Three wireless corps I should go with. Although I hate alll of them, I may go with WIND mobile (did my PR group project on it) however, the phones are full price because you do not get locked into contracts. So its either a) i pay cheap for the phone and committ myself to three years with the provider or b) pay for the phone upfront and not have contract. However, WIND does not have as many towers so the service is not nationwide yet. If anything, I’ll go with Telus, but I am still unsure. I need more of my questions answered! So please if anyone has any advice to give me, a comment would be much appreciated!

things i love

Samantha — Fri, 28 May 2010 03:34:03 +0000

j’adore:

dance [BrockDance forever], fashion, celebrity gossip [perezhilton], dance parties, cold shots, music [anything that fI can dance and mellow out to], family channel [my secret obsession], taking photos, trying to be in every photo, cosmopolitan, MAC makeup, GLEE [sue sylvester is my hero], mint chocolate swirl ice cream, my iPod, social media [a little Facebook obsessive], stumbleupon [my new best friend], badminton, OPI nailpolish, bargain shopping, hess village, hamilton in general [love my hometown]…. and the list goes on

live.laugh.dance

hello world!

Samantha — Fri, 28 May 2010 02:42:49 +0000

So after another hiatus from my blog, I’ve decided I shall keep up with this….or at least try to. This blog was originally used for my communications class only, but as I enjoy writing and am pursuing my career in PR, I thought this would be a good tool to keep up with my writing skills and communicating with the world (like anyone is reading this anyways! lol).

So whats new with me….

Well, first off… I’M DONE AT BROCK! I completed my three year degree in Business Comm…the best three years of my life! I have met some awesome people, completed some complicated assignments, put up with some crazy profs, and partied hard – while keeping my focus on my studies of course! It was sad to leave marmac (my home for 2 years) and my lovely roommates but this is just another step in my life as I continue on to face the next challange that life hands to me. I’ll also miss my amazing boyfriend, whom was also my neighbour, whose house would like to throw eggs at our house (my mother says that when boys pick on girls its because they like them…mother was right). But luckily my bf is still at Brock, so I take frequent visits to see him

Looking for summer employment has been a challenge for me…I had to go back (once again) to managing DQ. I mean its great pay and I know the place inside and out, but I was hoping for a change this summer…and more of a ‘grownup’ job, preferrably in an office/administrative setting. I am still searching for that dear job, and rather not smell like ice cream and hot fudge for the summer. While I was looking on the Brock job postings site, I stumbled upon this awesome internship with a non-profit org called Empowerment Squared. And the awesome thing is, it’s located in Hamilton! So I thought “sure why not! I need the experience and get my foot in the door…and its for a communications assistant.” So I applied…and surely I got the internship!! I am so proud of myself and finally I’m doing something new. Although it is an unpaid internship, I do not care one bit because I will get to gain great experience, and finally use my three years of comm learning to work on web content and work with social media (which I love).

I hope to accomplish a lot this summer and do interesting things…one including getting my G1 (shhh – I know what you’re thinking). I am also turning 22 this summer so its time for a change!

Stay tuned for more blogs this summer….I can’t wait!

DONE EXAMS

Samantha — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:48:24 +0000

Yay! Finally done exams!!! Considering I only had two…but it feels so good to be done!! But now onto my take home exam for this course, which I think will be quite easy for me since we’ve been talked in depth about the info society all semester. Time to get down to business! And then it is officially summertime!

This is the end, my friend

Samantha — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:23:21 +0000

So I kinda touched on what I learned from the course (see Comm 2p26 blog post), but overall my impression of the course was good! I didn’t think it was going to be talking about social networking sites and blogging and bookmarking..and if I didn’t sign up for the course, I probably still would have thought it was something else! The course taught me that there is much more to just making an account on say, Facebook and putting information on it. There are ways that many people can take your information, or privacy issues that can go wrong. I have definately learned to be aware of what kind of information I put on Facebook and Twitter and stuff…especially since I’m getting older and preparing to look for a professional job. I will definately be using social bookmarking sites, I love em! As for blogging…I don’t know if I can keep up with writing blogs, but its fun to talk about different issues and stuff every now and then. Thanks Tracy for an awesome semester learning about the info society! Now to go work on my take home exam….ta ta!

Maintaining my privacy

Samantha — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 04:12:28 +0000

These past few weeks have really got me thinking about privacy on the web..ever since talking about it in class. It’s kinda freaky to know that my information could possibly be in the hands of someone else, and I could have easily handed it over to them! I occasionally delete my ‘cookies’ online..because they contain information such as my user name and password, and sites I have visited before. I do this because well…I don’t want people to get my information. I’d rather not know WHO had my information, but it’s wayy worse to know what these people would DO with that info. Information like banking info is crucially important for me to know, and only me to know. I have online banking, which helps me to pay bills and transfer funds…and it saves paper by giving me an electronic statement instead of a paper one. I have my account number saved on my comp ONLY, with a few of the numbers replaced by stars. I only do this because I hate having to type in the long account number everytime, but I guess Id rather do that instead of having someone hack into my account. So now, I have to take into consideration everything I put onto my computer, or even public computers at school. I make sure with those comps at school I logout of Facebook and other sites, even though we log out of the computer fully. I just never know who has the technical skills to hack into certain websites and steal my information.

Privacy & Facebook

Samantha — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 01:34:44 +0000

What I put on Facebook is something that I think about a lot. The most important privacy issue that is important to me are regarding employment purposes. I know that a lot of employers check out Facebook when scoping out potential employees…and if they see something they don’t think is appropriate, it can affect the employee largely. As I am getting older and looking for jobs after university, I have to be aware that companies are going to be looking at my profile and figuring out if I am the right candidate for the job. I share mostly everything on Facebook with people WITHIN my network.. I have definately tweeked my privacy settings for only friends to see. So if a random person in my network (Brock and Hamilton) wants to check out my profile, they can only see a limited piece of the profile. And that info is pretty much my picture and network only showing. The information I have is pretty basic… my birthday without the year, my favourite tv shows and movies, my interests, my schooling, my relationship status and so forth. I personally do not have any privacy stories but some of my friends put some really detailed stuff on their profiles…like what they are doing every second of the day, which I don’t really like.

Googling

Samantha — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 15:45:27 +0000

The first thing I have come to realize is that whenever I need to find facts or information about something, I head straight to Google. Therefore, if someone was looking at my ‘Google log’, they’d think I am a crazy person lol. I have searches anywhere from finding information about my comm essays, to song lyrics, to health issues. Whenever I am sick (like I am now *tear*), I will google my symptoms and try and find out if I can diagnose myself. I am sure alot of people are like me, where they google random things all the time, so it is hard to make a ‘profile’ of someone just from their keywords. We were asked to do that in class, where some of the keywords were obvious..but then some were very misleading. Searching through keywords for third parties, such as businesses, are valuable because they can see what people are finding information about, and these businesses could take that information and formulate it into their business plans. Or maybe for police, if they need to find information that will help them solve a case. But like I said, it could be misleading and third parties could get totatlly skewed information.

I decided to Google my own name. (I’m sure people have done it before, and if not, youre in denial lol)…and the information I got back was shocking. The first one that came up was my actual Facebook profile! I immediately went to Facebook to make sure that did not come up on the Google search anymore. Other links I found once I Googled my name was other people with my last name, mostly from Barbados, which is where my last name orginiated from. I found it kind of intersting to see what came up when I googled my name…you guys should try it too!