Why hello there. It's been a while. As some of you might know this past Spring semester was really crazy for me.There were literally so many days where I only had 2 or 3 hours of sleep, but thankfully I survived and am alive! If you follow me on Instagram, you'll probably already know about the mini road trip my best friends and I took this past week. One of my friends just graduated from college, another one is working full time as a nurse, I was a bundle of stress, and we just all really needed a mini vacation. Unfortunately it was only an overnight trip because we all had work, but it was still worth it!

We decided to go to LA because we really wanted to see the beach. When we got there, it was really dark and cloudy, so we were a bit worried. Thankfully the weather cleared up in the afternoon. Santa Monica beach was amazing. The waters were still too cold to really swim in, but we got to soak our feet in it for a bit. Afterwards we ended up in Japan Town, after a few mishaps with trying to find a restaurant, to eat dinner and do a bit of shopping. The next day we went to Hermosa beach which  was my favorite part of the entire trip. I want to live there. It is such a quite, clean, and relaxing community. There were so many cute boutiques and cafes. I just love it. Definitely going back.

There were some bumps on the road here and there in our trip, but overall it was fun. My best friends and I have known each other since high school, and this was our first real vacation / road trip together. I got to see some new sides of them that I didn't know, which was interesting, but it's exciting to get to see a different side of people you're close with.

With love,

Lovely

I like eating out and trying new restaurants and cuisine. Sometimes those food can be on the heavy and unhealthy side of things, so I like to balance everything out by eating something simple and healthy for one of my meals. Avocado on toast is just that, but don't let it fool you! It's far from boring and plain. There are so many things you can do with it. Top it with an egg or bacon, add salsa or ceviche if you're fancy, mix in sriracha to make it hot, the list goes on for days. All you need are a few things:

• Avocado 
• Bread 
• Salt + Pepper

Literally that's it. Toast your bread if you like. Slice up your avocado and spread it. Top everything off with a little salt and pepper, and BAM you're done. I like to eat mine with a boiled egg and some orange juice. Sometimes simple food can be more satisfying than the most extravagant ones, but whether they're simple or extravagant I eat them all! As a self-proclaimed food connoisseur, I believe it is my duty to. :) 

With love, 

Lovely    

Here's a quick recap: I am 1/4 college student, 1/4 marketing intern, 1/4 front office ambassador, 1/4 student manager, and 4/4 crazy. How has it been so far? Well...

My internship is okay so far. I have projects that I get to manage. I might have taken on too many projects, but I want to get as much as I can out of this experience. There is a lot of grunt work just like any other internship, and I'm not too fond of that. I understand being an intern and having to do the stuff that no one else wants to do. I can handle the grunt work. What I'm not okay with is when it becomes too excessive to the point where I'm not really learning anything or that it's taking so much of my time that I'm not getting to work on my actual projects. I do like that I get to network, shadow, and have meetings with other departments, managers, and executives which is great. The other day we got the opportunity to go to a marketing convention which was really cool because not very many internships offer you that.

My capstone class is exciting. My class is in charge of managing and planning this big 3 day culinary and wine festival in the city that's been around for 41 years and has on average 8,000+ attendees. I'm in the public relations and marketing team, and I manage all social media and promotional aspects of the event. It is so damn fun. It combines my two loves: hospitality & marketing. It's rewarding to see what I create come to life and have an affect on the everything. I love that I get to go to all kinds of events to promote ours and meet people. Everyone is required to obtain $1,000 in donations for the event, and I just surpassed that quota so I'm super happy.

Am I stressed? At times, yes. It's hectic trying to balance things. Do I have a social life? Yes. I still find time to hang out with friends and enjoy some quiet time for myself. How do I balance everything? Honestly, even I don't know how I do it. I just roll with the punches as they come and I learn to be flexible. Positivity is also equally important.

With Love,
Lovely 

A few of the interns at my marketing internship were leaving, so the entire group of interns decided to go hiking as a kind of farewell get together. The whole thing was a hot mess! Everyone was late to the meeting spots. My group that I was riding with got lost on the way to the hiking trail. We drove past the parking lot we were supposed to park at, so we ended up having to park at another lot that was further down and walk all the way back up. It was a one-way road, so it's not like we could turn the car around. It was too far up so half-way we ended up hitch-hiking in a van with a family to the said parking lot. 

We started hiking and were trying to catch up with the others. However 1/3 of the way up the trail we got annoyed because it was cold & windy, we didn't have signal so we couldn't contact the others, and we weren't sure where they were. We decided to forget the whole thing, and we hitch-hiked again back to our car and floored it to the mall. We did a little shopping and waited for the rest of the group to come back from their hiking to go eat lunch at this restaurant called MTO Cafe. Their chicken and waffles were freaking amazing! Best thing to eat after a long, tiring hike. ;) At night we met up again to eat dim sum and to go drinking. I had work early the next morning so I skipped out on the bar hopping festivities. 

And that is how you fail at hiking! Even though everything was a hot mess, it was so much fun. I was laughing the entire time, and I got to know the others really well. Lesson to be learned: it's in those spontaneous and outrageous moments where you create a bond with others. AND Never ever go hitch-hiking unless you're a trained professional group of marketing interns. :) 

With love, 

Lovely 

The other day my capstone class met up at the alcohol distributor's warehouse that's partnered with our event to learn about wine and get a tour of their facilities. Their warehouse is huge, and the amount of beers, wines, spirits, kegs, and liquors they store is freaking ridiculous. It's just 34,000sq. feet of over 16,000 products. Go big or go home, right?

Afterwards I grabbed dinner with my best friend since she lived nearby. I've had meetings and class all day with no time to eat, so dinner turned out to be breakfast and lunch as well. We went to eat at Kyara, a Japanese tapas restaurant, and they had the best takoyaki. It was almost like the ones I had when I went to Japan! They also had this super delicious matcha green tea waffles with strawberry sorbet and vanilla ice cream. It was perfection.

We stopped by TJMaxx & HomeGoods because I wanted to ask for donations for our event, and I also wanted to look for pieces that I'd want to put in my room once I begin redecorating. Worst decision ever. I didn't plan on buying anything. I just wanted to look around, but while we were browsing my friend convinced me to get these cute Nine West heels and a Ralph Lauren bag that I've been eyeing for months.  I tried talking myself out of buying either one of them so many times, but she's so good at brainwashing! She brainwashes you in to believing you need and deserve something, and by the end of it all, you end up over your budget. sigh... Love her though! :P   

With love,

Lovely

It was one of my friend's birthday this past weekend, so a couple of my friends put together a surprise party for her. It was planned last minute, so we all were going with the flow. We had a two-part surprise: a surprise dinner and a surprise party in a suite. Because everything was impromptu and last minute, during dinner we were all texting each other trying to figure out how to get the cake up to the suite without her knowing and how to get her up to the suite without being obvious. Oh, did I mention the cake was an ice cream cake and that it was melting? The whole night was utterly ridiculous and chaotic, but it was really fun and memorable as well. 

It's amazing the kind of connections you make while working. The birthday girl and everyone at the party were all the people I work with at the hotel. I never knew I'd make this many friends or be this close to so many people when I first started. We're all like family. It makes sense since we spend so much time together at work. I used to be a very shy, insecure girl who doubted herself a lot and who was scared of constantly being judged. I never went out much, and I stuck to a small group of friends. Working in the hospitality industry and at the hotel really changed me in a positive way. I've become more outspoken, confident, and free. I'm inspired and enlightened by meeting new people and finding about who they are, where they come from, and what their story is. I'm extremely grateful for my job. I'm surrounded by awesome people. Kind and sometimes crazy but awesome people.