Meghan Sipe

Valentine’s was this past weekend! Yay! Yes, I know…I use to be one of those “anti-valentine’s” day people but now I have a boyfriend so I love it! When I got back from my GEM retreat on Saturday, I took a short nap, then got ready for mine and Jordan’s date that night! Jordan came and picked me up with roses and a necklace that came in a pretty blue box from that place every girl loves! We had reservations at a the Peddler in Spartanburg at 7:30. So after we took pictures and stuff, we were on our way! When we arrived, we were informed by the hostess that their computers had crashed!They were so backed up on past reservations that they wouldn’t even tell us an appropriate waiting time. We decided to try something else, so we went to City Range Steakhouse. Had we known that we would STAND and wait for 2 hours we definently would have gone somewhere else. After two hours of standing in heels, even Denny’s starts to look romantic. We were so hungry that we ate in ten minutes!

This past Friday, I had my annual GEM (Graduates in Excutive Management) retreat in Charlotte. GEM is a program for any major, but mostley business students participate and it includes classes taught by CEOs, COOs, Senior Executives and Judges, annual retreats at a Charlotte hotel, and a trip abroad to Switzerland, Germany, and France. GEM has many accolades including one from President and Chief Executive Officer of NBC:

“I have enjoyed reviewing your GEM certificate program and find it extremely interesting. In short, your proposed program is excellent and would undoubtedly provide students with a quality of instruction that can only be brought by a CEO who has experienced the things he is teaching his students.”

- L.F. Mallory, Jr., President and Chief Executive Officer, NBC

GEM gets your foot in the door with many “higher ups” one might not have the opportunity to in a regular classroom setting. In today’s economy, student’s have to do EVERYTHING possible to get a job which is why GEM is a wonderful program any prospective student should look into at Gardner-Webb.

This past summer I went on the trip abroad. We visted a glass factory, Steelcase, which is a office furniture manufacturer, and Pfizer. We spent about three days in Paris which was my favorite part (surprise, surprise!). The trip was very education, informative, and fun. Here are some pictures from the summer, enjoy!

These three pictures (above and below) are from the concentration camp we visted…

We decided to CLIMB the Effile Tower…

Just getting started…

Almost there…

All the way at the top 2 hours later…

Mona…the at the postage stamp view

If my title didn’t give it away, this weekend I went and saw the movie Dear John. Other than Channing Tatum’s good looks, the movie was very good. The ending…not so much. But an overall B+. We went to a 4:15 showing, and it was pack out to the max. I read an article that Dear John took first place, and now Avatar is in 2nd. Dear John wasn’t quite as good as The Notebook, but if I had to put the Nicholas Sparks movies in rank, I would put The Notebook in first, Nights in Rodanthe in second, and the Dear John in third. There is another Sparks movie coming out in March, called the Last Song, but I guess I will review that when it comes out. SuperBowl was this weekend as well. I wasn’t that into it, not because I’m a girl, just because I wasn’t that interested in the teams playing. Go Panthers! At least now, we can start over and see where the season takes us. The commericals for the game were dissappointing as well. I love the cladsdale commericals, so of course it was my favorite. Other than those two events, my weekend was nothing more than homework, sleeping, and cleaning. Next weekend is Valentines Day, so hopefully I will have something more to talk about!

So….we had a SNOOOOOW DAY!!!! But it wasn’t really a snow day because it was on a Saturday but class was cancelled on Monday. It started snow on Friday while I was at work. I was talking to Patty (The lady who practically runs the admissions office) and my back was turned to the window, and all of a sudden Patty lets out this big “take a big deep breath in, like a surprise sound” and I turned around and it was like a blizzard outside! It was so odd because just minutes before, it was normal and the next we have a snow storm! So the whole office started acting all silly, like we’ve never seen snow before, and I left to go rent some DVD’s for the weekend. On Saturday morning, a fellow blogger named Bethany, and I tried to go sledding…we didn’t succeed. First of all, we didn’t have sleds, so we got creative. We used a tupperware box lid, and one of those low to the ground boxes with wheels. We should get points for just being creative! So we just walked around in the snow. I enjoyed the rest of my afternoon, watching Narnia and drinking hot chocolate. On Sunday, my friend Courtney (who is a golfer here) and I decided to try sledding again, this time we used a cookie sheet, and it worked! It was fast as lightening! So after that I worked on homework and watched the grammys, because I just knew we would have school on Monday. The annoncement was made that 8,9,10, and 11 classes would be cancelled on Monday. I went to bed, got up the next morning, got ready for work/class and we to work. Except noone was in the admissions office. I thought, “maybe they are just late” so I went to the caf and got something to eat, went back to the admissions office, and still, no one was there. I thought “this is weird” So I called a friend and she informed me that classes had been cancelled all together and the whole campus was closed! I was so upset. Needless to say, I will now personally check each morning if there is a chance of classes being cancelled.

While looking at my resume recently, I discovered I lacked hands on experience in the marketing field, which isn’t good considering I will be entering the job market in May looking for a job in marketing. After realizing this, I decided to look for something where I could gain more experince in marketing this semester. I googled marketing companies and I found one in Shelby, which is about 25 minutes from Gardner-Webb. The company was called “Image Marketing, Inc” and their website really caught my eye. I wrote them an email explaining my passion for creativity and how I wanted to gain more experience in the marketing field. A few days passed and I hadn’t heard anything, basically I had givin up hope. But then, the next day, they finally email me back, telling me to set up an interview. I called and scheduled my interview which was yesterday. I was really nervous throughout the whole interview, and the interviewer was very intimidating. But, to make a long story short, I got the internship! I start next Thursday, and I couldn’t be more excited! The owner of the company use to be the marketing director for GWU before he started his own business. There was even a office cat and dog. So if anything, at least I can play with the animals!

This past Friday Night my boyfriend, Jordan, and I went to the Jason Aldean/Eric Church concert in Greenville, SC. It was so much fun! Jordan had never been to a concert, so the tickets were part of his Christmas presents. Before the concert, we went to this park in Greenville called Falls Park. It was so cute! There was a nice little river and a waterfall. The park also had this suspension bridge that overlooked the waterfall! After our visit to the park, we went and ate at this place called Liberty, it was pretty good too. After we ate we went to the concert! Greenville is a nice little town, with a beautiful downtown area. I would highly recommend taking a day trip there while you are at GWU. If it’s warm you can even have a picnic in the park! Anyways, here are some pictures from Friday!

Well, school is back in session and things are getting back into the groove of things. I have 4 classes and they should be pretty easy. One of my favorite classes will be Marketing Management. In that class, we get to create our own soft drink and market it like it’s a real project. We even get to create the taste! That will be interesting! My least favorite class will probably be a class called operations management…I’m not quite sure what the class is going to be about…besides the obvious Operations…but I decided last night that the professor slightly resembles David Letterman. Usually a few of the girls on my hall get together and we all watch it! Another favorite of mine is The Bachelor…we love our reality TV shows! I have been very sore lately…we have been going over to suttle wellness center and working out on a daily bases. They offer different classes you can take such as Total Body Workout, Cardio Blast, Abs and Butts, Kickboxing…it’s an easy way to work off that freshman 15 many of you might get when going to college!

Well I’m back at school to start my last semester of undgrad. It hasn’t really hit me at all. I’m not sad, more ready to start applying to jobs…because that won’t take forever (sacarism). I only have four classes this semester and they should be easy. I’m planning on starting to apply for jobs around the end of Feburary. I would love to work for an advertising company…but I know with this job market, a girl can’t be picky. My break was good. But the last week as been BITTERLY cold. Now I know what its like to live up in the mountains. A few more days of cold weather, I could have gone ice skating on our pond! I did read two books while I was home. The first was, “The Lovely Bones” which will be in theaters soon, and then I read a biography on one of my favorite people, Kristin Chenoweth! I love Kristin, she is so funny! Kristin is a broadway star and raising star on TV. You might have seen her in the funny TV comedy “Pushing Daisies.” I became interested in Kristin when she stared in the broadway hit “Wicked” where she played the role of Glinda the Good. I’m pretty much obsessed with Wicked as well. I know all the songs by heart. Wicked is a musical about the 2 witches from the Wizard of Oz and how they met in college. One of my favorite songs is, “What is This Feeling?” The song is about the two witches being each other’s roommates. This is also displays similar feelings one might have toward their on roommate, anyways…its very funny and I highly suggest buying the soundtrack and going to see “Wicked” in a town near you! Now thats a sales pitch you can believe in! I can’t help it…It’s my major to have a salesperson personality!

Well…Christmas is over. It doesn’t even seem like it happened. I had a good Christmas and it was nice to spend time with family. Instead of a white Christmas, I had a “wet” Christmas. We had a flash flood warning all day. We have a creek and a pond on our land and the creek got out and flooded our field. Everything was fine though…I had just never seen the weather like that on Christmas. Christmas morning my boyfriend came over to my house and we opened presents and spent time with my mom and dad. Later that day, We went to Jordan’s (my boyfriend) Grandmother’s house and spent time with his family. After that we went to his mother’s house and opened gifts there. The day after Christmas I went back to Jordan’s town to have Christmas with his dad’s side of the family. It has been a very busy couply of days. I still haven’t been able to upload some pictures, because this computer goes on snail speed, but I will asap! I hope you all had a GREAT holiday!