Last Friday, I went to CounterPoint Music and Arts Festival celebrate my graduation. This was only the second music festival I've been to, but I've become a huge fan of electronic dance music, and festival season is a major part of the EDM culture. Last September, we went to TomorrowWorld (yup, my first fest was one of the most renowned and epic festivals in the world!). I wrote an article about it for The Sentinel, check it out! The festival experience is something completely indescribable, and I had really been itching to let loose, bob heads and go crazy with a bunch of wonderful free-spirited strangers. 

This was CounterPoint's third year and, from what I've heard, it's most successful lineup (hard to imagine with Bassnectar performing the first year). But, it seems that this year had more of a variety of artists and DJs. It's a three-day festival, so most people took advantage of the camping. Vinnie is a huge fan of Zomboy, an artist that he introduced me to, and he was on the schedule for Friday night along with MK Ultra, Excision and Knife Party.  We decided to get single day passes for Friday for a few reasons; we had an awesome wedding to go to on Saturday, and Sunday's lineup didn't wow us like Friday's did. I was so happy that CounterPoint offered single day tickets, and it was the perfect getaway. We were also lucky that the festival was only about an hour away. Some people travel for hours, or even fly into Atlanta to come to CounterPoint. Just like TomorrowWorld, this one was in our own backyard. I'm also super happy that I'm now halfway done with one of my 101 in 1001 goals; go to two new music festivals. I should have been more ambitious with this one, because I'm already eyeing another festival for this summer! Especially after getting a taste from CounterPoint. Here's the rundown from Friday Night.

After a pretty long wait to get through all of the security gates and will call, we were sure that we were late and had missed Zomboy's set. We didn't let the disappointment get to us, though. To get in, we had to walk through the campgrounds and caught a beautiful sunset that sparkled off of the fog that had set in. 

Once we arrived near the stage, we heard the best news of the day. Zomboy's set had been postponed, and we didn't miss it after all! We were able to catch the tail end of MK Ultra's set. She's a ruthless and energetic DJ who has some serious skills. Seeing her live definitely made a fan out of me. She rocked the stage and got the crowd ready for Zomboy. We were able to meet up with a group of friends, and it was fun to really celebrate the beginning of summer in an epic way. 

Earlier this month, I went to Atlanta Fish Market in Buckhead for a friend’s birthday dinner. I hadn’t been there since my high school graduation dinner, but I knew the food was going to be extra fresh and really awesome! This place is also known for the giant fish statue outside of the building. My friend Colleen picked me up and we headed down to meet the other girls at the restaurant. 

There's something I just love about being in the city on an early summer evening. I secretly think I’m a city girl at heart, especially after my trip to New York. If you didn’t already know this, seafood is my absolute favorite type of food. It goes with every type of cuisine; Italian, Mexican, Asian, and of course American. I was born in New England, so I grew up eating clam fritters and lobster every summer. Atlanta Fish Market is one of the best places to go to get a local fix of some really great seafood. 

I started off with a dark and stormy to drink. This is starting to become one of my go-to cocktails when I go out. I had a really great one at Figo in Smyrna last month and have been on a kick ever since. I immediately knew I was going to order the crab bisque. It’s one of my favorite soups! And man, did it hit the spot. There was so much crab mixed in, it was seriously so good. I’m actually debating on jumping in the car to go get some right this minute. 

My eyes are always bigger than my stomach, and the sushi menu sounded too good to pass up, so I ordered a rainbow roll. I’m starting to become a huge fan of sushi, and this roll was one of the best I’ve ever had. A rainbow roll is just a California roll, but topped with raw salmon, tuna and yellowtail. I got mine covered in eel sauce and spicy mayo. I love sauces with sushi, and it makes it look so pretty. I had a lot of fun snapping pictures of this roll, it was absolutely gorgeous!

Overall, I think it had been way too long since I had made a trip to this place. I’ll definitely be heading there to get my sushi fix more often! Especially if I end up getting a job in Buckhead. I’ve been trying a lot of new restaurants lately, so stay tuned for my next Foodie Exploit!

This might not be the best thing to admit, but lately I’ve been doing more blog reading than writing. Sorry for my lack of updates, I’m working on being better about scheduling them ahead of time! There are countless amazing blogs out there, so its easy to see how I can fall down the rabbit hole of beautiful blogs pretty quickly. 

One of those blogs is The Nectar Collective. This site immediately sucked me into it (for no less than 2 full hours, I might add). The author, Melyssa, has a wonderful tone that makes you feel instantly connected to her life. She lives in LA with her adorable corgi pup (double jealous!) and runs her own blog and business consulting company. A lot of her blog’s content is centric around lifestyle and blogging advice, which are two things I can really appreciate. I'm still working on settling into adulthood, (on top of figuring out how to be a blogger), and her website has helped me in so many wonderful ways. Below is a list of a few of my favorite articles from The Nectar Collective.

It's pretty easy to spend a lot of time on The Nectar Collective. It definitely has made it onto my list of blogs to check regularly. Be sure to check back for my next post on what blogs you should read!

Last Thursday was a whirlwind. The whole day absolutely flew by and I was overwhelmed with how many people went out of their way to congratulate me. I don’t have a whole lot to add on about what it feels like to be graduating after my first post, but this one will just be a recap of the day.

I was lucky that my ceremony was in the afternoon, because right off the bat I was running late (not out of the ordinary for me..). I started off by going to Blush Nail Bar in Woodstock, GA with my mom where I treated her to a pedicure for my parents' anniversary. My friend Colleen and I went here for manicures before the wedding in Destin, and I absolutely loved this place. The owners are so friendly and helpful, you can tell that they really love what they do. And the decorative touches make the salon so unique and modern. 

My dad picked up a quick lunch that I had time to eat in the car on the way to campus (Chick-Fil-A for the win!). All of the graduates checked in and met in the Student Center. I was surprised at how many people I knew in my graduating class. It was nice to catch up and share the excitement of the day with them. 

The ceremony itself I don’t even remember much of because it happened so fast. I went to my friend Lindsey’s commencement last summer and the president, Dr. Papp, used the same speech that I’m sure he’s used at every commencement for the past few years. He asked us to stand if we had been involved in an internship, worked throughout college or had a significant other, so that the audience could better get to know the graduating class. It was a good way to break the ice and also appreciate how busy people can be while still graduating from college.

We had a great keynote speaker, Ralph Rascati. His main point was that college is all about the A’s, but life is all about the B’s. He advised us to be productive, be kind, be creative and be optimistic. His speech resonated with me and I hope I’ll be able to remember it far into my life. Then they started calling out names of my classmates. It felt special to be able to celebrate that day with so many others whom I have worked on group projects, studied for tests, or shared student media’s offices with. Before I knew it, it was my time to walk across the stage. All I could really focus on was keeping my cap from sliding off any further.

After the ceremony, I met up with my parents and Vinnie for photos (gallery below!). True to my word, Vinnie let me blast “School’s Out” by Alice Cooper as we left campus to go to dinner. Since it was a Thursday (meaning it was Pint Night!), and we had two celebrations that night, it only made sense for us to go to our favorite place, T.MAC. We met up with Vinnie’s parents and had a really fun time! I was happy we were finally able to get our parents together, I just wish we had gotten a picture! That day was also my parents 32nd anniversary, and I was really happy to be able to spend the whole day with them. 

It really was a great day. Below are a few more posts from Thursday that really sum up how lucky I am to not only graduate from college, but also have so many people who helped me get there. I can't wait to figure out what happens next!

Now that graduation day is over, I finally have time to post about my semester-long project in my Social Media for Strategic Communication class (#PR4415). This was the perfect capstone course, and it really inspired me to seek out a job working in social media and analytics. The assignment was to choose a client and complete a full audit of its social media presence and then give suggestions on how to boost engagement.

I’ve had plenty of projects where I’ve chosen a client before (SweetWater, Food Network, and Taco Bell to name a few). This time I went with a restaurant my family and I have been going to for almost a decade, Taco Mac. Within the last year or two, the company underwent a rebrand and that led to the adoption of the name T.MAC (which is what we always called it anyway). I’ve been following T.MAC's social media for about as long as I’ve had my accounts, and I’ve noticed that while new locations are opening and the company is expanding, its social media presence is sort of stagnant. As a true appreciator of the brand, this disappointed me, so I chose them as a client for my project and began to create tactics and suggestions backed up with research. 

As included in the infographic and report below, I have several suggestions that would help increase T.MAC's social engagement, while offering long-term and sustained brand interest. As a passionate member of one of the company's target markets, I have insight as to what this group really wants when it comes to social media. Not all of my research or ideas were published in this blog post, or in my final report.  If this information is of interest to you, please contact me, as I would love to discuss my ideas further.  

This was one of the most fun projects to work on, and I definitely believe my 'client' would see improvements in its social media reach and engagement if my tactics were implemented. I care about this brand, and I believe this level of commitment should shine through in T.MAC's social media presence. Between T.MAC's local appeal and established Brewniversity program, there is huge potential to build an online brand community. I hope that T.MAC will take advantage of the opportunity to take its content to the next level.