#walkinthese

I first saw the #iamcreative competition on Instagram during summer. I was browsing instagram one random day and I saw Brit+Co post an advertisement calling all females with creative projects to apply for grants, so put it on my list of things to do. 

This past summer, I was really busy. I worked 2 part time jobs, and I was working on making a new website for Walkinthese and my personal portfolio, so I was always overwhelmed. I only watched TV for the first week when I got my wisdom teeth pulled out. But that’s besides the point. The point is, I pushed the #iamcreative competition to the back of my to do list, and soon forgot about it. I was only reminded when I received a reminder that I had set for myself 2 days before the application was due. 

Naturally, I continued to procrastinate, so on the day that the application was due, July 31, I left it to the last minute. Well, actually, I had work that day, so I didn’t get home til 10PM. That left me only 2 hours to work on my application, but I decided to take a shower first. 

Anyway, the application went by pretty quickly. I already had some ideas flowing, so I just put them down in words. I was about to ask some friends to proof read it for me, but I didn’t really want to revise my ideas at the time (yea sort of dumb but oh well) and I just wanted to turn it in already, so I did. I submitted my app and forgot about it.

Then, 2 weeks before school started, I received a congratulatory email. WTF!?!?! I was having a pretty shitty day and was in the middle of complaining about work to my mom when I checked my email and found this: 

 I didn’t think, I didn’t do anything. All I did was start laughing. I think I just laugh out loud a lot when I’m really happy or shocked. This has happened before. On my 10th birthday, my mom gave me a present, and when I opened it up to find a 6 pack of Toblerone chocolate, I just started laughing hysterically. I could not stop. It was so strange. Anyway, back on track. So I just started laughing at my laptop and that made my day all better.

I immediately started thinking about how the interview would go. What kind of questions I should be preparing for. Then I was like wait wtf no I need to make a pitch deck. I can’t believe I didn’t think of that earlier. A pitch deck is the way to go. So I started to make one.

I was supposed to have my webcam interview on Friday 8/21, the day before I went back to school. With packing, finishing up work, and preparing for this interview, I was freaking the fuck out, so when I learned that my interview got postponed, I was pretty pissed. I forced my schedule to work and put so much stress on myself to make it all fit, and it got moved. I was also pissed because I wanted to do the interview in my room. My room is where I am very comfortable and where I execute most of my creative projects, so it really gets me in the zone. I also have a lot of my projects hanging on my walls, so I wanted to have that as a background. 

But one of the staff members was sick, so my interview was moved to the second day of classes. I was pretty mad about having my interview during the second day of classes because I wanted time for myself to settle in get a routine going. But more importantly, my apartment has gross ass orange walls. I thought I’d rather die than have that in the background of my video interview. That was a thousand times the opposite of having the background in my room. But I did what I had to do and had my interview. Here I am freaking out before my interview.

The interview went pretty smoothly, I think. They said that I answered most of their questions, so I felt pretty confident. They also said they’d let me know if I made top 5 by the end of the week. Because I was the last one to interview, I guessed that they had already made a decision about me. There’s no way they could have seriously considered me in only a couple days unless they knew I was either in or out. 

Well I guess I was in, because a couple days later, not even the end of the week yet, I was about to go to bed when I checked my email and found this gem:

At this point, I was feeling pretty damn good about myself. They said they would give 3-5 grants, but I didn’t even care about winning that much anymore. I was just ecstatic about being a top 5 finalist out of almost 400 applicants. But I didn’t tell that many people because I didn’t wanna jinx myself. Just in case.

So for the next couple of weeks, I started filling my planner and sketchbook with details I needed. Sketches of my booth design, cash flow systems, marketing materials. 

I bought overpriced rubber online so that I could laser engrave it in the garage and make some customized stamps. Oscar helped me so much with those. It took about a week of trial and error with really bad odor, but we finally did it! And the stamps turned out awesome!

As you can see, I’m very happy with how they turned out :)

Oscar even helped me laser cut black foam core for me to hang on the back of my booth as signage. Thank god for that otherwise I would be hand-painting mat board and hanging that instead. Packaging it was a bitch though. I was scared of it being sent as luggage and getting smashed to pieces, so I made a cardboard box and fit pieces inside with lots of layers of cardboard protection. During that process I accidentally bent the “h” though :(

The day that I flew home was also so stressful. I had a quiz in the morning, an interview for a promo video, and a field trip in my last class. The class was supposed to end at 4:00PM and my shuttle left t 4:20PM, so I was freaking out about being late and almost didn’t go on the field trip at all. But my teacher assured me that we would get back on time. Surprisingly, we did! We got back at exactly 4:00PM. So I biked as fast as I could back to the apartment. I was gonna get my package when I realized, fuck. I left my wallet on the bus. Fuckkkkk. I called my teacher and immediately started biking back. Thank god the bus driver was really nice and came back with my wallet. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who left their wallet on the bus lol. But ugh I don’t think I have ever biked that fast before. 

So I made it to the airport on time. Early actually, because I’m always early. And because the flight got delayed. While I was waiting I walked around so many times to get wifi to post this picture on Facebook, it was insane. I probably should’ve posted on Instagram as well for more marketing but oh well. While I was waiting, so weird shit happened. The announcer was like  “Attention all, we are looking for Ricardo Rodriguez. Ricardo Rodriguez ... and... Spongebob Squarepants.” WTF HAHAH Then “Southwest would like to wish one of our employees, Keiko, a happy birthday... Keiko its yo birthdayy its yo birthday we love you.” Different people started wishing/singing Keiko happy birthday on the speaker and it was the funniest shit ever.

When I finally got on the plane, I started working again...

It was so tiring. I got home, and started unpacking & gathering supplies. The next day, I had to be in SF for the video shoot. That was interesting. My mom had to drop me off 2 hours before my appointment or else I wouldn’t have a ride, so I got to my appointment at 9:30ish even though my appointment was at 11:30AM. And the person in front of me took way longer than expected, so I didn’t go until 1PM. But I did get my hair and makeup done while I was waiting. What was even better than waiting for so long was that I left my phone at home!1! Fantastic. I couldn’t call my mom to tell her when to pick me up at the Caltrain Station of play on my phone to kill time. Finally, I borrowed the video producer’s iPad. All I did was take some selfies, go on Facebook, and email my mom.

They airbrushed my face. That felt really weird. Especially when it got on my hair and she had to wipe it off... LOL also I didn’t have time to iron my shirt the night before, so I felt so judged when she asked me if she could iron my shirt LOL oops

So the video shoot only took an hour, and I went to Boba Guys after. Before getting on the bus to go to the Caltrain. It was good, but not like OMG WHAT IS THIS I LOVE. Got on the right bus to get to the Caltrain and that was that. On the Caltrain, someone was like “Omg you went to USC?” to an old guy wearing a USC shirt, and they made some small talk. That got my attention. Then the guy was like “Wait what stop is San Mateo?” and the old guy was like “uhhh this one”, so the other guy ran off. It was pretty funny. 

Got home, and went to a bunch of stores to get all the supplies I needed. Target, Office Max, Michaels, Hancock Fabrics etc. That night I got 2 hours of sleep.

The next day was the conference. I got up at 5AM to get on the Caltrain and rode all the way to SF. When I got off, I could not figure out which bus to go on. I went on the one I wrote down last night, but it was WRONG!!! Because it was the night bus that ran from 1AM-4AM because I checked before I went to bed, which was at 3AM. Ugh. So I had to call home and figure this shit out. Then, when I got on the bus, I almost got off at the wrong stop twice. Good thing there were too many people on the bus that I gave up. And when I did get off, I got off a stop late and had to ask a lady for directions. She was really nice and walked me to the right place. It was really confusing though because I had to walk across a field of grass, and I was like wtf this is not the Fort Mason Pavilion....

But I finally made it and it was awesome! There were so many booths with free food, coffee, drinks, candy, I was pretty happy. And they had goodie bags with lots of crafty stuff in there <3 At the actual conference room, each person got a sketchbook with a watercolor cover that you could decorate during the conference. I loved that so much.

They were also giving away prizes for people who posted pictures on social media, so I gave it a shot. The prizes were really good too! The biggest prize was a 1 year supply of Hallmark cards, Brit Kits, and like $1K to spend at Michaels or something. It was an awesome prize, and I wanted it.

That didn’t work out. I didn’t get shit. But I never win social media competitions, so it’s ok. LOL The actual conference was really cool too! I thought they were gonna announce winners at the end, but it was the first thing they did! They called us up to the stage from our special table at the front, and all 5 of us were winners, so we all got money :) 

There were 5 winners, but the last one was a teacher, and she was teaching at the time, so she couldn’t come :( The other girls were really nice though! From left to right:

1. Ristina (Georgia or Ohio I can’t remember) - Sugar Hippo Bakery, a bakery that supports local women and children in poverty

2. Kristen (North Carolina) - Havok Designs, laser cut jewelry and accessories (some leather I think)

3. Me - ya

4. Ashton (Nebraska, she’s 13 omg!) - Hello + Co, handmade furniture, apartment decor, and stationary

Everyone was so awesome. Props to Ashton for going through the entire day with crutches... Everyone was really nice and friendly, not hard core competitive at all, so I was happy for that. 

Hard core fan-girled internally when I saw Jessica Hische...and played pictionary with her. I wish they let us draw though. All I did was guess.

She advertised her new book coming out and that was cool! So many cool speakers for the rest of the day: Blogilates, Founder of Ban.do, etc

Here are some crappy pictures of them. The rest of the day went by pretty quickly, with ice cream samples, unlimited chocolate from Hershey’s, fresh juice, etc At the end of the day, I was exhausted, but STILL NOT DONE!!! I took some pictures, said my goodbyes, and left with my Dad to get dinner.

We went to Off the Grid, and I got a little impatient because I was cold and tired, and my Dad picked a food truck with a long line. But my food was pretty good. Good thing I got a picture because it got dark right after I took this.

After we ate, we waited around, and finally got to unload my stuff and start putting together my booth. It didn’t take us long to realize that there wasn’t much I could do though. Most of the stuff had to be done the next day. So we went back home, and I continued to make booth decorations with the help of my entire family.

Except Oscar, as you can see. He was way too busy with homework. Anyway, I got up at 5AM again the next day and my mom took Trina and me to the festival. We put together the booth, hung signage, and basically walked around to check everything out.

The morning was a little slow, but finally, people started trickling in and crowding around my booth. It felt so good having people look at my work and appreciate it :) Basically all my mom did all day was shop, make crafts, and take pics of people at my booth from far away like a stalker lol

Brit came by and said she would buy a pair too! She said she was gonna think about what she wanted and come back, but she never did. I don’t blame her though. She was probably really busy and tired too.

The day went by pretty quickly. I didn’t eat lunch. Just lots of candy throughout the day. I also got a 5lb thing of Twizzlers because Hershey’s was giving them out to people who posted on social media using their hashtag lol

A couple interesting booth situations:

1. Some girl was like hey I paint shoes too! Looks like you did the Gatsby eyes wrong. They’re supposed to be different shapes. And I was like yea. I know. They’re 2 different people inside the pupils and that’s what I did. She’s like but if you look at the cover, it’s different. I was like... yea I know I copied the eyes off the cover. Then she left LOL

2. I RAN OUT OF BUSINESS CARDS! It was so sad. My mom got mad at me the night before when I wanted to make more business cards instead of sleeping, so I didn’t. And now I ran out. Ugh. Not listening to her about sleep next time. Some things are worth sacrificing for.

3. A girl who worked at Dropbox came by and asked about bulk orders! She was thinking about doing a bulk order for Dropbox employees, to get shoes for the company. I basically said I don’t do bulk orders because they’re hand painted, but I’ll try depending on how many pairs.

4. A guy wanted to buy the Great Gatsby pair off the table, but it was my last pair, so I had to say no. And it wasn’t the correct size anyway... soo.. sucks.

That night, we went home, ate ramen, and I passed the fuck out. I was so tired. But only after I cleaned up my room. After all, I was going back to school the next afternoon :(

The next morning, I went shopping by myself to get some last minute things, packed up, ate lunch, and left to go back to school.