Pre-Night Professor Carolyn Goerner

On Friday, February 21^st, we held our annual Conference pre-night at the Bloomington Convention Center.  For the first time, we kicked off our Conference with a speaker at our pre-night.  This year we had the pleasure of hearing from one of Kelley’s own, Professor Carolyn Goerner.  Professor Goerner provided each attendee with ten powerful quotes that she touched on throughout her speech.  For example, she used the quote: “Do all you can, with what you have, in the time you have, in the place you are.  Do all you can.”  In this quote, Nkosi Johnson (paraphrasing John Wesley) is stressing the importance of being in the moment.  Professor Goerner emphasized this by sharing a story about how her parents have bags in their car for homeless people.  The bags contain water, a protein bar, and directions to nearby homeless shelters.  This exemplifies doing all you can with what you can and will make an unfathomable difference in the lives of those who receive them.  Professor Goerner’s down-to-earth, open speech encouraged our members to share some of their own insight about each quote and what it means to them.  We cannot thank her enough for starting our Conference off on such a positive note and for being honest and open with us.  We look forward to seeing you around in Kelley—and if we are lucky hopefully in class as well!

Abbey in London!

Hey WIB family! I hope everything is going great in Bloomington. I had some major FOMO this past weekend—apparently I missed out on the best conference yet. Props to the conference committee!

To update you on my life, this week is midterm week so I’m busy writing a bunch of essays and trying to catch up on readings (yes, we actually go to class here). Taking five classes and interning two days a week is a lot more tiring than I expected, but somehow I always have energy to travel or explore London on the weekends. My internship is with a fashion-tech startup called Snap Fashion, a company with visual search-engine shopping apps. It’s been exciting working for a small startup because I've gotten to contribute a lot, and I couldn’t ask for nicer, more genuine coworkers. I’ve done some user-experience testing, blogging and social media work, along with other random tasks like database tidying. Last week I did street style interviews for London Fashion Week and *blogged* about attending a designer's fashion week presentation. Super exciting!

So far, I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to Rome and Dublin—still looking forward to my Scotland and Prague trips. My favorite parts of London so far have been Brick Lane, which has amazing cheap market food and vintage shops, Lyceum Theater where I saw Lion King with my dad, and a boat tour I went on to Greenwich where we stood on the Prime Meridian (in two hemispheres at once). To read more about my personal adventures check out my study abroad **blog** where I post weekly about random topics. Miss you all!  x

Abbey

Allison Scott takes on Scotland!

Hey Wibbers! I hope you are all having a wonderful semester! I am having a blast in Scotland. It is so amazing to be immersed in a completely different culture and meet people from all over the world! So far I have only been to Ireland and different areas of Scotland but I have trips planned for Paris, Barcelona, London, Berlin, Vienna, and Prague. 

Scotland is such a beautiful country! While I live in the city, I have been lucky enough to get out to the beautiful hills and countryside a few times. There is absolutely nothing better than looking at a country side that goes on forever! My trip to Dublin was amazing! The city was beautiful and the people were so friendly! Every pub had live music, which was a real treat! Dublin definitely has a special place in my heart!

This is without a doubt that greatest thing I have done in my life and I can’t wait to see what adventures are ahead. That’s all for now! Miss you girls!

Taylor Stinson studies abroad in Hong Kong!

This past week marked my fourth week abroad and City University's Lunar New Year break. To celebrate the holiday, my family decided to meet me in Vientam for 9 days! It was an action-packed adventure as we traveled all over the country. We began in Ha Long Bay on a "junk," otherwise known as a boat typically found in Asia. We spent one night sailing through the beautiful bay. Next, we headed for Hanoi, a busy city in northern Vietnam. We wandered the city filled with french-inspired architecture before boarding our over-night train car to Sapa. This area of Vietnam features many villages of tribal people. We hiked and biked through the gorgeous hills and rice paddies, which can be seen in the picture. We then traveled back to Hanoi for additional site seeing, including a ricksha ride around the city and a traditional Vietnamese water puppet show. On the sixth day, we flew to Da Nang, a more touristy area located along the coastline. My family and I had some custom suits made (always gotta be on that WIB professionalism grind) and biked around the area learning how to make traditional Vietnamese dishes. This trip was unlike any other - we directly interacted with the people of each area, learning their respective cultures, and we saw so much of the country in such a short amount of time. I am so lucky to have been able to go on my first adventure with my family. Now it's back to school in Hong Kong, but I am sure I will be headed off on a second adventure soon with my new friends!

 

To read more about Taylor's

adventures over in Hong Kong 

go check out her blog,

taystins.wordpress.com.

Alli Eschbach's Message from Florence!

Ciao from Firenze, Italia! 

After four weeks abroad, I'm finally getting comfortable navigating Florence, planning trips, and traveling Europe. Last week I traveled to Interlaken, Switzerland and skied the Swiss Alps! This weekend, I took a train 2.5 hours south to the medieval town of Assisi and visited churches nearly 1000 years old! In the next month, I will be traveling to Prague, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, London, Dublin, Venice, Rome, and Croatia!

So far in Florence, I've seen Michelangelo's David and explored a lot of museums, played soccer against Italians, attended mass in the famous Florence Cathedral, and of course, eaten lots and lots of delicious Italian food! Taking a break from business classes this semester, I am enrolled in Art History, Beginners Italian, Oil Painting, Drawing, and an anthropology class revolved around Florence!

Katie Rubak's Adventures in London

With so many of our lovely WIB girls abroad, we would like to keep you all updated on their exciting adventures! Every Tuesday we will be highlighting a new girl in our blog and other social media outlets.  Stay tuned for more!

 

Cheers from London! I'm here taking on London with classes, participating in a internship with Astrid and Miyu (www.astridandmiyu.com), and traveling to as many places as my calendar allows. Many good friends are also spending this semester abroad, so I hope to spend time exploring with them across Europe. It's been about three weeks and I've settled in very nicely. I absolutely love this place.

This is still a bit surreal, but the more familiar I get, the more happy I become. I love this place. I’ve finished unpacking, figured out how to get the shower temp down from scalding-skin-off-hot (!!!), and already have an Oyster card with my picture on it. The city is so busy, the cars drive so fast and so close to each other, I thought I was going to die in the cab on the way to my building. Not to mention, the number one caution our advisors have for us is to be careful crossing the street. Forget pick-pocketers and muggers and dippers and draggers, the real danger is the lightning-speed traffic.

My room is really not as small as everyone warned; it is cozy, but the beds are comfy and there’s just enough space for everything I have.

The people! Strangers here are more friendly than some acquaintances I have back home. Our group of 100 students does draw attention, so its no wonder why locals ask where we’re from or strike up a conversation. Everyone wants to share the name of their favorite pub, or help give directions. I haven’t met a person with ulterior motives, the Brits are just indescribably kind.

My roommate Claire and I have made it our goal to take walking tours of different areas anytime we have a break, and thanks to her “50 Walking Tours of London” card set, we have a lot to get through. Today’s tour was the Knightsbridge area of London, and after spending lunch and the afternoon browsing through Harrod’s, we made our way through the Embassy square and Harvey Nichol’s. (The evening was not finished until we stopped for red velvet cupcakes and cappuccinos. If only every day was this glamorous)

This past weekend I had the opportunity to visit Rome with fellow Wibber Abbey Ostmeyer and a few other friends, and it was not only the most tiring weekend I've had yet, but also the most beautiful. Every alley isn't really an alley, its a cobblestone side street filled with restaurants, cafes, and boutiques. I can imagine one spending months here just walking around. We woke up at dawn (not kidding) every day in order to see everything Rome had to offer, and we even made it to the Vatican for the Sistine Chapel and the crowd for Sunday Mass. Unfortunately, my three semesters of Italian at IU failed me, as I only remembered a few phrases and random, unhelpful words (I knew what cow was the entire time, why cow?) I'm very happy to be back in London, though, and as we were getting ready to head to the airport on Sunday evening, I found myself calling London 'home.'

Again, I promise I am taking classes (which are each two and a half hours once a week, yikes), and I've begun my internship with Astrid and Miyu as well! This company is very, very cool. I've been put in charge of some of the marketing efforts such as twitter, pinterest, and contacting local bloggers who can promote us. I'm very happy to be falling into a routine; I feel more like a resident and less like a tourist (although I foolishly keep thinking I won't need my umbrella some days only to find that it will rain, again).

It's so hard to put three and a half weeks into just one blog post, as I feel like I've been here for months already. I'll continue to post as the semester goes on, and if you want to read some more about trips I've done or other places I've been, head over to rubesabroad.wordpress.com!

Cheers! xx

Rubes

Smith Family BReaK Thru Fund

For many members, being a part of Women in Business becomes much more than a professional organization to future our individual careers.  It amounts to a full support system for facing obstacles in and outside of Kelley together. This past year we came together to support Chandlar Smith, an active leader for the organization, and her family by promoting the Smith family BReaK Thru fund. Chandlar’s siblings were born with Niemann-Pick type C disease, a fatal disease with no current treatment, and the BReaK Thru fund supports research for a cure.

Our members actively participate in the Infiniti’s Coaches’ Charity Challenge to support the fund. This challenge consists of the NCAA College Basketball head coaches choosing a charity of their choice and the coaches with the most votes continue on through the competition. Matt Painter, Purdue Basketball head coach, chose the Smith Family BReaK Thru fund and is currently still in the race for grand prize of $100,000 for research.  We put our dedicated Hoosier pride aside and supporting Chandlar’s family took precedent over any rivalry.

We aim to continue spreading support and awareness for this fund outside of our active members. By clicking this link to vote for Matt Painter: Support the Smith Family BReaK Thru Fund, we are one step closer to changing lives!