I will intern in the Social Action department, working with Kristen Irving, the Director of Campaign Development, to develop a social action campaign aligned with a soon-to-be announced major motion picture.
I've long been a fan of Participant's films, but its since starting the dMBA program, that I've begun to study their practice of creating social action campaigns in depth. In fact, it was in a Marketing class in our very 1st term that I began to research their business model. Since that time I've continued to follow them closely with the hopes of landing an internship there. So I'm happy to say, my hard work and persistence has paid off :)
As excited as I am about this opportunity, its taken me a couple of weeks to blog about it... "life has gotten in the way", as Professor Nair from HR likes to say. Almost immediately after accepting their offer, my Grandmother was admitted to ICU with pneumonia... and just a few days after that, she passed away. My Grandmother has been a very influential person in my life - so much so, that I've been filming her and working on a documentary, Grandmother Storyteller, about her for the past several years.
Losing her has been devastating. In the days between her passing and the funeral, all I could do was eat Lucky Charms and listen to the '60's gospel-meets-psychedelic-rock hit, "Spirit in the Sky." And oh yeah, see to the "minor details" of grad school (you caught the sarcasm, right?).
The timing of these 2 big events, coupled with the fact that hard work must still be completed, reminded me of something I noticed recently in my 100,000,000th viewing of the classic, "Rocky". You know the famous workout scene which culminates with Rocky triumphantly ascending the steps of the Philly Museum of Art? Its an iconic feel-good scene where Rocky is experiencing the pay-off of all his hard work. But here's the kicker - immediately after that, we cut to Rocky the night before the big fight - he's restless and agitated. He wanders the city and ends up in the Spectrum where he runs into the fight promoter whose comments completely shatter Rocky's fragile confidence. He goes home and tells Adrian he can't go through with the fight. After speaking with Adrian though, he realizes he must go on and his goal becomes to simply "go the distance" with the Champ.
What floors me about this is how quickly Rocky goes from his ultimate high, on the Art Museum steps, to his ultimate low. My own high and low hadn't yet happened, so at the time I was simply struck by the well-crafted writing and how it beautifully juxtaposes such tender human experiences at such extreme ends of the spectrum.
I'm getting back in the saddle now with school. It was hectic for a while - being at Grannie Annie's bedside in her last few days - giving and receiving support with my family - planning the funeral - somehow managing to pull myself together to give her eulogy. During all that, I didn't miss a deadline with school.
Sure, I thought about asking for a little wiggle room from my professors, but I didn't. Each round of classes is only 7 weeks so there is little room for wiggling - it just seemed easier to suck it up and do my homework in her hospital room while she slept rather than to put it off. Besides, I'd look up to occasionally catch her proudly watching me study - and she wouldn't have put up with me not, "going the distance". She was as tough as they come.
I'm off the Lucky Charms now and I'm back to focusing on this exciting opportunity with Participant. After all, it was Grannie Annie and her gift of storytelling who taught me about the powerful impact of a well-told story. With that I leave you with a quote about my Grandmother - one that succinctly explains her grand style of telling a story:
Its a Texas thing.
If you can't improve on a story, why tell it?
