"Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana." - Groucho Marx
Dear friends and family,
Apart from regular one-line Twitter updates it's been a while since I/we have updated the blog. We are humbled by your visits to our blog where you can get glimpses into our life here in Florida. Hence I sincerely apologize for our long silence since January.
During our 2-week Xmas holiday with friends up in the Smokey Mountains, I often tried to "see" the year ahead, to plan, to mentally prepare for '09. There had been signs of things to come, but it has been more than I expected. It's been a testing year for both Sarah and I.
Sarah's studies is going very well. She is doing a Masters in International Studies and Conflict Resolution at Nova Southeastern University here in South-Florida. In fact, it is going extremely well. But is has kept her very busy and we see little of each other during weeknights due to her class schedule and the taxing amount of work. She just came back from a 2 month internship in Cusco, in the Andean mountains in Peru - more about that later.
I think her motivation is high, since she is determined to leave her current profession as a Elementary School teacher ASAP. We both agreed that this (Aug '09 - June '10) should be her last year of teaching.
In December '08 I partnered with an amazing lady, Julien Sharp - a 15 yr veteran in the field - and we formed Stylo Creative Communications. Stylo is a marketing & communications company with a strong focus on New Media, social media marketing, content, and communication technology. She has an established office in New York, with me tasked with building a solid client base here in Miami.
I've been building and networking for 8 months and we are only now starting to see the fruits of our labor. Our client list, although not where we want it, is getting there, our strategic alliances and partnerships have given us strength, and we have exponentially increased our service offerings and ability. Soon we will be launching our new website. It is very exciting.
I am still the Alumni & Development Officer at CAU, the small Puerto Rican-based University. Balancing two jobs is tough, and I'm still learning time management skills, among many other essentials. The job is extremely frustrating, since the management is argaic, and very happy with keeping the status quo of an institution that is on par with similar institutions in Puerto Rico, but already lagging very far behind other Florida institutions competing for the same student pools. Studying my MBA, I had a foretaste of good management and this is a fantastic example of how NOT to run a business - a great case study.
I feel that I have been professionally stagnating since '08. There are other opportunities out there, but since Sarah is studying here and I am building Stylo, I have hold out in pursuing them. I truly hope that in hindsight I will not have been wrong in this decision.
I had the privilege of attending the Annual National Conference of Higher Education Development, Alumni, and Marketing Professionals, held at Kansas State University. Attended by University reps from accross the country, I had a foretste of how thngs should be doen. As well as meeting some fantastic people, as an American for the first time! (I was the only attendee with an accent, and had to say I'm from South Africa about every 5 minutes.)
I visited Sarah in Peru and we had a wonderful week visiting the Inca's Sacred Valley, Macchu Pichu and some other treasures of the land. Then I spend a terrible 2 weeks in Lima withut a passport, but I will bore you with the details at another stage.
You can view Sarah's Peru blog and the many great pictures at:
http://web.me.com/texangal21
