California Avocado Festival

This weekend I attended the California Avocado Festival 2010 and I really enjoyed it. The festival was located in Carpinteria, which is about 20 minutes driving from SBCC, heading South. The festival celebrates their main crop, the avocado. I attended the festival with Grayson, the Vice President of Phi Theta Kappa. She is a local, and had some good advice while at the fair. For example, she said I should try the avocado ice cream, which I did, but decided it wasn't for me. However, I did really enjoy our nachos with delicious guacamole. I did some gift shopping for my boyfriend, and found some cute clothes for myself from a designer I'd actually met before at his booth in San Diego, Two Tree Designs. Then I visited Grayson's home, the Cate School (which totally is as pretty as the pictures on its homepage). She discussed getting me in touch with some people at the Alumni Development Office for a job. Sweet :)

Things to Check out In Santa Barbara

Lately, I've been enjoying the town and getting a chance to explore. I wanted to point out two great places I checked out last week in my free time that are very conveniently close to the campus.

The Shoreline Beach Cafe I noticed the Cafe when I was shooting the beach on Friday, and decided I had to check it out later. I returned that day for lunch, and got a shrimp taco. It was less than $4, and delicious. The restaurant is located right next to the beach, and is also right next to campus. Definitely a good place to relax.

Mirabella Salon is the closest place to the college to get a haircut. I found them our facebook page  when a student asked about where to get a haircut, and our Student Senate President, Atty Garfinkel, responded with Mirabella. I had my haircut this Thursday, and am really pleased with how it came out. The haircut cost $35 (new client deal), and was very relaxing.  I was served chamomile tea, and my hair was styled really cutely.

Weekend in Santa Barbara: The Zoo

This weekend I had some time to visit with my friends from San Diego. They came up Thursday night and left Saturday evening. On Friday we went out to State St. Saturday we returned to State St. and ate at Kosmos's Burgers which was delicious. If you go there, I would recommend pizza or a panini over a burger based on our food. My friend Gwynn's panini was really delicious. After that we went to the Santa Barbara Zoo which was super fun. We spent a couple hours there looking at all of the animals. You can find some photos here. Here's an image of our favorite animal at the zoo: the macaws. They were extremely feisty, loud and interactive.

My weekend

Hello! I just had a fabulous 3 day weekend, and I have returned to school feeling very well rested. I got my internet set up, and living with a house of all guys, who usually seem to think they know how to do these things by the nature of being a guy, I'm pretty proud of that. I also went on a birthday date to the Firestone Brewery Tap Room, as well as Solvang to go wine tasting. My boyfriend, Kyle, and I have never gone anything tasting. At the Firestone Brewery, we sampled a Solace ($6), which is their summer beer, and a beer sampler ($6.50), which came with 4 little tasting glasses. Our favorite beer was the Solace, because the darker beers are just not our thing. I was stoked that I got to keep a complimentary glass. The margherita pizza ($11) there was delicious, but only just enough to satisfy our appetites. Then we headed over to Solvang, which was very different than anything I've seen in Santa Barbara. Apparently, it's where the movie Sideways was filmed. We went to Sort This Out Cellars which totally appealed to us because it was more contempory and had a younger crowd. It was $10 a person for a wine sampler which included tasting portions of 6 wines. Kyle preferred the Muscat which is a desert wine, while I liked the Chardonnay. It was fun, and because wine is generally expensive I don't usually get to try different ones, so I would recommend it as a fun and unique experience.

My new home

We moved in close to campus, and found some roommates online. We (mostly me) were a little worried about making new friends, if the neighborhood would be nice etc etc, and have found that it is pretty fantastic. Everyone in our apartment complex is incredibly friendly, and I mean incredibly. Because he moved up beforehand, as I was unloading my first box I heard our neighbor from his patio shouting “You’re Kyle’s girlfriend right?”. I have to admit that was really cool, because in San Diego (my hometown) I frequently never met my neighbors.

Another thing I love about the apartment is how close it is to campus. I am about 5 minutes walking from home to work, which is the most convenient commute I have ever had in my life. The campus is gorgeous (believe me, you will be seeing pictures), and perfect for jogging through and down to the beach, or playing Frisbee. There are tons of great places for sitting and going online (they have wifi access pretty much everywhere), chatting or eating some lunch at.

SBCC, right near my home

Hello

Welcome to my blog! My name is Kate, and I am the marketing intern at Santa Barbara City College. I came to SBCC to learn more about marketing, and before school began interviewed at the Marketing Department. I was so excited to be hired for the marketing position, and pretty much counting down the days until my job began. This weekend, many of my new roommates were remarking on how they still wanted more summer, but I almost couldn’t sleep because I was so excited about my new job. Yesterday morning I arrived on campus with an easy five-minute walk to school, and found Alex who began to introduce me to my responsibilities and get me acquainted with everything. We met up with Karen, and she expressed her excitement as well. I have never had a job where people care more about my success, or are more willing to hear my input. I will never forget what they said during the interview: “We want you to succeed.” That was so shocking I could not stop talking about it. The energy behind that statement has definitely been felt. I have gotten to meet a lot of important people around campus already, and can tell that the marketing department is both hard working and dynamic, and well respected around the university. Some of the projects I am working on entail online networking, such as Facebook and Twitter, working to market on campus events, and learning design skills. One thing I am especially looking forward to is taking photos, and I plan to keep this site full of them. I also want to work on interviewing students on campus and interacting with them. With so many exciting projects, I am sure I will have lots to talk about.