Twice in two years (again!)

Hi all,
it’s been a few months, but I’m excited to share that I’ll be getting back to Israel much sooner than I thought — this June, actually! A Portland Birthright trip is in need of a chaperon/leader, and I seem to be the lucky candidate. Though I can’t extend and visit Egypt (maybe not such a great idea now anyway) and Turkey, it will be wonderful to return and relive the crazy, chaotic, exhausting experience that is Birthright–this time, from an entirely new perspective. My brother will be coming along as well, which will add to the fun (I hope!).

Oregon Love

Lately, my brightly colored university has been getting lots of national attention. It seems our quirkiness is starting to catch the nation’s eye: Ducks are going to the BCS bowl with crazy neon uniforms.

Our beloved men’s acapella group, On the Rocks, made judges swoon on The Sing Off (see below).  And as a sort of combination of the two, a trio of rappers called SupWitchUGirl rap about the last few successful football seasons.

Quite a year for the green and yellow!

Delta Delta Delta, can we help ya?

In the grand scheme of things, my trip to Italy and back was pretty flawless.

With one small exception.

My hair straightener mysteriously disappeared from my luggage when I returned home. Disregard the fact that I never once used the hair straightener — I had brought it in case my advertising conference mandated that I make my hair presentable. It was too hot and humid to do anything but stick it all up in a ponytail.

Anyway …

This hair straightener is actually quite expensive, so I decided to file a claim — a process that I wasn’t looking forward to.  I imagined all the paperwork and receipts and descriptions I was going to have to write in order to simply get reimbursed.

To make the long story short, I received a letter confirming my claim submission, and have been waiting to hear anything further for about 8 weeks.

I’m a somewhat impatient person when it comes to processes/paperwork/waiting for my own money, but I felt like this was an abnormally long time to wait.

It didn’t help that calling the Delta Baggage Service did nothing — three times, I was able to get ahold of live people, but they could only assure me that yes, my claim was in their system, but they had no idea of its status or estimated time until completion.

That was the most frustrating part — there was no supervisor, no secret or direct number, no live chat online — nothing to do and no one to contact. My only choice was to wait, or to give up.

Or complain online.

Within seconds of my Twitter rant, I received a message from @DeltaAssist, asking me to send over my file number & information.  I immediately did, and received prompt and helpful responses, followed by an email confirmation alerting me that my reimbursement will be mailed to me in about 10 days.

This is incredibly satisfying and easy.  Why doesn’t Delta respond so quickly with all their claims? I feel like airlines get an especially bad reputation for losing baggage and slow responses — probably because thousands of people use their services everyday — mistakes are bound to happen.

With more and more interactions moving onto the internet these days (I had an online chat about my account with someone from Bank of America, rather than calling in and getting put on hold), I think it’s great that Delta is dealing with some of their disgruntled customers (including me) online.  Think about it — Someone who’s online, managing Twitter accounts or chatting with customers on instant messager can probably chat with 3 or 4 people at once.

Who knows if my claim would have been processed next week, or if I would still be waiting for years to come (I’m hoping the check shows up in the next few weeks). It’s unfortunate that people who don’t use the internet/social media don’t have access to these “shortcuts”, so maybe that’s our reward for jumping on social media bandwagons. Even with rumors that Twitter will dissolve soon and my decreasing activity on the site, I’m excited that larger companies are becoming more accessible through multiple online communication channels.

Things I’m preoccupied with right now…

This band

And this game.

Oh hey blog… Uh, sorry about that absence.

I’ve been to Italy and back and forgot to update. I guess I just wasn’t sure where to start.

In all, the trip was a very positive experience and has made me more apt to participate in professional-type conferences, and perhaps continue researching my topic.  It’s amazing how quickly things come back to you, like “Dove e la stazione centrale?” Even knowing how to pronounce words was helpful–like the fact that a “c” is actually a “ch” sound (chentrale).

I met and spent time with some super smart people in the advertising world–many of whom are professors. Andrea Scott teaches advertising at Pepperdine (congrats again on tenure). She presented a wonderful allegorical storytelling piece about the ad industry.

Charlie Robertson, founder of planning agency Red Spider, is another person whom I had the pleasure to meet. He and Professor Kim Sheehan gave a really fascinating and entertaining presentation about Nation Branding.

Between the panels, frequent eating breaks, red wine, shopping, walking and Happy Hour (Milan’s happy hour tops anything else– you buy one drink and gain access to a buffet!), I packed a lot into those 4 days in Milan.

Next, I packed my rolling suitcase for the small town of Pavia, where my friend and fellow Honors College-r Chris Bradley has been living, teaching and studying. He showed me around town, took me to happy hour, and then on our way home, we stopped by the town duomo for an Italian English Gospel concert. And gelato.

Just real quick: Chris lives in what very closely resembles Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Check out his dining hall, complete with long banquet tables and a Gothic look.

After that, I headed out to find George Clooney in the more comfortable and less mosquito-y Lake Como area.  This area suits me much more than the muggy, land-locked Milan. I didn’t even mind the overcast, and was content with hiking, reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and eating kebabs, pizza and gelato. By the way, I don’t recommend fig-flavored gelato.

The way home was rather uneventful, and I was please to be sitting next to a neurologist on the way home because we could talk about my favorite podcast, Radio Lab, and his friend (!!!!) Oliver Sacks. He also calmed me down during some turbulence by distracting me with questions.

In other news, excited to move in with this guy tomorrow… Happy 3-day weekend, everyone!

Twice in two years

I feel extremely fortunate and excited to be returning to Italy next week. This country was my first place of exploration outside the US (not counting Cancun, Mexico. And I don’t count Cancun very purposefully).  In a way, my first trip in 2008 was the catalyst for this second trip, where I’ll do a quick ten-day tour of Milan and the area near the Swiss-Italian border, Lake Como.

I was curious about the ads I saw in Italian magazines, and wrote my senior thesis about United Colors of Benetton and Dolce & Gabbana campaigns, and the cultural considerations of international advertising.  Lucky for me, the American Academy of Advertising is holding its first European conference this year and my thesis is applicable.

If I had my way, I’d get a one-way ticket and re-live my backpacking adventure of ’08, but I don’t quite have that luxury right now.  Still, ten days of Italian sun, food and culture is enough to satiate me, for a while at least. Ciao!

Josh Stevens is the GROUPAWN

Following up on my post about Groupon.com’s zany little contest, the company has finally chosen its representative, a stereotypically boisterous dude who must have had a pretty cool video to catch the company’s attention. I look forward to watching this experiment go terribly wrong.

Kayak.com loves LOST

Who’s excited for tonight?

Now, you can be closer to the action than ever, and even book your very own flight on Oceanic.

Sort of.

Initially, I thought someone had just doctored a Kayak.com web page to make it look like Oceanic offered a flight. Well, if you actually search for one way flights from Syndey to Los Angeles on September 22 (select ‘prefer nonstop’ and then sort by price), you, my friends, can choose to fly Oceanic.

Apparently there’s a search that brings up Ajira Airlines for flights from LAX to Guam… stay tuned.

Exploring chat roulette

Ok.

I’ve been on it twice now.

More and more people are beginning to check it out. My friend Ashly wrote an awesome blog post about the potential for Chat Roulette.

I also liked this video she posted about a guy who did a short study about his successes and failures with the site as compared to his attractive female friend.

Potential studies on Chat Roulette are endless. This site is capable of visually connecting any two people on earth (with internet access and a web cam).

But I wish there was a system to weed out the perverts. I had better success late at night than during the day. What’s the optimal time to get on Chat Roulette and avoid the weirdos? The worst time? Have any celebs tried it out? Has this site solved or created any problems? What if you witness a crime on Chat Roulette? What if you meet someone and end up dating? (long shot)

Looking forward to further investigations.

FYI

It’s okay to not be good at something.