Favorite Things: Skype

Two years ago, when my brother moved back to Bosnia to pursue an MBA degree, we lost our main form of communication — our cell phones. We resorted to e-mails and phone calls on Sundays.

About six months in, he told me about Skype and how we can use it to talk to each other for free.

For free!?!?

I obviously didn’t believe him, but soon joined and sure enough I was back to talking to my brother everyday.

Now, that I’m in Bosnia I use Skype  to stay in touch with my family and my friends. It has a chat feature and you can buy credit to call people’s landlines or cell phones. The best part for me is the video feature that allows you to see the person you’re talking to and vice versa. As far away as we all are, Skype makes the distance not seem as great.

-Aida

Favorite Things: Jango

When I was in college, I was introduced to the wonderful world of Pandora. Whether I was writing a paper or studying, Pandora was there playing my favorite tunes. But, when I moved to Bosnia my musical inspiration was gone.

Until I found Jango.

Jango offers, more or less, the same services as Pandora, except that it works outside the US. Jango allows you to search for artists or through other users’ stations for music you may like, add genre stations and make friends.

Thanks to Jango, my inspiration is back.

-Aida

Professionalism Two Weeks Later

I wrote a post on August 26 about what it means to be a professional. I read through the post and through the comments again (thanks guys) and decided that I needed to do a follow-up on my current ‘professional’ situation.

I arrived to work on the Wednesday morning after my post – ready to be a ‘professional’ and to tell you the truth I still don’t quite know what this means or encompasses, but nevertheless, I was ready.

Throughout the day I kept the idea of professionalism in my mind, but my mindset wasn’t completely changed. Maybe I was a little too ambitious in what I wrote. Alex and Sean were right with their comments – changing your mindset overnight isn’t that easy and it doesn’t necessarily make all your job problems disappear.

Although, I didn’t find myself counting down the minutes, there were still moments of unease and restlessness. It’s not that I don’t like my job, or really, my internship, but I’m still learning. As Bev commented, “Willingness to learn is very attractive to an employer.” Well I must be fascinating some people because that’s excatly what I’m doing here.

Part of the reason why I chose to take an internship after graduation and not a full-time, permanent job is because I wasn’t ready. I know that if I had chosen that road, I would have made it out fairly okay, but I wanted a smoother transition. With this internship, I have the luxury of using the first six months out of college to experience the ‘professional mindset’ before going into the real world.

So, you may be wondering did I learn anything two weeks later?

Yes, actually. I learned that professionalism is an abstract word that I am still trying to define; changing your mindset overnight is easier said than done and choosing to be a professional tomorrow is not the same as choosing to be a professional for the rest of your life.

-Aida