this is NABS

hello everyone and a happy royal wedding day!!! i tried to wake up at 4 am to watch the ceremony, but kate didn't even get there until 630, so i went back to sleep and woke up to watch the actual wedding. realized that i missed the vows so i went back to bed. it was a huge fail trying to watch it live, but thankfully by the time i woke up at a decent hour of 10, someone had already posted the videos so i got to see the majority of the ceremony. and can i just say, wow? she looked absolutely stunning in a dress by sarah burton of mcqueen. it was pretty lovely of kate to wear a mcqueen number, paying tribute to this amazing designer who took his own life last year. i also really loved how there were trees in westminster abbey. so gorg. although, the abbey is designed pretty strange, a lot of people who were at the wedding didn't even get to see it, they had to watch it on a screen. so random. ok one more thing about the wedding then i'll shut up.... the hats. <3. that's it.


yesterday was a whirlwind. i went to the pool down my street with my friend from school mina (@SpreadTheCheer) for an hour or so to swim some laps. got ready to go downtown, as we were volunteering that night at the NABS Spring Break themed fundraiser at This Is London. for those of you who don't know what NABS is, (www.nabs.org)

"The National Advertising Benevolent Society (NABS) is a dynamic support system for all Canadian professionals in the communications industry facing personal, career and family challenges due to illness, injury, unemployment or financial difficulties."


it is a great organization, definitely something we should all become a part of as we enter our careers.
first though, was a trip to fresh :) 


i got the baby buddha bowl on soba noodles: thai peanut sauce with marinated tofu cubes, tomato, cilantro, cucumber, bean sprouts, chopped peanuts, herbs & spices. HEAVEN! or should i say, enlightenment ha-ha. one change i made to this lovely dinner was instead of marinated tofu cubes, i substituted the crispy tofu cubes. i def recommend this little change. not that the marinated tofu isn't good, but the crispy tofu is just so frigging delicious! it tastes like fried chicken, and for us vegetarians, it is always cool when you get to eat something that tastes like meat, but isn't. whoo! i'm not going to lie, i do miss a good old chicken drumstick every now and again, so this fresh vegan alternative is just perfect!

we paid and dashed out the door and down the street to This Is London. our contact, Tim Lamch, communications planner at dentsu, greeted us and assigned us our volunteering duties. mina and i were on lei duty, selling them for two dollars with all proceeds going back to NABS. there was also a 50/50 draw, that a fellow CABA was doing. rachel kennedy, from second year rocked that job. 


people started coming at around 730, but the place was really busy by 830 or 9ish. after we sold all the leis, mina and i grabbed a roll of tickets and went around to sell them. this was actually really hard! imagine trying to sell drunk people raffle tickets while walking around a packed club. it was nuts. we ended up selling a ton though, and a guy won the raffle and was super stoked. after our volunteering duties, we were free to party it up, and the drink tickets kept coming. 

i'd never been to that bar before, and let me tell you, it is faaaaancy pants! the bathroom is bigger than my apartment and has a lady who turns the taps on for you and gives you hand lotion! whaaat! there was actually SO much food i couldn't even believe it. pizza, crackers and cheese, brownies, cakes, tarts, a candy bar and tons of drinks! we were waiting at the bar for drinks and this guy comes up and orders 4 shots of tequila. the bartender pours them, and he's like no no, i ordered 40 shots. 40 SHOTS OF TEQUILA! my god, ad people know how to party. it was wild. by the end of the night, people were breaking it down on the stage doing the worm and other crazy dance moves.

there was also a photobooth provided by transcontinental, which we took full advantage of! :)

basically it was an amaaaaazing night! if this is what ad parties are like all the time, i think i made the right career choice ;) thanks again to NABS for the opportunity to volunteer and i was happy to help out! everyone had an awesome time, and was successful in fundraising for this great cause. 

one more exciting thing... remember how i went to the next gen dinner series this week? well, my twitter pal tim (@timinyli) let me know that cp+b, whose table i had the privilege of sitting at, had created a specific job posting for those of us who had attended 

sooo, i'm thinking this sounds pretty rad, but i'm a little on the fence as to whether to apply or not. i'm not done school and my book needs some work... obv i fit all those criteria (went to the dinner, met sub, and want to work at CP+B CANADA!) lol but i just don't know if it's the right thing for me... yet. maybe i'll throw caution into the wind and give it a go, what's the worst that could happen? hmm, decisions. anyways i will keep everyone updated as to what i end up doing :) 

in the meantime, i'm going to get groceries, make a wicked dinner and learn some more songs on my ukulele! i've already learned i will follow you into the dark by death cab for cutie <3 love. 

tgif everyone!!! sorry for rambling... again. 

soph

listening: the good times are killing me - modest mouse

ahhh summer

although i can't exactly say the weather has been summery as of yet, it is indeed summer vacation. i'm done my third year of uni ... one year to go, i can't even believe it! i went home last thursday for the long weekend and had a great time seeing my family and friends. i met my new baby niece (well, my best friend's baby) madison. i haven't seen a baby in so long, i forgot how teeny tiny they are! so cute

proud auntie

stickin' her tongue out

maddy's little foot 

billy (her godfather) and i 

Other notable events that weekend: girls night on friday with all my friends from high school which was really fun! we all got together and just chatted like old times :) easter dinner with my family , and hanging out with one of my besties jess (www.jessicadeeks.com) we got ukuleles for our trip this summer, so she brought hers over and we jammed. learning how to play dog days are over! and then on sunday my friend nathalie came over and we watched a six part series on william and kate aaaaand the made for tv movie about them. i have to say, i was not into all that royal wedding crap before, but they really do have quite an interesting story and now i'm all about it! willz+kate 4ever <3

got back to t.o on monday night, just in time for gossip girl! tuesday was the next gen dinner at brassai. what an awesome night! i went with two of my friends from school Vanessa (@VmHeber) and Allison (@allisonemilyW) art director and account manager and we had a great time! Allison and i were sitting at the advertising table with subtej nijjar, the director of strategic planning at cp+b canada, and leslie ehm, founder of three training, who had run a workshop with us on thursday. it was awesome! sub, whose name he informed us, is jetbus spelled backwards (pretty cool haha), gave us a ton of insight into agency life, and told it like it was. i was one of two creatives at my table, the other being an AD. he told us that he doesn't believe in those titles anymore, everyone is an ideas person. i agree with that up until a point. yes we are all ideas people, but by no means can i go and write a sweet brief or comp up a layout the way an accounts person or art director could. hmm.. i feel like this could be a blog topic for future posts. anyways, i had a great time last night! it was hard to talk to the leaders of the tables because there were so many of us and so few of them! i ended up talking to a ton of students, which was really interesting and i'm glad i got to meet everyone :) 

today, i'm faced with an empty apartment (my roommate spending the summer in edmonton), a fridge with no food and lots of chores... what to do? watch the food network of course!!! not too much coming up, volunteering at the NABS (www.nabs.org) fundraiser tomorrow night at This Is London, you guys should check it out! some work to be done on my portfolio before may 26 ihai portfolio night, and starting work full time on may 24. other than that, hanging out and hopefully trying some new recipes and learning more song on my uke! if anyone is bored and wants to hang out or knows about cool stuff going on in the city, let me know! 

hope everyone's exams went well and that you're enjoying the first few days of freedom!

peace <3

soph

listening: lazy day - beach fossils

do you like to do it, yourself?

as school starts to wind down (two weeks to go yay!) we have fewer projects, and i just get in that mood where i want to do other things, and for once, i actually have the time! last night, me and the girls decided to go for a value village shopping date and a diy bracelets/crafts night. sooo grade 5, but whatever, i had a blast! we headed over to value village after school and starting searching. whenever i go thrifting, i always find myself drawn to big grandpa cardigans and pullovers like, literally the ugliest things ever. my mum always cringes when we go together at the things i buy. i decided that night, that since it is almost summer, i am going to limit myself to one sweater only. it was successful, and the sweater has short sleeves, so it's okay! i did really well, and even managed to find a supercute owl figurine for my friend allison :)

my one mission was to find the perfect pair of jeans to cut off into high waisted denim shorts. it took probably about 20 pairs in the changeroom, but i eventually found them. $4.99 and a pair of dull kitchen scissors later, i got me the coolest lil shorts in town.

so excited to wear them! summerrrr 

i also picked up a few cute blouses. one a white button up and one in cream... with shoulder pads ohh yeah! it has a cute little flower embroidery on it, very old ladyish. i'm in love.

sailor type top 

it's not very clear here, but there are little crystals on the sleeve detail

star buttons

 i can justify buying this sweater because it is short sleeved! ;)

probably one of the best finds of the night was a pair of sperry top sider boat shoes that vanessa found for me. at $7.99, they were the most expensive thing i bought but definitely one of my favourites! perfect for my summer job at the yacht club. they are already broken in and super comfy. ready to rock them with my rolled up cargo pants.. so preppy haha

the last thing i found at vv was an adorable skirt by kenziegirl. it is the perfect length, and the colours/pattern are gorgeous. perfect for a summer day

all in all, i spent about $45. pretty awesome considering buying those sperry's (which i wanted to buy a pair of anyways) new would have set me back at least that if not more.

after value village, we wanted to make some bracelets. i had brought some hemp, but we wanted the string to make friendship bracelets, so off to walmart we went. we got a huge pack of colours, as well as rawhide string and feathers to make these cool headpieces we saw on the blog PS I Made This.

i busted out the string and got to work on my bracelet, a four coloured ode to the great bob marley

most recent bracelet: green/red/yellow/black chevrons

this is how the headpiece turned out:

the string is still fairly stiff, so i need to figure something out so that it doesn't hang as awkwardly! i was thinking of making a whole bunch of these in the summer, in both double stranded and single versions, and selling them. maybe setting up an etsy store or something, we shall see! what do you guys think? would you buy one? i'm stoked to wear mine to the beach in the summer :)

so that was my awesome night. great hangouts with the girls and it was really nice to pursue another creative outlet rather than just writing. diy date = a smiling success!

i stayed at vanessas crafting until 130 in the morning! by the time i got to bed, it was 2am, only to get up 5 hours later to get ready to go downtown to Grip (@bigorangeslide)... which is a whole other post worth of information, which i will definitely write about tomorrow. 

hope everyone's friday night is great tgif! and school is almost done we can do it guys! 

peace

soph

listening: 1901 - phoenix

green light

wow. i feel like the past couple of weeks, i have only had one speed. GO! so much has been going on and i feel like i haven't even had a sec to sit down and write about it. well, let's see... got my first paycheck from the yacht club whooo! not like it wasn't gone in 1 day when i went grocery shopping or anything, but still, it is rewarding to see the results of your work :)

in ad centre, we presented a pretty wicked campaign for lululemon. jacoub brought in an art director from grip, joel, whose sister i believe he said, worked in a high up position at lulu so like, no pressure or anything haha. anyway, it went well, and they said the copy was good so i was stoked! here's one of the print ads:

to see the rest of my campaign, check out my portfolio sophiehebert.ca

on the 19th, my friend vanessa and i took part in the globe and mail young lions competition. we got the brief at 9am on the saturday. it was for the stephen lewis foundation. they raise money and give it to grassroots organizations in africa helping communities deal with HIV/AIDS. they really are doing great things and it was exciting to be able to feel like we were maybe making a difference, even in the tiniest way possible! the brief was a bit hard to crack, as the target was extremely broad, and it had about four single-minded-thoughts... but i think we came up with something good! went to bed at 7am, just as russell was getting up to go to work lol

sunday we spent all day working on our typography project, a type heavy ad for clairol nice 'n easy root touch up. let me just say, gluing fake hair into letters on a page is extremely hard and not something i recommend for a sunday afternoon! anyways, that project was due yesterday, and all the sleeplessness paid off - i think it turned out really well!

needless to say, with all of this going on and many hours of sleep lost, i was beginning to lose my steam as the projects kept piling up. then, yesterday i got some good news.

a few weeks ago, i had applied to the adlounge next gen dinner series. it's going to be this big dinner with creative directors and people from ad agencies, pr agencies, and marketing communications in general. aka amazing networking opportunity! the application was pretty intense, which it should be, when trying to choose only about 60 people for such a great opportunity! so i dove in and filled it out. sent it off and sort of put it to the back of my head. anyways, last night i found out that i have made it to the next round! i have an interview on monday at 9:30 on king st. i am excited and nervous at the same time, but hey what do i have to lose? and i'll be meeting my friend allison afterwards for lunch (she has an interview at blammo the same day, go girl!!!) so at least if it goes really badly, i can comfort myself with a lovely vegan noodle bowl from fresh :) wish me luck!

today, after some running around and getting stuff printed for my book for monday, i went to school to work with my group on our upcoming ad centre campaign, for the mitsubishi imiev. i don't want to give anything away yet, but i think it is going to be really dynamic and interesting! stay tuned for deets :)
then, off to class for a presentation by TBWA president, Jay Bertram. man, that guy loves his job! TBWA sounds like a wicked awesome place to work. their philosophy is really interesting, and it seems like they have a lot going on right now. i never really thought about working there, i guess because huuuuuge agencies sort of intimidate me?, but the way he talked about it made it seem like everyone was really close and supportive. they are definitely on my list now ;) as part of his presentation, Jay went through a series of points on why advertising is exploding now, why it is the best time to be getting into it, and why it is the best job ever. like i needed more convincing? anyways, after that i squealed (in my head lol) just thinking about the future. i know, really cheesy, but i am beyond excited to get out there and start doing this for real!

now i'm home, not having started my essay for my politics elective, and room not cleaned, but i am in my pj's and ready with a cup of tea for a new episode of grey's anatomy! i'm feeling pretty happy that all the stress i was feeling is slightly lessening. it's still there, and will probably escalate again next week as we keep getting more assignments, but all i can do is think about the positive things and countdown to summer!!! going to guelph this weekend, so i think that will help me chill out big time... then back to it on monday! :)

hope everyone is doing well and not getting too stressed out! school is almost over guys, we got this!!

soph

listening: you - the pretty reckless

new faces

today was a great day! i woke up at 10, which much to my dismay, was actually 11. oops! i had to rush, as i was supposed to be downtown by 1, meaning i would have to leave at 12. what was this engagement i was rushing off to you ask? one of my friends, amalia, has just moved to toronto for a 3 month internship at  a pr agency (i think she said it was called rocket public relations, but don't quote me on it!) we worked together at the good old real canadian superstore a few years back, and now she's here in the big city whoo! super excited for some summer shenanigans and backyard bbqs at her house in little india!

we went to one of my fave restos fresh on spadina. i ordered some mango pomegranate juice, which was basically summer in a glass. it was so refreshing! to eat, i had the jerusalem bowl on soba noodles. this was actually SO SO good! i got this description off of their facebook page: Jerusalem Fresh Bowl, where vegetables gather to hug each other♥ Hummus, grilled spinach, tomato, cucumber, parsley, red onion, sunflower sprouts, olive oil and tamari, mixed herbs, lemon and chili powder. 


can you imagine something yummier than that?! this pic i found on flickr doesn't do it justice:

man, mix that all together and it's heaven! i couldn't even finish half so i packed up the rest to go. then we shopped around queen street, finding this super cute vintage store across from urban outfitters (i forget the name, someone help me out!) i was so tempted by sweaters and menswear woolen pants... oh right, it is springtime. i find myself always wanting to wear the opposite season's appropriate attire. onesies in the winter, sweaters in the summer... so discombobulated! anyways, i put off the temptation for knits that would make me look like a 60 year old grandpa, and instead, found a shirt for st patties day, a lovely green/white striped number from forever 21, some clover hair clips, and a pair of faux reading glasses (my friend allison has the same ones and they are just so fun!) 

so we'll have to coordinate so we both don't wear them to school on the same day. i know, i know, these glasses are soooo stereotypical "creative person" slash "nerdy hipster" but i like them and i don't care what anyone else thinks! my roommate met me at dundas for this shopping adventure, then we got a nice bottle of vino for thursdays festivities and she picked up some keith's for her boyfriend's visit starting wednesday! needless to say, the commute home was tiring, carrying all this extra crap. 

enjoyed my lunch leftovers for dinner. i basically got nothing accomplished on the school front today, but lots of other stuff got done! i finished the night having a really nice long skype with one of my best friends, jess deeks (shameless plug http://jessicadeeks.com/ she is an amazing photographer!) cut up a watermelon for breakfasts during the week and lit some candles and just chilled. making a mental list of everything i have to do tomorrow... laundry gaaaah! no socks! forgot to change my fish's water as well poor baby. also, something to get excited about! young lions next saturday! my supertalented art director vanessa and i are so stoked for this! we've been planning our food for weeks. poutine on spicy fries. it is going to be so rad. anyways, it's one in the morning and i'm rambling and definitely not saying anything that anyone would find remotely interesting! lol so goodnight everyone, hope you all had a fun weekend! and have some wicked st patty's plans ;)

soph

listening: dance dance dance - lykke li and bon iver

fresh

today is the day i start a new notebook. i love starting new notebooks because you have an opportunity to make something from nothing. the blank pages are like an invitation to write down your thoughts and scribbles. i only started really using a notebook this summer when i was interning, so i'm only on my third one. i'm too poor for moleskines, so i bought a 4 pack of hard cover black ones from curry's. looove them! the best notebooks ever. i put my little peta 'keep smiling' sticker on the front, and my address sticker on the inside cover in case it gets lost. ready to go!

my old notebook

page from first ad centre class (media channels)

bored

anyways, have to go get ready for school baaah! hope everyone's monday is awesome

soph

listening: loser - plasticines

summer mood

i cannot wait for summer. no school. warmth and sunshine. flip flops. no coat check. no staticky winter hair. sunglasses. dresses. popsicles and ice cream. bbqs and umbrellas. the smell of sunscreen on your skin. i love everything about summer and i wish it would last forever. this summer is going to be interesting for me i think. it will be the first summer that i stay in toronto. i'll be by myself, because my roommate is going home, but hopefully people will be around enough so i won't get lonely. i'll be working at the yacht club everyday, which i think will be lovely, as i'll be outside and by the water. it is also my champagne birthday this year. 21 on the 21st of july. wow. i'm looking forward to having some champagne with my friends and going roller skating at scooters! i'm excited to be staying in toronto, i feel like the city is more my home than ottawa now. there is so much more energy and creativity here, i feel like i fit in. my friend jess and i are also trying to plan a road trip out to the east coast. whether we fly or drive, we aren't sure yet, but we want to go for one or two weeks, surf, camp, shoot a ton of pics and maybe even try to make a short film or something to capture our adventure. i really hope it happens, i am missing the ocean and surfing a lot. 

seven more weeks of school. let's hope it goes by fast!

my foot before i got my tattoo... weird!

soph

listening: crazy for you  - best coast