I’m so happy that I’m still meeting with my fellow mentees from my WIF mentoring circle. We are assuming that we are not meeting with our mentors anymore (we didn’t have anything officially said to us, but the year of our time has passed), but that’s no reason for us not to keep meeting!
All of the past mentee-only meetings have been at my house. I’m totally fine with that because it’s pretty easy for me, but we decided this time that we wanted to change things up a bit. We had a couple of emails going back and forth about what we wanted to do and when we could met, but we settled on meeting for brunch this past weekend.
It was a nice change-up. Nobody had to cook or bring food and meeting on the weekend meant that nobody was exhausted from working all day. We decided to meet at Rush St. (where I had my birthday party) which was great since there is a free parking lot across the street and it seemed like everyone knew where it was.
We had 5 of us at brunch (the past few meetings have only been 3 of us), so it was a decent sized group. And after we all ordered food we got down to official business. Everyone went around and shared what they had been up to since the last meeting. Some people have won awards, some people have entered contests, and some people have booked amazing jobs. I usually feel like I don’t have much to share, but this time I had some good updates.
First of all, I shared how after paying my taxes I had leftover money. This is a big deal because I need a new computer and I’m still thinking about taking the next level of classes at UCB. The extra money is going to come in handy for both of those things and I’m happy that I don’t have to stress about how to afford them. I also shared about how I got a raise at one day job and might be getting more hours at another. Again, the more money I can make or save, the better off I’ll be as far as not getting into more debt and paying off my existing debt. I’m still making strides toward that goal and it’s tough when you are just making enough to cover living expenses.
Besides money and job things, I was also able to update the group on fun projects like the short film my friend Christopher and I hopefully will be shooting next month. This will be my first short film in a long time and I’m really excited to work on it. I think it’s going to be a great project and I think that it will be a lot of fun to be on set and work. I’ve missed that feeling lately and I’m happy to have it back. There are a couple of other projects in the works that are in the super early stages, but I tried to update the group on those as much as I could (it’s tough when you don’t really have details that can be shared yet).
It was really nice to have some fun things to update everyone on and not just to say that nothing is really different but I’m still pushing forward. I know the other women in my group don’t judge me on what I have or have not done, but it’s nice to have some things that are real proof of my efforts and not just ideas or plans.
Technically now I believe I’m eligible to apply for the next cycle of mentoring circles. If I do that, it will be my third one. The circles have gotten better so far, so I think that when applications are open again I’ll go for it. I can still meet with this group while having another group to work with as well. This industry is all about networking and who you know/who knows you, so it’s not a bad idea to get to meet as many people as possible. Especially if they are up and comers like I am.
As far as my current group, we still plan on continuing our meetings. We haven’t decided yet how often we will do them, but the plan is to keep them regular and hopefully as many of us will attend as possible. It’s a great accountability group to have and over the past year I have become friends with these women. So even though technically it’s a business meeting, it really just feels like hanging out with my friends.
You Might Also Like
Last Mentoring Group Brunch For The Year (or Switching Things Up For Next Year)
A Casual Brunch (or More Hangout And Less Catchup)
Less Networking More Socializing (or Another Evening With My Fellow Mentees)
Another Brunch Check In (or Wishing I Had Done More)
Another Mentee Meeting (or Beach Brunch)
Brunch Celebration (or Everyone Has Awesome News)
