Week 36 - Happy Birthday Bro!

Hey there, hi there and hello there. First things first, a large happy birthday week goes out to my little bro Blake as he turns 11 ... hope you have a great one bro!

Yes, I started another rotation this week into Sales Support & Administration which makes numero 8 I do believe. It's starting to feel like I'm getting older as I often forget which department I'm in, (no offense to any of you folks reading that may consider yourself old:)! Before I started though I had the great opportunity of helping the HR group recruit at the SIFE Charlotte Regional in North Carolina. We met up with some of the SIFE HQ folks to catch up before eating some grub from PF Changs ... scrumtrulescent and even better when the duck pays for it; therefore, we didn't order duck! It was great to feel the energy of the SIFE competition again and really exciting to talk to graduating seniors about SIFE Analyst opportunities at Aflac. I think I would thoroughly enjoy a college recruitment position with HR, especially if I was able to chat with students of that caliber all the time. Wednesday I started with SS&A and immediately was asked to help plan a leadership conference with the execs. Of course since we're in the South it has to be a NASCAR theme, yeeehah, so we created the SS&A 500: Race for the Leadership Cup. Corny yes, but it will be a great learning experience as I'm in charge of the creative marketing aspect, educational materials and coming up with some team building exercises, aka, pit stops ... wow! After some additional meetings on Thursday with a vendor and learning more about the department, it was time to celebrate with my good friend Lucia for her belated birthday party at none other than ... Chuck E. Cheese's. Wow, an hours worth of Skee Ball really takes you back a few years and nothing is better than the mechanical Chuck E. from 1993! Then I ended the week by winning a $25 gift card for filling out a survey at work ... can't have much of a better week than that!

Don't know if I could top last week's sports highlight of the En Fuego winning, but we did get some good news about the end of our bowling league ... Spare Us=Dead Last Place! Hey, someone had to do it:) I also played in a couple soccer games this week of which we both won. I finally broke the news to some of my teammates that I used to play goalie and luckily I've been scoring goals so they won't stick me back there ... I don't need any more concussions right ma!? Yesterday I had the u10 kids, and even some of their random friends, come over to my place for some team bonding, pizza and playing of the Wii. I was seriously dominated in boxing by a 4th grader, but I showed him who was boss in tennis ... ok, maybe not! The kids seemed to have a great time playing toilet paper volleyball and having handstand contests; I am still seeing stars from that one.

Friday also brought another activity with the students at the Lasseter Academy. I split them up into two teams, girls vs. boys, and had them work on teamwork by building bridges. It was amazing to see what some newspaper, some masking tape and balloons can do to bring some of them together. I've noticed a lot of progress in a few of the kids and it has been one of the most rewarding things down here. It brings me back to my ol' MMC SIFE days.

Welp I hope everyone keeps livin' the dream wherever you are. Best of luck to all my pals back at the mount as you get your first jobs and to all my good friends with jobs, hope they're all you wanted them to be! Remember what my good friend Jim Stovall once said, "Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant." Don't go looking for the highest paying job that gives you no satisfaction, but rather find the job that gives you the most satisfaction and the money will fall into place.

Jenna and Gump, best of luck with the new place and the new pup and Jenny, I can't wait to see the Lion King in a few weeks! Check ya later.

Alwayz,
Nate