Vegemite, NZ Cheese and A tear in the eye!

Hey my fellow readers … well what a day! So let me try to capture it as best I can without boring you to much! I wanted to savor the day as much as possible, be mindful and present! This meant that I took note of just the smallest of things they stood out for me… so here goes!

This morning Benedicte, Susannah, Ricardo and I …

• went shopping for a thank you morning tea to our UWBA family. The donut queue grew outside Bob’s Donut Shop behind me, the smell of freshly made donuts from this popular 24 hour shop. Next, my first time in Trader Joes. A supermarket that greeted the senses with so much colour … noting the pumpkins, who knew there was so many varieties.

• This morning’s morning tea seemed fitting to officially hand over the deliverables. So armed with donuts, cake, cookies for Team Sweet and vegemite and NZ cheese on crackers for Team Savoury, it was an opportunity to have one last get together, to show our appreciation to everyone. After a quick demonstration on how to eat the vegemite, a few were game to try it, with reactions funny to watch, and to my surprise, some even liked the vegemite.

• Finalised our presentation to IBM and other Host Organisations later in the day, and final handover to Ansa on the Employer Engagement Workbook.

• did a lap of the office and said goodbye to one and all, with a hug or 2, dropping the keys, a few koalas scattered around the desks, final messages left on whiteboards, we headed out the door.

Come 12pm, we had to leave to head to the IBM Watson Center, so

• taking one last walk out the office, we stopped to farewell the Security Guard, and thanked him for his smile each morning as he did hello and farewell to us for the last month
• I rescued a painting that was randomly just sitting on the pavement, so propped it up in the hope that it gets to the rightful owner

• Listened to passerbys as they talked about Salesforce, and how the sellers should use it which I had a giggle at
• as we got closer, we were joined by the other teams as they were coming from their Host Organisations.

The IBM Watson Center is a tad impressive.

We were greeted by the lovely Emma, Brittany and Jamie. Lunch was served where we got to meet some IBMers which was lovely. These IBMers were keen to learn about the program, and to learn about our stories, so within the next hour, the 15 CSCers spent chatting and sharing our stories, our backgrounds, our experiences.

I met 3 interesting young ladies whom were new to IBM, started back in January. Introductions made, we met Gentry, Jenna, and Alex. Good luck on your IBM journey and look forward to seeing you all on the FB Group, hopefully we inspired you to be around for another couple of years, take up some volunteer work and apply for CSC!

Nicole, Ena and Kelly from UWBA came along to support our presentation.

So it was time, presentations given by WAKE, MEDA and SFCCC Sub Teams. Everyone of the team members did an impressive job over their month assignment. It was their time to shine and share what they had been up to. Everyone has done an outstanding job!

And then it was our turn – UWBA Sub Team. Starting with Benedicte, she kept it light! We tagged team through the respective sections, sharing the work done. Then it was my turn and something happened … one of the photos had caught my eye and all of a sudden I was sharing about the golden moment, and why this CSC program matters and a tear came to my eye, not what I was expecting. Quickly moving on and sharing the fun stuff to shift gears, spoke about the Field Trip and volunteer opportunities, again, a little choked as I think about the work we all did together, the people we met, and role of Sparkpoints, the passion of those working in these centers, and soon realised that I was experiencing feelings of getting it, that I am really going to miss it all, but inspired to do more when I get back home. So much feelings in such a short time!

Finally, our presentation done, it was time to give out some thank you gifts to acknowledge how grateful for all the support from Atlas Corps (Emma and Brittany); and Jamie and John (IBM). On behalf of the team, I would also like to acknowledge Misha and Jamie McDonald as well. Without all of you, none of this would have been possible! So thank you!

With all the formalities out the way, it was time for the pics:

Nicole,Ena, Kelly, Ansa (Atlas Fellow working at UWBA), Susanna, Benedicte and Ricardo

The CSC USA2 San Francisco Team

Tonight we celebrated, tonight was Karaoke, such a fitting team evening as we all sang for a couple of hours, surprised at how good we all were … haha. Lucky it was a closed room is all I can say, and the pictures and videos stay with me.

Tomorrow, our final day with UWBA, and it will be spent volunteering at a Career Prep Day in San Bruno.