From Sidair 2 Cyder

From this...



to this....



Experience wise i think i feel really happy... result wise however iam feeling really ugly and don't know if that can be beautiful.

The first post of this blog was on March 9th and that was the first part of this journey. The truth is that i really enjoyed the making of this blog, i had the chance to meet with new people to meet some other candidates as well and living a dream for almost 5 months.
I've tried to low the expectations to noone else but me. Then one day i saw in my inbox something that made me grin from ear to ear:

Dear Chris

Thanks again for your submission. You are on our shortlist and will be contacted in the next few weeks.

wk side Team

Although i was trying not to believe it the temptation and the "What if" were already spinning in my mind i was really excited and looking forward for the next steps :D

then after some weeks another "Smile Creator" email in my Inbox:

"Thank you for your entry to WKside3.

Congratulations you have been chosen to come to an interview at Wieden + Kennedy for a potential side position.

The interview will take place on Wednesday 4th July, 9.30 - 12.30 please confirm you can make it asap.

The placement will be from 30th July and will run for three months so you must be available for this period of time and have a valid work permit.

If you have any questions please email back.

Look forward to meeting you on Wednesday.

The WKside Team"

And then everybody started... my heart was already in W+K doing projects meeting new people and learning stuff, my logic though was trying to pull my heart out of this psychedelic state and i spend some days before the interview watching my heart fighting with my logic....


And then Wednesday was there... 9:20 W+K London. Smiling and having in my side Queen heart (the winner) with her small son Enthusiasm yelling at me GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO ... the day was really interesting lot's of nice people from all over the world.
We had Seb from Germany, we had Michael from Barcelona, we had Zac (an american that flew from Shanghai just for the interview), Dominik from Sweden, and a really cool guy from Zurich that i can remember his name & i do apologize for that. And of course we had me from Greece. In the blue corner Daz,Loose,Matt,Natt,Sam the WkSide team.

Sam was the leader of the team wearing a lovely yellow dress and breaking the ice when needed, i think she is a person that can inspire a whole team. Daz was a really interesting guy with amazing sneakers on his feet, matt was the type of person you call "this is a good guy" like a silent power, Loose was a really interesting character and frequent reader of this blog, i think Loose is a person who can make you laugh really loud.. a small creature called humor was there with her at all times :D finally Natt, she was like a small girl like the ones who pull their mothers' dresses to get more candy, really content type of person with a great smile.

After the first introductions the day started with presentations of W+K. I really liked the intro of the presentation with the movie theme on the begging. The whole experience was great so many people in such a creative environment.

After the first hour everyone was feeling more comfortable with each other. And then the meeting room welcomed the previous WKsiders Ben,Ben&Sophie minus one member Barbara i think, who is in Australia. They really seemed a good team and after a nice presentation they did regarding their experience as Siders we moved on for the team project that was assigned by the Skinny, Simon of WK-Fat what an irony. He briefed us on wk music and loose started announcing the team members of each team. I was appointed with Michael, Anna, Dominik & Zac. It was really fun and they are all great. We were the first to present so we were quite nervous; having the time running faster than a speeding bullet and working in a room in which i could smell the big ideas left-overs we managed to prepare a presentation about the idea of
Welcome to (P)optimism, which was about an interactive installation in form of a Ghetto blaster in the parking area of W+K, in which people could interact with some of the hottest upcoming music bands and eventually getting the chance to meet them and attend in one of their Gigs.. then we had the other groups presenting some really nice ideas as well and then we started speed dating with all the WkSide team really funny and interesting process you could tell that everyone wanted to learn something from you. The next step was the wrap-up stage, my heart and my enthusiasm were a bit hungry but good in general. After saying hello to everybody I went home and took a really heavy nap, mind fatigue sometimes is much more effective than body. Then the patience stage came to me really nervous, really patient, trying to put my mind into order and see what i have done good & what I’ve done bad. I didn't knew if i had to be optimistic and putting my self in, or just wait for the final whistle of the referee… and this is what I did I’ve lowered the expectations and waited for the final whistle to cry out of joy or out of disappointment.

For those of you who don’t know me I used to be a Basketball player and learned to be patient and always work hard for my teammates. I’ve learned also how to lose and how to win, I learned that sometimes the game is more important than the result, I’ve learned that team is family, friend, girlfriend, the most important I’ve learned to play fair, respect the rules and recognize the power of the opponent, I’ve learned that if the referee doesn’t blow the final whistle nothing’s over, and if it’s over it’s not over because all important games have this strange ability to camp for a long time in your mind. I’ve taught never to retreat and surrender.

However just this morning I got informed that I wasn’t successful for getting into the scheme, I’ll never know what went wrong I’l never know what would it be, but one thing I know is that I tried, I played fair, I really wanted that and finally enjoyed the whole thing. I’ve learned a lot not only from my experience on W+K but also from my experience in living in London. I gained some valuable friends and I lost some great battles but I never ever ever gonna give up… Although the result brought me from Sidair to Cider…

Magic.

Thanks to everyone who helped me with this project.
This blog will continue to exist and answering the question if anything can be beautiful.



THE END.