Personal Branding, an introspective on social media identity and self discovery through mindless nattering and a keyboard stream of consciousness.

               The title is a run on sentence fragment. You don't have to tell me. If every entry of this blog was trying to achieve something..that something would be my personal brand. People talk about branding these days more than they talk about legacy, at least what goes through my ears. It isn't so much about future but about ***STAYING IN THE PRESENT MOMENT***. My mantra, a common theme in all of my posts, and perhaps ingrained into my being subliminally through social influence and now coming to fruition on a conscious level.

        Back in the day when I was obsessed with the concept of becoming a nameless cog in corporate America, I thought about this a little. Well maybe a little more after I attended a social media marketing conference at the ripe age of 24. Which remains to this day the field I idealize. If I remembered one thing from this conference for marketing you business or startup: Find your personal brand and sell it. 

        My reaction after the conference was this: What is my brand? I really don't need these questions right now I am living through quarter-life crisis hell. I don't even know which way is north on my compass of life and something seems to be scrambling the poles. Obviously I want to be relevant, like the articles I like to read on BuzzFeed and Elite Daily. (Unfortunately in time Elite Daily takes a sharp turn to irrelevant once your quarter-life crisis lulls to a stop.) But relevant is not a brand, relevant is a quality, an ideology, an aspiration. You want to BE relevant, but nobody sells relevancy at the five and ten.

       So who did I want to be on social media? The answer was simple. I wanted to be a cog. Turn the wheels and keep the information flowing for an awesome company, who made awesome products, with an alternative office environment that had cats, exercise ball chairs, and ping pong tables also filled with hipster types. Maybe I needed to take a step down from the clouds, because in reality I'm not that cool. I would be a nameless pants suit.

      I have come to think about brand a bit more since I started this blog. I started it because I like to write and I think I am good at it. I will continue to do so until nobody finds these mindless essays relevant. I started it because I love traveling and I was finally going to live as an expat.

       Brand: Curious American girl in Shenzhen, China observes Chinese customs and lifestyles

       Brand: American Expat in Shenzhen, China lives the stereotypical life of an English teacher.

       Brand: American Girl in Shenzhen, China adapts like a pro and observes culture shock as writing inspiration

       Brand: Expat in Shenzhen, China becomes exasperated with small children

       Brand: American female picks up Chinese customs and implements them into her daily life.

       Brand: White girl goes to a yoga retreat in Thailand and now actually won't shut up about yoga or meditation.

CHECK.CHECK. CHECK. CHECK .CHECK. CHECK.

           I am all these things. But now that I am going to Vietnam my theme can no longer be China. Time to re-brand. I am now just an expat, nomadic, uprooted. I hardly use crayons or picture books and I hate chalk dust. PowerPoint, laser pointers, and flashcard games define my job. 

        But if I could choose a brand for this blog off a list it would be travel. I want to perhaps be a bit more thorough when explaining what I am up to. It only makes my blog appear higher in a Google search and makes me more relevant to the blogging and travel community. (Google search meditation and BAM, one of my pages should appear. The endless blabbering is paying off.)What activities did I do in the countries I visited? How did I get there? How horrible are overnight buses? Did street fish balls give me travelers diarrhea? 

     So from here on out readers, I am working to make this blog more travel themed. A balance of observing cultures and comparing my current reaction to the ones I would have had as a newbie. Because I forget how crazy, crowded, and hectic Asia can be for a newbie. Also a possible renaming because I am no longer keen on Chalk, Crayons, and Picturebooks.