I'm so excited that it's break time! As much as I've been enjoying senior year, I think that breaks are really good at bringing me back to the present, spending time with family and friends, and focusing on what's important to me. Hopefully over the break I'll get some rest time and then I'll be able to come back reenergized for my Original Work! As far as ISM goes, now that I have mentors, I'm so much more excited to do my Original Work project. This time last year I still didn't have a solid mentorship, so the Original Work was almost entirely on my shoulders with little collaboration, so this year I'm so excited to be working with Mr. Sowell and Ms. Huffman on this project. I think that I'm going to try to do something in relation to local government and how the larger governments (state and federal) impact the local operations. This was an idea that both of my mentors said is a big deal in local bureaucracies right now, but there's enough freedom within it that I will definitely be able to focus on particular issues and studies that are maybe a little more interesting to me. Overall, meeting with my mentors this past week for the first time was such an incredible visit, and I can't wait for the year. Hopefully this Thanksgiving will give me some time to relax and work on ISM, because one thing I'm always thankful for is this program and all the opportunities it's provided for me.
This week I've been organizing my new mentorship(s!) and the Research Speech I gave Wednesday! Honestly, this week felt like so much work and yet it went by so fast. I remember waking up Wednesday morning feeling like I might never get through the day, and now it's already the weekend and there's only one more week before Thanksgiving. I'm so anxious about Original Work coming up so soon, but the mentorship should definitely help me gain some clarity on my work and having the breaks will be good for me too. I think the speech went well. Getting up and speaking about all of the cool work I've been doing all year is so exciting, and I think that probably came through in the speech. I think I still need to work on fillers, but being able to watch the video back when it gets posted will also really help me gain some external ideas on what I need to improve. Moving forward, I'm really excited to meet with Ms. Huffman and Ms. Sowell next week and being really focusing on my Original Work. Hopefully it goes well and we can start planning weekly visits. I honestly can't believe I'm already at this stage-- it feels like the year has gone by so fast and somehow it's still so much work that I need to stay on top of! to edit.
I'm so excited to announce that as of this week, I have a mentor! Actually, two mentors! After my interview with Ms. Huffman a few weeks ago, I was confident that I wanted to ask her to be my mentor. A problem I have with ISM is that it's such a cool program that I end up wanting to speak to so many people and I get caught up in the interview process. After this past interview, however, I realized that it was time to start a more regular mentorship so I could begin working toward my Original Work and Final Product, and am so happy that I have the chance to do it with Ms. Huffman. Because she'll be in campaign mode come spring for reelection, however, she suggested I do a double mentorship with another member of the Frisco City Council, Mr. Will Sowell. Mr. Sowell is at his term limit, so he won't be up for reelection and it'll provide yet another view of working in local government. I can't wait to begin working with the two of them to further expand my knowledge of small governments and the legislative process this year. Hopefully within the next week or so I'll get the chance to go over the Mentor Handbook and start scheduling weekly mentor visits with one or the other. Coming into the year, I definitely didn't anticipate having two mentors, but I'm so grateful for the opportunity and know I will learn a lot from the additional viewpoint in government.
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