It is absolutely crazy to think that this is the very last Weekly Blog I am going to write this school year. Junior year has passed by so insanely fast, and even though there were undoubtedly weeks when ISM stressed me out and I wasn't sure how I would get through all the work I felt like needed to get done, now that I'm at the end of the year (and halfway through the entire program), I truly can't believe that it's almost over. I'm so excited for Final Presentation Night because there's really nothing to do at this point except prepare and have a great night. Final Product being due was definitely a bigger source of stress for me because there was a lot of actual content involved in completing it, whereas with Final Presentation Night I'm more concerned with just getting through the day as stress-free as possible. Sure, there are still things I'm going to have to work to get done, but between Final Product being turned in and all of my AP exams finished, I am honestly overwhelmed by how quickly the school year will be over. I have learned so much in ISM it's impossible to overstate how grateful I am for this experience. I'm thankful for my family, friend, Coach Goff, and especially Anna, who none of this would've been possible without. I hope I similarly have a fantastic year starting next fall, but until then, have a great summer!
I truly cannot believe we are almost done with the year. This time last week I hadn't taken any of my AP tests, was still stressing over my Final Presentation Night speech, and felt like the end of the school year was so far away. Now I'm halfway done with all of my testing and am definitely on the downhill in terms of everything happening this year. After Wednesday (my last AP exam), I'll truly be able to commit 100% of my time to putting final touches on my board, speech, and preparations for the night. I'm really excited for Final Presentation Night because I know it'll be such a great chance to show my friends and family what I've been working on all year. I know that this time next week, I'll be stressed out again with only three days until the night, but until then things are going well. I presented my speech last week, which went well I think. I definitely could spend some more time polishing the speech, because honestly a 20-30 minute speech is a lot. I need to be better at taking my time and probably stopping for organic pauses, because I want people to understand and enjoy hearing about what I've been doing all year. Overall, it was a great week and it's crazy that this is the second-to-last weekly blog I'll write this year.
Today is arguably the biggest day of the entire year in ISM other than Final Presentation Night. My Final Product is due at midnight! I also met with Anna last week for our last mentor visit before Final Presentation Night. It's crazy to me how fast the year has gone by. It feels like just a few weeks ago I went up to meet Anna and interview her for ISM, and now I will probably only see her one more time this year. For my Final Product, things are going well, and I'm definitely almost ready to turn in everything I've been working on. I still have to finish my Set-Up and Completion Summary and put some finishing touches on my pamphlet, but for the most part I don't think I'll be too overwhelmed tonight, trying to finish everything up. I can't wait to turn everything in. I think it'll be such a fulfilling moment to see the green submitted bar for what I've been working on all semester. AP testing is insane over the next two weeks, and I know leading up to Final Presentation Night things will get crazy, but it's been a great year and as much as I've loved it, I'll be so relieved when it's all over.
This week is a really surprising week because on Thursday I'm meeting with Anna for my last official mentor visit, and probably the second-to-last time I'll see her this year (the last being Final Presentation Night). As far as my Final Product is coming, I think I'm on track to finish by Monday, which is when it's due. Still, I'm concerned that with AP tests I'll be exhausted in a few weeks. Hopefully I can make it through the end of May as painlessly as possible, even if it means a few long nights up ahead. At least that's a goal I can have to focus on for next year: that I not only try to stay on top of my work, but even attempt to get ahead. It's obviously much easier said than done, but maybe if I can keep it in mind when the year isn't as crazy, I won't be as stressed the closer it gets to Final Presentation Night. Speaking of, my FPN speech is next Wednesday, and this week I'm going to make it a goal to work on it and get everything together. Once I take the SAT this Saturday and get more of a handle on all the AP test prep I'm still trying to accomplish, I know my Final Presentation work will seem more within my abilities to accomplish. Until next week, when (hopefully) I feel a lot more secure with Final Presentation Night!
This week was a great week! I got to go into the office and meet with Jessica to go over my FAQs and decide which ones would be most beneficial in my pamphlet. I really enjoyed getting feedback on the work that I have been doing and I hope that it will propel me to finish the rest of the Final Product that I need to complete. I feel a lot more encouraged to be working these days than I was a few weeks ago, which is great news for my Final Product and where it's going. I'm not naive enough to think that it won't take more hard work and commitment to have a great product, but I still feel better about where I'm at right now than where I was about a month ago. I honestly can't believe how close Final Presentation Night is, and from there I will begin looking for next year's mentor! I am so lucky to have had all the opportunities I had this year, and now I just really can't wait to implement them all with a new topic next year. Overall, I'm excited about where my product is going in its final stages, and can't believe the year is almost over!
This last week was a great week! I was so excited to go back to Mosaic, because it really felt like I hadn't seen Anna in a long time. It was great touching base with her because she really helped me refocus my goals for what my Final Product is going to be. For a few weeks I honestly felt really lost because I wasn't sure what I was doing and I was not all that happy with what I was creating. The research was actually the much easier part, but every time I sat down to try to design a mock of what the pamphlet would actually look like, I would get stuck and end up disappointed with the result. Now that I have a better focus of where to go from here, my goal is to finalize the questions for my FAQ sections and finish the draft of the information I'm sending to Anna on the information sections. I think the sooner I get this done, the better, because I'm a little behind schedule. Switching gears though, I'm getting excited for Final Presentation Night! My invitations just recently came in and so I realize how closely everything is coming. All in all, it was a great week, and I can't wait to see where things go from here.
As I said in my last post, I can't wait to visit Anna in the coming weeks. I really hope that we're able to get in a meeting time, because I feel like I'm at a place in my Final Product where her feedback will be more valuable than ever. I definitely want to make serious headway in designing my pamphlet this long weekend, with the (possibly ambitious) goal of having it ready to print in two weeks. But that being said, I would like to show it to Anna before making changes, and I still want to get an FAQ section through meeting at Mosaic, so a lot of it will be up to when I can work out times for me to go in. Aside from the progression of my Final Product, I also feel like Final Presentation Night is approaching sooner than I thought. I need to make sure I get invitations ordered this week, because it seems like these deadlines are getting closer and closer. I've been sitting in AP classes all year and now in the span of a few weeks, it's truly hitting me about how close the AP tests (and Final Presentation Night!) actually are. I guess I should just take all the approaching deadlines as a wake-up call to push this final stretch of the year through working as hard as I can!
At this point, I've gotten a little concerned about where I'm currently at with my Final Product. I am definitely making some headway, it's just so overwhelming to know that I have hours and hours of work on the horizon, and I have to find a way to get there. I'm confident that with good time management and prioritizing my work in school, everything will get back on schedule, but I definitely had to rework some of my calendar deadlines for the Product Progress Report due this Monday to keep everything accurate. Aside from that, I haven't seen Anna in a few weeks. Spring Break wasn't good for me, because I was out of town for most of it and she was out of town last week. I tried to work in a time for me to come this week, but she's busy during all the times that I could drive down, so it seems like my Final Product might be a little delayed in some portions because I really want to get in-person feedback on what I have. I think from here I just need to polish all of my research and get my pamphlet as put-together as possible for the next time I see Anna. I know she'll be able to give me a lot of feedback, and I'm really excited for then!
Today is the first day back from Spring Break, and it's been a great week! As usual, it's always hard for me to come back after breaks, especially ones this late in the year. The closer we get to AP tests and my Final Product being due, the more I realize that this year is farther from being over than I was hoping. Or, rather, it's close to being over, but there's still a lot of work to be done over the next couple of months. I wish I could say I worked more on my Final Product over the break than I actually did. Between being out of town for four days and spending time with my family who have been on break from college, I didn't dedicate much time to ISM, or any of my school work. I think in this next week I really need to get down to business drafting my pamphlet, because I want to send Anna a rough as quickly as possible. I know that the sooner I can get some concrete work done, the more in-depth feedback I will be able to receive and apply. Hopefully I get get a lot of work done in class as well, because I don't have that much to be worried about in other classes just coming back from the break. As a whole, though, it was a great week!
This week I had another mentor visit with Anna. It's actually been a week since I've seen her, because last week the rain and schedule conflicts just didn't work out, so I never had the opportunity to drive down. I sat in on a meeting that she had with all of the other lawyers at Mosaic, and I really liked getting to see how she interacted with her colleagues. I think sometimes I get so wrapped up in thinking that the mentorship is largely just a vehicle for finishing my Final Product, that I forget the value of being able to see the dynamics of nonprofit lawyers working together on a day-t0-day basis. I was so happy to get this opportunity because meetings like this are what I really wanted to get out of ISM in the first place, and I'm so grateful to be getting the chance. We also talked on the phone on Friday about how the program has been going so far for me. Anna wanted to be sure that I understood the value of the meetings that I had been sitting in on, and I assured her that I had been getting something out of every single one of them. It was another great week that I really took to heart why I was so glad to be in this program again.
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