Presentations & Progress

My literary paper has been coming along very nicely, and I am glad I will be able to finish it tonight. I am very excited about this work, and it was very surprisingly easy. I think writing the literary letter was easy because I thought the author, Greg Johnson, did an amazing job writing and I had a splendid time reading. I still need to be more dedicated outside of the classroom with my work because I feel like I could have had this literary letter done by Thursday if I worked on it continuously at night. Hopefully I will not have this problem this week since it is crunch time. The next big stages will be starting and finishing my interview paper, tidying up my other blog, and preparing for the final presentation. I should be able to start the interview paper tomorrow during free block or in class and I will work on it at night so I can get it done by Thursday. Tidying up the blog will be this coming weekend and practicing for the presentation as well.

I already have an outline on how I want to do my presentation: I will start my outlining the whole project, why I wanted to study this subject, what I liked/did not like. I will then show my blog, read some of my chapter updates, as well as exerts from my literary letter/interview paper and to show my interviews (hopefully this time they work). Also hopefully this will be enough time for the project.

The Final Weeks

The end is coming. Only a week and a half left to complete this project. Thinking about that just gives me the absolute worst anxiety. I am so nervous about finishing in time, and hoping that the final product is enough to reflect my work over this term. I am basically finished with my literary letter, I just need to add the conclusion paragraph and then I will be starting on my interview paper. I will be posting my literary letter on my other blog tomorrow night. I should be done with my interview paper by the end of this week, and then I will be cleaning up my other blog to make it all nice and tidy for my presentation for the final project. That is my goal for the next week and a half.

Concerns & Progress

Concerns: Not being able to finish my other books, not knowing the set-up of my interview paper, being on top of my homework, and not knowing how far along I should be in this project.

These are my concerns because I did not calculate how long it will take me to read these books. Usually I can finish a book in about a day, but I did not take into account that I do that with books I pick out that I actually enjoy reading. So reading the autobiographies were a little difficult to get through because I was not fully committed to the book. Not knowing how to set up my interview paper is another concern because I really need to get on top of these papers, because I do not have a lot of time left in this project. I am good at writing but I have a process and I want these papers to be very good and I need to think about how to go about doing that. Being on top of my homework is a major concern throughout this whole project because I definitely do work better in class, and if I do not have homework due the next day I would not do it. Not knowing how far along I should be in this project is a major concern because it gives me anxiety not knowing how much progress I should have made or should be making. I like being on top of time and progress, and not knowing the progress is really concerning.

Progress: Finished "A Very Famous Social Worker", updating the blog, and starting the papers.

I am very very happy with finishing this book updating my other blog about it. These two go hand in hand because I would not be able to update the blog if I did not read the book. SO this was major progress in the fact that I read a lot of chapters, updated the blog consistently with the chapters. Now I can actually get on top of the writing aspect with my papers, and I am pleased with that!

Homework this week

This past week, homework has been slow going but it has been steady. As well as reading in my book, I updated my other blog on my book, which is not a hassle whatsoever because I enjoy writing and I love talking about books. It was great to finish some of the chapter updates. Now since the book is finished, I can start on the bigger book report. I decided that for this book report I am going to do a literary letter! I thought that my literary letter in the beginning of the school year was okay, and I liked having to discuss the three levels of reading (author, character, and self). So I will be working on that from now on while I am starting to read my other book about foster care. I will also start working on my interview paper. I actually need to start thinking about how I am going to set up this paper. Other than those homework assignments, there is nothing else to update, and hopefully this homework will help with my progress.

This week in the class

So not going to lie the Monday off we had, set me back and got me a little nervous. In class this week though, it was actually very productive. I was still reading "A Very Famous Social Worker", and in class I decided it was better to finish the book. So the last three classes of this week, I did indeed finish the book. I overall enjoyed the book, except I thought the book ended a little abruptly. I was very pleased with my classwork this week, because I finally finished the book, and now I can focus on my writing aspect of my project. In class Thursday when we broke off into little groups, I thought it was very good to digest. My partner Johnny, had a very good point about this project and I think mostly everyone has the same thought. Johnny stated that the problem he is facing is that no one really knows how far along they should be in their project, or how much progress we should be making. I think this would be good to know because then I feel like the part of we only have two weeks left would not feel so anxiety ridden. Otherwise I think my classwork has been very productive and I am now very pleased with myself for finishing the book.

Oh the horror of ...homwork

Actually I really do not mind homework at all. So these past couple of days, I have been reading my book "A Very Famous Social Worker', and it really has been interesting and keeps becoming interesting. I really enjoy Greg Johnson's sense of humor and how he describes the cases he has been working on. I love that Greg has a personal story to tell for some of the cases. Like there was a young boy Ricky who really just wanted his license but his family could not afford the tests or the lessons and Greg volunteered to teach Ricky. Greg reminisced back when his dad "taught" him to drive, which was to bring him to a housing development and letting Greg putz about while he read the newspaper. Greg thought back to that moment, in order to teach Ricky because Greg wanted to be more helpful and hands on. It is great to get these stories of Greg's thinking or past because it really helps to understand how Greg will work in a certain case. Other than reading, I have been updating my other blog, with my research on foster care, and I tried uploading my second interview but it would not, so I just wrote down two of the questions and answers from the interview for now. Hopefully I can get the audio up soon to have the complete interview.That is basically what I have been up to lately on the homework front.

Honestly I really think working in class is a lot more helpful than working outside of class. I mean I have been great with getting the interviews done which have been all outside the classroom, but besides that I feel like I have not been getting much done in the way of blogging, or reading my books. Looking at the calendar today in class, really made me have a mini anxiety attack because I honestly feel like I need to be at least a hundred times faster or have more things completed. I need to buckle down outside of the classroom.

I need to set aside certain times throughout the day to work on my book and to work on updating the blog. I usually update the blog like this at night, so I am thinking maybe I could update the blog every other night like ten or fifteen minutes left in study hall. That way I can be on top of it and have a good set period of writing. For the reading I need to find a time besides study hall because I have other homework to do and I cannot concentrate on my book at night. I think I can set aside thirty minutes every G block because I usually have that one all to myself.

Besides managing my time and getting what I want done, I am still glad I picked this topic and I am thrilled to see what else I can do in these coming weeks.

Tuesday Presentation day..AH

All throughout this year in Senior English Seminar, I have had difficulties with speaking. I had difficulties getting involved in seminars, and presenting things to the class. I would get extremely anxious and basically have an anxiety attack in class. I felt pretty bad about it, because it really was not the class or the people in the class. I really love and enjoy senior seminar, personally it is my favorite class. My classmates and teacher are all people I know very well and in no means are uncomfortable with. It was just something that was my own personal issue. That being said I was extremely nervous for this presentation. I prepared all Monday in class for it. I arranged a powerpoint, with different slides that included why I chose this project, what is happening overall and it also included my two interviews. After class Monday, I went up to Mr. Igoe and asked if I could go first on Tuesday because I knew the wait would just make me more nervous and I would probably end up crying during the middle of my presentation. Mr. Igoe said yes (THANK YOU!!) and I started off the week of presentations. Yes of course I was nervous, and I was a fidgeting mess up in front of the class. I really was passionate about this topic though and I enjoyed talking about what I was up to, and why I wanted to study this. I was very disappointed though when my videos would not play for the class. Even though it would have been so embarrassing, especially the video when I made weird faces, I think it would have been good for the class to hear what questions I came up with and the answers I got to what I have been wanting to know. After the videos did not play I was kind of flustered and or I just forgot but I really wanted to tell the class a little bit about my book. I am actually really enjoying this book, and the first few chapters were extremely interesting and I think the class would have really liked some of the cases the author was a part of. The question part of the presentation was great, and it brought up some questions that should be answered. Like whats the end product? The end product will be the other blog I am working on which will have book chapter updates, class research/work, and my papers about the interviews and books that I finished. Are the interviews going to separate papers? No the interviews will be one paper because I feel like I can really talk about the multiple responses better in one paper and make it more interesting.
Overall I thought the presentations went really well and I am beyond excited to see everyones project and to see the end product of mine.