The Book I Chose

I am reading Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg. To finish this book by January 28, I plan to read two chapters a week which will let me finish on the 24th of January. This book has a very strong feminist vibe to it, but Sandberg states that this is not her intention. The point of her book is simply to promote woman staying in the workplace thereby improving their ranking in the career progression. She asserts that women are given that opportunity now but are not given the resources to be able to do both their “biological job” of having babies and raising them and their career job.  Sandberg also discusses in the first two chapters that the way working mothers are represented in movies is fundamentally wrong. Movies suggest that if you a family and a successful career, you have to be either distant or constantly juggling the demands of your career and you family.  In Hollywood this means that they eventually end up dropping the ball, reinforcing failure. Sandberg herself is an example of how that this doesn’t have to happen. I am finding this book very interesting, and I’m excited to learn to “Lean In” to my future career and be able to have a family. From what I have read,  Sandberg is becoming an inspiration to me.

UpDate

My iQuest internship has had its share of struggles getting started. But now I'm happily placed in the PE Department at Iron Horse Middle School. It's truly amazing! I love being there and look forward to going there.  I have felt so welcomed by my two mentors, Mr. Matek and Mr. Borghi.  I am also really enjoying the kids, more than I expected I would.  They're funny and curious about high school, constantly asking me questions about what it's like.  It's nice nice to be a resource for them.

This experience so far has re-opened the possibility of being a teacher in my mind.  At the beginning of high school, I wanted to be a math teacher (back when I still thought I was good at math!) But I hadn't thought of being a PE teacher. Recreation administration and PE go hand in hand, and the required education has a lot of overlap. This is the the reason I was placed at Iron Horse when the City of San Ramon didn't work out.

On typical days I will be helping referee the students' games. But with the rain, we have been either inside playing dodgeball or outside where the kids have free time on the blacktop after doing their warmup and run.

SMARTgoals

“Goal” is such a simple word, but it has a lot of meaning behind it. A goal is your objective and your motivation to do something.  Goals can range from getting up before 10 on a weekend to running a marathon. Goals are dreams that you want and will put effort into achieving. The best way to do this is to set SMART goals. To set a SMART goal, ask yourself:

·      Specific -- What do you want to get out of achieving your goal?

·       Measurable – How you know when you are making progress towards your goal?

·      Attainable -- Can you meet your goal?

·      Realistic -- Is your goal something you are both willing and able to work for?

·      Timely-- Set you time frame, when do you want your goal to be completed?

A SMART goal has to have all of these aspects; this will help you achieve them. When you think through a dream enough to make it a SMART goal, you are setting out a plan to achieve your overall goal.  

For the past year (plus some), I have struggled with depression and anxiety about school.  I have chronic headaches that only go away with stress-reducing sleep.  My goal is to enter my next phase of school as healthy as I can be – both mentally and physically.  I have found that when I make working out a priority, it helps me relief stress in all areas of my life. It also makes me want to eat healthier and get more sleep – the two things my doctor has encouraged.  After experiencing a bout of headaches, I have learned to reset my behavior and force my life back in balance.  Consequently life gets better.  When I let things get out of balance, the headaches return. I will measure my progress towards this goal by the amount of time between headache bouts.  This goal is attainable because the behaviors necessary to achieve it are things I should be doing anyway and are not difficult.  The goal is realistic because it is measurement is based on improvement. I am putting a hopeful and practical timeframe on accomplishing my goal of before I leave for college in the fall.  

Although I would want to do this so I can live a happy and healthy life. I also need to do this because of what my career goal is.  The main goal of the field of recreation is for the community/participants to have fun and to be healthy. To succeed in this field, I will need to be healthy too.

Word Cloud

Personality Quizzes

In class, we took the online Myer-Briggs Personality Type test and the Holland Codes work personality quiz.  My results were:

Myers-Briggs

E	N	F	P	Letter
78	38	25	67	Percentages

Description of ENFP

Warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. See life as full of possibilities. Make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns they see. Want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. Spontaneous and flexible, often rely on their ability to improvise and their verbal fluency.

Holland Codes

Realistic: 10

Investigative: 7

Artistic: 8

Social: 14 *highest

Enterprising: 12

Conventional: 4 *lowest
Your Holland Codes are as follows:  SER

When we did the Myers Briggs test in class, it was difficult for me to read all the questions. When I looked at the description of my results, ENTJ, some of it described me, but I was surprised especially by the part about enjoying long-term planning and goal setting and being well read.  Many of these questions are hard to answer because the situations are so general.  So I decided to retake the test having someone else read the questions to me.  This time my result was ENFP, which matches me much better.  I think my second set of results are more accurate because I likely misread/misunderstood many of the questions reading them on my own.

My Hollard results show that I am very strong in Social, Enterprising and Realistic.  Artistic and Investigative are pretty high too, and Conventional is clearly my lowest area.  This shows that I am mostly well-rounded except for the conventional area, which has to do with rules, regulation, self-control and structure.  This is not surprising because I don’t mind a lack of structure.  I am comfortable working and dealing with the “grey area”, and I don’t black and white situations because I often see good reasons for exceptions.  

Introducing my CHS Mentor

I have chosen Mrs. Turner for my Cal High Mentor.  She is in the history department and teaches two sections of US History.  She also teaches English for the American Studies program for juniors that aligns their US History and English courses. I was in the American Studies program last year and had her as a teacher. With the block schedule, we officially had English or History on alternate days, but the two classes functioned like a family so we usually saw both teachers each day.  As result, I am very comfortable with Mrs. Turner and feel like we really connected.  She understands teenagers and is very reasonable.  She has two teenage boys of her own, one of whom has dyslexia.  So I think she understands my academic struggles.  I know that she will give me good advice. 

When I asked Mrs. Turner to be my mentor, at first she questioned if she would have enough time to give me.  After I explained what was expected, she immediately said, “of course!”  We talked a little bit more about the problems I was having getting a commitment from the City.  She gave me some suggestions for communicating with Keith, which I used.  We planned to talk again last Friday at lunch, but we missed each other.  I will follow up with her on Monday.

UPDATE TIME!

So I would love to tell you all about my wonderful experience so far interning with the City of San Ramon. But to be honest, my internship hasn't started yet. It's not that I haven't put in the effort. I have had multiple conversations with the Aquatics Manager Keith Haase, but he continued to need more clarifying paperwork that does not exist.

Talking it over with Mrs. B., she suggested contacting the mayor.  My mom cautioned me about going directly to the "big guy" because it might cause more problems if it's an internal staff issue. My mom was talking about the situation with a friend from her Rotary Club who teaches in the Parks & Recreation department at Cal State East Bay.  She thought my interning with the City was a great idea and was puzzled, but did see that the bureaucracy could be the problem.  She suggested I contact Chris Chamberlain who also teaches at Cal State East Bay and used to run the Aquatics Center for the City for a suggestion of the next person in the City to talk to.

I spoke with Mr. Chamberlain last week. He also thought the internship sounded like a good idea especially since I'd worked at the pool all summer and already know many of their procedures. He suggested that I contact Esther Lucas.  Her phone number isn't on the city's website so I called the Parks and Recreational Services number listed on the website.  The person who answered informed me that Esther Lucas is on vacation for three weeks.  She asked what I wanted to talk to Mrs. Lucas about, and I explained.  After I was finished, she asked what degrees I had, and I re-explained that I’m a high school student in a career exploration/internship class.  She abruptly told me they don’t do anything like that.  She was about to go into a team meeting and would bring it up, and if anyone was interested she'd give them my email address.  She indicated that she thought it was not likely, and then suggested that I sign up for the city’s volunteer program.

It feels as if the City of San Ramon staff wouldn't know a good idea or a win/win situation if it dropped in their lap. It also bothered me how the person I talked to on the phone talked to me.  She treated me like I was about ten years old, rather than a young adult trying to be professional.

But I still haven't given up! My mom was at a meeting with Mayor Clarkson on Monday and she asked him for a suggestion.  He suggested emailing one of the Parks Commissioners and cc'ing both him and Karen McNamera, the Director of Parks & Community Services.  He thought this would be addressing it at a low enough level to not backlash, and by cc'ing the Director she wouldn't be blindsided, and he could gently weigh in, getting the request some attention.  I emailed Commission Rene Matsumoto this afternoon.  Hopefully, this will get the ball rolling!

The 5 People in My Life and My Someday Island

Five People who can help me achieve my dreams and goals 

1.  My brother Adam was the one who suggested that I consider Parks & Recreation for my major and career.  He’s also always been my supporter for water polo and has taught me many life lessons that only a brother can teach.

2.  My mom has supported me throughout all my school challenges.  She knows a lot about my reading and writing disability and has been my advocate and my guide in my own advocacy. 

3.  My dad has been a more general supporter, and doesn’t let me get away with excuses.

4.  My best friend Ashley Pedersen because no matter what people do or say, we always stand by each other.  She provides a reality check for me about the amount of time and effort typical high school students spend on their studies.

5.  My friend Haley who treats like a big sister.  We share our emotions and thoughts and give eachother realistic feedback and perspective. 

Get Off Someday Island!  Five things I've been procrastinating about 

1.  Closure with City of San Ramon on iQuest internship.  Because I have been afraid of offending Keith Haas, who is ultimate “boss” at the Aquatic Center, I have been procrastinating pushing back on his requests for written documentation about the iQuest internship.  I finally did talk with him last Thursday and we agreed I would pursue setting it up with someone else in the City’s organizational structure.  Mrs. Bonagura suggested reaching out to Mayor Clarkson for advice on whom to call.  But he is on vacation.  I also want to be careful that involving the Mayor doesn’t cause more problems.  Instead, I have decided to contact Mr. Chamberlain who used to run the Aquatics program, is a former Cal High parent, teaches at Cal State East Bay in parks and recreation, and still has strong ties to the City’s Aquatic program.   I will talk with Mr. Chamberlain this week.

2.  SAT Prep.  I took the SAT for the first time in June.  I didn’t do very well, especially on the English Language Arts sections.  One of my goals for the summer was to get through the online SAT prep program that we purchased for my brother.  I acknowledge that I did not make this the priority that I should have.  I don’t mean for this to sound like an excuse, but the main reason I didn’t get it done was that the self-study nature of it is very difficult for me.  I do much better with a live instructor with whom I can interact, especially since my reading skills are so weak.  I’m going to retake the test in November.  This week I will schedule time with my mom to get through one section.

3. College Search.  Everyone is talking about college applications.  I am planning to apply to Cal State Chico, Monterey Bay, and East Bay.  But other than that I’m feeling very behind on the whole College Application process.  This week I will go on to Naviance/Family Connection with my mom and familiarize myself with the tool and make an action plan. 

4.  Cal State Applications.  The deadline for these is November 30.  I am setting a personal goal to be done with them before November 15.  This week I will look at the application.

5. Cleaning My Room and Getting Myself Organized.   I didn’t get a chance before school started to thoroughly clean my room and purge old stuff.  This is adding to the mess and my sense disorganization.  This week I will get rid of all the school stuff from last year that I don’t need to save.