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.