My+Journal

I have a hand written journal that I am transposing onto this so that I have a online copy. I didn't always have access to a computer or I-pad so I kept a journal by hand. I'll admit some nights my wrist ended up really sore, but I did like doing it this way. I've never really kept a journal so that made it a little more fun to do. I have all my interning dates on here and all of my work on the wikispace dates so hopefully that covers everything. Most of this journal documents what I did on a specific day, but some of it is my feelings over the experience or knowledge I gained throughout this project. Also some of the days are very long winded, but I am a fairly long winded writer.

April ?: Discussed the senior project in Mrs. Olson's class

April 30th: I brainstormed ideas for my project 1. Intern at the Lake County 4H office 2. Intern with Doc Stenberg 3. Construct a playhouse for school

April 31st: Called 4-H office and spoke with both Glenda Blom and Amanda (Mandy) Stade. They both approved my idea.

May 1st: Created wiki in class -invited senior project teaching staff -started Statement of Intent

May 2nd: worked on Statement of Intent

May 3rd: Worked on Statement of Intent

May 7th: Edited Statement of Intent

May 8th: Edited Statement of Intent. Also added Budget page, Mentor page, Picture page and Research paper page

May 23rd: Received 4H volunteer form from Glenda in the mail.

May 25th: Worked out summer schedule with my mom's help. 180 potential hours I could work and intern in Madison. This schedule was much needed so that I could see where I had to be and when. I also thought of my final product: a movie showing everything happening at Achievement Days including shows, interviews, and projects.

May 26th: Filled out Volunteer form

May 27th: Brought form and calendar into the office in the morning. I actually stated my internship that afternoon at 4:00pm. I drove into the office and helped set up and assist during market sheep and goat greentagging/weigh-ins. I have only ever greentagged hogs (only once) so this was very interesting. I helped to set up the electronic scale (and acted as a test dummy for caliberation), assist 4Hers and families with their animals, and helped fill out the proper forms.

May 28th: Created hard copy of journal.

May 30th: I got to the office at 8:00 am and stated on my first project. This project pertained to the livestock skill-a-thon that we are incorporating into Achievement Days. Mandy already picked out all the breeds we'll be using for matching, but I had to write all the descriptions of those breeds. I spent the morning researching and writing these brief descriptions out.. I think I completed about 40 of them. I left at 12:00pm.

June 9th: I got there at 9:00am and got started right away with my livestock research. I finished around 11:00am. Then I helped Mandy and Glenda around the office. I got lunch from 12:00-1:00pm and after lunch I helped Glenda. I helped send out robotics club forms and information. I also double-checked all greentagged animal numbers to make sure everything matched up. I also greeted customers when Glenda was on the phone. I left at about 4:20pm.

June 11th: Today I got really good at mailing things! I mailed out greentag and DNA invoices to all those who brought in animals. Greentags and DNA are only needed for market animals, but there were still a ton of envelopes. DNA is needed to prevent the switching of animals at the county or state show. I also mailed out shooting sports ribbons that people hadn't picked up from the state shoot. I learned how to use the "turtle" today! It's a little contraption that wets envelope labels so you don't have to lick them. It was awesome! Glenda received an email about computer viruses so she sent me to update all the computers. There are four others besides hers and Mandy's that are used by different youth programs. The last thing Glenda and I did was play around with my family's online 4H account. There were a few glitches for other 4H members, but by the next week we had most of them figured out. I came in at 1:00pm and left at 5:00pm today.

June 23rd: Today I went in at 1:00 and first thing was being attacked by Glenda! She was really excited about my national award and wanted to know what it was. Thankfully I was semi-expecting something like this so I did bring it with. I showed Glenda and Mandy it and explained my project to them and then Glenda insisted on a picture. After we got through all this, we got to work. I had made the Livestock skill-a-thon info cards on the computer, and while I was gone, Many had printed theem off. Today she had me laminate them to made sure they lasted. After that I helped Glenda search for Colby Briggs' name on the top Shooting Sports Sheet. We had an award for him, but we couldn't find his name. Well, we did find it, but it wasn't where it was supposed to be. Next we went through horse show information. The county horse show is this Friday the 27th. I made out the programs using last year's old document, but I couldn't make it work right so I just started over. I finished it right at 5:00pm.

June 24th: Today I got to the office and it was a blur of activity. The blue jean workshop was today! I helped Glenda and Kris Klingbile (organizer of the workshop) set up the back room. There were a lot of different projects that could be made. Purses, hair accessories, wall hangings, and toolboxes were some of the exhibits able to be made. PI retty soon kids started coming. The oldest was Alyson Johnson and I think she'll be a 7th grader this year (found out late she'd be in 8th). A lot of the kids looked to be between the ages of 9-13. Kris explained what each project was and a little of how to make it. I helped mainly with the toolboxes. Three kids made them: Casey Meadows, Julianna Hodges, and Triston Corbin. Casey had his project under control so I didn't help him much other than to get him started. I helped Triston cut his blue jeans and attach the pants leg to the bucket. I also hlepd with the waistband. I assisted Julianna with cutting the pants leg and attaching the waistband to the bucket. When they were done, I went around to see if anyone else needed help. I ended up helping with coasters and pocket magnets. We were supposed to be done at 3:00pm, but some kids didn't leave until 3:30. The back room was a mess of hot glue, blue jean material, and foam craft letters. We scraped the tables for hot glue residue, threw away unusable pants, and extensively swept the floor. I also washed some of the dishes that were used in making the projects. After all the cleaning was done, Glenda and I went to the back building (the 4H Center) to open the garage door. We had 5 tables being delivered. I took off all the stickers and Glenda labeled all of them. I gues a couple years ago they "lost" some tables and she doesn't want that to happen again. After delivery, we locked the doors again, and headed to the front office. I corrected a few typos on my horse show program and then sorted through horse show entry cards. I left the office at 5:00pm.

June 25th: I went in t 1:00 this afternoon but I was technically there at 12:50. The Spilde's (a family I know from Ramona area) were there as well, waiting to get in the office for the painting workshop. I talked to them about 4H until Mandy and Glenda came back from lunch. The Creative Spirit ladies came right before Mandy and Glenda and once they came in, everyone else could follow. I was going to help the paint instructors this afternoon, but they didn't really need it so I asked Glenda for something to do. She didn't have anything, so I went to Mandy. She wanted labels made for the livestock skill-a-thon so that's what I did. I created the labels in Word on "my" computer (it's not really mine, but it's the one that they let me use during the day. It's really challenging to operate sometimes, or rather annoying, because it isn't connected to a printer and a lot of my tasks involve printing. That's where my handy dandy "foot" comes in!) I saved them on a ZIP drive (also known to Glenda as "my foot") and brought them to the other office computer to print. Printing was very interesting because I had all the right colors of paper ready, but the printer skipped my top two pink ones. I was supposed to color coordinate the breed name labels by species. For example: the Angus is a cattle breed, so it's label would have been pink. The Dorset is a sheep breed so its label would have been yellow and the Yorkshire is a swine breed so its label would be green. Now the printer wasn't cooperating with my colored papers which confused both Glenda and I. I didn't know what caused my problem, but I printed each page individually after that. My next task was laminating! I used the laminator on all the sheets to make sure the labels will last and are able to be reused. Then, I used the paper cutter to cut out each label. Doing all of this took quite a bit of time, but I took a couple breaks to become a photographer. I took pictures of the painters working in the back room. One time, I went back and they were actually using a blow drier to dry their pictures! I'd never seen or thought of that idea before. The pictures turned out great and it looked like all of the kids had a lot of fun. There were 18 of them there! I was really cool to see some of the kids from yesterday because I now know who they are. The painting wrapped up at around 3:15. After everyone left and I completed my first project, I started on my second of the day. This one was for Glenda. I updated the information on project areas for Achievement Days. This included Chairs, Co-chairs, Youth Representatives and any other position needed for each project area committee. The 2014 Achievement Day committee will review this list and find people to fill empty spots, etc., at their meeting tomorrow night. Next, I helped Glenda with the header for a horse show spreadsheet. At the end of the day, we uploaded all my photos of the painting workshop to the Lake County 4H Facebook page. I left the office at 5:00pm.

June 26th: Today, I helped Glenda in the office (because Mandy was in Moody County), I worked in the afternoon today again. We completed a lot of tasks related to the horse show (which is tomorrow!). We got out the speaker system, ribbons, timers, and anything else needed and brought them to the back of the 4H Center. We cleaned out the announcer's stand by the horse arena because the Southeast Horse Show people had left a complete mess in there. We made 50 copies of the show bill, and I organized entry cards for each class. Once we were done with the horse show work, we went inside and looked at purebred papers. For each animal declared a purebred on livestock affidavits, they must also have an accurate set of purebred papers. There were 3 or 4 that were either questionable for matching affidavit information. Once was filled out with the wrong owner (it was the previous owner's name still on the form), another was listed as a crossbred on the affidavit, but had purebred papers sent in, and two were completely messed up. One of them could have easily been a typo, but the other was completely different on the two papers. Neither Glenda or I knew what to do with those two so we left them on Mandy's desk. We also looked up projects for old license plates because we might do a craft with them. Glenda knows how to get old ones from the courthouse and is able to get a lot at a time. There's some pretty nifty crafts out there that may be fun for the youth to do.

June 27th: Today was the county horse show! I went in at 8:00am and worked all day today (actually a little over my normal hours). My first task was to make and enlarge the copies of the horse patterns to hang on the board outside of the announcer's booth. I printed five patterns (the judge brought the rest) and the show bill (event order) on goldenrod paper. I took Glenda's stapler (she has a special hiding place for her stapler because things tend to randomly disappear especially during busy events and she doesn't want to lose it) and headed out to attach my printed papers. As I was walking in, I felt some sprinkles. Everyone in the office was hoping the rain would go around us. I reported the sprinkles to them, but Glenda was being optimistic. About 10 minutes later it was pouring and the morning got very intense. Mandy was on the phone calling Jill (Desperado's 4H horse leader), Pam (JC horse leader), Moody County, and the Moody County horse leader to try and figure out what we were going to do about the show. Pam had said she had an indoor arena, but it wouldn't fit everybody, Jill was contacting others, and Moody County suggested participating in their show on next Tuesday. Glenda was fielding calls from the horse participants' parents as to what the plans were. I tried to help wherever possible. Marty Warns came down in to start setting up the concession stand and proceeded to just in case (lucky for us as it turns out). He also brought in drills to go fix the table in the announcer's stand. By 10:00 we were at a standstill waiting on a call back from Jill. Glenda called a brunch break/ office wide meeting including Marty (I think that she had planned for an interesting morning). As soon as we were done with our rolls, Jill called. She gave us Denise Fox's phone number. Glenda called her and Denise said she had an indoor horse arena and we should be able to hold the show there today. The excitement was unbelieveable. Glenda typed up an email to send to the horse families but needed an address so she called Denise back. Denise gave it to her, but also asked a question about insurance. She wanted to know if the insurance would cover the 4H event if it was not held on the 4H grounds. That put a kink in our plan. Glenda got on the phone with the county commissioners and Mandy and I waited. They didn't know right away, but when they called back they said that the 4Hers would be covered under insurance off of the grounds, but the spectators wouldn't be. That meant we couldn't hold the horse show at Fox's indoor facility. Mandy got back on the phone with Jill and explained everything to her while Glenda checked into a blanket insurance policy. Mandy and Jill decided to chance the weather and hold the horse show at the planned place and time. Then Glenda and Mandy took off to grab a quick sub to bring back and eat before the show. They left Peggy (the work-study student taking care of Cloverbuds) and me in charge. I attended a customer and made a copy for them (I was really happy because I actually did it right!) I also answered the phone once, but it was for Karen (the County Food and Nutrition Specialist, we share a building). When Glenda and Mandy got back we went and ate in the back room. Horse trailers were already showing up. Jill came in to talk so I got to meet her for the first time. She seemed like a pretty cool lady and I found out she is Triston's mom (one of the kid's that I helped yesterday). We headed out with her to start setting up. By this time the rain had temporarily stopped. I helped carry out and set up the sound system for the announcer to use. I started handing out show bills, but then I sat in the announcer's stand to take health papers and distribute back tags for Mandy. It was about 12:50 when I got done in there and I headed outside to find out what was going on because the judge wasn't here yet. Mandy told me the show was delayed because the judge had a flat tire and was 30 minutes away. For that time, I helped hand out show bills again and answered questions about what was going on. It took the judge a little bit longer than expected, but she came at around 1:40pm. She went to the announcer's booth with Mandy. I was talking to Pam about my internship because she asked if I worked there when Mandy called down and asked me to hang up the rest of the patterns. I went and got them and as I was going to hang them up Pam asked, "Can I have a copy of that one? I'll even pay for it." I wasn't sure so I told her she would have to ask Mandy. She said, "Well you're the intern, you go do it." I was a little shocked by this reply. I'm not her intern, I'm the office's. She should be able to ask her own questions and not make other's do it for her. I obliged though and Mandy said "No." I told Pam and then proceeded to hang the patterns on the outside of the announcer's booth. The show actually started about 10 minutes later with SR. Western Showmanship. I ran up to the office to get the camera and then came back to take pictures of the Grand and Reserve Champions. Olivia Minnaert won grand and I tried to take her picture, but it wouldn't work so I took one on my phone. I then brought the camera up to Glenda and asked what was wrong with it. I had forgotten that she took the battery out yesterday to charge. I grabbed the battery and headed back down in time to get the Junior Western Showmanship Champions. I continued to take pictures of all the different showmanship winners and after those classes were complete, the events themselves. We had to take a rain break right before Beginner Hunt Seat and I headed inside to wipe off the camera. When it was down raining, both Glenda and I went down to the show ring. I continued to take pictures and the show got more fun the more we progressed. The really fun events to watch were the Beginner Flag Race, Junior Barrels, and Junior Pole Bending. They were much faster and more entertaining to watch. The show wrapped up at 6:00pm, but then I helped clean up afterwards. We had to clean out the announcer's stand, take down the sound system, and double-check the grounds. I left at about 6:30. It was an interesting day and I learned a lot, especially since it was all new to me. Once of the most surprising things to learn probably was the behind-the-scenes 4H horse politics. It was actually almost comical. We have two horse clubs: one from down south by Hanson area, and one in Lake County. There was almost a definite divide during the show, even with how the parking went. One club parked on one side, the other club on the opposite. I've never seen those kind of politics in 4H before. I think a lot of it had to do with the Pam lady that I met, I think she might be part of the reason that it's so divided. She seemed like a very interesting lady.

June 30th: I worked this afternoon and my first task was circling the correct placing on the entry cards. Then, we hooked up the scanner and I scanned the exhibitor number and the code for the ribbon placing and it went right into the system. After that, I wrote a "Letter to the Editor" of the Madison Daily Leader thanking the community for their support of the "Cans for Kids" program. We have a bin where area citizens throw their cans and the money is used for scholarship or credit opportunities in the 4H program. I also went out and locked up the concession stand and looked at the main barn. It looks awesome! We got the new window put in and they look fantastic. My last task was shredding all the old papers from last week and the horse show. I learned how to run the shredder and almost thought I broke it, but I cleaned it out and let it rest for a while and then it started up again. Once I finished that, I went around and shut off computers. Tomorrow Glenda and I are going to look at possible workshops to have in July. I left at 5:00pm.

July 1st: I worked this afternoon again. Glenda made me a list, which I completed. First, I made a note talking about glass etching class on July 15th, to put on a sample piece of glass. Next, I put together the order for public presentations next Wednesday. (I really need to practice mine). We set the starting time for 9:00am and gave 15 minutes for each participant. A first year 4Her came in and I helped answer his and his mom's questions about 4H events and Achievement Days. Next on my list was making a label for the shotgun program binder (every 4H event has a binder, Glenda has a system). I googled the 4H emblem and found the correct one online, added it to my Word document, and printed off the label. After putting this in the front cover, Glenda handed me a thank you card (it was for the judges). She asked me to change it up a bit because this was the leftover from last year. I changed it using Mrs. DaNeil Olson's rule about unever starting a thank you with "Thank You". I think Glenda liked the changes I made. I have noticed that I've been writing a lot of Thank Yous lately. I kind of enjoy it though, so it's okay! After that, Glenda me some small masking tape and directed me to some flat glass pieces. These pieces are going to be used for glass etching on July 15th and she wanted me to tape the corners. She didn't know if it would be necessary but wanted us to cover our bases just in case. While I was doing that, Mark Sudenga came in. He's a 4H parent and is really active in the program. He talked to us for a bit and when he left I got an idea to add on to one of Glenda's. Last year, Mark played a prank on Mandy by teepeeing her room and she wasn't here today. Glenda and I decided to clean Mandy's room and shut the door. On the door I made a sign that read, "Caution Mark Was Here!" We hope she likes her surprisingly clean room. I really want to see her face when she sees the door because she'll probably expect the worse!

July 3rd: Today I got there and there were lots of folders and binders with sticky notes on my desk. Glenda explained what she wanted me to do for everything. First, I made 3 copies of the State Fair Book (also known as the 4H Bible or the Youth-In-Action Project Guide). This is extremely important for registering exhibits and animals for Achievement Days and State Fair. 4H has now gone to an online system so Glenda thought it would be a good idea to have hard copies in the office for people to reference to. After I made the copies of both the Static Exhibit portion and the Animal Exhibit portion (and decided I'm getting very aquainted with the printer) I hole punched them and added them to 3 binders. I then made 3 labels for those binders and set them on the bottom shelf of the bookcase. Next on my list was filling out judges scorecards for Special Foods, Fashion Revue, and Public Presentation participants. All three of these contests are being held next week. Heather Lee came in and got the key for the 4H Center for Robotics class on Sunday night. Glenda and I hauled all of the Robotics equipment out to the 4H Center after Heather left. We brought out all the robots and plugged in all three computers. At around 3:20 we went to run errands around town. First, we went to the Post Office (never been there before) to purchase stamps for the office. Next, we went to the courthouse for something financial related. I believe we stopped in the County Treasurer's office, but I'm not really sure. I'm not quite positive exactly what we did, but it did involve a debit card. I'll ask Glenda about it on Monday I guess. We also recycled the cardboard we took out of one of the back closet's at the courthouse. They had a big dumpster just for the cardboard. We cleaned out the closet before we went on our errand run. Our last stop was Dairy Queen and Glenda treated me to a blizzard for a 4th of July treat. Once we got back, we finished our treats and then went to set up the back room for the Special Foods contest on Monday morning. We moved some tables and set out chairs hoping that we will get some people to come watch the contest. One thing I have noticed is that I'm learning just as much during my talks with Glenda as I am for my senior project. I'm learned so much and almost getting a double dose of knowledge. I'm really glad I chose this as my project. Learning about something I enjoy really makes me want to stick with it even more.

July 9th: Today is public presentation and fashion revue day. I did give my own presentation, but I did help with all the prep work when I got to the office at 8:00am. The first thing I did was carry a table to the front to set up the projector. Then, I set up chairs while Mandy got her computer. I ran around to get the things that Mandy needed, like a week book to up underneath the projector to make it sit correctly. Then we aligned everything so it fit right on the screen. Glenda brought out signs to show the order of participants. Then, I went to the office with Glenda. I proofread a horse show winner announcement going to the newspaper and the Cloverleaf for July. Next, I went through the checks received for greentagging and DNA sampling. I checked off the families we received from and reprinted the bill for those we hadn't. There were quite a few large checks that hadn't come in yet. After I printed them, I went back to the 4H Center to see how presentations were going. I missed the Lee's by a couple minutes and then there was a 30 minute break because of a scratch and a moving of times around. I went back into the office and labeled envelopes for the bills. I did this same in and out thing until 12:30pm. I got to hear many good presentations with interesting topics. We cleaned up the presentation stuff at 12:30 and then went to lunch. I came back at 1:00 and finished up my envelopes. Then, Glenda gave me the task of making the Special Foods recipe book showing all the exhibitors and their recipes. I was about half done before it was time to get ready for the Fashion Revue. I went back out to the 4H Center and took pictures of our 3 contestants. I'd never been to the Fashion Revue Contest before so it was interesting for me. Also, at these two contests today, I was the runner and brought the papers and forms to the judge. After Fashion Revue, cleaned up and I went back inside to finish my recipe book. When I was finished, I printed it off and brought it to Glenda to have her proofread it. I left at 5:00pm tonight.

July 10th: Today I got there at 1:00 and proofread the Special Foods recipe book again to double-check for errors. I did find one in the reading. Emma Brandenburger used "braking" instead of "breaking" in her cooking directions, but that was the only error I saw. Then, I made copies of the book for each of the participants and some for others who come into the office. I must say, I used the printer a ton today! I learned that there was a staple function which I used for my next project. Glenda let me use her coputer and I printed off all the forms needed for exhibits at Achievement Days. The office always has hard copies on hand just in case someone can't find them online. I made ten copies for each of these: Beginner Selected Outfit, Junior Selected Outfit, Senior Selected Outfit, clothing accessary, vegetables, food Preservation, and anything sheets needing to be printed. Today there was Cloverbuds which I didn't help with because I was helping Glenda. Peggy the work-study, is in charge of Cloverbuds. It sounded like they learned some new cheers, talked about 4H Camp and played some fun games. During Cloverbuds I helped answer some questions for Anita Misar, a first year 4H mom. She wanted to know about the State Fair Book and exhibit guidelines. I answered the questions as best I could. When she left, I worked on narration for the Fashion Revue on the Friday of Achievement Days. This narration will be read as the girls walk and show off their outfits. At the end of the day, or close to it, Mark Sudenga brought in a shotgun sheet scoresheet for us to take ideas from and then make our own. I made the sheet and it took quite a while because of some of the details. Once I figured out how to make it, it didn't take long at all. One thing I've noticed from working here is that I'm learning way more than I expected and I have great teachers. I'm learning that I need more patience particularily with my brothers. Colton and Garet came with me because of Cloverbuds. After Cloverbuds, they annoyed me, but Glenda was patient as can be. I don't know if I would be able to be an elementary teacher. It would take some work. I'm also learning a ton of people skills and how to use my knowledge to help others. I really enjoy it. We found a really old document today of Tractor Safety 2004! I knew everyone in the picture and it's in a National Magazine.

July 11th: Today I had a busy day. My first task was to work on the 4H County Horse Show results column for the newspaper. Glenda had already written it once, but the newspaper said the formatting was wrong. I rewrote it in different formatting and then we sent it to the paper. I think they accepted it this time because it ran in Saturday's paper. Next Marty Warns came in. He's such a great guy and a huge supporter of 4H! I love talking to him! Glenda, him, and I walked down to the barns to see what all needed to be done before Achievement Days. We analyzed everything and Marty told us he would be everything and Marty told us he would be back later. Next, we went back to the office and traveled to the bank. We deposited the money for DNA/Greentags that we have received because Glenda doesn't like keeping it in the office. Some time ago, people broke in and looked for money, but didn't find any because Glenda doesn't keep it there. We ran into Chelsea Malcomb at the bank and I enjoyed introducing her to Glenda and catching up with her. Glanda and I picked up some popcorn while we were there and brought an extra back for Karen (the Foods and Nutrition specialist that we share a building with). Back at the office I researched the color of 4H green per request of a parent for 4H signs being made. I didn't find a specific color, but Glenda found a sheet showing acceptable colors. We also looked up Cloverbuds and what events they are allowed to participate in. Then, I had a discussion on Lake County 4H history and youth enrollment. From what Glenda said, the number of 4H clubs has decreased considerably since she began her job, even within the past couple years. The Young Guns club in Ramona folded, Chester Champs folded, and a club from Winfred folded all in the past 5 years. On the bright side, I discovered my club is one of the oldest in the county and is still a very active fore now. It was a good discussion and I learned a lot. I really enjoy these discussions I have with Glenda, she's such a knowledgeable lady! I asked her how Lake County's enrollment ranked in the state currently, but she wasn't completely certain on that, so she told me to look it up because it would be good for the office to know. I did but I couldn't find anything so I'll have to keep looking. Also this morning, I finalized the Shotgun score sheet, got it sent to Mark, and I put the Fashion Review and Bullutin Board folders away. By this time, it was 12:00pm and time for lunch. Karen walked out and mentrioned that she was headed to Sunshine Foods because of the Julian Frietag Memorial/Weinermobile. Both Glenda and I thought this sounded good so we headed there too. Glenda treated me to lunch and it was fun to get to know some of her aquiantances. We ended up seeing Marty so we sat and ate with Glenda's son and his family. When we were done, we got our picture taken with the Weinermobile and had a great conversation about 4H with one of the workers. The worker was actually a 4H alumnus from Pennsylvania and is a strong supporter of 4H. She made her coronation dress for a 4H project her senior year! She also gave us little red Weinermobile whistles for getting our picture taken. Glenda had driven me so I rode with her to do the rest of her tasks for lunch hour. When we got back to the Extension Office, Mandy was back and gave me my next assignment. She wanted me to fill out the order sheet for the 4H Mall magazine for prizes needed for Achievement Days. I started this task, but then Marty stopped and said he was ready to clean the barn. We threw away old sawhorses, canvas, broken boards, tables, wire, chairs, and anything else not useful to us. Then we moved all the old windows underneath a shelving unit and behind rabbit cages to get them out of the way. We also moved the chicken coop door prize and dog shelter out of the rabbit area so as to not make Jodi Brown (the rabbit area Chair) upset. We moved fridges, swept and just tried to clean things up a bit before actually setting up everything in 2 weeks. Actually Glenda had an idea while cleaning of moving the rabbits and chickens to the dairy barn because we have no dairy this year. It might be cooler for them and would allow them to have a lot more space. When we were done I hauled old paint to the cement behind the office and opened the the cans to let them dry out; they weren't good anymore. Then, I went back to my job of filling out the order form. This was new to me because whenever we order something at home, Mom does it. When I had everything filled out and had double-checked it, I brought it to Mandy for a signature. She then brought it to Glenda for the check and mailing it out. We had a system! Next, we hauled all the Robotics Equipment out to the 4H Center for Robotics on Sunday night. When we came back in, Glenda asked Mandy if she had proofed my Letter to the Editor and Mandy said, "Yes it was good." Glenda then showed me how Letters to the Editor must be filled out with an address and signiture. I also learned how to fax from the printer. This printer can do anything! When we finished that, we met in Mandy's room and discussed a list of tasks for the groundkeepers to have done by Achievement Days. Marty stopped in again and threw in some ideas. When we finished the list, I think there were 11 or 12 tasks on it. Next, I put the craft supplies we ordered in the closet in the back room. My last task of the day was making 5 copies of the Newsletter, Achievement Day Schedule, Committe Chairs List, Pie Contest Info, and other papers needed by the 4Hers. Now these were all emailed out, but these 5 copies are for the 5 families that either don't have email, or don't check it. I was done at 5:00pm today so I worked a full day's shift.

July 14th: This afternoon it was just Mandy and I. Glenda's Bible Study was serving "The Gathering" at the Madison Methodist Church this evening so she was there preparing food instead. My first task was reading through papers for livestock skill-a-thon. Mandy wanted to make sure it was understandable for the participants. I also read through the Moody County step-by-step guide for county and state fair. Some of it seemed redundant of the State Fair Book, but Mandy said it was needed because many families in Moody County didn't read that. Then we went to the back closet and brought all of the project totes to Mandy's office. It was my job to go through them the next couple days. I also helped set out the Family and Consumer Science (FCS) Judging. People could come judge from 3:30-5:00 pm. I next made 50 copies of the Shotgun Scoresheet because Mark said it looked good. I sorted boxes until 4:00pm when I went to do my judging. On my time sheet I didn't add the last hour of work due to that reason.

July 15th: Today we had our glass etching workshop at 1:00pm, so I got to the Extension Office around 12:50pm. I brought Colton and Garet with me because they wanted to try glass etching for a 4H project. As I was getting them settled in, the phone rang. Next thing, Glenda is motioning me to follow her. We go into Mandy's office and Glenda tells me that Heather Lee (glass etching instructor) forgot about the workshop and is an hour away. Glenda asked me, "Should I have the kids come back?" The only problem with that is that some of the kids live out of town. I know there were many Ramona kids there and we didn't want to have them waste their gas. We decided to find a filler project instead to take up the time. We headed to the closet (which is full of numerous things). Glenda found watercolors and old poster board. She sent me to cut down the poster board so we'd have enough for all the kids. She started getting the set up to watercolor paint and tried to explain what was going on. I brought out the small sheets of poster board when I was done and the 21 kids started painting. Some of them took a little bit to decide what to make, but once they got their creative juices running, there was no issue. While they were painting, Glenda and I regrouped. The past 15 minutes had been full of frantic searching, worrying, answering questions, and just plain chaos so we needed time to prepare our next step. We also came up with a second project of making "Thank You" cards for people who were important in the kids' lives. Once we had that second project ready, just in case, I headed to the back room and admired the paintings and helped where necessary. I also answered parents' questions about the 4H exhibits and the different categories in the Fairbook. The painting took about 45 minutes, which is when Heather showed up. We had the kids make the "Thank Yous" while she was preparing herself for the class. Once the etching got underway, we noticed that Colton, Garet, and another boy only had the tiny glass ornament pieces from the closet. Glenda was very irritated because Heather had said she would bring more glass pieces from home for those who didn't have blocks or sheets. There were nine blocks donated and seven flat pieces. Some brought their own, but the three boys were supposed to get glass from Heather. Glenda sent me to Dollar General to pick up anything made of glass for the three boys who didn't have much to use. I went to Dollar General and couldn't find anything until I noticed some glass jars in the back. They were only $2.00, decent sized and the only glass piece I could find so I grabbed them and brought them with me. The entire way back all I could think about was making sure I didn't accidentally break one of them! Once I got back, distributed the jars, and made sure everything was under control in the workshop, I started on my next class. We sent out all the committee members their assigned duties and jobs for Achievement Days along with a schedule and a full list of committee people for public knowledge. I folded a lot of letters, used "the turtle" to seal them, and used 48 cent stamps. I did this for the rest of the afternoon with brief breaks to check on what was going on in back. The workshop for most of the kids wrapped up around 4:00ish, but Emma Brandenburger stayed to etch her detailed design and was there until close to closing. I left the office at 5:00pm today.

July 16th: This afternoon I did a lot of proofreading. Lake County 4H has a spot in the newspaper "Extension Extras: by Amanda Stade" (actually it's not always Mandy, but who's going to know) Glenda wrote an article to fill the spot and she had me proofread it today. I also proofread the letter she will be sending out to the Cloverbuds regarding how to enter exhibits using Fair Entry. We let them know we'd be available to help them register next week during the Cloverbud meeting. Next, I made 10 copies each of papers for the Pie Contest, Fair Entry, and Open Class Exhibits. I hung these copies on the bulletin board for people who come into the office. They can then just take thee forms. We had an interesting event happen today at around 3:00pm. Glenda and I were talking and she happened to glance out the window. There were horses locked up in the show ring and goats tied to the fence! She left to go check it out. She met up with the pickup and horse trailer as they were leaving the grounds. The girls in the pickup were apparently at the Veterinarian's all day and were going to leave their horses here while they went to get food. When I heard this afterward, I was incredulous. Why would you leave an animal unattended at the 4H grounds if you weren't even from this county (because they weren't, they were from Minnehaha) and without permission? Glenda told them they weren't allowed to leave them here unattended and tried to explain liability regulations (I don't think they understood), and made one girl stay while the other went to get food. I guess this whole situation felt disrespectful and irresponsible to me. They didn't even ask first! They just assumed they could do as they pleased. I learned a little about the liability insurance from this incident. The Lake County 4H does have insurance, but it only covers 4H members and their events. If those horses had been left there and Glenda hadn't caught the girls before they left, she would've called the sheriff. If someone would've come to take them or ended up letting them out, the Extension Office would been blamed as being responsible and we would've had no idea of their presence. Around 4:30, Glenda went out and told the girls they would have to be off the grounds by 4:40pm because the Extension Office closes at 5:00pm. At 4:45pm Glenda got a call from the girls' mom saying that she was being rude to the girls. I was in disbelief! The girls stayed until after 5:00pm, and we had to stay until they left so I ended up being there later than normal. During all this, I was writing my own article for the paper welcoming community members to Achievement Days and letting the public know the schedule of events. It was challenging to do, but I finished it!

July 17th: This afternoon I sorted through totes. This task was very long and took most of the afternoon. I'm not even done yet! Each tote is for a specific project area and contains a binder, pencils, paperclips, pens, markers, ribbon stickers, and anything specific to that area. I went through and made sure pencils were sharpened, paperclips were in the bags, and just cleaned them up a little. I also went through the binders and pulled old fair sheets out because the Far book was changed. These binders contained judging cards for the exhibits and I double-checked those with online versions to make sure they're still current. If they weren't I would write them on my list to print off new. I got through all the static exhibit totes today and I started printing off the changed judging sheets and the specific Fair book pages for each category. This made for a long, monotonous task, but it did need to be done. I also helped carry the A-frame sandwich boards to the 4H Center. Shane (head county groundskeeper) made them per Glenda's request for the barns to staple the show orders to.

July 18th: This morning I started out going through totes again. Most of this was printing out State Fair book pages and anything else that was new or updated. I went through all 12 including livestock and I have 1 out of that batch to finish still. I did this job all morning. After lunch I ironed Showmanship ribbons because many of them were bent up and didn't look very good. Glenda doesn't like giving kids wrinkled ribbons, so I ironed them. I also helped answer questions on chicken and exhibit affidavits when a family came in to the Office. I helped Glenda put up our Achievement Day cheat sheet so we could just look at the wall and know what is going on and when. Also we sent out postcards to help 4H families know about Fair Entry and how to submit or enter their projects. We made a separate registration slip for the Cloverbuds because Mandy didn't think we should have them do it online yet. I helped label and stamp all of these mailings. Our total turned out to be 115 sent letters!

July 22nd: This afternoon I started out with a list Glenda had made for me. First, I created slips to use when they draw for the dog house and the dog show. Campbell's Supply in Madison donated both a dog house and a chicken coop to be used for this purpose. They were trying to expand and create more interest in those specific programs. I made the chicken coop slips after the dog house ones. Then I made a sign to put up saying "Beef Purchased from Jack's Cold Storage". This is for the public's knowledge of concession stand items for Achievement Days. Next, I made a sign to go on our tote where the bean bag and Pie Contest Prizes are going to be stored for the next week. The last thing I made was a raffle ticket for the "Red Power Roundup" painting by John Greene. We're going to raffle it off to raise money for the new Clover Hall in Huron at the State Fair Grounds. After I made these in Microsoft Word, we tried to connect my computer to a printer, but we couldn't get it to work. The computer could find the printer, it just wouldn't connect. I went to the other office room and used that computer to print the documents off of my "foot" (the USB drive Glenda lets me use and calls my foot because it's a 4H flip-flop key chain thing). Throughout the day, I helped to answer people's questions about what project goes under which category. I also helped them with Fair Entry or navigating the Fair Book. There were some parents that came in and some kids. Once they figured out how to do it, it seemed to go very well. The last think I did was to start filling out checks for the Achievement Days judges. Each static exhibit judge receives $20 plus gas mileage. Most of them are fairly local and receive between $20 and $30. I didn't get all the way through the list, but I'll just have to finish it up tomorrow. Today Mandy was at the State Horse Show. Actually, I don't know if I've mentioned this in here yet, but the reason I always talk about Glenda is because Mandy's not always there. Every Tuesday and Thursday she is in Moody County working as their Extension Educator. Sometimes she also has to judge other county's Youth-In-Action events (ex. Special Foods) so she's gone for that as well. Last week she had to go to a State Livestock Committee meeting in Mitchell. She's busy a lot, but when she is in Madison, she gives me projects to do. I really enjoy working with Glenda so I don't mind if Mandy's gone a lot. It's what is required of her for her job.

July 23rd: This afternoon Glenda wasn't there at 1:00pm when I got there. She texted me and said it would be 1:45 before she got back. I got to work on the stickies on she must've set on my desk this morning. My first task was to finish writing all the judges' checks. I also wrote checks to Deb Stamm for dog project supplies and to Barb Minnaert for Pie Contest prizes I think. The next project I did (Glenda was back by this time) was mailing out postcards to the livestock judges to remind them that Achievement Days is next week. I also mailed out reminder letters to the static exhibit judges. They also received pages on tips for interview judging questions and the actual judging itself. The next thing I mailed out were more postcards! We sent postcards to the sheep project members that are exhibiting sheep at Achievement Days. These postcards let the exhibitors know that Ron Parmely is shearing sheep on Friday night. They need to have their sheep washed beforehand to make it easier for shearing. I left at 4:00pm this afternoon.

July 24th: This afternoon a Cloverbuds meeting was going on from 1:00-3:00pm. Peggy is in charge of that and today's lesson was on animals. I was in the office helping Paiton Smith and her mom register their exhibits for Achievement Days. Once they got the hang of it, and knew what they were doing, they did really well. There's so many mixed reviews about the system; sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Today it would randomly kick out Kris Klingbile so she couldn't get anything registered. Glenda could go in and do it from her master log in, so that's what we did. My next job was folding judges thank-you cards, putting their check inside, and also adding a lunchstand coupon. Glenda also had me mark the back of the coupon so we would know who had used it. All of this was put together in an envelope, labeled, and ready for Mandy to give out next week. After this, I mailed out Barb Minnaert's check. The only reason I could do any of this is because Deb Stamm came in and co-signed the checks. The Friends of 4H pays for all of this and it requires a double signature (Glenda and Deb). My next task was updating the lunchstand price sheet and the family charge account sheet. The lunchstand committee had gone over and raised some items and lowered others. I tried to follow their scribbled directions to make it how they wanted. This project actually took me a little while because I didn't want to forget something. When I was finished, I printed off copies. Then, Glenda scanned it in to the computer and sent the copies to the members of the lunchstand committee to review. Then, I walked into the back room and helped Peggy by eating on cupcake left over from Cloverbuds. I helped clean up after having all those kids in there. Glenda gave the boys (Colton and Garet) projects to do so we could continue with our own things. I sorted through more totes containing livestock health paper folders, stall cards, pens, markers, and other odds and ends. I made sure no old information was in them and made sure there were enough stall cards. We had to print more off for all the livestock, except rabbits and poultry. After that, we picked up the office and put everything back in order. I made 5 copies of next year's CWF forms and brochures for the Beef Checkoff. They are for the bulletin board. Lastly, I picked up the boy's stuff and headed out at 5:00pm.

July 31st: I went in today at 1:00. Thiis is the first time I've been to work in a week! Last Thursday, Glenda said, "You're not coming to work next week are you?" I said, "I'm not sure, I'll check the schedule." She said, "No listen, you're not coming next week right? You have projects to get done." So I didn't go in. My projects are all complete, well 10 of them are, but let me tell you, it's been very late night and early morning. First thing today when I got there was Glenda said, "I'm glad to see you, you make me smile." I knew it was going to be a great day! I didn't really have a list today, I just helped out where needed. I set up 20 chairs in the back room for the judges' meeting tonight and then we headed out back to the 4H Center. We set up tables and chairs for interview judging and made sure all the areas were ready. I took a sneak peak at the Foods/Nutrition and Horticulture (judged last night so it would be fresh) and found out Colton got Best of Show for his little tomatoes! I was really happy for him. When that was all done, I went into the office and sprayed adhesive to the back of schedules for events, committees and club lunchstand shifts. I placed these 3 papers on all the bathroom doors, entrances, and exits of the buildings. Glenda and I brought bigger sheets out to the barns and stapled those up. Also this afternoon, I was able to do something really fun! We had some Cloverbuds bring their projects in a little late, so I got to judge them. One girl made a chair for her doll and a little knitted item. The other girl made chocolate chip cookies. I got to taste one to judge them and they were delicious! It was such a good cooke. I learned that I dont think I could ever be a foods judge though. There's too many good things! I brought one of the cookies inside and told Glenda she should eat it. I finally convinced her and she completely agreed with me. They were so good! I also went out and pulled 1 cookie out of each set of 3 if Mandy had forgotten to do it. We always take one usually to try, but she didn't for the Cloverbuds. Glenda told me to though, so I did. By 4:30, we had some trailers startnig to pull in to unload animals. I did some running and brought a raffle bucket for the chicken coop to the chicken barn. After that I came inside and cleaned off Glenda's counter from the spray adhesive. That stuff was hard to get off! The static judges had a meeting at 5:30pm and the group Chairs had a meeting at 5:45. I didn't go to the judge's meeting because I'm still an exhibitor, but I did go to the Chair meeting. At 6:00pm interview judging got started. The first hour of that is always what I call semi-controlled chaos. I helped print sheets, find 4H interviewees, and prep 4Hers for their interviews. This event allows 4Hers to discuss their project with the judge and learn what to change, do differently, and see their project from another's perspective. The judges are always exceptionally nice as well. Some new 4Hers (Lorena Misar and Maddy Eich) were really nervous about intervie judgin and had no idea what to do. I tried to prep them and explain what it was. By the end of the night, I think both girls had a lot of fun. In between my duties, I completed my own interview judging. Everything started winding down about 8:30pm. I helped to move everything to the club areas and take down chairs and tables. We also set up for the cat show on Friday morning. I brought the scanner ladies the scan cards for the project's placings from the Center into the Office. They were in the 4H Center to start with, but the wifi wasn't connecting so they got moved to the back room of the Extension Office. Each project had two exhibit cards with the information on it with a bar code. I would bring them one card from every project, and they would scan the bar code. Then, they would scan a piece of paper showing bar codes for ribbons and then one for Enter. This is a much faster way of documenting the projects ribbons on the computer. I think we actually started this a couple of years ago. Sue Bergheim and Deb Renaas had a system going and would tease me every time I brought them more. At 9 something Glenda ordered me to eat supper, so I had some super nachos that Dana Hoff made me in the kitchen because they were closing down the consession stand. During all this, I also went down to the barns to see how everything was going down there (and to snap a few pictures). I left the grounds around 9:55 to head to our camper at Walker's Point.

August 1st: This morning, I got to the 4H Grounds a couple minutes after 8:00am. Both Glenda and Mandy were already there. I found Glenda in the office getting ready for the cat show. She sent me down to the chicken barn to check in on the chicken show which started right at 8:00. It was supposed to be pretty long because there were over 60 chickens this year, plus showmanship which was at the end. Mandy said she had it under control and we (Glenda and I) could handle the cat show (Mandy doesn't like cats). I went back up to the office and helped complete the cat show order form. At around 8:30am we went to the 4H Center and made sure everrything was set up and ready to go. We had 9 cats total signed up and exhibitors started showing up around 8:40ish. Some were down showing their chickens so I was the runner checking in with them and letting them know we were close to showtime at the cat show. We decided to delay 15 minutes to allow those people time to get there for Maggie Kringen's presentation (4H alumnus and judge for this year). Everyone was there by 9:15 so she gave a talk about what you would do with your cat once you were up there with there. Once she was finished, the seniors started since they were the oldest and most experience. The first class is called "Healthy Cat" which is where the judge picks up the cat and checks it for cleanliness, healthiness, and disposition. The next class was the "Healthy Kitten" class. The final class of the day was Showmanship. Before Showmanship, Maggie gave another presentation on how to do Showmanship correctly. I liked the way she judged because she was actually trying to teach the youth how to do it. The Showmanship order was Seniors, Juniors, and then Beginners/Cloverbuds. After Showmanship, Maggie picked Grand and Reserve Champion Cat/Kitten. During the cat show I took a lot of pictures and video. After it was over, I helped clean up the chairs so that people could walk around the Exhibit Hall/4H Center. I forgot to mention that before the cat show I was interviewed by KJAM about my 4H experience and my senior project. It was on 103.1 at some point today. After the cat show, Glenda told me to get candid photos of Achievement Days. I really acted as a photographer all day long. I walked around and took pictures in the barns and at the lunchstand. At 10:50am I helped Mandy set up the livestock skill-al-thon that started at 11:30am. I also stopped in at the rabbit show to see how that was going on (it started at 11:00am) I helped Mandy haul tables and set up the different stations for youth to go to. Then, I went and advertised what it was so that kids would actually come. I was pretty successful because we had many beginners come over and try it to see what it was all about. I myself participated just to see how I would do. Afterwards, I stopped for lunch and then the bean bag contest started. Mari Clarke and I were a bean bag team. We had byes for the first couple matches, so I was a runner from the Kiddie Tractor Pull to the Bean Bag Tournament to let kids know when they played. We had to pause the tournament a couple of times to wait for the Tractor Pull. Next year, I think they need to stagger the times a little bit because otherwise they collide and don't work out as well as they could. I think they are both great ideas and get the youth involved but the Bean Bag Tournament should be delayed at least a half hour. I really did enjoy the tournament though because it was so much fun! Mari and I actually did really well and played in some very close matches. After we finished, it was time to get back to work. I checked in with Mandy and Glenda, and they had just gotten done with the show bills for tonight and tomorrow. I took a shift selling raffle tickets in the 4H Center and then helped Mandy set up the sound equipment for the beef show. On my way back to the office, I ran into Deb Wettlaufer and I talked to her for a while, she's always fun to talk to. Then, I went up and helped Glenda sell tickets for a while at the burger feed before heading to the beef show. In the middle of taking pictures, I had to show Brenna Johnson's steer. I don't think I showed it very well, but Gary (her dad) wasn't expecting the steer to get top anyway (her market heifer did instead). The two market heifers, hers and Allison Bruns's I think got Grand and Reserve Overall. After the show, I ate and then worked with my club in the lunchstand. We're always the closing shift on Friday (same thing every year) so we had to clean up the burger feed, all the garbages around the grounds, bathrooms, and the lunchstand itself. I actually really don't mind our shift because all this stuff needs to be done and otherwise Marty would probably do it himself. We also helped the lunchstand committee out with hauling food to and from the lunchstand to the kitchen. When everything was cleaned up, I went to the outdoor movie that was showing behind the 4H Center. All the kids were here watching "The Sandlot". We stayed until it was over so we probably left the grounds at about 10:30pm. Today I only figured in about 3.5 hours because of my normal 4H duties I would do even if I wasn't interning.

August 2nd: I got to the 4H grounds a little before 7:45am. My first task was setting up tables in the back room of the office for the pie contest later on today. Next, I headed to the show ring for the swine show. Mandy didn't have anything for me to do right away, so I went back up to my car to grab my camera and helped Ms. Dirks find the safety pins for back tags. I got back down to the show and Mandy gave me the job of handing out ribbon stickers to exhibitors as they were exiting the ring. I gave out mainly blues and purples just like Kayley Maas had told me I would. I left at 9:00am because I had a softball tournament in Brookings at 10:45am and I had to check the cattle at home first. the rest of the day had many fun activities planned and I would've liked to stay, but I made a commitment to my team. The tournament was a fun time too and Tiana, Tucker, and Lindsey came to watch. Glenda said I shouldn't come in on Monday because she wouldn't be there and Tuesday I have an eye appointment. I'm hoping to be back on Wednesday.

August 6th: Today, I worked all day. I got there a couple minutes after 8:00am and Glenda was already there. Mandy wasn't because Moody County is currently having their Achievement Days. The first thing I did was mail out 3 bills for greentagging/DNA that still haven't come in! I also mailed the lunchstand tab receipts out to those who had a tab. I had to wait on one because I wasn't sure which "Misar" family had a tab. Glenda emailed Anitta and asked which as the correct family. Then, Glenda and I went back to the 4H Center and packed up the exhibits being taken to display in the Lake County Courthouse. Since 4Hers can only take 2 exhibits to state, we allowed everyone to bring a project to the Courthouse. Next, we loaded them in the back of Glenda's vehicle and brought them to the courthouse. It took some maneuvering to make everything fit in the one display case, but we did it! Glenda checked her box in the auditor's room and then we headed back to the Extension Office. I began the task of deleting scratched projects (projects that were registered, but didn't actually come to Achievement Days) out of the online system. This ended up taking the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon. It took longer than it was supposed to probably because there were so many county fairs going on. This week Moody County has Achievement Days, the Sioux Empire Fair is taking place, and there are also fairs in Iowa and Kansas that use the same system as we do. Glenda and I decided that all of these users might be part of the reason Fair Entry is so slow. It rained today so for lunch I sat in the back room, ate my sandwich and apple, and read my book (which I thoroughly enjoyed). That afternoon, I did the same as in the morning until 4:00ish when we went to the 4H Center and cleaned up a little more. By teh end of hte day, I had all the static stuff figured out and correct in the system. Also today, Jennifer Briggs stopped in and went through the 4H Camp-Out expenses with us for the Friends of 4H and me for our club. I left work at 5:00pm.

August 8th: Today I went in at 8:00am and got right to work on the animal events I didn't do yesterday. Okay, just to explain what I'm doing: Everyone is supposed to be entered online through Fair Entry for both static and livestock exhibits. Now that Achievement Days are over, I am adding the ribbons online for each of these exhibits. I'm doing this more for the animals because most of the static were scanned in the night of judging with the scanner. I'm only adding those that were missed. I also add Best of Show and Rate of Gain for special prizes and Grand Champion, Reserve Grand Champion, Beginner Showmanship, Junior Showmanship, and Senior Showmanship for Division Prizes if they were received. This information is all added to help track exhibits better especially leading up to the State Fair. Today, I started out adding the goat ribbons which wasn't too challenging. Next, I moved on to poultry (which was extremely confusing!). The bad part about poultry is that most of them were leg banded at Achievement Days. Since they have to be pre-registered, that band number isn't on the affidavit in our system. I needed the band number to compare between our hard copy show bill (which held all the results) and the online system. Another hiccup was that many exhibitors didn't know their chicken's specific birthdays, so they just gave each of theirs the same one. This just added to my confusion of determining which of their chickens deserved which ribbon. For instance, Sydney DeKan had two chickens registered in the Americana division, both show, and both born on March 1st, 2014. One received blue, the other purple, one was female and one was male. The online version gave me the breed, birthdate, and gender. The show bill gave me breed, birthdate, placing, and leg band ID. I don't know if you understand what I'm getting at, but the different pieces didn't fit together very well. Sometimes I could figure it out, but other times I had to guess at which bird received which ribbonand hope that if they turned in a State Fair form, we could figure it out then. Because of this confusion, I ended up talking to myself a lot (Glenda and I both do this, sometimes we can have complete conversations with just ourselves!) Glenda just laughed at me when I would get frustrated because it is usually her doing this and she knows how confusing it can be. Once I survived the poultry, I moved on to the beef (so much easier!). This didn't take nearly as long either! Glenda figured I needed a break from this, so we went down to the barns and shut the doors (they were left open to help air them out). We got a system going where I would stand on the chair and pull down the door while Glenda supported the chair and slammed down the door when needed. I think in all, we shut 5 of the garage doors on the main building and one of the normal doors. We discovered that someone had completely taken off the corner door in the swine barn. Glenda wasn't very happy about it, but said it wasn't our problem for the time being. They had also left all the windows on that side out. We decided to clean a different day when it wasn't raining and headed back up to the office. I got started on the swine ribbons and Glenda answered some customers questions on bedbugs. I got almost completely done with the pigs before lunch. I was pretty happy about that. Right before lunch Marty came in and told us it was the Mette family who had taken out the door and windows for air flow during Achievement Days. He thought they should have to put them back in themselves and Glenda agreed. Then, it was lunchtime and I came home for the day.

August 13th: On Monday (it's Wednesday today), I had my wisdom teeth taken out. The first day hurt really bad, but now it's getting beter. I'm getting really tired of sitting around and doing nothing, so I started working on my mentor page on the wiki. My problem is that I don't know exactly what I'm supposed to put on there. Is it supposed to be a bio on my mentor, what they taught me, or a little of both? I decided I would just start writing to try and get myself thinking. The first thing I did was get on the Madison Chamber website and find Mandy and Glenda's actual titles. Once that was found, I tried to start writing a bio on Glenda. I need to ask her a couple questions on it, but at least I'm trying to start getting it done. Hopefully I can get back to the office soon!

August 18th: I don't think Glenda was really expecting me this morning, but I think she was glad to see me (I was glad to see her as well). I think one of the things I'm going to miss most about this internship is working around the office with her and the conversations I've gotten to have. I've known her since I was 8 years old and have always asked her advice on 4H stuff, but I've gotten to learn so much more about her and from her through this internship. Today, we talked about my surgery a little bit and then I asked for something to do. She pointed to a stack of Thank You notes on my desk and said I could sign and fold them. We would have to wait for Mandy to come in to sign before I could actually mail them out though. Once I was finished with that, I went through all the special ribbons on the Fair Entry system. I made sure our Showmanship participants had their ribbon placing shown and that the Top division Showman title was shown. Most of this was already done, I was just double-checking all of it to make sure nothing was entered wrong. I also double-checked the animal exhibit Grand and Reserve Champion to make sure it was under the right person and animal. Sometimes when kids have multiple animals, it's easy to mix up numbers or ribbons. Actually most of the animal stuff looked correct. The last thing I did on Fair Entry was give the correct Static Exhibits their "Best of Show" special placing. These "Best of Show" categories hadn't been entered yet. The only challenge I had with that was making sure the right project received the classification. After I got done with all of this, Mandy came in. I talked to her a little because I haven't seen her in at least two weeks. Then, I gave her the Thank You cards to sign and waited. Another thing I did this morning was help Glenda haul the Robotics stuff in from the 4H Center. I learned we had new Robotics equipment which was more advanced. I had no idea we had that before because we usually just haul out the one crate. Alright, back to the thank yous. When Mandy was done signing, I put the card in the envelope, sealed it with the turtle, stamped it, and put it in the mail bin. By then it was lunch time and we all went out to eat at El Vaquero. After lunch, I left and headed home.

August 19th: The first thing I did today was read through the September newsletter that was getting emailed out to all the members. I checked it for any other information that we needed to add, but didn't find anything. Next, I proofread Glenda's email draft about the State Fair to make sure it could be understood by everyone, particularly they new members who haven't been there before. I found the email fairly easily understandable and when I got done, we went to the 4H Center to load Deb Stamm's tank. I made this project for her and it's a solar powered water tank heater for her horse in the winter. We got it loaded in the back end of her pick-up and then headed back to the office. My next job was printing out copies of the Secretary's and Treasurer's books for the new year starting in October. These books are required for each club's elected officials in the stated positions. The books provide them with information on their office and other papers needed for them to fulfill their role. I made 10 copies of each because we have 10 different active clubs in our county. Next on my list was printing out scholarship information and mailing it out to this year's high school seniors, last year seniors, or last year college freshmen. 4H doesn't go by grade; it goes by age. If you're in college at age 19 you may still qualify for the scholarship. There are two $100 dollar scholarships awarded each year at the Recognition Event in early November. My last task of the morning was sorting through the donated supplies. A couple weeks before Achievement Days, a lady came in with 4 bags of crafting supplies. We didn't worry about it or have the time to do anything with it then, so it was my job to sort through it today. At first, I thought it wasn't going to be too bad. Then, I got deeper into the first bag. Oh my goodness! There was so much stuff and it wasn't organized at all! My task was to sort through all of it and put it in semi-organized areas. I made a wooden pieces pile for all the little wood things I found and a stencil pile. There were over 30 paint bottles in the paint pile, both fabric and regular paint. There was a pile for window stickers, pipe cleaners, and paint brushes. I made another pile for fabric scraps and for sewing kits. Also, there was a lot of ribbon and string which each had their own respective piles. I have a feeling we're not going to run out of supplies anytime soon. Another large pile was for fake flowers and greenery, it took up half a table! There was so much stuff. If we ever have an incident like the glass etching workshop this summer, I don't think we're going to run out of craft options. After I got everything out of bags and separated into piles, I called Glenda. She was amazed at the vast majority of stuff. It took up three whole tables! Then we began the process of trying to find places to put all of it. Glenda found some foxes which we put everything into and then labeled. Next, we reorganized the closet. We had to move stuff around to make sure it all actually fit and was still usable. Eventually we got everything settled in. Then, I washed off the tables and my hands and went back into the office. It was 11:30 and Glenda didn't have anything else for me to do, so I headed home.

August 24th: I decided I should probably start transposing this journal onto my wiki so that I was one step closer to getting things done. Tonight before bed I wrote from the beginning of my journal to June 24th in my wiki. I think I might go through and do some editing after I get it all online. I'm hoping to keep both of them accurate and up-to-date so that I have two copies of my journal.

August 25th: Tonight, before bed, I again started transposing. It's really not too fun, but is actually kind of interesting to look back and see what I've done this summer. I didn't do a lot tonight, but every little bit counts.

August 26th and 27th: Late last night and into the wee hours of the morning, I worked on transposing my journal. I finished the month of June in the early morning (like 12:40am) of the 27th. and started July that night before bed.

August 29th: Today, I headed down to the State Fair, which is pretty much the largest 4H event of the year. The Fair officially started Wednesday, but Noah and I had practice so we couldn't come down. I didn't get any assignments to do here so I'm going to be participating in a lot of activities instead. One of the first things I went to see was the Armory (where the static exhibits are displayed). Mandy and Glenda did a really good job of getting everything between the two counties to fit in our area. The Armory was kind of close quarters with many long, narrow areas for projects, but it actually turned out better than I expected it to. It was fun to walk through and see other 4Hers projects, but you knew that not all of the purples that should've came were here to see. I was really surprised at some counties' really cool, but extremely time consuming decorations. One county had made a brick wall stacked up to table height (probably about 3.5 feet), where they hung pictures and decorations from their county. I was really impressed, but also didn't understand the reasoning behind carrying all those bricks in.

August 30th: I participated in some skill-a-thons and Family and Consumer Science Judging. That actually went really well and the person I was giving oral reasons too told me to tell Mandy she was impressed. That was kind of cool to hear from her. This afternoon, I went up to the swine complex and found Glenda and Marty busy working. They had the job of weighing the top three winners in each class. By the time I got there, they were almost done, so I didn't really help, just chit-chatted for a while. Glenda told me to enjoy myself at the Fair and to not worry about anything. If they needed me, she would let me know.

August 31st: Today was the Sunday of the Fair. This morning, I had a public presentation that I prepared for and gave in front of judges. After that, I just walked around the rest of the day looking at buildings and the fun things inside. We don't usually do that because we have livestock up here or are just too busy to. Glenda wasn't up at the Fair today, but Mandy was in the Swine Barn I believe. I think she may be on the State Fair Swine Committee because she's worked with that area of the State Fair ever since she came I think. My family left tonight to head home and get back to normal before school started. I had a great time at the fair, but I was also really tired and happy to get back to my bed.

September 3rd: This morning, I started transposing before school started and then Mr. E gave us some free time in shop class and I worked on it then too. I'm trying to decide whether to stay in shop class or take a study hall instead to have more time to work on this project, other homework, and have the opportunity of going to Madison if necessary in the morning. Decisions, decisions...oh how I love them! I also worked on transposing while waiting for the football boys to get back from practice and before bed. I completed the entire month of July.

September 4th: I really want to get all of these dates online so that it's one less thing to think about and distract myself by doing. Because I'm enjoying my senior project, I'm finding it hard to actually focus on my other work. I'm going to have to get that changed around pretty fast! Today, I worked on journaling while waiting for the football boys again and also pretty late in the night. I'm actually caught up now, so I won't have to worry about it for a while.

September 14th: I thought I almost deleted my entire journal off the wiki! Don't worry, I really didn't but I did do a good job of scaring myself!

September 18th: Began writing down questions to try and get myself thinking about my research paper and how to go about my research. I'm not really sure how to begin, but I think I'm going to start by learning when, where and why 4H was started.

September 19th: Began working on our research paper in English class. I think I'm going to do mine on the history of 4H, but I'm not quite sure how to go about doing it. We're going to be working on it Monday-Thursday in class and may get Fridays as a study hall.

September 23 or 24th: I broke my iPad screen and am not sure how to go about working on my paper without potentially losing information. I need my iPad until at least Monday 9/29 because I have the coronation program on it.

September 25th: We had a meeting with Mrs. Olson and Mrs. Trower about tweeting, wikis, journaling, and what is due on January 15th for our project.

September 22nd-26th: This week I researched 4H history using 4h.org. I watched a video on how it started and the reasoning behind starting 4H. I also learned some fun facts which I shared over twitter. I learned that the last phrase of the 4H pledge "For my club, my community, my country, and my world" actually has actions to it like the rest of the pledge does. I've been in 4H for 10 years and I didn't even know that! I started backing up my work on Evernote and Google Docs so that I don't lose anything if my iPad fails.

September 28th: Worked on my wiki journal and updated it with the most current information. Also tweeted a few of my fun facts that I learned throughout the week. I also caught up my Excel spreadsheet with all of my hours and just have to go get it signed by Glenda and/or Mandy for my internship requirements.

September 29th: Rutland Coronation! Tonight I was all over the place trying to get everything organized and ready. While I was heading over to talk to my mom, I noticed Mandy and Glenda come in the doors. I was super surprised and really excited! I talked to them for a little and asked how after State Fair stuff went and it sounds like it went fairly well for the most part. I told them a little about the night and prepared them for the best skit (FB/VB) and apologized for our senior skit. Just them coming made my night so much better. Once the official ceremony was over Glenda came to take a picture and Marissa asked, "Who the duce is that?" I laughed and said, "Don't worry guys, it's just my senior project mentor." Nobody had ever seen her before!

October 1st: Worked on the research paper outline in 5th hour today. I have a paper copy and I have a long ways to go on this outline. I'm not sure how I want to lay it out to write about.

October 2nd: Researched in 5th hour again, and during 6th hour we had a meeting with Mrs. Trower. She answered some questions about what was required when and requested we make a timeline and show it to her by Monday, October 6th. I talked with her about the mentor contact and said that I don't have much written contact with my mentor, most of my contact was done over the phone or in person. She said that in the case of an internship, it's a little different because I've shown that I was working with my mentors over the summer and I have documentation of that. I brought up my Weinermobile picture and discovered that Mrs. Trower really likes the Weinermobile and thinks it would be awesome to get an internship through them. You could travel the country and meet so many different people and ride in a vehicle that looks like a hotdog! I guess she had a whistle at some point, but it is now lost and she is very upset about that. I informed her that I did receive a whistle just for getting my picture taken in front of the Weinermobile!

October 5th-11th: National 4-H Week!

October 5th: I looked at the Internship Requirements and tried to work on my career path plan/goal setting component, but discovered I needed to talk with Mandy about my project first because I didn't know what degree you needed to fill an Extension Educator position. I also worked on my timeline that's due on the 6th and completed my updated resume. The resume took a while to finish, but I think it's done!

October 6th: Worked on my paper outline again in 5th hour. I really need to figure out how I want this paper to be layed out. I also followed MSU Extension on twitter and retweeted some National 4H Week tweets. #iam4H. Our class had a "tweeting competition" in class which was acutally kind of entertaining. I think it's good that we can joke around and try to have fun with our projects because otherwise, what's the point? If you can make it fun, you will enjoy it more and actually want to complete it. Tucker is currently in the lead at 137 but I'm a close second at 136. Tiana is next, then Marissa, and finally Skyelar. I helped give Marissa and Skyelar advice on how to set up a Twitter account for just their senior project. I am really glad that I set up a seperate one for my project because it's so much easier to keep track of your tweets.

October 7th: I added my timeline to my wiki today and revised my Statement of Intent a little bit.

October 8th: I was trying to upload my Letter of Application and Resume to my wiki today, but I could not figure out how to do it. I don't think you can upload documents from an Ipad because of the way an Ipad is set up. It would allow me to upload pictures, but I couldn't upload actual "Pages" documents. In order to get them on the wiki, I had to email the documents to myself and use our home computer to upload them. I made a seperate wikipage for the Internship requirements that I need to complete so that it would be easier for me to track what I needed to get done.

October 9th: I called Glenda to find out if I could come in and work on Friday and she said I could! I'm pretty excited!

October 10th: Today I left for the office at 1:00pm, and got all the way to Highway 81 before I realized that I forgot the pan of bars my mom made for the Holly Hoffman presentation Saturday night. I turned around and met Noah at Peach's corner. I made it to the office by 1:45pm, which was actually early because I wasn't supposed to be there until 2:00pm anyway, but I wanted to be early and was excited to get there. The entire drive I thought about summer and how much fun I had. It was a beautiful day, the sun was out, and I was on my way to doing one of my favorite things: helping out at the office! It's actually kind of amusing how much I enjoy going there, it's practically my third home (first is my actual home, second is the school, and third is the extension office). When I first got there, Glenda and I spent a little bit of time catching up on different events like Homecoming, the Recognition Event, and other things like that. Mandy wasn't there right away, but she came around 2:15ish. I asked Glenda what my first project was going to be and she informed me we would be going out to help set up flags in front of the barns because of the Haunted House. Every year DSU puts on a Halloween Haunted House in the main barn and we've always had issues about them setting up, not breaking anything, being respectful and cleaning up afterwards. I actually thought that we weren't going to allow them to come back this year, but I guess we are. They started setting up on October 3rd and already have Glenda, Mandy, and Shane (head county groundskeeper) annoyed with them. The workers apparently drove to unload things into the barns after it rained or while it was really wet and now there are tracks all over the grass. Shane was definately not happy about it because the county puts a lot of work into making the grounds look good and the DSU people were killing the grass. Shane suggested to Glenda that we should put up flags in front of the barns to make it look roped off and prevent them from driving vehicles on it. He wasn't sure if they would respect the boundaries but thought it was worth a try. Glenda and I grabbed a hammer and headed down to the rabbit barn to grab the box of flags and poles. We started our flag fence west of the barns and right alongside the road. She hammered in the first one, but after we determined I'm horrible at tying, we switched roles. I pounded in the poles and she tied the flags around them. We started out using two lengths of old 4H flags, then we used two lengths of new, more durable 4H ones, and after that all we had left were the colorful flags which we used everywhere else. We decided we probably should've laid out our flags a little better to plan for spacing, but by then it was too late to do anything about it. When we got to the north end, we ended up putting a pole in the middle and then tying the end around the pig barn. On the south side we didn't have enough and ended up running out of flags. We figured or at least hoped that they would get the jist of why there were flags out there and respect them, but we weren't fully certain they would. We went back inside to return the hammer and then went out back to the 4H Center to check on how sweeping was going for Mandy. She said it was going well, but we helped her finish and set up a couple tables. We would come out to help the leaders set up chairs at 4:00pm. Then we went back inside and noticed a vehicle driving around by the barns. Both Mandy and Glenda knew who it was (some of the builders) and we watched to see if they would notice the flags. They drove around behind the barn; we started taking bets to see if they would ignore the flags and pull around in front through the back way which we didn't get roped off because we ran out of flags. It was almost comical the way we were watching to see what they would do. We didn't see any cars, so I decided I was right on my assumption that they would drive back there and unload from that way instead. Next thing, Larry and Tatum come walking in to apologize for driving on the grass last week and to ask if they could use the old fridge and the chicken coops out in the barns. I guess Mandy must've emailed them and said that they had to get permission first. Mandy granted them permission and then they headed back out to the barn. A little while later, we're sitting there talking and Glenda thinks she sees a camper. Both Mandy and I are a little incredulous, but we look out the window. What do we see? A pickup pulling a camper headed around back. We watched it, waiting for it to pull around the other side, but it doesn't. Mandy and Glenda decided they'll give it a little time to leave before going out and talking to the driver. Meanwhile, Glenda asked me to check names for the Recognition Event program. I read through all the names, but didn't read awards because I wanted it to be somewhat of a suprise for who got what. I did find a few errors and when I did I highlighted it with an orange highlighter and showed them to Glenda. Then it was close to 4:00pm and we headed out to the 4H Center to set up chairs. When they said the leaders would be there, they were hoping they would come I think. We did have Mark Sudenga and his family show up to help, but it was only them. Even so, it didn't take long to set up chairs. We made 7 chairs to a row, with a walkway through the middle so we had quite a few set up. When we were done, Mark came into the office for a while and we talked about 4H enrollment for this year. I guess the state is making it mandatory for all 4Hers to watch an enrollment video before re-enrolling in 4H. They didn't tell any offices this until after the beginning of October (which is after the new year has already started), and the video isn't supposed to be sent out until November. Knowing the state and how fast they get some things out, most of the members statewide may not be officially enrolled until halfway through December or maybe even later. Glenda is annoyed because they didn't tell county organizers until as late as they did. It might've worked better for scheduling purposes if they had been told sooner. I guess the video itself is supposed to be something about racism, but I don't understand really why that would be needed. I don't think 4Hers are divided due to their race. In Lake County, we have next to none, but if there were people of other races, I don't think they would be treated any differently. After Mark left, I talked to Glenda about my project and the Career Path/Goal Planning portion of it. She said that you could attend any state college or university to receive the qualifications for working as an extension educator. She said that most educators have degrees in either education or agriculture or both. They also work very closely with social work so any degree in that area would be acceptable as well. We went into her office and got on the SDBOR website to look for the official qualifications for an actual job posting. The website said the same thing Mandy told me: education degree or agriculture degree and preferred experience working with youth. This makes it easier for me to write up a career path plan because I now know what extension educators need. I also showed both Mandy and Glenda all the stuff I had to do for this project. They were pretty amazed how many different components were a part of it. I told them that I would need biography information on them at some point and they were both okay with that. I also aked them if they would write reference letters for me and they agreed to that as well. Actually Glenda said they could just come to my presentation and confirm that I did everything! I laughed and told her, "I don't think that would work." She said, "I know, but we would if it was needed." That made me feel pretty good and know that they supported me that much. I left work that night at 5:00pm.

October 11th: Holly Hoffman came and presented to the County today at 7:00pm. We left my house late and ended up getting there late (a pretty usual thing for us). I was slightly annoyed at my family for this because I very much dislike being late because of the fact that we always are. It didn't seem to matter very much, we only missed 10 minutes of the presentation. Holly was a Survivor participant and spoke to us about her experience. She hit six key points that helped her get through her endeavor. Those points are: faith, determination, confidence, perserverence, attitude?, ...................; She went through the entire Survivor process with us and how she overcame her fears. She applied to be on the show, but didn't believe it when she was actually called back. The application process was super intense culminating with an interview with twenty-five CBS producers and the president of the program in the spring in Los Angeles. She had to overcome her fear of flying alone to make it to that interview. She learned that she would be on the show in April and started preparing for it at that point in time. She got a personal trainer and learned some things from the local Boy Scouts. The other big kicker was that no one could know she was on it until the names were released in August, so she would be gone for two months (June and July) and no one could know where she was. Her husband and family told everyone she was on a mission trip, which was believable by most of the community. She said she was confident at the beginning of this process, but by the day before she left she was afraid and decided she wasn't going to do it. She had forgotten what an opportunity it would be. Her husband convinced her otherwise and told her she had to follow through with this. If an opportunity comes along, don't let it go by, grab at the chance of whatever it is and do it. You never know how much it could impact you in the long run. Holly said that she didn't even get a choice in her clothing of what she could wear on the show. Each contestant had to send in specific clothes and then the producers would pick what could or couldn't be worn by them and they were stuck with that for the whole show. They left these contestants in the middle of Nicaragua with literally nothing except the clothes on their back. They did have a hatchet, a tarp, and buckets, but that was about it. Holly said that going into it, she was very negative. She didn't know if she could do it and worried about what was going on at home even though she had no control over it. She was going to quit on the 5th day because she was tired, hungry, afraid, worried, didn't fit in with her team, and was just negative overall. She actually ended up stealing a fellow competitors $1500 snakeskin shoes, filled them with sand, and threw them in the water. The owner was a jerk to her and treated her badly so that was her revenge. She wasn't proud of it, but she did it (after the show she apologized and bought him a pair of alligator boots). She talked with Jim Johnson (Cowboys football coach) and he inspired her to keep fighting and get through it. She knew it would be challenging but she decided to push through. She knew that she was looking awful in the world view because everyone was watching this show and she was representing her family, friends and state; she knew she needed to change her attitude. Your attitude is the only thing you have 100% control over in any situation. A couple days later, she ended up being team leader and that's when her attitude did a complete 180. She was able to choose four players from the "Young" team to come to their team and once that happened there seemed to be a new hope and new energy on the "Old" team. She began to feel accepted and worth something. The young kids called her "Momma Holly" and she was looked up to. She knew she had a role to fill and it gave her a purpose. She talked about the amount of reflection time she had while she was on this show and what she learned from that reflection. She made it past the mid-way mark, but then her team discovered that their camp had been destroyed in a fire. Her team won the next challenge and thought they were supposed to get hotdogs, but then a twist came. One of the contestants could give up their food and instead receive a tarp and some rice to take back to the camp. One of her teammates decided then that she was going to eat the hotdogs, watch the movie and then quit. That made Holly make an extremely tough decision. She chose to take the tarp and rice so that the team had food and shelter. She pointed out that people tend to remember the negative things you've done. She's been to many speaking events and people remember her for the shoes, but nobody has ever remembered her for giving up her food. No matter how much good you do, others will remember you for that one thing you failed to do. I've noticed this myself actually. Because I'm in so many things and so involved, if I do something wrong, everyone knows about it. I feel like I have to watch myself so that I don't end up dealing with extra drama that I don't care about. People focus on that one thing and it hits me pretty hard. I tend to take things very personally when I probably shouldn't. Holly ended up making it all the way to Day 38 when she was voted off by everyone including her allies. She didn't hold hard feelings though, it was just a game. What she realized over this experience was that everyone is a survivor. They are survivors of their own experiences, of their own lives. Her mother was a survivor. Holly grew up in a rough home life, she had an alcoholic and abusive father. Her mother always remained optimistic and strove to do her best to provide for the kids. She realized how much of a survivor her mother really was over the course of this show. She also realized that no matter how much she worried or no matter how alone she felt, she was never really alone. God is always there. During the show, she would go sit at the beach and pray about the hardships she was facing. God is always the answer and is always there, no matter what. Holly was very inspiring and I'm glad we were able to attend this event. I'm glad that the Friends of 4H was able to ask her to come, but I wish more people had been there to listen to her. After the presentation, we were able to go up and talk to her and learn more about her life before Survivor. I also talked to Glenda for a while about school homework and how things went last week. I really am truly glad that I have been able to form such a close relationship with her through this internship. She was talking with my mom and I about the senior project and working yesterday and said, "If nothing else came out of this project, I think it taught Karee to have fun with her work. It taught her to find something rewarding to you and have fun with it." Also we talked about me coming in yesterday and maybe needing to come in later on to work on things. She said, "I wasn't expecting her to call on Thursday, but I'm glad she came in yesterday. She was able to help us get ready and I think it was relaxing for her." I'm sometimes amazed at how easy it is for other people to read me because sometimes I don't even know how I feel. Glenda hit it head on though, because I think going there was relaxing for me; I enjoy the work and the people. I'm able to work with Mandy and Glenda and help others out; helping people is so rewarding and I absolutely love it. One thing I have learned from this is that I need to go into everything I do with an open mind and thinking that it is fun. Every experience is what you make it, if you make it negative it will be negative; whereas if you make it lighthearted and fun, that's what it will be. I think the reason that I am in so many activities is because they are so much fun to participate in and I can make them fun for myself and other people. Throughout this project I have had the privilege of speaking to many different people about goals, life and other extremely rewarding topics and I love that. I really wish I had a better memory and could remember specifically what they all said, but unfortunately I don't. I do remember most of them though and I know that I have been blessed with more opportunities than most. I've tried to make the most out of those opportunities that I have had though. That is another thing Holly talked about, making the most of opportunities given to you. I have tried to do that and be positive in most circumstances. It's not always the case because sometimes I fall and I fall hard. I get back up eventually, but it sometimes can take a while.

October 12th: I worked on my wiki today and tried to upload pictures from my iPad. First, I had to save all of them off of dropbox onto the iPad and then upload them onto the wiki from there. I thought everything was going really great until I tried to save. I saved and all five pictures I uploaded changed to the same picture, but my captions that I had written stayed the same. I couldn't figure out why it was doing this. I even went and looked at the sample wikis provided to us and saw multiple pictures on those so the most I can bet is that iPads perform differently than computers do because that is what Bree and Taylor used. I thought that maybe it would only allow one picture per page so I went to the Home page and uploaded a picture to there. Interestingly enough, that same picture saved to where my other picture was. I now had two pictures of me (the same picture), on two different pages, with two different captions. I think it has something to do with the amount of memory available on the iPads. Hopefully I can talk to someone about these problems because we may need computers to complete these wikis.

October 13th: I talked my picture problem over with my mom and she came to the same conclusion I did. She couldn't figure out what was going on either. I'm going to talk to Mrs. Trower tomorrow and see if she has an answer for me.

October 14th: I talked to Mrs. Trower about uploading pictures onto my wiki and she said that I had to use a special internet location "Photobucket" in order to upload photos. I don't think the kids two years ago did that, because it's not in the examples. I decided I'd give it a try anyway. I spent a lot of time moving my pictures from my iPad onto this site, I think I got into the later 20s.

October 15th: I worked on moving pictures all study hall and I think I'm still only at 50. I have at least a hundred total so this could take a while.

October 16th: While we were in 5th hour researching, I found some really good reports talking about research studies for youth in 4H. I found them very interesting and am trying to figure out how to add it into my research paper. Tomorrow we're supposed to show Mrs. Parks what we've been working on this week.

October 17th: I've been mainly working on research for this week and was really excited to find out about The Positive Youth Development Study conducted for 8 years. I started reading the 22 page pdf report file that I found. The results show that 4H youth are higher contributing to civic involvement, are more likely to receive higher grades, are more likely to eat healthy, and are more apt to participate in STEM programs. I found this report interesting because it is documented proof on the great impact of 4H. I also found some pretty awesome quotes pertaining to youth through this study.

Week of October 20th-24th: I finished uploading all my pictures off my phone to Photo Booth (it took forever to get them all uploaded), but I couldn't figure out how to embed them correctly so that they showed on my wiki. It took a couple of days to do this and a couple of times talking to Mrs. Trower because she'd done it before. Eventually we did get it figured out though! That was a really great feeling! Also, I continued to read through the PDY report and discovered the study began in 2002 and continued for 8 years.

Week of October 27th-31st: I continued researching for my paper. I learned that Jessie Field Shambaugh is known as the "Mother of 4H". I also started researching the 4H emblem and discovered it has special protection under code 10 U.S.C 707 passed in 1939. Every emblem has to have this code under it's bottom right leaf. The emblem's unique protection ranks alongside the protection of the Presidential Seal, Red Cross, Smokey Bear, and the Olympic Rings. I also learned that the original 4H emblem was a 3-leaf clover with only 3 H's representing: head, heart and hands. The 4th leaf and Health were added later. On the 30th, I asked Mrs. Parks to read over my paper that I've written so far which she said looked good except the introduction. I also turned in my 5 sources.

November 2nd: The Recognition Event was held at 3:30 pm this afternoon. This is the awards ceremony for events that have happened throughout the 4-H year. The individual clubs and members are spotlighted due to their efforts. This year the entire ceremony took about an hour and a half and was well represented by all. My club did a great job and was on the stage quite frequently to receive awards. John himself could've brought himself a tote for all the plaques he took home. I was very honored to receive the Lake County 4-H Scholarship with Brenna Johnson this year. I know that once I determine what I am doing with my future schooling, it will be put to good use.

November 3rd-November 7th: I started trying to research a little about 4H in South Dakota. I didn't find anything on the online iGrow site, but I think I could find something at the office or local libraries if I went in and looked a little bit. I also discovered that there is a 4H Creed! I've been in 4H for 10 years and I didn't even know that there was a creed! I submitted my two rough draft pages that were due on the 7th, and continued to research the creed and discovered that it was first created in Wyoming. I also found a really interesting article on volunteering which I shared on Twitter, and I also found some great quotes from some 4H twitter accounts.

November 10th-November 15th: I was gone from school a lot this week so I didn't get as much accomplished as I could've. I did get my research paper critiques back from Mrs. Parks on the 13th and started correcting some of my errors. I also uploaded all my other pictures onto Photo Bucket and from there onto the wiki so that I should have almost all of my pictures uploaded. The only ones that I need to continue to upload are the most current ones from the Recognition Event.

November 16th: Tonight I updated my journal on the wiki for last week. I have found that it has gotten harder to keep the journal up to date, and sometimes it doesn't get wrote in until a couple days later. I sometimes to more than one journal page a night just because I didn't have time to do the previous ones sooner. Also, tonight I worked on my picture page on the wiki. I updated my story on Photobucket by adding the pictures that my mom took during the summer at 4-H events. Some of the events I didn't necessarily work at, but I did play a part in them and they show the fun to be had by participating in 4-H. As I was adding in these photos, something didn't seem to work right. I ended up with way more than I thought I had. I think that some pictures were doubled in my story and I was confused as to what was going on with it, so I decided to just create a new story and link it to my wiki. I re-uploaded all my old pictures, plus the new ones and then tested to see if they would still work on the wiki. I deleted the old story, but then had to remember how to add the story link into the wiki widget. I did figure it out, but it took a little bit of playing to finally succeed. Then I started going through the recently added pictures in Photobucket to caption them and delete the ones that I didn't want or need on the wiki. I had over 300 to sort through so this process didn't get done today.

November 17th: Today, in class we watched a youtube video on how to create our introduction and thesis statement for our research papers. I was already attempting to use the anecdote method, but watching the video gave me some ideas to create an actual feeling of being present in the anecdote. I decided to rewrite my entire opening paragraph. Also, I continued my caption writing today and ended up finishing thank goodness. It takes forever to come up with captions! Another thing I did tonight was update my budget page on the wiki. I figured out how much money I spent on gas driving to and from Madison. It turns out I spent $145.18 dollars for gas during the duration of this project.

November 18th: Today in class I worked on revising my introduction paragraph. I did like the basis of my story I was planning on using, but it just wasn't catchy enough the way I had it. I rewrote it to draw in the reader more and then added in my thesis statement. The thesis was the thing I was worried about because I wasn't quite sure how to make it flow together with the anecdote. I wrote it once, and then showed it to Mrs. Parks. She like the anecdote style of opening, but wasn't so hip on the way the thesis was set up. I changed it again and she approved it my second, or maybe third time (I'm not really positive which). My intro paragraph is complete and approved! I'm one step closer! Today, I also worked on fixing the critiques she handed back to us from our first couple of pages. I expanded upon the topic of T.A. Erickson and his contribution to 4-H in Minnesota. I did a lot of research on him today and wrote out a complete paragraph of how he started 4-H in our neighboring state. One thing I have discovered through my research is that South Dakota doesn't really have a lot of information online about the beginnings of its 4-H history. I was actually a little surprised by this because I really wanted to include a portion of that in my paper, but I haven't been able to find anything. By the end of the day today, I had six pages of my research paper done. I need to keep pushing at it though because our rough draft is due before Thanksgiving break.

November 20th: I wasn't quite sure how to proceed to connect my history of 4-H section to the Positive Youth Development Theory, which I really wanted to include because it was intriguing to me. I decided to go down and hang out with Noah in the basement to do my homework today, and while down there I bounced ideas off of him. He's a great writer anyway, so I thought he may give me some ideas. I came across the thought of Character Counts and asked him if I could use that as a transition into the PYD study since they are a little more closely related than just jumping directly into it. He agreed that it would be worthwhile to attempt to transition with that just to see how it went. I started researching how Character Counts came about and if it was strictly for 4-H or if other organizations used the same principles. I learned a lot about it, its beginnings, and how it has evolved the 4-H program. I even found some information including South Dakota! I wrote about this in my paper kind of as a transition, and then started writing about theory of PYD and the 4-H Study that followed. This took some time because I didn't want to state the information wrong. I was reading an actual research paper about the study and it used very extravagant words that I didn't always recognize. Webster's Dictionary came in handy. I only started in on the PYD study, but then it started to get late so I paused until tomorrow. Also, today I hit my 200 tweets goal!!! I was super stoked!

November 21st: I counted up my pages this morning in shop and I hope our papers can be over the eight pages because I think mine will be. By the time I finish my thoughts on the 4-H Study and form a conclusion paragraph I will have more than plenty of pages. I wasn't at school during class today because our whole class left at 12:20 pm. Tucker's great-grandma passed away and he was having a tough week otherwise, so the rest of us decided we would go to the funeral and show our support for him and his family. I did continue to work on my paper after I got home and did finish the PYD aspect. I also attempted to write a conclusion, but I'm not really sure how good it is. I watched one of the youtube videos on Mrs. Parks wiki from home because I figured that was what we would watch in class pertaining to the subject. It helped me to decide my thoughts and the direction I wanted to proceed. I decided to refer back to my intro and try to tie the paper together in that sort of fashion. I think my parents and getting tired of reading this paper over and over again and I can't thank them enough. I think I will ask them again sometime this weekend to read through it with the conclusion attached and see what they think of it.

November 22nd: I caught up on all my journal entries today, but didn't do a lot with my paper. I just remembered that I need to get my ten sources wrote down for Monday. I almost wish I could just make an annotated bibliography for them and not worry about turning in the five slips. I have way more than ten places where I received information about my topic. Tomorrow I think I'm going to read over my paper again and see if I can notice anything needing to be edited.

November 23rd: I asked my parents to read over my paper tonight. My mom thought it was good for the most part, but it got a little long towards the end when I was talking about Positive Youth Development. She thought I just needed to read over it again myself and look through it a little more. My dad said the same thing, but his reason was he didn't understand some of the technological terms. They both found the paper itself very interesting though.

November 24th: I printed off two copies of my paper today. I gave one to Mrs. Kranz to read through, and I gave one to Mrs. Parks. I'm hoping I can get their critiques back before Thanksgiving break so that I can correct it over the weekend. Also today, I looked over what I have left to complete on my project. I'm feeling really good so far about what I have accomplished and think that I'm getting closer to accomplishing my goal.

November 25th: I uploaded my log of hours, career path plan, and revised resume onto my wiki under the Internship Requirements tab. I like having all my specific requirements together so that I know what I have and don't have. I also made a revised version of my timeline so that I could fully see what I have completed and what I still have left to do. I left my previous one at the top of the page, I just organized it better and dated it so I knew what was going on when. I did all of this at school during 5th and 6th period. I did ask Mrs. Trower about my career path plan and what was required for that aspect of my project and she told me that what I had was adequate for what was needed. Before asking her, I really didn't know what was wanted. When I got home tonight I started writing some of my citations for my paper. Thank goodness for Easybib otherwise this would take me absolutely forever. I didn't get far, but I did start. I took information from many different sites, so I have a lot to do (hopefully there isn't as many as I had last year for my NHD project!) No there isn't, but there still is quite a few.

December 1st: Today we had a discussion about Twitter and our number of tweets! I'm over 200! I'm not winning the tweeting race (Tucker finally finished all his from Halloween and that other crazy night at the station), but I was the first to hit 200! We talked about continued tweeting to show our progress. Also, today Mrs. Kranz gave me back my paper critiques! I was super excited because I feel like I'm getting so close to being done. I want to read it over and make corrections so that I'm one step closer, but I hadn't gotten any back until today. I'm very thankful that she did offer to read my paper over for me though. Tonight I had a Friends of 4-H meeting, so I was able to talk to Mandy and Glenda about my project a little bit. Mandy gave me back my log of hours, which they both signed and they gave me the bios that I asked for. I was going to write one up, but Glenda said she already had one I could use. She had to have one for her service records (or something like that) is what she said. I also gave them a copy of my resume so that they could finish writing my recommendation both for my project and the Coca-Cola scholarship.

December 2nd: I spent my 5th hour class today editing my paper with the corrections that I was given by Mrs. Kranz. Mr. Fahrenwald came in today and looked at the copy I turned in briefly, but didn't make corrections for me. I changed most of the critiques, but not all of them because she wasn't even certain on them all. I wasn't sure if the H's should be capitalized or not when I talk about the clover. I have them capitalized as of right now, but it is something I need to check into.

December 4th: Today we talked with Mrs. Trower about saving our papers on pages. She recommends that we back them up somewhere because it's so easy to delete something or lose something if it's only in one place, I also scanned a copy of the mentor bios I received Monday into the office printer, mailed them to Jan, and asked Jan if she would email them to me. From that scanned copy, I cropped the pictures off the paper and then emailed them to myself from my iPad. Tonight, I used my computer to upload those cropped pictures onto my wiki on my mentor page. Then I typed in everything that was on their bios they gave me. I got my mentor page complete tonight!

December 5th:Today I uploaded my Volunteer Form to show contact between my mentor and I at the beginning of the project. This form was necessary for me if I wanted to work in the office. I wasn't sure where to put it, so I added it to my Internship Requirements page. I also uploaded a copy of my Research Paper Rough Draft onto my wiki. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to or not, but I did anyway. I also attached the original copy of the mentor bios to that page and updated my journal.

December 9th: I received my corrected paper from Mrs. Parks today and started making corrections. I'm thinking I may try emailing a copy to Mrs. Rahn before my final revisions are made because she may be able to offer me some good advice on some key questions that I have on capitalization (particularly in the context of the four Hs.)

December 10th: I asked Mrs. Holmberg to correct my paper as well as Mrs. Parks. She did critique it for me and offered me some great advice as to where to place specific citations in my paper. Today, I made my cover page for my paper and aided my classmates in making theres. We learned that in order to print the papers correctly off of the iPad with page numbers, we would have to make an extra cover page not in the same document as our paper itself. We also learned that our bibliographies don't need to be annotated.

December 13th: Mandy and Glenda's recommendations came in the mail today! Now I have all of my internship requirements completed! Now I need to finish my bibliography and make sure my wiki is up to date.

December 15th: Today, we had a snow afternoon and I spent some of my time working on citations for my senior project paper. I think I'm pretty close to half done. I still have a ways to go, but it's coming along.

December 16th: Today, I went to the office during 5th hour, scanned my recommendations into the printer, sent them to Jan, and asked Jan if she would send them to my email. This allowed me to upload a PDF document onto my wiki. I also have a copy in my senior project binder. Once I uploaded them onto the wiki, I discovered that I have completed all internship requirements for my project except for my FAFSA, which I can't complete until taxes. I also updated my journal and timeline tonight, and added a Coming Soon page to my wiki. I worked on my bibliography more and have around 13 citations left to complete.

December 17th - 31st: I completed my bibliography and since I had already started it annotated before learning that it didn't need to be, I just finished it that way. I worked on the paper corrections that I received from those who read my paper and tried to get it as complete as possible before combining it with my bibliography. I looked at the example wikis before they shut down and added a Reflection page to my own wiki, which I will complete after the January 15th. I applied for my PIN for the FAFSA so I have a start on that too. That will be one of my next tasks to complete after semester.

January 1st: I updated my Coming Soon page by adding a completed reflection to come later. I also updated my research paper page to include my completed annotated bibliography. I combined my research paper and annotated bibliography on my computer and learned how to not show my header on the title page. I think my paper is pretty much completed, which is a pretty good thing as it is due to Mrs. Lauren Olson on January 5th by class time. I also updated my timeline today so that I know what I need to get done before the first grading takes place on the 15th.

January 5th: I turned in my senior project research paper to Mrs. Olson today.

January 6th: Mrs. Olson returned our papers today. My biggest corrections were the citations in my paper, my bottom margins, and my quotation format. I'm glad that I have something I can work on and correct. She's going to let us know when our final papers are due.

January 13th: I turned in my completed research paper today. I'm glad that I finally got it finished, it makes me feel more confident in my project.

January 14th: I helped Skyelar with his wiki today. I aided him with adding pictures, his resume, and figuring out what else he had left to do. I also helped Tiana with adding her Photobucket pictures to the wiki because she wasn't sure how the embed thing worked.

January 15th: I helped Skyelar a little bit more this morning and gave Marissa some advice as well. I completed my self-evaluation in class and went through list of tasks needing to be completed for the January 15th deadline with Mrs. Olson and the rest of the class.

February 2015: This month we started discussing our presentations and our process papers. On the 25th we discussed it in class and I worked on it and my Keynote presentation for the rest of the month. I finished my presentation first.

March 4: I turned in my process paper rough draft today, received critiques from Mrs. Olson, and then uploaded it onto my wiki.

March 12th?: Mrs. Olson came with us down to the teachers' lounge and we used the di-cut machine to create our title headers. I thought it was actually pretty fun to use this machine.

March 16th: I laid out my exhibit board today physically on the board. We didn't have school, and I'll be gone a lot this week so I wanted to get a jumpstart today. Last week, I asked Mr. Moeller to install OpenOffice on my computer and then I used the drawing category to set design the layout of my exhibit board. My middle portion is going to be about what 4-H is, why I chose it, and what I learned. My left panel is going to have pictures from events throughout the summer and the right panel will have pictures of the events of Achievement Days. I think it was a really good idea to lay it out first on a paper so then I had a guide for myself. Today, I figured out sizing of photographs. My left side will have all 5x7s and my right side will have 4x6s. I laid it out with pieces of paper so that I can see what it will actually look like or a rough outline of it. I am a very visual person, so this helped me to understand what steps I need to take to start. In order to get anywhere, I decided I needed to get my pictures printed. I went into Madison tonight and got them printed off at Lewis and hope to get started actually setting it out.

March 16th-20th: I worked extensively on my exhibit board this week. I wrote up the articles about the beginnings of 4H, why I chose it, and what I learned. I also fully completed the middle portion of my board on the 20th. I put all of that on a background of green to make that portion pop. I also determined my color scheme for the rest of my board. Each event on the left side will be on a different color of paper to distiguish it, and each day will be a different color for the Achievement Days side.

March 21st: Today was the Rutland Carnival and after I was finished working it, I came up to the commons to grab some constrution paper that I needed. Then I headed home and got to work. I cut out and glued all the picture backgrounds to the Achievement Day pictures because my other side was already fully completed.

March 22nd: I fully completed my board! I brought it home over the weekend so that I could make sure it was done by Monday night. Marissa came over to get more glue for her project this morning so we're all working together and helping one another if it's needed. I was actually completed with my board on Sunday night at 11:54pm. I had a few finished touches that were completed at that time. It was a great feeling to actually be done with it. Then, I laid out what I was going to bring to exhibit at the project fair.

March 23rd: Tonight is the project fair! I spent the afternoon getting my board set up and ready to present to the teachers and public tonight. I got done with track at 5:00, left with the rest of the class, and came to the school to shower. Tiana brought a pizza from Pizza Hut and we all ate it at Marissa's house before heading to the gym. We were back at the gym by 5:45pm because we wanted to be early. I set up my iPad and computer and then got ready to answer questions. I had various community members come and speak to me and my mentor came also. It was great to get to see Glenda! Mandy couldn't make it because she had a horse training to put on in Flandreau, but she sent her wishes. From the grading aspect, Mrs. Holmberg asked the most questions, but I didn't think it was hard. I mean, I completed the project and I knew my topic so I could answer what she asked fairly easily. I actually enjoyed explaining what my project to others. I determined and let many people know that the senior project is a good thing, it is just a matter of how you look at it. I would also encourage future seniors to really pick a project that they enjoy and would look forward to completing. It really is a matter of perspective and finding something you like and are/can be passionate about. If it is interesting to you, it makes it so much easier to complete the project. I would also encourage them to not procrasinate on getting their projects rolling. I am very happy that I was able to complete most of my project over the summer, it made it much easier during the school year. After the fair, I had a huge feeling of relief though! I'm almost done! It's happy, yet slightly sad at the same time. It makes me think about all the decisions that I need to make still. I'm slightly nervous for Thursday, but I am also very excited to present to the panel of judges.

April 15th: March 26th came and went by...I didn't get a chance to type my journal about that day. It was a Thursday and we had our presentation order pre-determined. The order was Tucker (so he didn't pace and make everyone else nervous), Skyelar, Tiana, Marissa and then me. I had to wait until around 11:20 to give my presentation. I had four judges: Val Parsley, Rich Myrvik, Dr. Kevin (DSU), and Kevin Jaspers. After Marissa was finished, I brought in all of my presentation materials (pretty much everything I had set out on Monday night. I got my wiki pulled up and my keynote presentation on the big screen and then I waited. When the judges were ready, I started my presentation and it went very well. It was easy to talk about because I was so familiar with my project and what I wanted to say. When I was finished, I was asked some questions. Kevin Jaspers asked three: 1) "You spoke of customer service...what was one good experience and one bad experience with that"? 2) "What is the 4-H Pledge?" 3) What do the four Hs stand for?" I forgot what Mrs. Parsley and Dr. K asked me, but Mr. Myrvik asked, "If you were given the choice would you do this same project again, a different project or no project at all?" I said that I would do this project again in a heartbeat because it was such a fun thing for me to do and I learned so much from it. After my presentation was over all of us went to the Rambler Stop to eat together. We had salad, chicken cordon bleu, roasted potatoes, a delicious dessert, cake and ice cream. It was delicious. It felt so good to be done with our projects...the feeling was a sense of freedom almost, a sense of accomplishment. After lunch we came back to the school and did virtually nothing except study hall for the rest of the afternoon. During 5th hour I believe, the teachers started having their meetings with each of us. We went almost in the order we gave the presentations. When I went in there the first thing Mrs. Olson said was, "Whatever the scores said, just know that you worked hard on your project." I was a little confused because she hinted that they weren't very good, but after looking at them they looked pretty good to me. I didn't know what she classified as bad...then she started laughing and said she was just kidding. I got a 99.37% overall as a score; I was absolutely stoked. I talked with them for a while, thanked them for the opportunity and then went into the hall and I think I may have shouted a little bit. Then I ran to the office and told Jan my score. I went outside, called my mom, ran upstairs, checked into class, and ran back outside to call my dad. If you can't tell, I was only a little excited! Then I called Glenda at the 4-H office and let her know how I did on the overall project. Once all my calls were complete, I skipped back into the school. I probably looked a little crazy that afternoon, but I was on a happy, pressure-free high. I went upstairs and hung out with my classmates all afternoon. We were all happy because the lowest grade was a B out of all of us which is pretty good. It was a very great way to end my senior project and I am happy I did as well as I did.

Reflection/Tips for Underclassmen: I just made this wiki public today, so hopefully underclassmen will be able to view this and use it if needed in the future. If they happen to read to the bottom of this page, I would be very impressed...good for you guys, it's a long read! (hopefully it was somewhat entertaining though). Alright down to tips. First of all, choose a project that you know you will enjoy or something that interests you. If you hold no interest in your topic, it will be very hard for you to actually put the time that is required into it. It also makes it much more enjoyable because you have fun with your project if you hold an interest in it. Next, don't be negative at the get-go. Yes you can be nervous, actually that's probably a good sign because it shows that you care about your grade and how well you do. You can be nervous but know that if you put the time and effort into your project, you will do just fine. Thirdly, use your time wisely...don't procrastinate! The earlier you get started on your project the better. I started mine in the spring and had my internship fully complete by the start of school. That made it so much easier for me to actually have fun and enjoy the things happening during my senior year. Also, keep pushing and motivating yourself. It will get hard after a while, you may think you're way ahead of the game, but still make sure to double-check deadlines and progress every so often; it will help you not have to complete last minute work. The teachers are there to help you with your project; they want you to succeed, don't forget that. They may push you harder than you expect or want, but it's because they do want you to succeed and do well with this project. It is an intense project and a great learning experience for you, but you have to use it wisely. If you have questions, ask the teachers. They helped all of us on our projects throughout the year when they could. It was harder during the fall because both Mrs. Holmberg and Mrs. Olson were on maternity leave, but when they got back they answered whatever questions I asked. Lastly, the senior project isn't a bad thing, it's a learning experience. I happened to enjoy mine immensely. When you are completing it, keep an open mind with what you are learning and doing. Learn from the tasks you complete, the people you meet, the things you see and grow yourself with that new acquired knowledge. As long as you actually complete your project, you will be the master of your project because no one else had the experience that you did. I have really enjoyed my experience and hope that our class has reinvigorated the upcoming classes on how beneficial and fun the senior project can be if you want it to. Thank you teachers, classmates, mentors, and everyone who I learned from during this experience! Underclassmen, if you're reading this, I hope it helps! Good luck, I'm sure you'll do great!