Today is my last real day of walkabout. I've finished my assignments, and I feel rather accomplished. Overall, I'd say that this walkabout experience wasn't bad. It wasn't exciting, but then again, I never expected it to be. But the whole thing wasn't a boring experience either. It was tedious at times, but I think I gained a lot of useful experience and instruction. Like I said before, this isn't a walkabout I'm going to be leaving behind. It's one that's going to follow me everywhere, and I'm going to have to use the skills I learned here constantly. I have to follow up on projects and start new ones. Of course, with fourth quarter walkabout, it's not going to be easy.

I'm happy to be going home

ugh, staying in the office all day is really difficult. By two o'clock, I start getting really restless, and it gets really hard to concentrate.
In other news, I've been working on a new brochure, which isn't half-bad. It's an interesting process making something like that from scratch. Plus, I get all the help I need for the content, so all in all, making it has been a good experience. Another project I've been working on is editing our presentation to be more suitable for health fairs. That didn't take terribly long though. I've also been making posters. Not designing them, just taking existing ones and attaching them to poster-boards and making them look nice.
I really enjoy these kinds of projects. True, by two o'clock, I start getting really restless, but overall, they have a lot of meaning to me. They're pretty independent, I get to exercise some creativity, but at the same time, I have a goal, I have direction, help where I need it, and a big jug of Arizona real brewed Sweet Tea on my desk. Could I ask for anything else? Oh, and when no one else is in the office, I can play music as well :P.
Walkabout is coming to a close soon, and I'm not really sure what to think of it. It's been a pretty good experience. Not AMAZING, but I've gotten along alright. I've gained experience for sure, and I'm sure that I picked up a few things. I haven't gotten way too bored with life in general either (thank god for movies on youtube).

Yesterday (Sunday) I helped out at an event that one of my mentors had. His mom was coming to DC with about fifty at risk kids from Chicago with an organization called "Imagine Englewood If...". I think their mission is to improve their city/neighborhood, and they advocate for it in different ways. So at our event yesterday we welcomed them, had dinner, and then a few speakers said some words. It was a simple appreciative welcome, and yet it was actually a lot of work. I was dead tired after it was all over.

The whole thing made me think a lot...too much, in fact. While we were cleaning up, I was thinking "is it right that I should be working till 10:30pm on a Sunday? Isn't this MY time?" But, I decided it's better to be someone that can be relied on than to have some extra time on my hands. I figured, if I can keep up this kind of work ethic, in the future, I can be reliable, trusted, and move up in whatever field I'm in (hopefully).

I stayed in the office all day today, which was actually kind of nice. The past two days have been very tiring, so today, I recuperate.
I actually stayed pretty busy. I worked on a PowerPoint presentation for most of the day. My assignment is to take an already existing PowerPoint which is designed for younger kids, and make it a whole lot better. It's not so much about HIV/AIDS as character building, and in my opinion, it wasn't made very well. But I have yet to see how much better I can make it. Right now, I'm working more on the graphics than the actual content. I enjoy that more, and it seems I just couldn't help myself.
The office seemed more alive today...like...300% more alive (rough estimate). Both my mentor and my "second mentor" were in for most of the day. A potential employee also came to check out the office. We got to talk a while, which was nice. Talking to visitors is the most productive slack-time possible.
Plus, I had the best cold pizza I've ever had. I know, thats almost like saying I had the best stomachache ever, but seriously, it was good.

My first presentation went pretty good. It was for high school kids, many of which were the same age as me.
While preparing to give this presentation, I thought a lot about what kind of effect my age would have on my presentation. I figured, either, they would pay more attention and accept what I was saying more because I was their peer, or they would figure that I didn't really know what I was talking about and that they didn't really need to listen. Maybe they would figure out that I didn't know how to keep a class at attention.
But luckily, they were a pretty good class. They were a lot better at paying attention and keeping relatively quiet then some others I've seen, thank god. I don't know what I would have done. Plus, whenever I needed help with information or with getting the classes attention, the teacher and my mentor were always quick with their help.
We had a second presentation right after that one, which I didn't really want to do. But I did half of it, and my mentor did the second half, and it was all good.

I started working on a new PowerPoint presentation. I really felt that the one we were giving had a lot of useless information, and apparently my mentor agreed. He asked me to make one with forty slides, which is surprisingly difficult. I've gotten it down to eighty-nine...

And lastly, more presentations today, coupled with WAIT team performances. We're all surprisingly tired, seeing as we got a full six hours of sleep.

wish us luck

I am currently preparing myself to give my first presentation with WAIF ever. :O It's going to be tomorrow at a school called Ballou High School. I don't exactly feel ready, but I don't think I ever will until I actually give one. But no worries, I'm not extremely nervous or anything. I'll save that for the minutes leading up to the presentation.

Other than that, I haven't doing a whole bunch. I scheduled some presentations, I write reports, make documents and update the website. I long for more direction. But don't worry mentors, I am in the process of doing just that.

Today is my first day back at the office, and so far, I have to say its been alright. Plus, the weather is absolutely beautiful. So its hard for things not to be alright.

I have to say that I really liked that plate of food assignment. It was weird thought at first, and it took some thinking, but it forced me to think about my Walkabout a little bit more, which is good. The more I think about the internship, the more I will be able to recognize opportunities and appreciate the time I spend here.

At this point, I'm starting to realize that this internship is about a lot more than just graduating from high school. My second mentor has a lot of expectations of me, and not just what I accomplish here in the next month, but what I accomplish after I get back home. It feels a little overwhelming right now. I've told myself before that this internship would help me learn skills that would be useful in the future. But I didn't anticipate making a schedule for what I'm going to get done in the next year. My goals for the year were something like:

1. Finish 3rd quarter walkabout.
2. Get good grades during PSEO.

But it looks like I'm not going to get off that easy. I'm going to have to put in and get out a lot more out of this walkabout then what I first thought.