It's Over!!!!...Well Basically

This passed Monday, I gave my final presentation at Chinquapin around 5. Dana Lipinsky, Debora Ybara, Rosita Brooks, Jeremy Duncan, Ray Griffin, Sandy Bartholome, Jessie Bartholome and Amanda Duncan. Unfortunately, Susan Davis, one of my panel members could not make it. Before starting my presentation, I was extremely nervous. I wanted this presentation to be the best that it could be and I didn't want to make any mistakes. As more people started to show up, my nerves went crazy. I could feel my entire body shaking feircely. After the final person arrived, I had to give my presentation. I took three small breaths and just jumped at my presention. I introduced my name and gave them a small overview of my project. I didn't want to go into great depth because I planned to do that later in my presentation. I showed a video of a father coming home drunk searching the house for his son. He was an angry drunk and when he found his son, he raised his hand to hit him. But before he could put his hand in motion, the video stopped because that was the end of the video.

After showing the video, I told the audience that my project was solely on physical abuse. The motivation of this project was because, not only have I been put through situations like this, but I've been close friends with people who have gone through the same. My presentation was on Prezi. I talked about what I had in mind at the beginning of the year, how and why my project changed, the ups and downs of the process of my project, and how it will be beneficial in the end. My presentation took about 20 minutes.

After my presentation, I asked if anyone had any questions. Like every presentation, they did have questions. One question they asked was how do I plan to put this project into effect for next year. After asserting with the audience, I decided to talk to the SLC at Chinquapin, to ask to put this into effect. I've talked to Elber, the SLC president, asking what are the necessary steps to proposing my idea. He told me that I had to write a paper saying what I plan to do and why. So, it looks like that's what I must do.

Almost Over

I don't remember if I mentioned this but, I only had two panel members. Even though we were required to have one teacher, my mentor and a board member, I was missing one. I didn't have a panel member who was a board member and was going crazy trying to find another since we were so far into the year. Recently, I was given advice saying that Dana Lipinsky, a board member, could possible be willing to be one of my panel members. I sent her an invitation asking if she would like to become part of my panel. Not long ago, I received a message from her accepting my invitation. I was extremely happy and was relieved of my stress of trying to find a board member. I am very grateful that Dana Lipinsky accepted to become one of my members.

Even though I received this great news, I am starting to stress a little because I must present Monday, April 25. That's in two weeks and my head is going all over the place. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to talk about. I want to talk about how I used my time, what my idea was like at the beginning and what it is now, my failures and struggles and what I plan to do for the years to come. I have my rubric finished so that my panel members can grade me. I am relieved that I got that done. Does anyone think I should talk about something else besides what I've described?

Final Days

As we all have noticed, time is moving by really fast. It is already coming to our final days of this Senior Project. On March 10 I had my first meeting with 7th and 8th grade girls, and the meeting turned our to be quite successful. Liza joined me during this meeting while I introduced my thinking process. I told them that one of the best way to confront a problem is by expressing it in front of a people who have been through similar problems. It took a while before the girls opened up their minds to the idea of group therapy. I had to nudge them a bit for them to start talking. Once the first few people decided to contribute, we had a functioning group going on. I was very surprised that it was able to work out pretty good.

I learned something from this first meeting. I learned that the only way for a group to have the greatest performance is if everyone is comfortable. This has helped me with the idea that before each group session, I will need to have some activity in place to build comfort and trust in each member. I plan to have another meeting with the girls during these final days of school. I am still keeping in mind that I will learn from each session. Does anyone have any ideas of what sort of trust and comfort exercises that I can use?

1st Meeting

In the blog before this one, I talked about how I was disappointed because the meeting didn't happen. Tomorrow we will hopefully give the meeting another chance. I need to get this meeting started because I need to know how to perform and construct the group. It will be in the multipurpose room during lunch. It will be about any similar problems that they may be going through such as abuse. It can be a different kind of abuse (physical, mental or substance).


P.S. By the way, I saved this as a draft on March 9 and forgot to actually post it. It doesn't say that it was saved on the ninth.

Dissappointment

Like I mentioned in the blog before this, I scheduled an appointment with Rosita and the girls but couldn't because Rosita said that she was unable to meet with us during the afternoons. This is a big problem for me because now I have to figure an alternative for a meeting with Rosita and the girls. I'll have to meet with her again about the best time to meet with each other. Another problem that has crossed my mind is how can I get the girls to become comfortable with an adult present. Since I must have an adult supervision, I have to find a way to get them comfortable; most girls would hesitate to tell people their whole life story when they feel uncomfortable. I am thinking that the best way to get them to all feel comfortable is to make them interact with Rosita before starting a group therapy session. Playing initiatives, like what we played during Summer Session, with involving Rosita will probably be a great way to bring comfort to everyone.

Even though I have come across these complications, it has helped me learn something very important thing about life. We must always be ready for disappointment but must have a backup plan as well.

Happy to Inform

I am very happy to announce that I am one step closer too starting the support group for my senior project.Everything is coming out great I decided to start it ..well have the first meeting on Thursday, February 24. The group will contain the lower school girls and we will be talking about problems such as bullying. I am very excited to say that I feel as if I a actually getting somewhere the only thing that is holding me back is that I have to meet up with Rosita to make sure it is okay with her schedule. Other than that I still have to look up some more information up. The information I will be looking up will be about how to deal with these problems. I have done research on why one needs to talk about it and why it is important but now I have to figure out what to do with all this information. As my peers what do you think I should be doing anything different ? Or better yet what can I do to get these girls to open up with an adult around? I know many younger girls feel more comfortable to talk when it is someone of their age or a bit older but when it is an adult they tend to close up? How can I get them to be able to be themselves while Rosita is around?

What to do what to do?

Well Like I said in my previous post I know what I would like to do the only thing is How am I going to start it. I see the people around me and how some people have time lines and all that stuff down and ready to go. I feel as if I am not at that point yet which is a bad thing. So how can I do this? I still need a date where my board members can all meet. Which is the tricky part since they all have things going on. So maybe I should be a little more firm and send an email requesting a date. With the write amount of help I know that I could get this project done. I have the resources and have Rosita to help me out with learning how to talk to people. In the mean while I might just make contracts to say that whatever is said in the group will stay within the group and if something is serious enough that we will report it. I might also redo my trailer like Nick suggested me to so I could get my contact information out there. The only question I have is how can I promote my project to others outside of the school?