Week 6 Blog 3

This is it, my final blog post of my high school career. After this post I will only have my presentation to do. It feels pretty surreal that I am actually finishing my internship. It is a bittersweet moment because I loved interning at the library but am happy to move on with life. Anyways, I will be talking about the second revelation I had that came to me because of the internship. Without further ado, the second one is that libraries constantly have jobs to be done. Although on the outside libraries do not seem to have a lot of activity going on, do not be fooled. Libraries are full of activities and jobs that need to be competed. There is no down time at a library as books are constantly being found, put on shelves, registered into the system and withdrawn from the system. All of these jobs are never ending and take time to finish. Well those are my two reflections about my time at the library. In closing, I would like to thank everyone who helped me have a wonderful time at the library.  Special thanks goes out to Mrs. Dumont, Mrs. Kelly, Dot, Sarah Collins, and Rachel. If I missed anyone at the library and you happen to read this I apologize for not mentioning you. I would like to thank my advisor, Mr. Koughan, and the head of SCORE, Mr. Jewett. I am very thankful for the opportunity to spend my time at a place outside of school, and it gave me real work experience.

Blog post 15

Well, this is it... My last SCORE blog post! This week has gone fairly smoothly. Although I've had to donate much more time than expected to Loyd's movie (about 6 hours total week), it has worked out okay because a majority of the work that I did for the foundation consisted of phone calls and email communication as well as independent research.

The board meeting went smoothly, and another one has been planned for the end of June or early July. Everyone is very pleased with the progress the EFH has made since winter, and it seems as if we're right on track for the upcoming year's application season!

Fundraisers are still in progress- a list of close friends to Elise has been compiled so that we may request their support for the EHF and her memory through donations, yet there are also two larger fundraisers which have begun to take shape; firstly, a benefit concert is confirmed to happen with one of my dad's artists... The details of which are still hazy,  but it is definitely happening. The second event will be a Banana's fashion show (the store bananas on main st. In Gloucester is a vintage clothing store owned by one of Elise's closest friends), which will be expected to occur over the summer/early fall. 

Blog 15!!!!!!

This whole week Mrs. Yutkins has made it a point to tell each class this would be the last time they would see me, and more than once children would come up to me and tell me they were going to miss me. This nearly broke my heart every time, but it also made me happy that I could make so many kids like me so fast. I must have been doing something right these past six weeks. It didn't really hit me until today that it was nearly over though. After the third grade class three girls came up to me and handed me a card, and they all had drawings of me. Two were me with the little girl who drew them and one was just a portrait. One of them even said exactly "goodby! You are the best miss Julie." I didn't get any more cards until the first graders who were painting the tree of life. This was a lesson that I taught inspired by Gustav Klimt and they all seemed to really like it because they got to use metallic paint. Quite a few of the kids, after they finished their first tree of life, decided to use their free drawing time to paint me my own tree of life which I thought was so nice. All of the cards I got from the kids were so nice and I am planning on keeping them for a long time. I'm definitely going to miss working as a teacher's assistant in the art department, and I'll always remember the experience as a good one. 

Blog Post 15

Today was my last day of SCORE. Looking back at my experience I can say I have thoroughly enjoyed it. I have heard so many other kids talking about how much they hated SCORE and how it was a chore, but that is the opposite for me. I actually looked forward to going into SCORE everyday and that is something I am thankful for. Maybe it was because I got to hang out with two of my best friends every day, but the environment that Ramona and her fellow helpers provided for us was perfect. Ramona was the perfect advisor for my fellow interns and I. She was so concerned about If we were happy with what we were doing and whether we were getting what we intended to out of our internship. I never grew tired of doing the same old task because we were constantly switching things every day. We also did a great amount of traveling around the North Shore to new Trustees Reservations. Many of the places that I worked at I had never been to before. This added an element of surprise because most of the reservations were amazing places. Some of these places such as Ravenswood and Coolidge I even plan on returning to after my internship is completed. Knowing that I just completed one of the last events of my senior year leaves me feeling rather sad, but I am happy knowing that really I could not have chosen a better SCORE project.

Blog Post 14

Today at SCORE my fellow interns and I helped out with another fieldtrip. This time the fieldtrip was for kids in Kindergarten from Gloucester instead of Ipswich middle school kids. The trip took place at Ravenswood and Ramona told us that we would be following up the back of the field trip and making sure that no child wandered off into the woods. I was expecting a few kids to show up. Instead over thirty little kids were waiting for us when we arrived. The kids were brimming with excitement and even though there was a slight drizzle they did not seem to mind. Ramona told us that these field trips are so important because they get the youth involved in conservation at an early age. The kids are the future and if they do not care about the environment then no body will, but back to the field trip. We started out walking on the Childs Path. The Child’s Path is basically a side trail that has very basic terrain that allows kids to walk along and get involved with the nature around them. Our job was extremely easy because about every single kid was accompanied by his or her mother. Maybe it was because they did not trust eighteen year olds watching after their kids, but it essentially created much less work for us. We kept trying to get involved, but it was hard with so many adults there to help out Ramona. In the end we just spent the better part of the day observing little kids running around while their parents chased them in hot pursuit. 

Blog Post 13

For SCORE today Liam, Taylor, and I spent the day getting rid of another invasive species. This time the species was called Garlic Mustard. Garlic Mustard actually looks like a flower, but it grows at an alarming rate and kills all other flowers around it. Liam had the task of removing the Garlic Mustard on Friday, but he did not properly dispose of it. Liam spent two hours on his hands and knees weeding the entire population of Garlic Mustard. Unfortunately he then dumped all of the Garlic Mustard into a hole in the ground. When we arrived at Coolidge this morning Dan was not pleased with what Liam had done. He informed us that Garlic Mustard is extremely resilient and it will just start growing again if it is left in the wild. Something to do with the seeds of the flower allows them to fall off of the dead plant and just start growing again. Instead of disposing of them in the wild they have to be burned or thrown away in a dump. That left Liam, Taylor, and I the task of recollecting the Garlic Mustard and transporting it to the Coolidge truck. We did this using two wheelbarrows and a forty-gallon trash bag. After we put all of the Garlic Mustard into the trash bag we dragged it across the property and gave it to Dan. I guess the lesson that can be learned from today is that it is easier to do a job well once than it is to do it two times poorly. 

Blog Post 12

For SCORE today Liam, Taylor, and I spent another day helping with field trip at Castle Hill. This time the group of students was larger but they were actually better behaved. Girls dominated the group, which is probably the reason as to why there was less misbehaving. This time the students seemed to take an interest in the material presented and it made the filed trip a million times easier Once again the students loved the animal station the most of all. The job assigned Liam, Taylor, and I was to take pictures of the field trip. The Ipswich School wanted to use them and the Trustees are constantly looking for publicity. We took pictures of about everything we could think of. The kids also seemed to love posing for pictures and took it upon themselves to “photo bomb” any picture they saw us taking. The best pictures that we were able to take were from on top of the Crane Estate. There was not a cloud in the sky and the day was picturesque. This time we also received a tour of Crane manor and saw the bedrooms of the two youngest children. Their rooms were incredibly lavish and they each had enormous private bathrooms, which is no surprise considering their father was a famous plumber. We were not able to receive a tour of the rest of the house because apparently they were readying for some function in the near future. Hopefully one time we will be able to see the rest of the estate because I am curious as to what the master bedroom looks like.