Journal 1:

I have been working on making connections and starting to get my capstone started. I want to teach people about taking care of animals. I have talked to my mom many times to bounce ideas back and forth. We both really loved the idea to make a picture book to teach preschoolers about caring for animals. I asked Cheri if she would be my supervisor and she said yes! She also told me that she has a program that she teaches for kids to learn about pet ownership, which I didn’t know. I have asked all of the middle school teachers to present in their classes and I am feeling a bit nervous to have to present in front of all of the middle schoolers. However, I am still excited to be talking to them about taking care of animals because it is something I am so passionate about. I can hardly wait to get started with the project itself and seeing this idea in my head actually be done in real life is great. I think that this project is going to be very beneficial not only to the community but for me. I have to push myself out of my comfort zone and actually get the chance to act like an adult and be treated like one. I also can’t wait to start working on the picture book and seeing how much the children love learning about the animals. I have been struggling on making a schedule for when to present to the students because of all of the things I have going on lately. I am really starting to feel the pressure of senior year with all of the work I have to do to get ready for applying to colleges, everything I have to get ready for my capstone, and all of my schoolwork. This year I am trying to stay focused on what I need to do and not fall behind. Everyday I tell myself all of the things I need to do  and continue to remind myself of my goals for this year and what I want next year. I really want my capstone to do well because I love my idea and I love teaching people about animals. I also like showing people animals that I work with at Eleanor Buck Wolf Nature Center that they have never seen before.

​

​

Journal 2:

I have been working on getting my capstone started. I have gotten a mentor and am working on all of the papers and materials that I need to do before I start to actually teach people. I finished my PowerPoint and I’m starting to try to memorize all of the information I need to teach the middle schoolers. Something that I am really excited about coming up some time in January is teaching the preschoolers on animal care. I asked my mentor if some of the animals form the nature center could be brought to the school and she said that she could! I am so excited to see the looks on the children’s faces when they see animals in their classrooms. It is always so cute when kids come into the nature center and see all of the animals. They always are so excited and interested in what the animals are. My favorite part of the whole thing is when I have an animal in my hands and I ask if they want to touch it. Their little eyes light up even more when they get to touch it and they are so sweet and gentle touching them, amazed at what they are looking at. I want to be able to let more kids experience that joy from seeing and touching an animal. I have been struggling with balancing my school work with everything else that I need to do. I have endless amounts of essays and projects. With all of the assignments I have it is difficult trying to keep up with my work for capstone. However, I do volunteer every Thursday and Saturday. I have been doing a lot of research on animal care and asking my mentor on what I should include in my power point. She gave me some really important points and is really helpful when I have questions about the animals. I continue to learn more and more everyday about animal care even for animals that we already knew how to take care of. There is always more research to read and new updates on what should be done and what should not be done.  There is endless research on animal care and there are so many little details to take into account with every animal.

​

Journal 3:

I have started presenting to the middle school classes. So far I have been to and presented to all of the 6th grade advisory classes. All of the classes have really enjoyed the presentations and all of the kids have paid attention to all of the presentations. A lot of kids have also asked me about the Nature Center where I volunteer at and have told me that they would like to visit or volunteer there. I am really glad they are actually enjoying it and like the topic because I was worried about them not listening or caring about my presentation. I have faced many issues with scheduling and time. This is a big problem because I have a lot of other events for senior year and work that I need to do that causes me to have to reschedule my presentations. Another thing is that with my presentations I go in late into first block whenever I present. We also have started going to Kinsella to help kids first block and because of my capstone schedule I need to not go first block and go during fifth block. In the middle of the month we went on a senior trip to a military course. During that trip I learned a lot about new people I never really spoke to. It was a lot of fun and we just had a really good time. We all worked together to get through the challenges and I liked how all of my team listened and tried any ideas that anyone had. Senior year has been very stressful for me. I have been struggling to balance my home life with my school life because my grandpa has been in the hospital and we are always going to visit him. I feel like I am not working as hard as I could be because of the toll that this has had on me.  I have also been working out of school and have yet to finish my college applications. I hope to have them in before Thanksgiving because I need to start working on scholarships. I feel like senior year is going by really fast and I am struggling to keep up. I hope that after I am done with college applications that I will be able to get on top of everything else I need to do.

​

Journal 4:

I have finished all of my presentations to the middle school classrooms. I am very pleased to have all of the children I presented to interested in the topic. Although not every class was easy to present to, I still had a good experience overall. It was great to go back to the classrooms I used to be in a couple years ago and be the one teaching something in it. A big thing  that left an impression on me were some students that were very interested in animals. A lot of them had animals in their homes and a lot of them were looking at potential animals. I felt that I covered a wide variety of animals and even though it was a lot of information they all paid attention and were interested. Many of the children were surprised about what actually goes into owning a pet, even if it is a small animal like a turtle which people don’t think requires a lot of care. I am now trying to get into the CREC-Discovery Academy to be able to show young students how to properly handle animals. Other than this I have nothing else that I am doing for Capstone right now. I have been struggling with getting that letter out to ask the school. This is because I just haven’t put much effort in going to ask and I have been prioritizing other things that I need to do for my other classes. Senior year has been very stressful with preparations for college. I have applied to all the colleges I want to go to and I feel even more stressed than before because I want to get an answer. The uncertainty of next year is very stressful because I don’t know what programs I will get into. However, I am very excited to start college next year. All of the hard work over all these years will pay off when I am able to start studying nursing or animal science. This semester has been very good for me. I have been on top of my work and I hope to keep it like that for next semester.

​

Journal 5:

I have been working on coordinating the trip to the CREC- Discovery Academy. Over the break I met with my mentor. We talked about what month and time we would be able to do the visits. She also gave me a list of animals I would be able to bring. I am a little nervous about handling some of the animals because I have never handled the snakes by myself and I am kind of afraid of them. However, I will be bringing some of the snakes with me to the school because I know children always love seeing snakes. A thing that is disappointing about the trip now is that I can only bring the guinea pigs from the animal room because our bunny, Cece, has cancer. She has a tumor and is bleeding so we want to keep her in her enclosure to see if she will heal and we don’t want to disturb her. On December 31st, I went in and took care of her and we had to deep clean and put down puppy pads for the blood. 

We have decided that I would do the visit in February because my mentor is very busy in January. I now have to email the school about what times would work because of their lunch schedules and what times I would be able to go. I was hoping to go during the morning because it is easier to pack the animals as well as I do not want to miss Physics next semester since it is an important class.  

As for senior year, the semester is about to end. Going into the new semester and new year I hope to stay on top of things and be timely. I am excited for the end of the year and hope to finish all of my classes with high grades. I also should be finding out soon if I have gotten into my top schools. I am extremely nervous because I love these schools and really want to go there. I did not apply to many schools and all of those schools I chose were ones that were really important to me.

​

Journal 6:

On February 5th I went to the CREC-Discovery Academy to bring animals to show the children. When I got to the nature center that morning I still was not sure of which animals we were going to bring. I met my mentor and helped her set up the travel crates. We took two guinea pigs(Snuggles and Cuddles), an African spur thighed tortoise (Sweetie), a corn snake (Rusty), a bunny (Cece), and an African bullfrog (Bubba). When we arrived at the school we checked in and went to our first classroom. All of the kids were extremely excited and eager to see what I had in the crates. I then started to present and it was very nerve-wracking for me. I had never taught children that were so little and I had never done so many of them at a time. I was always used to a couple questions and that was it. But I quickly realized that this was going to be very different. I started to stumble on words and I even had a cough attack while holding guinea pigs in my lap and trying to talk and keep them under control. It was very embarrassing to say the least. But I got over it and continued to talk to the kids about the animals that I had. It was going pretty well but then I said some information that I believed was correct when really it was not. My mentor corrected me and I continued with my presentation. I realized that I should have prepared more and should have written down and practiced what I was going to say because I always ran out of information to say to the kids. However, even after the bumps in my presentation the kids still loved it and they were all very good listeners and I had their attention for the whole time which was surprising. 

In my second presentation of the day I felt that it went a lot smoother. I was less nervous and didn't trip up on my words as much. I knew what order we were going to do everything in instead of deciding on the spot. The second class was a little harder to control because the kids just couldn’t contain their excitement, which was understandable. Nonetheless, they were still another great group.

​

Journal 7:

On February 12, I went to the CREC-Discovery Academy for another presentation to the preschoolers with animals. This time I was just as nervous because there were still a lot of new and eager faces. I was more prepared on what to say and made sure I had a lot more filler information than the last presentation. Immediately with the first class it was a lot easier for me to talk. I felt more confident with what I was going to say and I also knew exactly what to do and what not to do. But this didn’t stop me from making small mistakes. We had brought a different snake to the school than the last time and I didn’t realize so I called it the wrong name multiple times.  These groups of kids were very interested in what I had to say and there were less kids scared of the animals. However, I had to always remind them with every animal that the animals would not eat them. I told them what the animals actually ate and how the animals’ mouths were too small to eat the children. 

As for senior year, it has been a rollercoaster. I started the year thinking it would be the best year of highschool. But as we end our year, I am saddened to realize that we won’t get to end our senior year as we planned. We won’t get a prom or a senior trip and our graduation is in jeopardy.  We have had to stay home and distance from everyone and are not able to go out. I am not able to go to work. This has put me in a tough position with college coming a couple months away. Another big problem I am having is coming up with things to cure my boredom. I have tried everything from baking and cooking to redoing my basement.  I have faced a lot of challenges during this time. My family and I have had to go through a tough time with trying to see my grandpa with all of the restrictions, then losing him to COVID-19. Although this has been a tough time, it has given us time to spend together as a family.

 

​

 

​

​

​

​