Second Semester

The second semester was very successful. I was able to carry out basically everything I wanted. I didn’t get to do the student vs. faculty game but I was able to play MC Fireball at the lock-in with everyone. It was a lot of fun. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. They listened to my instruction well and everyone understood what to do. I was able to keep their attention for about 45 minutes to an hour which, I feel, was pretty impressive. Before the lock-in I had a little trouble with getting the supplies I needed. I had permission to use the balls and cones and I was also allowed to use the gym. The only problem was that the school didn’t have the mats I needed. So I went through Mr. Eckerson to get the mats I needed from Paragon.

It was a little stressful because as we got closer to the Lock-in I still didn’t have my mats and although I trusted Mr. Eckerson, I could just see things going terribly wrong in my head. I was already nervous about weather or not the students would listen to me or even want to play my game and now I wasn’t even sure if I was going to have the mats! Mr. Eckerson pulled through for me though, and in the end I was very pleased. All my apprehensions and fears were not realized; it went smooth enough for me.

Another thing I had to do this semester after the Lock-In was prepare for my finial presentation. I didn’t think too much about it, I had already started a power point, I knew what I wanted to say, almost everything had run smoothly, why worry over it. Well, because I didn’t “worry” about it in the beginning, I was definitely worried about it now. So I sat down and worked on it. I added more pictures, fixed up a few of the slides, made everything pretty and neat, and put in a few more things I had learned. I felt pretty prepared to do my rehearsal now but I was still nervous.

I’m glad that the semester is closing because it means that I have completed my senior year along with my senior exhibit, but I still have a good amount of work to do. As I look back on my accomplishments so far, I am very pleased. I couldn’t have done anything like this with out the people here at the school. Mr. Eckerson, Mr. Dawson, Mrs. Garbutt, and SLC.

My final thoughts...

Senior Exhibit has been a long, frustrating, informative, and most importantly a gratifying experience. I have learned a lot about myself and how difficult it can be at times to get everything you want done. I am not for a moment upset with how everything turned out. I worked very hard all year on this project and I feel like it was successful on every level. From my learning experience to my application to my written document and my final presentation everything seemed to just come together. There were, however, plenty of times where things went less then perfectly.

Working with teachers, administrators, heads of departments, and students alike also proved to be something I learned a great deal from and about. There were times when I had an idea but in order for it to work I had to talk to a lot of different people. First I had to talk to a teacher to see who to go to, then I would find that person, either a head of a department or an administrator, after I talked to them and they gave me the okay, I had to get the students to play. I mainly went through the student life committee to get my ideas to the rest of the student body and I had a lot of fun working with them. I realized early on in the year that a lot of planning went into the SLC events and that if I wanted to get my games out there and used in their events I needed to start early. This was not only the case for SLC, this early bird gets the worm thing happens to be a very wise, very true saying. In order for any of the things I wanted to get done to, well, be done, I needed to be one step ahead. When I went to Mr. Carole and Ms. McMahon I needed to have my schedule, the games, the rules, and why the school should use them all written out to show Ms. Wimble. It was not as easy as going in there and saying, “Hey, do you mind if I play these games with the kids a couple times?” It took a lot of work and even then, unfortunately, it was not able to happen.

Through everything I learned more then I could have ever learned with out this experience. The skills I gained from doing this will be with me for the rest of my life and I can see them being very beneficial to me during my college career. This experience has been indescribable, the lessons I am taking from this, the skill of getting in front of not only a group of my peers but a group of adults, and the self growth I have had, are all things I could not have gained with out Senior Exhibit.

After the Presentation

Gaga; the game we played in my finial presentation

Not too long ago I gave my finial presentation. A week before the finial presentation I went in front of three teachers for my rehearsal and they gave me a lot of feed back. They helped me think of new things to add in my project and gave me encouraging advice. When I went in there I didn’t feel unprepared but I felt like there was defiantly more I wanted to do but I wasn’t quite sure what it was. After I was able to give my presentation to an audience and hear what they wanted to know about what I had done, I was able to make the entire project stronger.

One of the things the teachers advised me to do was add statistics or some kind of grounding material to give my presentation just a little more stability. It wasn’t easy to find all the stats I needed and to fit it into my project but after I put the work in I was glad I had. It really made it seem legitimate.

I was a little nervous after I got the feed back and worked on it so Brendan came over and helped me the day before. It was really different to do the whole thing for him. Fortunately, when I did the finial in front of students it wasn’t bad at all. They were really cooperative, they asked questions, and participated in Gaga. I was very comfortable in front of the group of kids and I’m really glad everything went well.

Now I have to do the written document. I already have all of the rules, materials, scoring, and tips written out, all I have left to do is the introduction to my senior exhibit. In the introduction I will have the reason I chose the games, where they came from, how they build self esteem, and just a little bit more information on them.

Recently we did the Senior Exhibit Reception which was something I enjoyed last year because I got a better idea of what I had to do. This year I felt like the juniors really learned something and the parents seemed interested as well.

I’m so happy with how my senior exhibit turned out! I’m glad I had the topic I did and I’m really glad that I didn’t get tired of it. I wouldn’t do it again, but I’m not upset that I did do it. Overall it was a great experience.