Intro
Summary of Event
Mitesh introduced me to the director. I really appreciated that. She already knew about me - Mitesh had told her I guessed - and I was surprised how pleased she was to meet me. I told her all this was amazing and she looked like she didn't believe me and I was just being nice. But I explained 10th grade was really foundational for me and I was totally excited about supporting what they were doing and getting more people into science. I was still in science, so all these students could do it too. Then she got really excited and asked if I wanted to be a speaker for their speaker series to 9th graders. They have 4 speakers a year or something like that. [...] *huge eyes* [...] I said sure! I'm not a very good speaker though. It'll be good experience for me. She wasn't offended by my saying that. She was like all right!! If you can handle a 9th grade audience you can speak to any crowd. I told her I would love an intern, and gave her a time table, for next summer, explaining rotations, and that'd I'd be more stable once I joined the Salaita lab and finished spring classes. And I explained the general topics the Salaita lab works on in brief and that they were amazing. She looked very impressed and said - EXCELLENT!! I'll contact you through Mitesh and we'll set you up with someone in the summer!! And she was so thrilled. I was very amazed by all this. Wow. That was much easier than I thought. That's all I had to do, to participate? Just come and ask. Cool. Why doesn't everyone do this? I talked to the students who worked in the Lynn and Conticello labs, and the guy interested in UGA, which was fun.
Here are pictures. I took pictures especially of the boards of students who'd worked at Emory. I enjoyed listening to the student speakers - it made me smile - and I remembered again how these internships are likely completely changing the direction of their lives. It's exciting to get to be a part of that. I can't wait!
They had a jazz band. I LOVED it. I must attend more live music somewhere. I desperately love it but I never go to these things.
I told mom and dad about it when I got home and dad was excited but mom just worried I would overwork myself and why was I doing this. That surprised me. I thought it would be obvious. Currently I'm still annoyed - but I'll get over it. I think she'll eventually come around.
She said why didn't I look for home school students or underprivileged students who don't have a high school to help them, to take as interns. That is indeed my goal. But I don't know how to find them yet. This school already has a program setup, so it seemed a good starting point to me. Maybe I can also learn to be a better mentor in the process.
I was somewhat discouraged, but I still think it's a good idea. Maybe in the summer when I have more time, I can figure out how to network with home schoolers. Maybe ... I'll do BOTH. I'll try not to work too much. But this is fun to me! That's what mom doesn't seem to understand. It's ok. She worries too much. I'll pray that I can schedule in free time. I think it'll work out. I'm really excited about this! John agrees with me that it'll be a good thing. If anything cool happens, I'll post about it.