Senior Projects

During my last day at the ranch, an organization called The Lou came out to serve. It is a community of people organized by a church called The Crossing that goes all throughout St. Louis to serve and volunteer in the area. The day before, I helped Lori set up for their arrival and organize the projects and on the day they arrived, I helped greet and organize people where they can help. It was really neat to meet so many diverse people all with the common goal to serve their community. There was a photographer and videographer who took interviews and documented the events of the day. I am very happy that I was able to be apart of the service and lending Lori a hand in organization. It was neat to see how a group of complete strangers would become friends after just a few hours of working on one project together.

The beginning of the week Rhiannon and I met with more potential clients. We then started working on painting and updating a clients kitchen. We taped the kitchen in order to get it ready to paint. I started on the ceiling and I learned how tedious painting actually is. It took three days to finish, but it looked great at the end.

This week I was back at Strong Tower Ranch. At the beginning of the week, I helped map out and create a community garden and also organized for the upcoming summer camps. I enjoyed both of these activities because it was satisfying and peaceful. I learned from the people I worked with and enjoyed the simple time that I had to converse and get to know them. Most of the time, I am working with just one other or two other people.

Of course, I loved being back with the horses and enjoyed taking care of them. I got to watch a farrier come to replace the shoes on one of the horses and found it parallel to a pedicure. I thoroughly enjoy being at the ranch and hope to visit this summer.

Today is my last day at Continuum. This week has been a little bit strange because the administration has sort of run out of things for me to help out with. I’ve gotten through a lot of stuff in my time here, but Wednesday through Friday I’ve been sort of just sitting around. I feel sort of bad because I’m supposed to be doing this instead of school, so I feel like I should be actively doing work, but the therapists are busy with the kids, and the administration is either working with the kids or trying to fix the online work schedule or payroll- neither of which I can help out with. I wish there were something specific for me to do because sitting around is getting pretty boring. I could go watch the kids in session, but I’ve figured out how this place works enough that things aren’t that eventful and I end up getting bored anyway. I really really want to help, but I just don’t think theres a way that I can help at this point.

Next week I start working at Salon Prive. I’m still not sure if there will be a lot for me to help out with, but I’ll only be there for five days since I work there from wed-sat. The hours are a little weird so that’s going to be stressful for me to adapt to. I’m working in the evenings for the most part. On Wednesday and Thursday, I work from 1-8, and on Friday I work from 11-6, and on Saturday I work from 10-5. It will be sort of strange getting home so late. I’m worried it will cause me to feel like I don’t have a lot of time in the day because I’ll end up sleeping in late. It’s only a short time though, so it will be fine.

Yesterday was eventful. I was tasked with going around to Edwardsville, IL to make sure all the phone extensions worked. I then had to type in an excel sheet if the phone was active, there was a voicemail, and if the location of the phone was right. I then had to log all the devices to create an inventory. This is important because we need to see if we are wasting money because we can’t find a computer that someone can use instead of buying a new one. I had to do the same for iPads which were mainly used for check-in during Covid.

On Tuesday, I published the PayCom learning presentation for the employees on Bloodborne Pathogens. It took me about three hours to do because I never used PayCom and I had to make sure everything was up to OSHA standards. It wasn’t too bad one I figured out how to create it. I was listening to Morgan Wallen so that helped.

Hey, sorry ya’ll for not posting last week. I was very busy and then all of a sudden I got strep. I worked for about ten minutes last Friday and then took three naps and felt like dying. Other than that though last week was fine. I went and logged some more computers before Thursday. They after the track meet I got sick.

I finally decided on a college! I officially accepted my offer to UIUC and I’m so relieved to be done with being confused and uncertain. Now that the decision is made, I can just focus on being excited and meeting people online and whatnot. I joined the Snapchat Community for UIUC class of 2027 and so I’ve been making some new friends who are also freshmen. Basically, being in the college community shows a list of everyone who’s in the community and you can add people that you think would be fun to talk to, and you can add a post to the community story for everyone to see. There are only about 650 people on the community, but UIUC’s Freshmen class is usually pretty close to eight or nine thousand, so there really aren’t a lot of people on there comparatively. When I first joined the community, I made a post basically saying that I was possibly looking for a roommate and that I’m a Cognitive Science major and interested in living in a specific dorm. A few people added me from that post, and one of them I’m starting to get to be pretty decent friends with! We both want to live in the same dorm building, and we seem to have a lot in common. I told her about how I want to join a Dungeons and Dragons club, and she said she’s never played, but that it sounds super fun. She told me about a blood club which basically organizes blood drives and stuff like that and I thought that sounded pretty interesting so I’m really hoping we either end up rooming together or at least seeing each other once we get on campus. It’s sort of interesting thinking about all of the logistical factors of becoming someone’s roommate. For example, you have to coordinate when you both wake up and go to sleep so that you don’t bother each other. 

Aside from meeting new people online, during my actual project at Continuum, I’ve been continuing to help organize donations. On Monday I sorted out more word association cards and then yesterday I did more organization with piles of toy animals. Slowly I’ve been able to make a pretty big dent in the pile of stuff. Today, I picked up all of the loose small toys and put them in bags with similar stuff. Now everything is organized into neat boxes, and the next step is to figure out where to store everything. It’s really nostalgic looking through all of the toys and books they use here at continuum because so many of these are things I used when I was little. 

Overall, this week is going pretty well except that I feel like I don’t have enough to do. I’ve spent several hours today not really doing much because everybody has been busy and didn’t know what I could help with. Today, Kayla had to deal with payroll and there was an issue with paid time off where the employees showed that they had more available time off than they really did. So Kayla had to take away some of their PTO because the company can’t afford to let it slide. It’s gotta be a really difficult situation because I bet it’s annoying realizing that you don’t have any PTO left when you thought you were good. I haven’t had a lot of direction today so I’ve been reading a lot. I don’t want to seem like a slacker, but there just isn’t enough for me to help with at this point. Everyone at continuum is sort of in a perpetual state of running around like chickens with their heads cut off (their words not mine). There’s always a new issue with insurance or parents or a new family, and everyone here is working with a kid the whole time. Kim and Kayla end up having to take whatever time they can get to clear up administrative work. 

Once again, it was a busy weekend so I haven’t had a chance to write my second post for week three. I’ll try to remember what all I did last week. On the second half of last week, I did a lot of organizing. Kim purchased several large boxes of various toys and learning activities from another behavioral analyst. There are so many things in the boxes that need organized still, but on Thursday of last week, I went through several large bags or toy animals and sorted them into groups. Once I had the animals sorted into pets, reptiles, sea animals, insects, jungle animals/zoo animals, and farm animals, I picked out any exact matches and set them aside. These exact matches were going to be used in a matching activity where a bag will have five pairs of animals, and the kid will have to find the pairs. I managed to make somewhere around ten bags of animals, and I sorted the leftovers into containers. On Friday, I worked on sorting boxes of learning cards that show a picture on one side and the name of the object on the other side. The previous owner  had taken all the cards out of their respective boxes and made stacks that didn’t really make any sense. So I spent most of the day on Friday sorting those cards and trying to put together as many complete sets as possible. I couldn’t finish the job on Friday, so this morning, I’ve been finishing up. There are still tons and tons of toys, games, and books that need organized so I might help out some more with all of that. 

Originally, last week was supposed to be my last week at Continuum, but I requested to extend this portion of my project so that I could stay and help out with some more stuff. I’ve been really enjoying watching the kids interact and helping out with organization and transitioning between tasks. Next week on Wednesday, I start work at Salon Privé which I’m excited for, but also nervous for because I’m not sure if there’s going to be all that much stuff for me to help with since legally I’m not allowed to touch the clients’ hair. I figure I’ll end up doing a lot of sweeping and washing containers from hair dye. I don’t mind that sort of stuff, but I don’t want to be sitting in the corner for like seven hours a day. Granted, I’ll only be there Wednesday through Saturday, but still.