Senior Projects

All right, this was my first week at crisis nursery! As you know, I was previously at the Saint Albans Country Club for the past three weeks. I really enjoyed it, and the staff missed me! I didn’t realize I was supposed to be doing two posts instead of one big one, so from now on, I will have two parts! Anyway, I spent Monday through Wednesday. I am still getting 30 hours a week, so don’t worry, but because it is an hour’s drive there and back each day and not in the safest area, my parents are having me do longer days instead of shorter days, but Monday through Friday. So, back to my experience, after I got over my fear of being in an unfamiliar area, I started to get more comfortable; it is also in the parking lot of a hospital with police officers camping out there every day all day, so that made me feel a whole lot safer. Stay tuned for part two to hear about my experience on my first week at the crisis nursery! 

I have mentioned some in other blog posts, but something else I have been doing on my senior project is in my free time I have been spending a lot of time working on various writing projects and reading. Since it’s a pretty big part of how I spend my time when I am not working and since I think it’s pretty cool, I thought I would make a separate post sharing what I have been doing. The main book I am reading, right now, is “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy. “The Road” basically follows the journey of a boy and his father in a post apocalyptic U.S. Cormac McCarthy is a really big deal in the writing world and his other really well known books are, “Blood Meridian,” “No Country for Old Men,” and “All the Pretty Horses,” which is coincidentally the book that David Treuer mentioned Toni Morrison reading and that she remarked that “it is the closest thing you can get to a perfect novel.” I am reading “The Road,” due to some trouble I got into in the final week of classes to get some extra credit for English. I have a short essay to write for it and then wrote about 5 other short essays on various poems. One of the poems is actually where I ended up getting my senior quote from! I don’t mind reading it though because it is pretty interesting and I have wanted to read some of McCarthy’s stuff for a while since my brother and David Hardcastle read and really like “Blood Meridian” this past summer. “The Road” is written in a really cool ambiguous style that adds to the overall eerie feel of the book. It’s written very simplistically so I think even a person who doesn’t like to read like Coen or Mr. Mitchell may enjoy this book! Although, it may be a bit too scary for Coen…

Outside of that I have got some other books I want to get through, which include “Pride and Prejudice,” “Madame Bovary,” “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” (the second installment in the “My Heart is a Chainsaw,” trilogy), “The Three Body Problem,” and “Clear Title” which are only a few among a very long TBR (to be read) list. Mrs. Bryan also provided me with some reading and podcast material that I want to look into!

In terms of personal writing, I have been trying to upload 1-3 times a week on my Substack blog. I mostly write about pop culture stuff that interests me. Fictionally, I have been working on my “Freaks & Geeks” reboot, which is just a lot of fun. I started writing this in the last few weeks of regular classes and I have about 30 episodes planned with about 6 fully written. The show pays homage to teen shows and movies I really like, and then also serves to poke fun at the more outlandish teen shows and movies like “She’s All That,” “Riverdale,” and “Euphoria”. It relies on a lot of “Family Guy” esque cut aways and some of the more outlandish and self aware meta comedies I like such as “The Office,” “Girls 5 Eva,” “Not Another Teen Movie,” and “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt”. The other major personal project I have been doing is copying my journal entries from middle and highschool into a google doc, which I plan to submit to the University of Iowa short story contest. I also am trying to convince my brother to submit his horror anthology series to it, but I have yet to see if he will agree. I am honestly considering submitting his work for him, under his name obviously, I ain’t no thief! This does seem mildly unethical, but it’s also how my mom got a full ride art school scholarship to Fontbonne University because her highschool art teacher submitted her work to a contest without her knowing. I am also considering pursuing another history research paper esque topic to research because I really enjoy doing that. Yes, I know I am a nerd. The topic idea I have is based on a JSTOR article I saw and it would be about the idiotic best friend duo in films and my examples would be Bill and Ted and Evan and Seth from “Superbad,” but I want to get a few more and I am not sure if I want to make it specifically about male characters or include female duos to compare it to.

Sorry, for the long post, this has just been brewing over the past 4 weeks and I didn’t want to break it up! Please do not give me another RJM or sue me!

These first few days I slowed down a little and spent my time so far adding the database back into my python server through the SQL language and then getting that data from my back end to my front end javascript and eventually printing it on a table on my main webpage. These processes for me have always been confusing because connecting from the back end of the application to the front end requires two different languages so balancing the two and not mixing them together has gotten more and more confusing for me as my code has become more complex. After I completed this last step to my project I spent my Wednesday morning looking into angular Javascript and how to use that for a front end and will continue working on this and looking into it. Lastly, completing this project meant I went through most of the syllabus they had planned for me and now I can begin working on the actual project of theirs. The team lead and I had a talk with some other administrator people and since the project is technically UC I will be able to start helping out with it. This is very exciting for me and I hope to do well and make an impact on this team.

Yesterday I went to the Federal Courthouse – Thomas F. Eagleton U.S. Courthouse. EJ’s wife works in an office at the courthouse where she reviews cases and determines if they should continue forward or not. She has also held multiple clerkships for judges in the courthouse. Yesterday, we went to what was originally supposed to be a Motion Hearing but what turned into a change of plea. The defendant was a 64 year old African American man that held 32 counts, some of which were robbery charges, others including death threats and concealing and firing a weapon (held by a criminal) furthering a criminal act. His first name is James, his education stopped in fourth grade, he takes medication for PTSD, depression, and anxiety, and he has held various labor jobs throughout his life. The Motion Hearing was going to be arguing whether the use of DNA found at the site of one of the robberies was valid to use as evidence at the upcoming trial. But, I guess the defendant’s lawyers spoke to him about the likelihood of the trial going their way, and decided to change his not guilty plea to guilty. The judge went over all of the rights the defendant was giving up by pleading guilty, made sure nobody persuaded him into changin his plea, repeated the testimony against him, and ultimately accepted his guilty plea to 12 of the 32 counts. His sentencing will be held in July after the judge looks more into the information regarding his case, as well as the standard for prison-time his crimes hold. The judge did however say that he will face at least 10 years for 2 counts each, consecutively. And because he’s already in his sixties, that alone is essentially a life sentence. The main thing that intrigued me was how kind the judge was to him even though he is a criminal facing very bad crimes.

Experiencing a little bit of burnout this week… Unfortunately the offer we placed on the house I found wasn’t high enough so that fell through but I’ve found another one that might be decent. These meetings are really starting to get to me though… I think I should also be taking more pictures lol

Today, I visited Bamboo Equity Partners, a commercial real estate investment firm. I was supposed to shadow Alice, the principal/managing director, but she had to leave town due to a business issue. When I first got there, Dacey, Alice’s assistant, showed me around the building. Bamboo is also connected with Intelica, which specializes in brokerage, property management, multifamily, valuations, and occupier services. Dacey explained to me a little about what their company does, and then I shadowed a few people at the company. First, I shadowed Rob. If there is a building that may be a possible buy, then he will get all of the numbers, which tells Bamboo how much money the building will make in the future. Then he writes up a report about it for someone else to decide if it is a good investment or not. Then I went back with Dacey and sat in an events meeting. Here, they discussed different events that they put on for the company, like a barbecue. This was not what I was interested in, but I was able to see the culture of the company, and I really liked it. I then shadowed Tod, and he explained to me the different types of things that the company invests in. They invest in plots of land, and they build commercial buildings, then they rent the rooms out to companies, or it is a multifamily home, and they rent it out to families, or they buy bad commercial buildings and fix them and sell them in the future, or they buy good building for a good price and resell them. I was not able to shadow two financial people because they were on a lunch meeting, and I wasn’t able to meet with Alice Dacey said that it would be very good for me to meet them, so we are going to plan a day when I can go back and meet everyone.

This is one of the building that they remodeled:

This is a building that they took down and built a new commercial building:

Tuesday 4/16:

Tuesday was just not my day! I was feeling kind of down and upset the whole day. I think there was some stuff that had been an issues with me for the last few weeks of regular classes that I thought I was over, but got dredged back up with my mom this morning, and I just felt pretty bad. When I am feeling down about something in my personal life, it usually makes me try to have a better day at school or work, so that’s what I did. I worked museum babies, which we had a good turn out for, then storytelling which didn’t have many people today, and then hung out in the clubhouse until 12:00, it was pretty slow today. Then I just did some office work for Kat and Suzi. Finally, myself along with the staff from education got to see a sneak peek of the World’s Fair exhibit, I had already seen it, but it was still cool. The icing on the cake to my not so great day was that I went out in our backyard to play with the dogs. I was blowing bubbles for them and had walked over to grab the other container of bubble solution. Unfortunately, I stepped in one of their holes they dug, twisted my right ankle, scrapped my left knee pretty bad, and bubble solution spilled all over me! We are also out of bandaids, LOL!

Wednesday 4/17:

Today was much better, but still very slow. I worked as the greeter for the kids clubhouse, then in the afternoon, I worked with VEX as a desk greeter and floated around the galleries. Julie also sent me information on me potentially leading my own story time, which will either happen May 3 or May 7. I am very excited and it would be cool if our lower school could come out for it!

During these last couple of weeks I have noticed Im both crazy busy as well as having more time to myself than usual. Thanks to my experience with three jobs, I took upon the front desk with ease; greeting customers as well as walk-ins, conversing with the artists as well as creating a clean and safe environment to the best of my ability. It dawned on me just how much Chelsea (our store owner) felt comfortable with the amount of tasks she’s given me- including my first day nonetheless. Due to my health, getting up later and having somewhat shorter days seem to be whats working for me at the current moment; though I still get an incredible amount done.

Chelsea surprised me on Thursday with paying for a CPR and BBP certification course- ones I proudly aced. Those courses were incredibly helpful and already puts me one step ahead than the majority of future tattoo artists and apprentices; as it delt with burns, cuts, blood borne pathogens, sterile and contaminated items, choking, CPR, how to deal with shock patients, seizures and so on. Using a device that cuts wounds into willing clients comes with a numerous amount of risks, the client could go into shock, blood sugar drops, suddenly start choking, faint as well as any blood contaminating someones face or other body parts. I’m very grateful Chelsea took time out of her own busy schedule to pay for these courses.

The rest of the week was rather uneventful, I did venture to their south city location which I loved and realized I’m much more comfortable with the city than I initially realized.

Today I went with EJ to the Court of Appeals downtown at the Old Post Office. We sat in on a hearing I looked into before today. The case was a man that was found with methamphetamine, fentanyl and a pipe with meth residue in it. He was charged for possession of a controlled substance – fentanyl (Count 1), possession of a controlled substance – methamphetamine (Count 2), and possession of drug paraphernalia (Count 3), The defendant was sentenced to 15 years for count 1, 15 year for count 2 and 1 year for count 3. Today, the defense attorney claimed that the sentencing judge was convinced the defendant was a drug dealer and ‘bad guy’ which led prejudice when the jury came to a decision. There were also text messages used as evidence from weeks before the cops found the defendant with the drugs. There were a few other points the defense attorney tried to make but it was evident the judges didn’t buy his reasoning because they interrupted multiple times to question his argument. The court room itself was the first one I’ve been to that looks like what is shown in movies and TV shows. It was build 140 years ago so the ceilings are super high and the designs on the inside as well as the architecture of the entire building is really unique.

On Friday I drafted more demand letters for about twenty files. This time it took about half of my day, only because the letters had multiple people on the file so there were more demands than files. The process was the same but the computer had some difficulty a few times which also slowed down my time. Drafting these collections letters wasn’t the most interesting thing in the world, but it was interesting to see what people are in debt for and how much money they owed.