April 13, 2007

On Friday the 13th, I probably had one of my most productive visits to Kopper Top as of yet. Kaitin and I drove out there around two in the afternoon expecting to find very little to do since, because of our schedules, we had missed a morning lesson for a group of adults suffering from autism. Just as we arrived they were winding up with the lesson and the riders were leaving and the other volunteers were sitting on a log bench relaxing after their long morning. We sat down near them and personally, I started to regret even coming out because I thought that the most we could do is practice Parelli methods, and while that is interesting, I really wanted to help out in a more affective way. After about half an hour I asked Sara what we could do to help out and she let us know that it was about time to feed a few of the horses that were a bit too thin. So we proceeded to fill ten bowls with a specific mixture, and get ready to feed the ten selected horses and the whole process took about an hour or so. Then I helped Sara feed the chickens, roosters, and the peacock as well as collect any eggs we found. This was the first time I actually got up close and personal with the birds of Kopper Top and to say the least, it’s something I’m not eager to do again. Next, we went into the shack to feed the ferrets and the rabbits and we delayed a bit in there, and spent about 30 minutes giving personal attention to the soft and furry animals and unlike the birds, I am most eager to play with them as soon as possible, and ferrets are possibly one of the cutest, most overlooked animals ever! Finally, we finished up our day by helping out with Ryan’s lesson and it was seriously one of the most rewarding experiences since this was my first time assisting with a lesson and seeing the smile on his face finally showed me what an incredible impact Kopper Top has on the kids who go to visit. This was definitely, hands down my favorite visit to the Kopper Top farm.

Alternatives

After finishing project two, I thought back and realized there were definitely alternatives I could have chosen as opposed to The Oprah Winfrey Show. I could have had my pick from The Tyra Banks Show, The Ellen Degeneres Show, The Rachel Ray Show, etc. but I feel that I chose Oprah mostly because of her reputation as an international philanthropist. If any of these hosts could do the greatest amount of good for the Kopper Top organization. When I really thought about why I didn’t choose one of the other organizations, however, another thought donned on me: I probably have a much higher chance of being selected by one of the other talk shows for the same reason I chose Oprah, her international recognition. Because the other shows are less renowned, there’s in a minimally greater chance of being selected to appear by them than by The Oprah Winfrey Show. I could have seriously taken this into consideration before proceeding to select Oprah but at the same time, while our chances are slimmer, the perks of being chosen by Oprah are much greater than being chosen by the others.

Goals

1. I am making some progress on my goals, but not nearly as much as I had hoped due to difficulty attending Kopper Top regularly enough to practice the skills I had hoped to obtain. While I feel that I have mastered such skills as leadership, I don’t feel like I have been able to use them much and this really disappointed me. The lesson I can take from not making it out to Kopper Top much, is either I should have had a car on campus or chosen a site more easily accessible without a ride.
2. I don’t feel like my goals have changed much since the beginning of the term, but I do feel that I could rearrange their priority because now my biggest goal is to finish the minimum hours of service for this class, which really disappoints me because I genuinely love working at Kopper Top and it’s given me an opportunity to really step out of my element and excel, but unfortunately my schedule in addition to the lack of rides has crippled my chances to go work. 

3. Obviously, as mentioned in the two previous questions I am nowhere near where I would like to be with my service. Ideally, I would like to be well over halfway towards the end goal of hours, that way I might have been able to squeeze in some extra hours. One thing I am pleased about is the dedication I feel towards the organization, because I know that when I do have a car out here next fall, I will be going out there as much as possible and working with the staff and kids.

4. It’s my most important goal to fulfill the hour requirement and I feel partially confident that I’ll be able to complete it but another part of me feels like there’s a strong chance that homework and exams will get the best of me and I’ll have difficulty balancing my time and if this is the case I hope there’s a way for me to still maintain a satisfactory grade in the class considering it wasn’t in my entire control to change this considering I have to respect class hours which conveniently overlap with the ideal afternoon hours to go work at Kopper Top.
5. For the rest of the semester, I plan to control as much as possible with our College Writing class, which means putting forth a much greater effort with my writing assignments in hope of counterbalancing the lack of service I’ve managed.

If I Ever Needed A Car...

Before I came to college, I was bummed by the fact that I’d be another carless freshmen on campus but I knew I would manage till my sophomore year bumming rides from friends. Only now, that I have a mandatory off campus arrangement am I truly beginning to feel the frustration attached to not having my own car here with me. Not only do I have to rely constantly on a friend to get to Kopper Top, but also if I am unable to find a ride that matches up with times then my grade suffers due to scheduling. What’s most frustrating though, is that I really WANT to go to Kopper Top. It may have started off as another assignment but now it’s something I want to be involved in on top of the grade issue. It’s something I’m going to have to work around but it’s something I felt it necessary to vent about through blogging because of it’s relevant connection to our class.

Project Two

I felt that project two was a bit more difficult than project one because it seems like it was sort of an awkward in between stage while project one and three were for a specific reason. Project one was to really think out the problems of our service site and to get a strong sense of the site overall and project three seems to actually focus on researching assistance for our sites and to really feel like we’re going to make a difference. As I mentioned towards the beginning of the semester, I’m more of a doer than a planner so the idea of planning for project three with project two feels a bit unnecessary for me, despite the fact that I can understand that it really is important to slow down and take my time to do this things. When I wrote project one, it was really simple to map the entire thing out in my mind and just sit down and write, even if I didn’t go in order, it was simple to answer all the questions. Whereas when I wrote project two, I felt it was extremely necessary to take it one step at a time and I didn’t have that sense that it all fit together, but rather I felt that I had to really take the time to understand each topic throughout the paper, and it didn’t seem to flow as one the way project one did and the way that I imagine project three will work. Overall, I know that project two was an important step in the whole process of benefiting our sites through letter-writing, I just felt a bit awkward with it personally due to preferable writing styles.

Citizenship

cit·i·zen·ship noun
the state of being vested with the rights, privileges, and duties of a citizen.

To be a citizen literally means the definition above, but it also means that you're apart of a greater community and something intricate. Specifically to be a citizen in a democracy such as the United States means to have a voice and an opinion of your quality of life and it is something that should never be taken for granted. While I do attend Elon University within the city of Burlington, I do not personally consider myself to be a citizen of Burlington only because I have not become involved outside of the Elon community beyond Kopper Top. I do, however, consider myself to be a citizen of San Diego, California, and the United States. I consider our civic responsibility to be to appreciate our priveleges and to exercise them by voting and expressing one's personal voice because if a citizen doesn't exercise their rights, then why do they have them? In the past year, I have registered to vote and voted on a notion passed in California.