blog #5

I am so grateful for this internship with Ogallala Commons. This internship in Nazareth has pushed me out of my shell, and I have done and learned many things. I have lived in Tulia my whole life, but I have traveled the twenty-five minute drive to Nazareth for daycare and school because my mom has taught in Nazareth for twenty-four years. Nazareth took me in when I was small and treated me as if I was a part of the community, and I was excited to give back to Nazareth through this internship. Although Nazareth is a small town, I was introduced to many new faces through this internship, including the Nazareth mentor for Ogallala Commons Internship, Darryl Birkenfeld. To my surprise, this internship made me realize how many people I actually had not known. I have also met some other interns through a couple pot luck dinners hosted by my mentor. I have learned many social, physical, and mental skills that I believe I will carry with me for the rest of my life. During this internship, I have planted a tended to a community garden. I grew various vegetables such as carrots, squash, and kale. I was completely new to gardening; I had never done any gardening before except for planting some flowers in our flower bed at home. Thankfully, Darryl Birkenfeld is a whiz at gardening, and he helped me through it. With the produce I grew and picked from the garden, I would wash the vegetables, cut them, and prepare salads every Wednesday to donate to the Senior Citizens weekly lunch meal. I would also donate to the local food pantry, Holy Family Food Pantry. Along with the help from Father Ken Keller and Darryl Birkenfeld, I write and publish for Nazareth’s weekly newsletter. This has actually helped me with practicing for feature writing, a UIL writing contest. I recently have qualified for state and will travel to Austin the last week of May. I have also recently qualified for state in tennis, and I will compete in College Station May 12 and 13, which leads to another skill I have learned through my Ogallala Commons internship: juggling multiple tasks at once. It is a busy time of the year, and I have struggled to keep up with school work and activities and the internship. The internship experience is much different during the school year than it is during the summer, but I have learned to multitask. My procrastination, which I have always had a problem with, has really been a problem this time of the year. I have had to schedule when I do each activity and not wait until the last minute. My least favorite activity that I did through the Ogallala Commons internship this summer was mowing, but the task was to beautify the community. A Nazareth citizen would lend me the lawn mower used for the community park. My favorite activity I did through the internship is helping out at a reading program for little kids at the library in Dimmitt. This was especially helpful since I hope to become an elementary teacher one day. I am very glad that I made the decision to become an Ogallala Commons intern!