The end to the project, but not the passion

In the end of my passion project Taylor and I were able to accomplish the blankets we set out to make, and learn more about Africa which is what we wanted to do! Taylor and I ran into multiple setbacks but we got a different aspect accomplished than we thought we would which was not necessarily a bad thing, it was an awesome thing! Getting to interview people about a country that we absolutely love was so so awesome! In my opinion overall I think it was successful in that sense.

The biggest mistake I personally made in this project was two things: First, with the blankets- I realized something about myself: I am driven to work hard for things I care about, and when a time is set on that I am so determined to get that done. While making the blankets I experienced this. We tied 8 blankets in 45 minutes and zoomed through at a crazy speed. Now this can be positive, but in the midst of working so hard.... I forgot what I was doing and why I was doing it. The second mistake I made was in the Africa project. We kind of got stuck half way through when we didn't find what we wanted to and for a while it was easy to get sidetracked on a Friday afternoon. These are mistakes I can personally learn from though and I really enjoyed this project.

Transition

I have accomplished the first portion  of my two part project. We set out to make 7 blankets and that we did! A couple things we did not expect came our way but we reached our goal in the end! The fact that we got off schedule for missing one of the day's shows that we were very determined. We actually completed 6 blankets in one period which is crazy. We started right as the bell rang and tied the last string as the last bell rang. I felt that we did a good job working together to complete our goal. Now it's time to move on to be productive with the second half of the portion of the project. I'm transitioning over in to research for Africa. Although we have not gotten to start this we are kind of running into the problem of Ebola now, so I predict that this will have some impact on our studies.

Moving forward I am starting to shift my focus on to something else. Africa is my desired passion for this project so I am excited that I get to jump into this. Over the next four Friday's Taylor and I will start to research. As mentioned above out research may be thwarted a bit with the uprise of Ebola. I'm excited to learn about Africa and see what we can do regarding it, maybe even from the U.S.

One thing that has been made more clear to me through working on this project is that when I am challenged outwardly I suddenly get really quiet and I have my mind set towards whatever it is, and only that. I tend to want to get it done quickly, because I know I need to. Sometimes this changes depending on the circumstance whether I have a month to finish it, or if I'm rushed to finish. I guess the word for this would be determined, and you could see this happening in the process of tying blankets. I think this could have negatively effected the project in a sense. I don't know that a whole lot of thought and love came out of me tying those blankets that day, I think I was driven by completing a task. moving forward I don't think this will be that much of an issue considering our circumstance but I will definitely watch out for it not only in this project but in the way I complete things in life.

A few passions

For my passions I chose to focus on two  projects. The more minor one that I plan to complete in the beginning of the process is associated with soccer.  With the mixture of my dad, the coach of the varsity boys and girls soccer teams at school and my mom, known as the "team mom" in most sports that I'm involved with its only practical that I do something involving soccer. My mom possesses a forte for making no sew blankets for an organization called Project Linus.

Although we're not donating these to an organization such as project Linus  my mom wanted to make the varsity girls team blankets for the upcoming season. Celeste and I plan to work together in tying these 23 blankets in the next couple weeks. The importance  to us because it takes a lot off my moms back that she is not making 23 blankets by herself. Also, at pop we can only carry around/use "POPCS blankets" and these blankets will pass that regulation. Soccer season occurring during the winter when it grows really cold out so these will come in much needed use on the bench:)

For the second half of my passion project I will partner with Taylor. We both have a passion for missions. Individually we have both been blessed to go on missions outside of the country, I went to Haiti last summer and she has gone to Romania the previous two summers. Our hearts belong to those countries but both of us have shared a specific interest in Africa and we have talked about it for a couple years now. We are not completely sure how to tackle a shared passion of ours but we seek out to do something in benefit to research organizations in Africa that we could  potentially visit one day.

Sorry mom

I did not release 1.5 million helium filled balloons into the air into a storm (Balloonfest '86) but I did (partially) wreck my mom's new car (that was to be mine in a short 6 months). The setting: a parking lot. Not just any parking lot, but the parking lot of a church. A church of which I was about to attend my cousin's wedding at.

Let me break it down for you. I'm 15 years old at the time, well 15 1/2 to be exact. My mom bought me my first car and decided she would drive it for a year before I got my license. That's where the car came from, now how I wrecked it. It's the summer before I turned 16,  my mom and I were dolled headed down to my first cousin's BIG DAY.

My mom pulled up to the parking spot at SMU. The two of us proceed to get out of the car. After shutting the door my mom and I glanced up and saw a sign that read "Handicap" parking. By this  time my mom had caught a few family members and greeted them. Busy talking, not thinking my mom handed me the keys, "Sophia, would you mind moving the car?" I, of course, jumped right on that because driving is cool (until you have to do it all the time). She then told me she trusted me and to be careful. I started the engine, confident as ever!! I reverse the car, pull into a new spot and I'm all set, right?

I look up and of course, it's another handicap spot I can't stay in...I turn the car back on and start to reverse again. As I reverse out, I think I have enough room to pull out and then forward. I put the car into drive expecting to then pull out of the spot but a couple walking by sidetracked me for a moment. As they walked by I decided maybe I didn't have enough room to pull out, so thinking in my head that the car is still in reverse for a bizarre reason I step on the gas and ram right into the back of a red Sedan. If the damage didn't look bad enough from my point of view I broke the radiator so the car started smoking which made the situation appear 10x better than it was.

Ouch... I, a 15 year old trusted with the responsibility to re-park a car and I totally failed to complete my task, and did worse! At this point I think I had created a puddle from the tears that were spilling out. Being in trouble and unemotionally stable are not the best mix.

 We found the persons car that I hit, gathered their insurance information and I didn't hear the end of it with my mother. We decided to put all that behind us and go support our family member on one of the biggest days of her life. I then decided that I would not again jump so quickly on an opportunity that could possibly lead to disaster. You may want to think about watching out for me in the POP parking lot friends :)