Senior Projects

I was out sick both Wednesday and Thursday this week, but today, Friday, I continued working on organizing the probono case, but switched to something new soon. I helped a paralegal in listing all the corporate books in the office, about 8 full shelves of binders, and identifying which ledgers and meeting minute books went with each one. They’re labeled by company and owner, and are now in a spreadsheet where they can access them easily. The paralegal showed me the formatting of a corporate book and what’s kept inside, and what it shows about a company. When I finished that, I was recommended to read an agreement between a company and a union, and learn how the two interact and cooperate. Very boring read of about 40 pages.

This week, I was given insight on a probono case where a convicted criminal filed complaints against the correctional institution he was staying at. My task was to go through the 400 page case and match each complaint that the prosecutor made with the resulting document, like the appeal or the response. The client made many complaints, some formally and some informally, so this was a pain. He didn’t keep his claims organized or follow recommended procedure so it was difficult to find the correct documents.

Thursday 4/4:

OK, this is editing mode Ella and I just wanted to preface this by saying this would originally cover Thursday and Friday, but I ended up having one of the best days ever Thursday and it would just be wayyyy too long! I’m serious it is one of my top ten days. Wow this part two is going to be as epic as some of the best sequels, that may even be better than the original, but without the original they wouldn’t really make sense. This post will join the sequel greats like “Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey,” “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire,” “Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (I still don’t understand how this wasn’t the precursor to “Spooky Island”? It deeply confuses me.) and then also some tv shows like season 2 of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” or “Inside Job,” or “Girls 5 Eva”. OK, now I have just given you some great media recommendations and it would be a crime shame if you didn’t at least watch some. Also, maybe this is why my posts are so long? Thursday, I worked from 12:00-8:00, which honestly is pretty exhausting. It’s nice because I can sleep in, but even by 5:00, I am like, “Jesus Christ! I’ve still got three hours left on my shift!” But I still really enjoy it and wouldn’t change it, I just drink a bit more caffeine on Thursdays. So, from 12:00 to 2:00 I worked as greeter in the Key Bistro. There’s not a lot to say about it, but the other day was eventful in the restuarant. So, I normally had worked with Anthony and Pierre at the bistro before, but then there was this new guy (it was literally his first day, no joke.) his name was Dan, and he is very nice. Then there was another waiter, I hadn’t met before, but I forgot to ask his name *insert scream emoji*! But he knew my name because I wear a name tag, but he doesn’t!!!! Shocking. Anyways, he was very nice and I think he was either in college or just out of it, so he was young and I am pretty sure he had a crush on me. Every chance he got he talked to me non stop, he kept complimenting my sweater and hair, anytime there was a table with more than two people he would help carry me carry the waters, and if you need anymore proof here is my first interaction with him: I said hi to Dan and Pierre and began my shift at the greeters desk. The restaurant wasn’t busy, so I will usually work on my laptop or read and then when guests come I greet them. I hear Anthony say this from the kitchen, “Oh, wait, you have got to see her, first!” And I was like, “What?” Then they both like peek their heads out of the corner of the kitchen and they are giggling and whispering like little school girls over Justin Bieber! Then I turn my head to glance at them and they quickly duck back into the kitchen, giggling. It was too funny. Anyways, then at 2:00 I met with Victoria Eudy, her job is to collect data on visitors to the museum and look for ways to improve the museum and I am assisting her in this. So, first I was supposed to watch this training video, but it wouldn’t work so Victoria just gave me the run down in real life (IRL, IRL!) And guess what she is a Bill and Ted lover, too! OK, here’s what happened: we are setting it up the table for the survey and she said “yes, and it will be most excellent!” and she is always quoting famous movies like “Forest Gump” and “Saving Private Ryan” and I was like “woahhhhh, hold on a minute!” and I go, “Did you just say, ‘most excellent’?” and she goes “Yes!” while laughing and I say, “Do you like Bill and Ted,” and she replies “Yes!” I clapped my hand over my mouth and I go, “STOP! I love Bill and Ted! I’ve been telling people they inspired me to be a history major! I wrote one of my college essays about them!” And she goes, “Oh my god! No, way!” (Yes, way, dude! This is a reference to the film if you don’t get it *insert eye roll emoji if you haven’t watched these cinematic masterpieces, yet) and she was like, “you have to send me that essay!” Anyways, the survey was pretty straight forward. I would ask people if they wanted to then hand them a tablet and explain what it was for. It is for a larger study based out of Portland, Oregon and throughout the U.S. and internationally in countries like Finnland, where they ask museum goers why they are here, if they would visit again, etc. and it’s to help us know what to change and improve and also to better understand the importance of keeping the museum free. After they completed the survey they got to spin this wheel and win a prize, which was just museum merchandise and then I told them about upcoming exhibits. I got to chat with this old woman who said you could call her Karen or Sue and at this point she doesn’t have a preference anymore, LOL. She used to work as a greeter at the arch and was super cool! I did this until about 6:00 then headed downstairs to the audiotorium to greet visitors with Lindsay. Lindsay also went to WashU and she is pretty sure she knows me from somewhere else and I was like “I thought the same thing about you!” She’s worked there for 19 years so we probably have crossed paths and she was also an art history major, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Mrs. Bryan maybe knows her. Then it was time for the talk. Tonight David Treuer was going to talk about his book on Wounded Knee. I think we read parts of him for a history class at TFS and I remember Dr. Hurwitz mentioning him, I think. I thought it may be kind of boring and I was also really tired so I thought I would probably have to be doing multiplication tables in my head to stay awake, LOL this is what I do anytime I am tired or bored during a lecture and began doing this in middleschool algebra, which may explain why I suck at algebra, but I’m pretty good at basic multiplication. I WAS SO WRONG. This talk was SO INTERESTING. I sat in the back row because we had a lot of people from the UMSL history department there since they read his book for their class. He was captivating, funny, raw, and just wonderful. I actually cried during his talk and I am not an easy crier, you can ask my mom. He went to school at USC where he was an English major with a focus in creative writing and he wrote fiction. He wrote his thesis and had a close relationship with Toni Morrison, if you don’t know her, get out! No, just kidding, but she is a super famous and acclaimed author. I have never read any of her books, but they are on my very long list. Then he became a fiction writer and a publisher he knew asked if he wrote nonfiction on Native Americans (he is a Native) and even though he didn’t he said he did. So, they give him this book deal and he writes it and gives it to the publishers and editors and they’re like “no, this is garbage! We didn’t ask for this, start over, and write something completely different!” David was annoyed, so he wasn’t planning on writing it, but then two things happened that caused him to change his mind. 1. There was a highschool shooting at a school he used to work at and whose population were primarily Natives. The shooter murdered his grandfather and his grandfather’s girlfriend and then proceeded to murder some of his classmates in a mass shooting. At the time, the shooting was the second largest only after the Columbine shooting. If you don’t know what Columbine was, basically there were two teenagers who felt like outcasts and decided to shoot up and bomb their Colorado highschool. I think most of it was captured on film and it was highly publicized, and because of that being the case there was also a ton of misinformation about it. David said he remembered seeing news coverage of the incident at his former school and feeling really angry that the only thing the news was reporting was that this “crazy tragedy struck a small impoverished Native reservation,” he said he was mad because they reported no actual facts or information, where as with Columbine they did. The case was boiled down to a race and class issue because the shooter was Native and so were his victims while the Columbine case had two white shooters and predominantly white victims and they came from an affluent community. Then the second thing that happened was this: about six months later, his grandfather committed suicide. His grandmother who was divorced from his grandfather due to a fight about changing their curtains (no joke), but still lived close found him dead in his trailer. She called her whole family and she asked David to do two things: 1. To write a eulogy for his grandfather and 2. To clean up what his grandfather did, meaning to clean up the blood and everything. His (and I am sorry this is sort of gory, if this is triggering for you, please don’t feel like you need to read on) grandfather shot himself through the head so there was brain matter scattered around the trailer. She asked him to clean up because in her words, “your uncles wouldn’t be able to take seeing this,” David said that he didn’t know why she thought he would be okay doing it, but at the same time felt like he couldn’t stand up for himself and had to do it. So, he literally cleaned parts of his grandfather’s body off of the trailer’s interior and had to completely gut the carpet. He said he sat there after on his grandfather’s old couch with his blood covering his shirt and hands. He said in that moment he knew he had to write that non-fiction book for his grandfather, who was strong enough to fight through World War II, become a policeman, and raise four kids, but in the end could no longer go on living. So, that’s how he began writing historical non-fiction and he is now a best seller, although he does not like being known as a historian and in his words would prefer “to just write books where I get to sit alone and just make s*** up”. During the Q&A, I got to ask him a question on his favorite books and then afterwards I got to meet him. I gave him a sticker from the museum (two actually, one for himself and one to give to a friend), told him about my brother and I’s love for writing, got his USC professor email address and he said he would love to read my brother and I’s stuff, took a picture with him doing the rock on sign (not a gang sign, Coen!), and since I didn’t have a book I had him sign one of my $20 bills! He was so cool and I am so beyond blessed to have gotten to meet him and make a potential connection with him. I was quite literally jumping and shaking with joy, and it wasn’t just from the Peachy Keen Monster I chugged at 4:00!

Today, I left Spain and went home. I was a little stressed going through the airport alone, but everything went smoothly. The food was not the best, but I brought snacks to eat. Next week, I will start working with Mr. Moscicke.

This week has been largely the same as the last, scanning documents and reading through articles, but there has been notable progress. I finished the first newsletter and took down an entire deck at one of the properties! I also attended a (pretty uneventful) luncheon on Monday.

On Friday I assisted with renovations at several properties. I tore out a shower and moved the chunks of drywall & nails back to the truck at one house. I also moved a washing machine from the basement of the other property into the yard so it could be replaced and assembled a railing for the front of the house. I’m still sore… (I guess this didn’t publish for some reason so I’ll do it now)

Tuesday 4/2:

Hello! I hope everyone is having a great second week of senior projects! Here are some updates and what I did for the first part of my second week. I will update on Friday afternoon with the rest of my week. Tuesday I worked from 9:00-4:00. The first thing I did, was help set up museum babies, which is a storytelling program for kids 0-2 every Tuesday before the big kid storytime. I helped get chairs and put out rugs with Andy, who works the front desk of the kids clubhouse. He is really funny and gave me my tour of the clubhouse and he told me, “Yeah, you know feel free to play and interact with the kids, especially if you want to. I would, ya know, just ask the parents for permission to make sure it’s okay. Sometimes parents might not want their kid interacting with strangers, especially if he is a tall, adult man with a beard.” In case you didn’t get it, Andy is a tall, adult man with a beard. He is very nice though, and not at all creepy! Julie read for museum babies and then we had a guest storyteller for the second portion of storytime. Her name is Maria Beaver Hussman and she is super nice! She is a Native American, I forget which tribe, though. She works basically as a freelancer going around to different programs and storytelling and crafting with little kids. She is super interactive and great with children, and I think she would be a really good potential guest at one of the lower school gatherings. After the story the kids did a coloring craft. Then I worked until noon around the clubhouse interacting with families, cleaning up, and handing out stickers to kids. As I was walking in the main room to go on my lunch break, I saw Suzi and smiled and waved at her and she said, “it looked like I was having way too much fun,” LOL. And I am having soooo much fun! Anyone who acts like museums are boring and the people who work at them are boring socially awkward weirdos are COMPLETELY WRONG. Everyone I have met here is so fun and interesting! At 1:00 until 4:00 I had a staff meeting and debrief (I just know Dr. Urbano is jumping up and down once he’s read that!). We talked through some different upcoming exhibits and brain stormed titles for the LGBTQ+ exhibit coming to the museum in June. One I came up with was “Color Me Stoked,” which I would say is a pretty good title and also a reference to the 80s movie “Heathers,” which is considered an iconic movie by a lot of folks in the LGBTQ+ community. We also did this thing with our table mates where we looked at this historical photograph and came up with as many questions as we could within 3 minutes. Then we took them and labeled if they were close ended or open ended and then chose our top three and tried to turn another 3 into the opposite type of question so if it was open ended make it closed ended and vice versa. Another funny story about this was that we were asked to introduce ourselves and answer this fun question since I didn’t know a few people like Karla, Ellie, Ryan, and Maria. I had briefly met Ellie and Maria, and saw Ryan, but didn’t fully meet them or work with them yet. So, the fun question was, “What is your go to karaoke song?” This was my answer, “Well, I’ve actually never sung karaoke, but I would love to. Last year, me and my friends were going to do karaoke after our junior prom, but if you’ve ever met a teenager then you know about how good they are at coordinating and planning events,” this made them laugh pretty hard, I continued, “So, if I were to sing karaoke, if I were feeling sentimental and wanted to do a more sad song I would do “Careless Whisper,” by George Michael,” this earned some claps and whoops, and approving nods, “but,” I continued, “If I wanted to do something fun, and my dad would kill me if he heard me saying this to a room full of adult professionals, I would do “Hot Legs” by Rod Stewart.” This earned a lot of laughs and Emily K (not the storytelling Emily a different Emily. Emily K has red hair, the other Emily has brown hair) and she said, “Oh my god! I love you! You are the best highschooler, I’ve ever met, and I work with teenagers all day. Those were such good answers.”

Wednesday 4/3:

Wednesday I work from 9:30 to 4:30. I was originally supposed to be on site at the Soldiers Memorial Museum and work as a greeter, but this got changed around, so instead I got to work in the teaching collection. The teaching collection is basically a bunch of storage items that have been obtained from the Historical Society or the archives of the museum. What I did was label each item, color code them with stickers, and enter the new information on the spreadsheet. I worked with another volunteer named Karla (different Karla then the Karla from Tuesday). Karla is retired and has been volunteering at the museum for a few years. She is really funny and made a joke about this naked lady mannequins. Kat was like, “I don’t know why these are down here!” and Karla goes, “Well there for the field trips to show the kids!” Karla used to work at Fontbonne University (RIP), which is where my mom and aunt both went in the 90s. I asked if she knew Christine Alt then Schuba and Patricia Schuba and she was like “I think so!” and I showed her a picture and she was like, “oh my god, I am pretty sure I know them!” She was the head of housing, student government, and student events. Both my mom and aunt were part of SGA and an academic sorority so she probably worked with them at some point! Today, was also my mom’s birthday, so we are going to make these like Chinese dumpling tacos for dinner and a stir fry, and maybe get some new ice cream from Dierbergs that is ooey, gooey, butter cake flavor, it is delicious! Then this weekend we will probably go out to eat and I am going to make her a coconut cream pie recipe from The Hawthorne Inn in Labadie. From 11:00 until 2:00 I will work at the key bistro as a desk greeter, and then I will have a bit of a break, and I think after that go back down to the teaching collection to sort more items. I have also started a Substack, which is like a personal blog you can post writing on (Maybe I am turning into Dr. Urbano at this point. I am attending debriefs, wearing cargo pants, and now I have my own blog, will I grow a beard next? Tune in next week to find out!) anyways there’s this writer on there that I discovered last year off of Instagram named Viv Chen. She writes mostly about fashion and pop culture so I sent her a message. She has a pretty decent following and guess freaking what? She replied to me and started following me and said that she was excited to read my content!!! AHHHHH!!!! I WAS SOOOO EXCITED AND STAR STRUCK!!!! I also discovered this week that I actually do like musicals. I have been listening to “The Heathers” soundtrack and I am convinced I could play a really good J.D. (a bad boy turned just straight crazy boy, who has severe mommy issues), Kurt and/or Ram (two really dumb and sexist football players), Veronica (the one Heather who isn’t named Heather and the main character who dates J.D.), or Heather Duke (she is the Heather who wears green, but later begins wearing red. She is definitely the snobbiest of the Heathers and very power hungry, while I am neither of those things, I do have a competitive nature and what some would describe as a brash attitude so I think I could play her really well). I sung some of the songs for my family. My dad said nothing because he was busy eating hot dogs and he loves hot dogs so that’s all he could focus on even though, angelic melodies were being crafted in the living room. My mom said it was good, but that the content of the song was awful. And my brother said, “Yeah, that was pretty good. You could probably be in a musical, after five years of vocal training!” He did add though that I could definitely get casted in plays, so now I am determined to be in a muscial at Webster just to prove him wrong. I can be a very spiteful person and competitive at times, with a natural drive to prove people wrong, which is also why I am considering minoring or even doing a second major entirely of philosophy because a lot of the people, but mostly men in the philosophy department are very stuck up! So, my goal would be to work with them and be like “Oh your favorite philosopher is Socrates or Aristotle? Oh, that’s so cute! Mine? My favorite philosopher are Diogenes because he was crazy, Nietzsche because he knew that life could feel like hell, and William “Bill” S. Preston, esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan from Wyld Stallyns because they are two teenage California boys who have a better life outlook then weird, creepy Greek men and will unite our world with the power of their most excellent, most triumphant, non heinous, totally not bogus, harmonic music!” Then I would see what they would say. My mom also told me to “never date a philosophy major and run for the hills,” if one tries to ask me out. I can’t confirm or deny if they are little meanies yet, but only time will tell, but maybe if I do date a philosophy major he would be nice, or I could convert him to kindness, my favorite religion. I could fix him, which is honestly so bad to say, but at least it’s about an 18-22 year old man who is a philosophy major instead of Coriolanus Snow from “The Hunger Games” who is a fictional character, grows up to be a murder and dictator, who enjoys throwing kids into a death battle and watching them die, is threatened by a teenage girl because she basically is coming for his brand, brainwashes and tortures her boyfriend to literally hate her and want to kill her, and is at fault for so many other war crimes. At least I didn’t say that, unlike someone. *cough, cough, Maddy Hassan, cough*. I am just kidding and joshing around no hate, no shade, I get it girl.

Today I went to the botanical gardens in Madrid. Lucía was at school today so I went alone and it was my first time using public transport alone. I used the bus and the metro. I was pretty stressed but it ended up being pretty fun trying to figure out where to go. It was also pretty calming because I could go where ever I wanted and didn’t have to rely on anyone. Tulips where the main flowers that were in bloom. There was also a bonsai exhibit open at the time. 

Today I learned about chinos. As Chinese immigrated to Spain they opened small convinient stores. The word “chino” may seem offensive but it is simply a common word to refer to these stores. They have all types of snacks, drinks, and household items. I always saw them at every corner but I never knew that they had a name for them. They all look exactly the same but they are not a chain. 

I also had churros and porras with chocolate from the most famous place in Spain, San Ginés.

Monday – Lifetime West County shadowing Chris Lichtenberger.

A: Business Scope – As Vice President of LifeTime Business Development, he told me about the two businesses he works on.

1. Medical/Health Insurance,
2. 2.Corporate membership.

B:When he showed me the sales performance of his team members, he told me some of the overall changes in sales patterns during the year.

1. Jan is the most popular month because people gain weight during Oct – Dec Thanks giving, Christmas, etc.
2. Then the sale dies down during March and April because people lose motivation and the weather is good outside.

C: From 10- 11am, We organized data from a sales contest aimed at contacting members who haven’t visited the gym in a while and motivating them to return.

1. The distribution of grouping is determined by the number of lapsed members: Tier 1 _500+, Tier 2_100-499, Tier3_99-.
2. Then he added some comments.
3. I think his work is not that hard to do, so I asked him have you ever used AI to do your work. And he said no, but eventually one day he will.
4. Cuz In Tier 3, There’s one club that only have one person to contact and the completion rate is 100%, and another club has 95 members to contact but with a 45% completion rate. And this is debatable, and AI might not notice that. But eventually it will.

D: After Lunch

1. He showed me the LifeTime Stock, and it’s volatile.
2. He explained the reasons behind it and some inside tips that will definitely help for my future investment on LifeTime.

E: Monthly Meeting with his group members

1. Talking about the performances of each member based on their sale data that I saw already before the meeting.

Tue – Fri: Coursera Finance / Accounting. The course is alright, Quizzes are hard and questions in there are AI proof. I usually get 40 – 50% right for the first time, and later I struggle to reach 70% for a pass. Chris was out on Wednesday.