Blog #5

I have always been grateful for a lot of things in my life, including my supportive family and friends, and being able to live here in Marin. This summer has been particularly significant in my life since it is the first time I have committed my time to an internship, a class, along with my regular homework. It has truly been a great experience in which I have learned a lot about communication, collaboration, and professionalism, skills I will benefit from in the future.

In class, I was able to produce a better quality résumé, cover letter, job application, and I was given the opportunity to take tests that would help me analyze my personality to see my strengths and weaknesses. I have tried hard to fix my weaknesses, by paying attention to my actions and slowly changing them, and I am thankful to this class for helping me recognize the improvements I can make to become a more diligent, patient person. I am also glad to be able to make a LinkedIn page to boost a future job application, as well as many young people are not online and are not aware that they should be. What really stood out to me in this class was a TED talk where I learned that not only does someone need to know what they do and how they do something, but why they want to, and that has made me discover that I deeply enjoy helping others and have strived to do so in my daily life.

At my internship, I am so thankful to Catriona for giving me the opportunity to meet all the amazing professionals that I did, and being able to share their stories through Earthscope's blog and radio. I am grateful to Diana Beresford-Kroeger, whose bringing her ancient knowledge of the health benefits of trees to the 21st century. I am grateful to Steven Wise with the Nonhuman Rights Project, for working to give animals legal rights. I am grateful to Dan Griffin, whose study on blue oak trees has determined the severity of California's drought in relation to those previous. And I am grateful to Adam Scow of Food and Water Watch for working against corporations that promote fracking and other harmful processes on the environment.

From these experiences, I learned how to be professional, and that I can work as a journalist. I was able to set up interviews, and communicate efficiently with the people in my internship. I developed my ability to speak confidently and with purpose, which is really important for me. I also learned that I have a greater interest in protecting the environment. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunities that I have been given because of where I live. Other students around the world, or even around our own country, do not recognize, or have the tools to find such incredible internships and experiences that I have living in such an influential community, and I am not going to let this go to waste.