After weeks of planning for Don’s blogging tutorial, we finally settled on a date, Saturday May 14th at 9:00 AM. I immediately agreed when Ms. Bulls made the proposal, to prevent further frustration for everyone involved especially Don, yet when I reached home and looked at my schedule, I realized that I had overbooked my football practice which was at the exact time of the tutorial. I knew what I had to do, I thought I would definitely miss some football practice, but after the meeting I would be able to go which would make me skip all the stretching and running that I loathe, and get right into the serious business of actually playing the sport. At this fact, I smiled as I went to bed that Friday evening.
I awoke the next morning in the same high spirits, anxious to see what the blogging tutorial would teach me since I already have a pretty good knowledge base in computers. After putting my sweats on, and getting ready for the day, Ms. Bulls picked me up and I was off to the tutorial. Upon our arrival, we saw that Don and the others ( Milani Lyman and Ms. LaDonna Williams) had already arrived.
We promptly began the tutorial at about 9:30AM due to some technical conflicts between our schools technology and Don, yet with a little luck we were able to begin.
He started the session by distributing a thick compilation of papers titled “Mandatory Tutorial Agenda.” The document contained 37 topics from blogging itself to a section titled “this and that,” and some of the topics had subgroups within its contents. Immediately I thought, this is not just a tutorial, but an information session on all that is the Ivy League Connection, and that I probably would not be attending practice that day.
I didn’t mind though, the information session was extremely informative; we even had a crash course in photo shop worthy of being in any community college curriculum.
We went through issues that may arise on our trips back East too. I was excited to hear all the plans and fail safes that were in place for situations like forgetting your toothpaste or a flash drive, or even needing a fan. It made me feel more comfortable with the program seeing that they would treat me as their own when need arose, not just as an adult in the real world even when I make mistakes.
I also learned about the administrators of the program through Don Gosney. One can think of him as a mean critical person, but watching him speak that morning allowed me to see that he is simply passionate about what he does. He and his associates are passionate about the Ivy League Connection and they want to achieve the goal of sending young men and women to great schools fit for them, not only in California but across the United States and if a person isn’t doing what they are supposed to be doing in the program, then that person is simply obstructing the way to the goal. I would like to apologize for anything I’ve done to obstruct the Ivy League Connections path and I will try not to get in the way of people that are trying to help me.
Anyway, the Ivy League Connection blogging tutorial was an eye opening experience and a stepping stone toward a truly invigorating experience back East that I can’t wait to attend.
Kye,
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean when you refer to me as "mean". Have you been talking to some of our previous year's ILC cohorts?
I worry about the way that I come across when I have to admonish some of our ILCers when they fail to live up to their agreements and obligations. It would be great to just let our cohorts do whatever they want but this isn't the way the ILC is set up.
As we told you all even before you applied, this is not summer camp—this is a summer job. All told, we ask you to put in about a month’s work and we’re going to pay you—in the form of this scholarship—about $12,000. By mist people’s standards, that’s not bad wages for a person your age.
We do, however, ask that you follow instructions and our guidelines.
We have a plan that has been forged from the six years of experiences with previous groups. We try to learn from our mistakes and we listen to everything that our ILCers tells us so we can make improvements when necessary and so we don't make the same mistakes over and over again.
Nonetheless, some of our ILCers forget from time to time that with any job they actually have to do the work or they suffer the consequences. In the real world, when you don’t do your job you get fired.
Rather than “fire” an errant ILCer, we’d rather try to work with them to help them to become a better “worker”. If this makes me comes across as “mean”, then that’s a badge I’ll have to wear.
What I would rather happen, Kye, is for more of our ILCers to ask themselves if they’re the root cause of my “meanness” and if there’s anything they can do to smooth the path we’re all taking.
Oh well…
You never did mention whether you got back to your football practice in time to actually practice.