A Meeting....Finally!

So this week I was left on my own a lot...we're at this very limbo point right now in writing and researching for the assessment. Most of the research and writing is done but we are waiting for feedback from our expert panel and decisions that are in the process of being made by the Obama Administration. After realizing that there wasn't much I could do to help this week besides a few phone calls, e-mailing letters, proofing and last minute research, I went to Melanie to see if she need help on her research with the Consortium for Character-Based Leadership. Her project involved looking cases of "truth-tellers" in the government, people who have told the truth about sosmething and have had negative or positive impacts on their career or life. They are putting together a book of all these people. This was actually pretty hard to research because of the specificity she wanted, and I ended up reading through many, many articles I found through Google and ProQuest.

This week I had to make a few phone calls and over the past few weeks it has gotten so much easier to do! When I first started making them I would go over in my head dozens of times what I had to say when someone picked up on the other line...now I only say it a dozen! I know that feeling will go away eventually, but being so young has made me second guess myself a lot...I'm hoping that with age and experience it will go away, at least partially. Already I can see some of my hesitation diminishing, which has been a very rewarding experience.

The one thing that I was very excited about this week was the meeting that we had with General Bantz Craddock and Bruce Weinrod. Ryan asked me to take notes. They were there after attending the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on NATO. Everyone talked so quitely and it was sometimes hard to keep track or hear what they were saying, but all in all I was very proud of myself for understanding quite a bit of what they were talking about! I'm also very excited about our first meeting with the experts on November 16th because I will be there to help and hopefully meet everyone and listen to their opinions on this situation!

Til' next week!