Feb 8: Reflections on my iPOL

My iPOL went a lot better than I expected! I practiced it ahead of time, and when I was practicing I was stumbling over my words a lot and I didn’t know what I was saying. However, turns out that when you have to trim down a presentation for time, you get a lot better at speaking succinctly. I talked fast, but I didn’t lose track of my train of thought at all. However, I definitely remember I was using the phrase “but wait, it gets worse” a lot more than I should have been, but when it comes to all the stuff SCE has done, it’s a pretty good expression.

One thing I didn’t anticipate was how short my timeslot was, My advisory was visiting Roan at the Innocence Project right afterwards, so there wasn’t really time to go over questions. Lily asked me if it was fine that I was disclosing the amount of information I was about SONGS, and I said that it was, since all of this is available online. When I’m back to school, I’ll probably answer more questions about my experience (I’m sure Malia will have a lot of things to ask me). On the plus side, I did have time to give a brief tour, since our office isn’t massive- what you see is pretty much what you get. They only stayed for 25 minutes, but it was enough time for them to get lost on the elevators, for me to give my presentation and then give them the candy I bought. Oh! I bought my advisory candy, because last year Pietra got the visiting sophomores, including me, truffles and it was the highlight of my day. I’m pretty sure someone pocketed two bags, but it’s fine. I brought extras.

(Pictured: my struggles to set up the projector).