This past week has been a whirl wind. We had to turn in our final papers of our Major Inquiry Project in. I have also been gathering all of the materials for my portfolio and putting it all together. Along with completing my final portfolio I have been working on my presentation for the final part to my project. I can't believe that the semester is already coming to a close. Although it has been stressful at times I feel like I have accomplished a lot during the past few months in this class.

We turned the rough draft of our papers in this week. While I was writing it I thought of a different approach that I would like to make. I had planned on interviewing Sheri Joseph the Development Officer for Carolina's Health Foundation about philanthropy for Levine Children's Hospital. We both had busy schedules and I was not able to talk to her until this past Friday. I got a lot of good information about philanthropy and why it is so important for Levine Children's Hospital. While I was writing my paper I found that I was prepared to write about my topic but I didn't really have a solution. After talking to Ms. Joseph I have a better idea of what my proposed solution will be. I have a lot of editing to do before our final drafts are due this Friday. Along with talking to Ms. Joseph the in class peer reviews also helped me to develop my paper more. I have also begun to put my portfolio together. The next two weeks are going to be very busy as the semester comes to a close. I am anxious to turn in my completed NPO project since we have been working on them all semester.

This week I got a lot of work accomplished for my major inquiry project. The lady from my NPO finally got back in contact with me and I was able to go pick up bracelets to sell them around campus. I finally figured out what I am going to write about for my paper. I am going to focus on the parents and ways that the hospital can improve the things that they offer parents and why it is important. I have started to write my rough draft and I am actually looking forward to completing it. The year is coming to the end and it is about to be very, very stressful these last few weeks. I am a little nervous for the upcoming weeks because of the amount of work we have to do but I hope it won't be too terrible!

This week we finished up our two pieces of rhetoric and submitted the final drafts into Dr. Minslow. My NPO still has not gotten back to me so I can't do much with my pieces of rhetoric that I created. We also started to focus on our persuasive essay papers and got into groups to discuss what our papers were going to be about. We also started to make our outlines for our paper. I still have a lot of ideas that I need to narrow down to figure out what the main focus of my paper is going to be. I think I am going to focus on the parents of children with cancer and figure out ways to help improve support groups and to help get more focus on the parents. I have done a lot of research about childhood cancer but now I have to change gears and focus more on researching about the parents. I think it is going to be challenging but I definitely think it will be doable.