Week 8

TOTAL HOURS: 64 out of 80 hours

So? What do I think? Am I still experiencing success, surprise, and diggin’ it? The answer to these questions and many more are coming right up after the commercial break.

*Fades in to see a child going to school. He begins skipping when all of a sudden he trips on a crack and gets a face full of mud. When he hits the ground, he happens to hit a pebble that jettisons right into a hornet's nest. The hornets get angry and swarm around the child. He cries for help but that only disturbs the bears hibernating randomly on the other side of the street. His loud yells wake them from their slumber, at which point they promptly maul him. A woman dressed in white steps out.*

WOMAN: Dirty mouth? Try new Orbit gum!

*Zoom in to limp body of child. Suddenly he lifts his head and smiles. His teeth are white and shiny. Fade out*

Welcome back! Week 8 is over, and we're that much closer to the end. I'm still enjoying myself here, and it will be kind of weird to leave. I feel I've definitely made more of a connection here at Shaklee than I did at eMotion. Although this is a much larger company, people are still cool and fun to talk to.

This week, we put my skills to the test. We had a meeting with myself, Joan, and two other women regarding my Get Clean demos. I showed them all four and they gave their critiques and changes. How did I do? Let's put it this way. The world "lethal" was used several times. And not like "lethally good". I guess it was to much to hope I could get it on my first try.

Surprisingly enough, Joan said I was more or less par for the course. I guess marketing has a nasty habit of wanting something, then changing their mind the moment they see it. After giving their criticism, basically one of the videos was salvageable. The other three were either not wanted anymore, or required additional footage. Footage that was non-existent and needed to be filmed. So, Joan just told me to worry about the one we have, and she'll deal with organizing any re-shoots.

But with the bad came some good. Something real good. Right after the meeting we had a mini party for Joan, who celebrated her birthday the previous week. There were three pies to choose from, which was arguably the hardest task I've faced during my WLE to date. You should have seen the beads of sweat that dripped down my furrowed brow as I grappled between apple, boysenberry, or chocolate cream. I was about to draw a decision matrix like we did in Josh's class, when I decided screw it, I'm going chocolate. I even had some Martinelli's sparkling cider to wash it down.

But alas, all good things must come to an end. The other part of the day was Joan giving a reprise on the budget lesson I had recieved a week or two ago, and also a bit on scheduling. She ended up drawing this fairly complex chart of most projects progress. A small one like the Get Clean demos had an incredibly simple time line in comparison to a large scale project. I consider myself lucky. This whole talk helped me get some good background in preparation for my final project.

Speaking of which, I wonder when that will be? Because I'm so conveniently 60+ minutes away AT BEST, Mr Harris has found it a wee bit difficult to find his way out here. And I really don't want to present anywhere else because the real interesting part of my presentation involves the recording studio. So, factoring in commuting and presentation time, I could easily take two and a half hours out of the day. I don't expect to present on the 12th anymore, but I'm curious if I can be fit in with all the graduation portfolio presentations at school that need to happen. It's all very tricky business. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

And so, this weeks blogging comes to a close. We'd like to leave you today with some forced responses to the blog prompts meant to appease the teachers.

WLE High: Chocolate Cream Pie
WLE Low: Getting up at 7 am