The town is awesome and the school is just awe-inspiring. The internship with Bonner has been intense. Sometimes it's very intern-y...such as this morning, Wayne Meisel, the out-going President of Bonner found me in traffic and brought me to a parking lot (because our road in front of the foundation has been torn apart to be repaved..or something)..when we parked he told me he had lost his cell phone at a convenience store like 5 blocks away and asked me to go find it..and get coffee haha. But most of it we're making training videos for the National Bonner Network, working on creating, and defining the Bonner Advisory Board (quite the task), policy research, and working on leadership skills (which has been awesome). We put together and ran SLI (the Summer Leadership Institute) at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky two weeks ago and Sunday morning I'm heading to Washington D.C. with one of the other interns to attend, and make some videos about, the Results conference. We're going to be meeting and directly lobbying some senators too! It should be interesting..I really don't know too much about it.
Anyway, New Jersey is kind of an eh state. I live 20mi from the Foundation and it takes 1-1.5 hours of driving to get there in the mornings and night..rush hour is serious here! I was planning on coming here without a car because I sold mine a few months ago but luckily bought one two days before coming here..I would have been totally stranded without it! But, there's a ton of interesting shops to go in and out of so that's still keeping me entertained..and I haven't explored a ton yet but I plan on doing so once I'm back from D.C.
Ok so let me reflect for a sec: Firstly, Mariaaaa I'm pretty sure the Bonner Foundation would think your SOS is amazing! Trust me, it's more than a lot of people do and you're learning how to help a ton of people. I'd say they'd be behind that! Secondly, Bonner loves to do a lot of what I call "check pointing"..we have meetings a lot to gauge how we're learning and progressing and we keep getting the question "what did you plan on getting out of this experience?" Well, I realized today that I'm awful at questions like this. Why? Because I apparently don't ever create expectations, or really plan ahead. I never seem to think ahead to what I can 'take' from an experience - rather just go and soak up things. Maybe this is a good thing? Maybe it isn't? Who knows. At least it's a noticeable thing. Anyway, I've gotta get some food. I'm updating my personal blog pretty often, so if you're mildly interested check it out: Northsoutheastcoast.blogspot.com. Hope you're all doing awesome!! If you guys have personal blogs let me know what they are so I can follow them!
-Jack
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