Week 4

This week was filled with some great experiences and some not so great ones. Tuesday began like any other normal day until I heard my name being uttered inside my boss' office. Immediately, panic consumed my body. A woman emerged and marched over to my desk. Visibly shaking in my seat, I feared the worst. Reaching the edge of my desk she reached out her hand and broadly smiled. "Hi Katie, I'm the Governor's scheduler," she announced. Then, she informed me that I would be meeting with the governor that afternoon. Suffice to say, I did not stop shaking for the remainder of the day.

Later that afternoon, I made the trip up to the third floor with Alex Baker, the governor's brother and family friend, to meet the governor. As a history fanatic, I appreciated his knowledge about his office. He pointed out the symbol of the six-pointed star signifying Massachusetts as the six colony. However, at a certain point in our history we decided that a six-pointed star was too difficult to print and we made the executive decision to make ourselves the fifth colony. In the governor's council chambers there were three portraits of former Massachusetts governors. The governor turned to me and said, "I know you love history, can you tell me why these portraits are here?" After long contemplation and a few questions, I reached my conclusion: these were all wartime governors. They lined the walls with their sage wisdom from the American Revolution, to the Civil War, to World War II, and finally to today. It was crazy to me how much history must be housed within these walls. I truly understood the phrase "if these walls could talk."

On Thursday, I completed my days work and then raced home for the Student Council banquet. Impatient and exhausted, I broke down in the car. As my senior project begins to wind down, so does my high school career. While racing through my days, I think that I forgot how few I have left. Sometimes you need to take a pause to recognize what is in front of you. As I head into my last days of senior project, and my last days of senior year, I will be sure to take time for those mental snapshots that will last a lifetime.