When I first began my Senior Project, I had planned on focusing on the Black Lives Matter Movement.

My plan
also consisted of creating a documentary with interviews conducted with Sonoma’s small African American
population. However, after difficulty with obtaining aspects of the project in mind, as well as being distracted
by a newfound hobby, I decided to switch my Senior Project to that hobby: volunteering as a canine handler at
Pets LifeLine Animal Shelter.

Because the Research Paper was written in the beginning of the Senior Project, my paper was focused on
African Americans. It explained the extensive history of enslavement, oppression, and abuse faced by African
Americans in the past, and that it eventually lead to the racism against the race being embedded in the society of
America.

The mentor-supervised activity in my Senior Project was working with the dogs hands-on every weekend.
Because I was a new volunteer, I was unable to interact with the dogs by myself. Being with my mentor allowed
me to be able to spend time in the kennels with the dogs, as well as walk and play with them. Eventually, when
it came around to the springtime, my mentor and I traveled off-site to bring various puppies to a puppy
socialization class at the Arroyo Vet Clinic.

In the beginning of the Senior Project, my Research Paper directly linked to my activity because both were
based around raising awareness of the inherent racism in American society, as well as African American
activist. Because of the switch of projects, my paper no longer directly relates to my project. Regardless, the
theme of service is still present in my Senior Project, as I now am servicing the puppies in need in my
community.

During my hours volunteering at Pets LifeLine, though nothing was necessarily unexpected, I did discover
some things that surprised me; such as just level politeness the shelter dogs were expected to be trained to in
order to be more likely to be adopted into a forever home.

The research collected in my new Senior Project does not link to the thesis in my Research paper. However, my
opinion would not have changed either way, as illuminating the racism against African Americans in our
country and trying to stop it will always be something I am passionate about, regardless of newfound
information.

Cumulatively, I believe I spent approximately 8 hours researching, writing, proofreading, and rewriting my
Research Paper for my Senior Project.

As of April 7th, 2019, I spent 22 hours completing my mentor-supervised activities at Pets LifeLine. Though
this was the last documented date on my spring hourly log, it was not my last day volunteering at the animal
shelter; I continued volunteering at Pets LifeLine until the end of my senior year, and plan to until I leave for
college in August.

The Senior Project Timeline was a very helpful tool throughout the year. It allowed me to know upcoming
deadlines, plan ahead, and effectively procrastinate to finish all of the aspects of the Senior Project.
If I would be able to do my Senior Project over again, I would not have tried to plan to accomplish such a large
project, as my initial project was. Though it was an issue I was and continue to be very passionate about, it was
an unrealistic end goal to complete in the time and area restrictions.

With the date of the Oral Presentation approaching, I will prepare myself by writing a speech and creating a
slideshow presentation with documentation of my mentor-supervised activities. I plan to practice my speech
with my presentation multiple times in front of various audiences to ensure a flawless final presentation.

My initial Senior Project encountered many challenges, such being set in an area where the population of focus
is not very present. Additional problems were the filmiling and documentary creation aspects being too foreign
to me and difficult to grasp in the time available. Because of this, in addition with the fact that I had already
began to volunteer on my free time, I decided it would be a stronger project to switch it to something I knew I
would be able to complete before graduation.

The experiences I had during my Senior Project have brought me so much closer to animals, and has helped me
discover that helping animals is one of my true joys. My project opened me up to so many people different
animals, as well as make volunteering at an animal shelter be an activity I wish to continue to do as long as
physically possible.

Volunteering at Pets LifeLine for my senior project made me learn just how much I love helping animals, and
discover how much joy it brings me seeing animals in need get the help they deserve. It also made me realize
that helping animals in some way is something I want to continue to do for the rest of my life.