Miscommunications in the Work Environment

When I was in high school I worked at an animal hospital, where I was the youngest employee, and the only one still in high school. Because of this fact, I feel like the other people who worked there took advantage of their seniority over me and I was never able to get a day off because no on else would work.
On one specific occasion, after I had been working there for over 3 months, I told my boss that I had soccer championships coming up and would not know exactly which days I would need off. I guess I assumed that by telling her in advance that she would be more inclined to help me find someone to cover my shifts, if needed.
Then, the day came and I informed my boss almost a week in advance about the game. She, for some reason, put me on the schedule anyways to work that exact shift that was during my game. I asked everyone who works there if they could cover for me, and of course, no one would. I told my boss that I was not going to be able to make it, but she refused to help me find someone to work.
Even on the morning of the game I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I had already made a commitment to both my work and my team. I thought long and hard about it, and finally decided that I would be more beneficial to go to work. The reason I chose work was because only one other girl was working that day and there was no way she could have done everything by herself. It wasn't her fault no one else would work, and I didn't want her to suffer because of it. I decided that my team had plenty of substitutes and that this would give another one of the girls a chance to play, since I was a starter.
My team lost that game during finals. I quit my job the next week because they gave me no flexibility and I felt that I had been walked all over. To this day, I regret missing that game. Who knows if we would have won had I been there.
But at the same time, I think that I would probably make the same choice today, just because it wasn't fair to that one girl at work.
I don't know which decision was right. But I know that I handled the situation by weighing each option, then I made a choice based on my morals.
I would like to hope that this type of predicament won't happen again, but I know it will. And all I can do is follow my heart to make the right choice.

Mock Interview Reflection

This week I had my mock interview for a position in Oregon as a drug counselor. All in all, I feel like it went pretty well. To be totally honest, I was pretty nervous about it, even though it wasn't real. I guess it was more like the jitters you get before an exam. I feel like this nervousness showed through the manner in which I was talking. I feel like I was speaking really fast, and maybe rambling. I tend to talk a lot when I'm nervous. This is something that I need to work on before a real job interview. I don't want to end up talking too much.
I was surprised, though, at how much talking time I was given. I guess I just didn't expect to get the chance to say as much as I did. This tells me that I need to have topics prepared to discuss deeper.
I wish that I had written a description of each of my jobs and volunteer work so that I would have my words collected already, thus being better prepared to discuss them and any questions an interviewer might have about them.
I was also late to my interview because of personal reasons. Luckily the interviews were about ten minutes late so I ended up getting there in good time. But if it were the real deal that would be unacceptable. I want to try to be early to my interviews, to compensate getting backed up for some reason.
I liked this experience. I feel like it was a great chance to not only practice an interview, but to get me looking farther ahead. By having to find an actual job that I would like to have in ten years was interesting because I haven't even thought about that before. I was surprised how many jobs I was able to throw out as chances based on how I feel today. I kind of want to do my interview again now.

Mock Interview Reflection

I cannot write my reflection yet because I have not done my mock interview yet.

Presentations Review

Normally I hate having to sit through other people's presentations. Most of the time they are on mundane subjects and all too often it feels like a waste of my time. However, the majority of the speeches this week tended to be pretty entertaining.
My favorite presentation was on Attentional Blink, by Jeff. I thought that it was very refreshing to actually be able to learn something interesting during class presentations. He chose a topic that he was passionate about and that showed during his presentation. I love psychology, as well, so it was a real treat to hear some interesting facts in an English class.
Another presentation that I also enjoyed was the one about fast cars. I don't know the guy's name that wrote it because it was not on his handout. I was surprised about how much I actually liked hearing about something that I have never been interested in before. I wouldn't have thought that I would find that cool, but looking at all of those pictures of all of those hot cars made me want one! And that's odd to be coming out of my mouth because I like Eco-friendly things and I see those cars as being wasteful. However, I found a new respect for them through this presentation.
I also liked the presentation on facebook stalking! I thought it was clever, funny, and relevant to the audience. I liked it because it's something we all do, and she just put it into words.