I really enjoyed my POL. It was a chance to share how well I was doing in areas of school, and where I could’ve improved. I was very nervous in the beginning, and was almost in tears by the end. The judgement in the room felt real to me, but I also knew that support was there too. Everyone in that room wanted me to pass, and I could tell this was a ‘do or die’ kind of situation, even though the stakes weren’t at the height of death. On a different note, I made eye contact, and I spoke as clearly as I could manage to. I moved around and used my hands, something that just seems to come naturally to me. Most of what I spoke about, and how I spoke, was done on the fly. I don’t prefer rehearsing things unless, of course, it’s a play, or some show. If it is a presentation that covers various things, I just let the words find me as I speak. I’ve always liked to say I get it from my father, who is a great speaker. While I felt I did great at my POL, there’s never a perfect one. Mistakes are a given with anything that we do, and we always try to improve upon these small imperfections. I spoke a tad too long, going half a minute over the max time. It didn’t even occur to me that time could pass that quickly, and caught me off guard. I could perhaps widdle this down in the future, but how is still unknown to me. Another thing was my evidence. It seemed at times like my evidence wasn’t good enough, or perhaps I didn’t have enough. At one point I even thought I had forgotten a piece of my evidence, but it was really just out of order. This piece was also in black & white, which probably made it hard to see the damage in the photos (4/16 Burn Scar Trip). Overall, I do feel my evidence was enough, understandable, but still had room for those few improvements. My SMART Goal for this semester is to advocate more often for myself in Math. This is so that I know what assignments are coming up next, so that I can be prepared. I am planning on scheduling for Office Hours with my teacher weekly, presumably Mondays, unless there is no Monday that week.