Last Day-Week 2

Today was a good final day of week two.  This morning, I woke up at 9:00 and worked on reviews for our book.  I made sure that I was referring to each individual restaurants websites to read about the chef and his or her food to get a better sense of what I should write.  I also referred to the checklist sheets that Becca and I filled out at a few of the restaurants we visited.  After working on reviews for a while, I took a break for a lunch at 12:00.  From 1:00 to 2:30, I worked on creating a map for our final book.  I used Google map tools, which worked great!  I was able to create one map that covers all of the areas our top 20 restaurants are in.  In the map, I was able to add place marks to each of the estimated spots each restaurant is in.  At 2:30, I went over to Margaret's to meet with her briefly and have our time sheets signed.  

Tonight, I went to dine at La Meridiana from 7:00 to 8:00 with my mom and Margaret.  I have still had a lot of reservations about putting La Meridiana on our top 20 for a few reasons, so I thought I really needed to give it another try.  Tonight answered a few of my questions, and I am starting to reconsider including this restaurant in our top 20, from what I feel and what I know a lot of others do as well.  There might have to be a replacement of restaurants in our book.

When I got home after La Meridiana, I talked with Becca and I worked on more of my reviews for a half hour.  Becca and I planed that at some point this weekend we will go out and get more scrapbook paper.  We are excited about the progress we have made on our book this week and plan to do even more work together this weekend!       

Cut and Paste- Day 9

Today was a great day!  First, Becca and I woke up and and drove into Proctor because I needed to attend E block for jazz band rehearsal.  After singing, we went to assembly, and my girl BECCA was inducted into the National Honors Society (yay!!).  I was also happy that I saw Jane this morning and we were able to talk briefly about Senior Proctor and plan when we could talk further.  When my fabulous girl was done getting her award, it was around 11:00 and we headed over to the admissions office to meet with Kim Hurlbutt.  She was so sweet and very excited about our project.  She said that she would love for us to get our restaurant information onto Proctor's website, though she just needed to talk to Whipple Hill and work out some details.  It is looking like a great possibility that Becca and I will have our final restaurant books and a web page!  Kim said that she would get back to us and we could come in next week (if time allows) to put up our information.  We left Proctor around 11:30 and headed back to Becca's house.

Once at Becca's, we had a quick lunch break and then jumped right into work at 12:00.  Today was another tedious cutting and laying out day.  We worked straight until 5:00 cutting menus, MapQuest directions, and scrapbook page backgrounds.  Everything was going great until around the 15th restaurant review, where we ran out of scrapbook paper to line the plastic sheets.  Becca and I will just have to run out to a craft store sometime this weekend and pick up some more!  We also ran out of clear plastic sheets at Becca's, though I knew I had a bunch of extras at my house.  I left Becca's at 5:00 tonight with our book that only needed a little more cutting until it was finished (well, besides adding in our pictures and reviews). We discussed the work that each of us would do tonight and tomorrow before I left.  

Back at my house, I worked on finishing cutting and laying things into our book from 7:30-10:00.  I also worked on my Carpaccio's restaurant review. I collected all of the clear plastic sheets I could find and placed our carefully cut information into each one of them (even though they all don't have pretty scrapbook paper in them yet).  I am now happy to say that all menus, directions, and restaurant cards are all cut and placed into our book!  It feels like we are really making progress.  Tomorrow I hope to create a map with all of our top 20 restaurants, work on more reviews, and catch up with Jane and Margaret.   

Day 8

Becca and I had a very productive day today!  We had talked to Margaret this morning and she said to come over at any time.  We decided we would go to her house at 2:00, and we ended up staying until 5:00.  Becca and I covered a lot about our book with Margaret.  She helped us to change our minds about how we would label and order our book.  We ended up agreeing that labeling the restaurants by area that they are in would be best. Therefore, we have Wilmot, Danbury, New London, Grantham, and Hanover labels.  I spent a lot of my time at Margaret's sorting through our book and putting all of the restaurants in order of the area they are in.  Then, I arranged them from closest time distance (according to MapQuest) to furthest away from Proctor.  I also did a lot of cutting out and a little bit of writing.  When we left Margaret's at 5:00, we decided we would drive and both stay the night at Becca's.  We have to wake up early to come into Proctor tomorrow (for E block, assembly, and our meeting with Kim Hurlbutt) and Becca lives closest to school, so it works out perfectly.  Tonight, Becca and I worked from 6:30 to 10:30 on assembling our book.  We pulled out our colored scrapbook paper and scissors and began.  We spent all of our time cutting out directions and menus to perfectly fit on each individually cut scrapbook paper.  We chose paper that matched well side by side in the book and arranged how the menus, directions, cards, pictures, and reviews should be pasted onto each page. Becca and I found this process to be very time consuming!  It is taking a lot longer than we expected, but our book is looking so good!  We completed pages for six different restaurants tonight, and each page is so unique and eye-catching.  Once we are finished with this process, all we will have to do is finish writing and print out our reviews and pictures (for our final book to sit in the admissions office).  I am looking forward to our meeting with Kim tomorrow and hopefully another successful day!   

Week 2, Day 7

This morning I woke up to go and take my AP Environmental Science exam at 8:00. After being tortured for three hours, I was so happy to be done with the exam!  I left Proctor and was at Becca's house by 11:45.  Becca and I worked for a solid six hours today.  

At Becca's house, we had a short lunch break and talked about what we would do today for our project.  We decided that we would drive over to my house to do our work, since I have a color printer that we have been using.  We got to my house around 12:45 and got right to work at 1:00.  

Today, Becca and I did a number of things.  First, we decided on what we would do for directions.  We already knew that we wanted to print out MapQuest directions for each restaurant in our book, but we hadn't made our minds up yet for what to do about maps. We eventually came to the conclusion that we are going to make one large area map of our restaurants with a map creator program.  I will be the one working on this in the next couple of days.  

While Becca printed and cut out MapQuest directions, I finished cutting out restaurant menus from the other day.  I also went through a few menus from restaurants that had been available for us to take and cut them up.  Next, we finished printing and cutting out the other ten menus online that I didn't get to yesterday.  

Becca and I discussed a lot about our page layout today and how we want our final book to look like.  Both Becca and I have great paper to use for decorative backgrounds of each page in our book left over from previous scrap booking, which we both love to do. We have been putting all of our restaurant information into the plastic sheets in our book, and it is looking great so far!  We also talked about how we are going to label our book with color tabs, and I think we have decided on food type.  

Another things that we had on our agenda for today was to email Kim Hurlbutt in the Development Office at Proctor.  We explained to her our Senior Project and the possibility of putting all of our restaurant information under Proctor's A to Z page. She emailed us right back and thought it was a great idea.  We scheduled a meeting with Kim for Thursday.  Becca and I understand that creating a website can be a hard and lengthy process, and our main goal of our project is to create a final binder/book and a condensed version of this book, so we are going to meet and see what this possibility could entail.  We really hope that we can add our reviews and pictures etc. to Proctor's web page though, if time allows!

At 5:00, Becca and I took a short break for dinner and were back to work for another hour between 7:00 and 8:00.  Becca worked on a few of her reviews, while I worked on a few of mine.

Tomorrow should be a good day of collaborative work just as today was!  We are planning to get a lot done on our reviews and then meet with Margaret later in the afternoon.  

   

The Beginning of Week 2

Unfortunately, I couldn't do much work today on my Senior Project because I had to spend most of my day (and all of tonight too!) studying for my AP Environmental Science exam tomorrow!  My exam will be in the morning, from 8:00 until around 11:30.  This will leave plenty of time tomorrow afternoon for Becca and I to work on our project and hopefully meet with Margaret.  I was able to work for three hours today though!  This morning I started at 9:00 and worked until 12:00.  A big chunk of this time was spent visiting 10 of our top 20 restaurant's websites.  On each website, I printed out menus on my color printer.  Becca and I decided a few days ago, with the help of Margaret, to include menus in our final book.  We feel that a lot of families will want to look at a menu before deciding to drive to a restaurant.  I printed out menus of the following ten restaurants: Peter Christian's Tavern, New London Inn, Inn at Pleasant Lake, Milestone, Four Corner, Canoe Club, Molly's, La Meridiana, Mai Thai, and Margaritas.  With the other bit of time during my three hours, I worked on my restaurant reviews.  Now that Becca and I have completed our top 20 list, we each have 10 reviews that we have chosen to write.  We will definitely collaborate and help each other with all 20 though, as well as having Margaret and Jane help us with editing.  The 10 restaurant reviews that I am focusing on are Peter Christian's Tavern, New London Inn, Inn at Pleasant Lake, Canoe Club, Molly's, Mai Thai, Margaritas, Inn at Danbury, Colonial Farm Inn, and Carpaccio's.  I am excited to work on these reviews all of this upcoming week because I absolutely love all of these restaurants!  Becca and I talked today and we have made plans for tomorrow.  She knows that I needed to be studying all day today, and I know that she did some good work at her house.  I already can't wait until my exam is over tomorrow and Becca and I can get to work! 

Weekly Reflection- Week One

I am surprised at how fast my first week of Senior Project has gone by!  It has certainly been a very fun and successful week!  I have enjoyed every minute of working with Becca, our sponsor Margaret, and our mentor Jane.  Margaret and Jane have been wonderful in helping us with our project, and Becca is just the perfect partner to work with.  We each have different ideas, therefore, each bringing our own flare to the project and making it something that's going to be very special.  Becca and I are an ideal pair to collaborate and create a book that we hope will be a wonderful asset to Proctor's admissions office as well as all of Proctor's families.  

Becca and I have really been on task this week, and have finished up the week being right where we need to be.  We have definitely accomplished all that we were aiming to this week and I am proud of what we have created so far.  Because Becca and I have accomplished all that we planed for this week, next week will go very smoothly and we will be able to stay on track with our activities and goals that we wrote in our project proposal.  

I think that everything, at least from my perspective, has happened exactly as expected this week.  Becca and I are both very focused on creating this project and were sure to follow exactly what we had planned for this week.  We are in a perfect position to dive right into next week with our reviews.  I am so excited that we have completed our top 20 restaurant list!

I have learned so much this week!  For one, I now know and understand the difficulty of writing reviews.  Our book is going to take quite some time to put together.  When writing reviews, Becca and I both feel that it is important to capture the efforts that each chef puts into making his or her restaurant their own.  In the reviews that each of us will be working on, we must make sure to incorporate the quality and style of food, as well as the restaurants atmosphere, service, and prices.  Other things are important to include too such awards the restaurant has received.  On top of the lengthy review process, Becca and I must also include directions to each restaurant, websites, telephone numbers, and photographs.  We also want to add in some of our own little touches such as "Becca and Erin's favorite dishes"!  I can't wait until we complete our book, though I now understand why 30 hours of work a week is definitely crucial!  

Overall, week one has been a success!  This week has really allowed Becca and I to become organized and prepared for all that we have to do for our final project.  We have had a great start, and I have loved seeing how all of our new ideas come together each day.  Jane and Margaret also share with us great ideas that we might never have thought of, so I am so happy they are here to help with our project!  I am so pleased with what we have put together so far and only hope that everyone will enjoy our top 20 restaurants we have chosen.  Becca and I are certainly excited about them all, as well as each restaurant is excited to have been chosen for our book.  I can't wait for tomorrow, as week two begins!

Day 5! The Last Day of Week One..

Today was quite eventful.  This morning I went into B block for AP Environmental Science.  I need all the practice and studying I can get before next Tuesday's exam!  A little after class, I drove to Becca's at 11:00 and we discussed plans and her dinner last night at Bistro Nouveau.  She really loved it, and I trust her taste, so we will be adding it to our top 20!  Hopefully I can get there to eat next week.  Becca and I also completed our time sheets at her house that were due today.  At 12:00 we finished up our work because we had to drive back into school.  I had to attend E block as well today, while Becca waited for me and edited pictures.  After E block, at 12:45, Becca and I met up with Jane, our lovely project mentor, and told her all about our week.  She thinks we are right on track and loves keeping track of us on our blogs.  By the time we were done meeting with Jane and had found Michele to turn in our weekly time sheets, it was 1:45, and we headed back to Becca's.  Becca and I parted ways at her house, as she needed to stay at home this afternoon to complete college forms as well as work on our project.  We also decided that this afternoon she would visit La Meridiana to determine whether or not we should include it in our top 20.  I haven't had a chance to talk to her tonight because I just got home, but this weekend we will decide if it has made our top 20 and let you know!  Once leaving Becca's, I went home and worked from 2:30 to 3:30 on Hanover restaurant reviews for our final binder.  I then did some things I needed to do around the house until it was time to leave with my mom to go pick Margaret up and head to Carpaccio's in Hanover.  We left at 6:45 and didn't get home until 11:15!  We had so much fun and I probably ate some of the most delicious food that I have had since visiting France last winter.  The chef is from Italy, and let me tell you, my pasta dish was heavenly!  I had the Tortelloni di Formaggio Caprino, Salsa di Arancia e Polline di Finocchio (large hat shaped pasta, stuffed with goat cheese, thyme and sage, sauteed with fresh orange juice, dried orange peels and fennel pollen).  For desert, my mom, Margaret and I shared Tiramisu and Cheesecake, with were also both excellent.  This is probably one of my new favorite restaurants on our top 20!  After our meal, we spoke with the chefs wife, who was the hostess tonight.  She was so nice (as all the staff was here) and talked with us about her and her husbands life and travels and his experience as a chef.  They actually are currently living in Potter Place in Andover (their old restaurant, until they moved to Carpaccio's).  I can't wait to go back again!  Well, today has been a long 6 hours of work, and I am stuffed, so I'm going to bed!  Look forward to a weekly reflection post on Sunday and another coming week of our Senior Project blog posts!