Samara Ashooh

Three highlights that I have experienced this year with What’s the Story is… One getting to meet new people and starting to create a connection with everyone in “What’s the Story.” From the moment I stepped into the conference room where we first all met, I didn’t know anyone or anyone’s names, I learned everyone’s names pretty quickly and I started to create conversations with everyone. I also started to get to know everyone and start to become closer to all of them.  Another highlight was working with a small group of people and talking about a film or a prompt that we are given and starting to understand the purpose of “What’s the Story.” It has been a lot of fun working with the same people for the last 3 weeks and getting closer with each of them. At school, we don’t really have conversations about school work outside of school with people that we don’t really know, so it’s different and new to talk to people about work that I don’t really know. Lastly, going to Middlebury for the day and talking about what might happen for the rest of the school year was a lot of fun.  

My team for the Three Week Affinity Group Challenge has been going really well, I feel like we have been really productive. Even after some technical issues, we figured out how to make it work. The issue that we had is Grace’s computer didn’t work with Google Hangout so I FaceTimed her while I was on the hangout with Ava, it worked out overall, but it was hard to figure out what would work. We stayed on task and got all of the work done. I learned a lot from the conversations that we had but the one that was the most interesting to me was when we all were talking about what we want the outcome of our film to be. I noticed that we all are interested in slightly different topics. I also learned more about how to develop a film and what Grace and Ava’s perspectives were on while talking about the films we watched. We all took turns taking notes and we all were helping each other when we didn’t understand something or when we were trying to figure something out. I feel like we did really well with the challenge and we worked really well together. We each had a different quality that made our team successful. We also all feel very passionate about the same topic, and I think that it will be a lot of fun maybe working together for the rest of the year. So overall I think that our group did really well and we all are very excited about the rest of the year.  

Lastly, I don’t really have any questions since my sister went through the same process. Also, I understand most about WTS and the location and I know what’s going to be happening for the next few months so I know what is happening, but some questions that I have are: 

• How long will the documentaries be? Is there a time limit?
• What will we do with the films after we are done with them? 
• Are we allowed to branch off and work with smaller groups of people? 

The image that I featured below was from the first day I met most of the people in the room. I didn’t really know anyone and that change from then to now are already huge. I am already closer to people, especially from my affinity group. I featured this image because I feel like it goes well with the reflection part and it goes well with our prompt. But, that’s it. I feel like this year is going to be very exciting and I am looking forward to getting to know everyone, more and to work with all of you. These past three weeks have been a lot of fun and I am excited to see where this is going to go.