Empathy

I actually took the test twice and took the average of my two scores, in order to get a more accurate score.  I didn’t like some of the questions because I was too centralized and had difficulties deciding between slightly agree and slightly disagree, so the second time I took the test I changed the answers to a few questions I was unsure about to cancel them out. My score was actually higher than I expected, I got a 63. I generally don’t trust online tests much (hence why I took it twice) but I feel like it’s a fairly accurate score. I’ve always been very intuitive about people’s feelings and I usually take others into consideration when deciding something. My main reason for wanting to be a politician is so I can make a positive difference in people’s lives so I guess that makes me an empathetic person. I completely agree with Dan Pink’s theory on teaching empathy; it’s exactly what I was thinking before I watched the video but he found a more proper way to express it. However I also believe we move within that spectrum constantly depending on situations. There are definitely days when I feel more empathetic and days when I just want to focus on me. As cliché as it might be, the most empathetic person I can think of is my priest. He gave up everything in order to serve people. He goes wherever the Archdiocese believes he is most needed, he can’t start a family, he can’t have a second career, if a family needs him at 3am he helps them even if he has a 6am mass, and what’s most astonishing is he enjoys it all. The amount of dedication to God and the vast variety in the community he serves requires him to be able to see everything in a million perspectives and give knowledgeable advice. On the other hand I am surrounded by un-empathetic friends. None of my friends are completely horrible but when grouped together they would probably score a 10. I have one friend who is extremely helpful towards others but she has no emotional intuition; she is a horrible person reader and can’t tell what people are feeling. On the other hand I have another friend who can look at someone and correctly guess how they feel but she just doesn’t care. She’s selfish and focused on reaching her goals and making herself happy so unless helping out benefits her in some way she won’t do it. (Haha yet they are still both my friends, I have a talent for ignoring people’s flaws and finding the good in them XD)

Drive

My Resolution word is Drive. This year is going to be extremely busy and full of new experiences and good-byes. I'm going to need a lot of willpower and persistence to succeed and avoid a breakdown and Drive will remind me to not give up and continue my journey towards greatness. I also like its more literal meaning of driving a car. I'm finally 18, and by the summer of this year I will have the freedom to go places without parent restrictions. My dream has always been to take a road trip the summer before college and I want to make that dream come true. I want to go places, both literally and figuratively, and "Drive" is a word that will take me where I want to go.
I don't really harbor any strong envious feelings towards a person or situation. However, I have daily moments of jealousy where I see something I can't have or someone accomplish something I like and I think "I hate life" but quickly move on. It's a wide range of situations too, from seeing a car I like to hearing about someone get a higher grade than me. The envy is always spurred from someone being more succesful than me, but rather then waste my time complaing I usually use it as motivation to work harder.
All of my friends and family can confirm I am a horrible liar. However when I do lie it's about feelings. I hate showing sadness and vulnerability, and unlike other lies, lying about feelings is easy all you have to do is smile. I am an extremely cheerful person, and usually it's genuine, but when I am feeling sad, angry, or stressed my personal mantra is to smile and nod. I'm sure people can see through it sometimes, but it's still the thing I lie about most.

Project Focus

I need an want to know how and to what extent money affects local state and federal government. I have decided to change my question. After my talk with Mr. Knighton I realized there was more to money in politics than election funding. I still want to keep my focus on how money affects politics however I no longer want to make PACs and Corporations the focus, and I want to explore money in local government more. Quite honestly I have completely confused myself about my question, and the more I think about it the more I'm confused. My focus has always been PACs but in evaluating what I want from politics and the HMP program I came to the conclusion that I will get a lot more out of my mentorship experience if I research local government and the influence of money, which often isn't greatly impacted by PACs, in our community. I want to start my mentorship with Hall Co Gov't before I create a concise question because I know that will clear my mind about how to change my focus from big federal billionaire campaign spending to local smaller scale spending. I just feel like I've discovered a whole new side to government that I never really thought about and I want to explore it at least for a day before I make a decision or else my confusion on what I want will just get worse.
As I stated earlier I really want to do something video related because that has always been one of my strongest project presentations. However I have recently started toying with the idea of a website. If my project goes the way I envision it I will have a lot of information to sort out and the simplest way for me to organize it is through a website. I can still  include videos but a website also lets be expand to other media that I want to incorporate like a discussion room, charts, photo galleries and so forth. I don't know if I'm that talented in website design but it's something I have always wanted to explore and since the point of the project is to learn something new and share you're acquired knowledge with others, creating a website would be a perfect way to achieve that.
I believe I already began my real inquiry. As I was talking to Mr. Knighton and telling him about my goals our conversation answered and brought up many questions. I want to learn how elected officials solve issues? Is there a difference in how federal and local officials compromise? Does money affect what decisions are made? How often? The only way I can get a lot of those questions answered is by asking the people I'm going to be working with and observing. I think observing to the point of being creepy is going to be how I best "inquire" whether I'm sitting in a commissioners meeting or touring the building. The best way I can get my research done is through simply watching. If I sit quietly and let the people around me go about their everyday routine I can learn how they make decisions, what they value, and the importance of different issues, because rather than getting textbook or rehearsed answers I'll see the answers and learn about the human aspect of being a government employee.That one meeting just completely changed a lot of my views, and I know the longer I intern the more my views and questions will change. I'm just really super excited about starting Tuesday and the fact that I have such a great opportunity to be inside government.