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It was one average February morn, and we were sitting in our study hall, working ever-so-patiently on the loads of homework that we both get each and everyday. It just happened that we had both taken an Internet class together during the first semester of our junior year (11th grade), and our teacher in the class, Mrs. Baird, was sooo pleased with the job we had done, that she came to us with a whole packet about the ThinkQuest Scholarship contest. Since we both are planning on attending a four-year University, the opportunity to do something great jumped right out at us. However, it was just the start to a very hectic seven months! During our first meeting together, the three of us, Adrien, Cortney, and Mrs. Baird, began by reading about the contest. It sounded overwhelming at first, and since we are both very busy participating in many activities (Cross Country, Golf, Cheerleading, Track, Speech team, Student Council, SADD, National Honors Society, Band, and many other miscellaneous activities between the two of us), it seemed like such a large task to conquer. It just so happens that we proved ourselves right. We were not anywhere near the stereotypical computer geniuses that we needed to be, and, at the time, we were nothing but a couple of shining faces-eager to learn. Our next step in this process was to find a basic topic that we were interested in, and a way to express that to others. Since we both are rather competitive with school sports as well as being outgoing people, we decided to make our page regarding self-esteem. We figured there were many things we could discuss and we have had enough personal experiences in these areas, so it seemed like one of the best topics to design a web page about. After that, we discussed our title with excitement. By jotting our ideas on paper, we finally took the word ESTEEM and decided that we could link that with the concept of working as a team, thus we came up with the name EsTeam. However, that wasn't enough. We didn't want people to be confused in the message we were trying to portray, so we brainstormed some more to come up with "The Fire In Desire". When one of us finally blurted it out following a period of silence, it came as a shock when we immediately fell in love with the statement. It said exactly what we wanted it to: "There must be a burning desire within one's self to achieve great things." With this, we based the next several meetings on brainstorming about this topic. After each and every meeting, the three of us would go home glowing with excitement and anxiousness. We knew that our ideas were going to get somewhere. However, the next meetings were going to have to require more of our time and attention. To solve this problem, Mrs. Baird ordered Chinese food for us to enjoy while disscussing our ever-so demanding ideas. These nights turned out to be very enjoyable. After many weeks of performing these tasty rituals, our school year began to wind down, and summer was approaching quickly. Finally we were going to be able to get something done!!!! We decided to meet at least once every week, but then our schedules began to conflict, with vacations, Adrien going to Leadership camp, and Cortney going to Percussion camp, we were finding that we would have to work on our own for a period of time. There were many days when only one of us could to come to the school, which is where we accomplished all our work,and worked with Mrs. Baird on finding sites to link to, along with getting information to increase our knowledge and expertise. Luckily, our computer lab at our high school has 31 computers and we were able to use multliple ones when we needed. As the summer drew to an end, we needed to get some help on making our page look more professional. We consulted a friend, Ryan Coomer, who knows many things about web design. He assisted us in our learning about html codes and how to make graphics and images. Luckily, he had many fonts and graphics that he had obtained through many different projects, and we were able to modify those as well. When the summer came to an end and we were entering the last year of our high school career, we entered into the computer lab, just to find out that they had replaced all the computers! Now everything that we were familiar with had been replaced! To make matters worse, we were in the last week of the competiton, and the Internet access was not working on the 31 computers!! Luckily, our coach and new hero, Mrs. Baird, had come to our rescue and saved two of the computers that had all of our information and bookmarks on them! It was a close one!!! Now that the designing of the page has drawn to a close, we are very knowledgable about achieving self-esteem and being confident. We had always believed that we were pretty confident people, but while researching for this project, we have learned that there is always room for improvement in everyone. One just needs to find the correct way to accomplish this, and we truly believe that this web page will help others help themselves!!!  |
