August 30, 2016 The first day of school came along with the first day of capstone and I felt ahead of everyone because I already had an idea. Me, Alexis, and Madi were going to coach a middle school pep squad and we thought that all three of us could do it since we work very well together on the high school cheerleading team. September 6, 2016 In order to carry out our Capstone project, we need a mentor, to help us with all of our ideas, and a supervisor, to watch over us and the middle school students while we do activities. Alexis, Madi, and I went up to Mrs. Bordeau to ask her if she would be willing to be our mentor and supervisor. She told us that she would be more than happy to be our mentor but that she was not able to supervise because she wouldn’t have the time. We were a little disappointed, but not completely, since we had all just found a mentor. After we done talking to Mrs. Bordeau, we went and talked to Mrs. Bertero about our pep squad because she is the middle school Vice Principal. We asked if we could set up meeting with the middle schoolers, in order to talk to them about our pep squad and have some students sign up. We set up two different meetings, one with sixth and seventh graders and one with eighth graders during their tiger times on two different days. September 8, 2016 Since I opted out of taking a senior seminar class in order to take Calculus BC, I don’t have a lot of the free time like my partners, Alexis and Madi have. They sometimes have to do stuff without me and just fill me in after, like they did today. They went to check in with Mrs. Bertero to see if she had set up the meetings with the middle schoolers during their tiger times, but she said that she had forgot and she has to set them up. This made us a little upset because we wanted to get things moving with our Capstone, but now this gives us more time to actually talk and plan out what we are going to exactly say. Mrs. Boutilier stopped me and Alexis in the hallway to talk about our flyers that we were going to give out during our meetings and hang up. She told us that we should add more contact information than just our name, like our emails or phone numbers. We took this advice and fixed them so that we could print out new ones for the meetings that we had scheduled. After school today, Madi, Alexis, and I went and talked to Mrs. Turner about our Capstone. We asked her if she would be willing to be our supervisor one day a week and she was so excited to be our supervisor. We left off on the note that we would let her know what day of the week we would meet, and she took one of our flyers so that she could hang it up in her classroom and talk about it with some of the middle school students that she gets throughout the day. September 13, 2016 While I was in my Calculus class, Alexis and Madi went to Mrs. Bertero to confirm the meetings. The dates were all set and the flyers got approved, and we will be meeting with the sixth and seventh graders on September 16th and we will meet with the eight graders on September 15th. September 15, 2016 Alexis and Madi went and spoke to the eighth graders, and I couldn’t go because I had class. They told me that only four girls and one boy decided to show up, and that had us all a little discouraged. What made some things better after the meeting was that we all received an email from a girl named Selena saying that she was interested in cheerleading with us and that she would love to be a part of the Pep Squad. We were sad that we didn’t have too many girls, but the fact that we got that email gave us a little push that we definitely all needed. September 16, 2016 I got permission from my teacher to leave in order to attend the pep squad meeting since Madi was absent today. Me and Alexis went and talked about pep squad to a group of sixth and seventh grade student, and it was a pretty large group so we were very excited. They asked a lot of questions about transportation and what we would exactly be doing so we answered them and told them that we would have more information for them when we actually started having our weekly pep squad meetings. September 21, 2016 There was a huge huge misunderstanding today that was frustrating not just for me, Madi, and Alexis, but for our athletic director and for our coach. After school, Alexis, Madi, and I were told that there were some girls looking for us for a club, but we thought they were just confusing our pep squad with someone else’s capstone, which is a dance club. We got told about two more times that there were girls looking for us before we decided that maybe the girls were after school for pep squad and not for the dance club. Alexis went to see who was looking for us, while me and Madi grabbed all our stuff and headed towards the cafeteria for our high school practice. When she came back, she told us that the girls were for us so we freaked out a little bit and then came up with a game plan. Madi went to go get the middle school students, Alexis went to go find out supervisor, Mrs. Turner, and I went to find our cheerleading coach, since we had high school cheer practice after school that day. After running around and finding everyone and coming up with a game plan, we finally had the time to calm down and introduce ourselves to the girls. We brought them to our high school cheer practice, because we had nothing planned for pep squad since it was not a scheduled day. We showed them what an actual high school practice looks like and some of the cheers that they would be learning. When it was time for them to leave, Alexis left with the middle school girl so that Madi and I could continue running the high school practice. About 15 minutes after Alexis had left, I went to meet up with her so that I could relieve her from waiting for their rides. After all the craziness that day, we managed to get it together and make something work for pep squad and our high school cheer team. September 30, 2016 We came to the conclusion that the middle school students are getting confused and are mixing up the pep squad and someone else’s capstone, which is the dance club. Madi, Alexis, myself, and Skyler, who is running the dance club, went around all the tiger times and clarified that they are two different clubs that happen at two different times. We told all the classes what day our pep squad starts and when the dance club is going on, since it already started. For the most part, it went really well and people asked questions. October 4, 2016 Madi created a sign-up sheet so that the middle schoolers can write their names down and put down their contact information, like emails or phone numbers. The sign up sheet was put outside of the middle school office so that the middle schoolers would have access to it. October 6, 2016 Madi and I went to Mrs. Bertero to ask permission to have a dress down. We wanted a dress down to raise money in order to be able to buy the pep squad uniforms. We originally wanted to have it on October 14th, but that didn’t work out because that was the same day as the Dig Pink dress down, which raises money for breast cancer. Since Mrs. Boutilier wasn’t here today, we went straight to Mr. Laverty to try and figure out what day would be best to have the middle school dress down. He showed us his big master calendar, which has all the important school events on it, and me and Madi had trouble finding a good day. We didn’t want too many dress downs back to back, but we needed to our dress down in soon so that we could have the money available. We decided that November 4th would be good day for the dress down and the cost would be two dollars. Mrs. Boutilier had informed me that Alexis, Madi, and myself could not have the same mentors so I had to let Alexis and Madi know that. We were kind of upset because it felt like we were taking a step back in our capstone but we figured it out. Madi kept Mrs. Bordeau as her mentor and I emailed my old high school cheerleading coach to see if she would be willing to be my mentor for my capstone project. She happily agreed and it got me very excited that I got over that rough little patch and that I could continue on with my capstone project. October 7, 2016 I sent my old coach, Coach Hunter, the mentor manual and the capstone guide to her email just so she can look it over and sign the paper saying that she agrees to be my mentor. I asked her to just fax it back when she has a chance. October 12, 2016 While in class, Madi and I noticed that we didn’t have school on one of the days that we scheduled pep squad because we didn’t have to take the PSAT’s, so we had to cancel it. We let Mrs. Turner know so that she could spread the word and we also went and left an announcement written down so that Mr. Laverty could announce it over the loud speaker and the middle schoolers would be able to hear it. We didn’t want any confusions, especially since we would not be in school that day. October 18, 2016 I was very very excited and anxious for today because it was our first pep squad meeting. When we started, we only had 5 girls so we got a little discouraged but we hoped that we would get more with time. Madi, Alexis, and myself planned that we would start off with introducing ourselves and then play some icebreakers so that the girls would get comfortable with us and each other. We introduced ourselves and we told them how long we have been cheering and what it means to us. Along with this, we also told them what a capstone is so that they would understand why we were doing this club in the first place. We asked the girls their names and how school was going, and they we started playing the icebreaker games. We started off with one ice breaker that broke the team up into two separate smaller teams. Each team had to jump on dots on the floor and make it to the other side before the other team in order to win. We did this so that we could get some team bonding in on the first day. We also played a name game with the “talking ball” where one girl says their name and then they throw it to another girl and when the other girl catches it, they have to say the name before them and their name. After we finished the icebreakers, we still had time left so we had to improvise. We taught the girls something that actually had to do with cheer, which was the basic motions of cheering. We went around and fixed their motions, since some of them had bent wrists or their hands were facing the wrong way. We also taught them what “windows” were, which is how to stand in properly in cheerleading. Once it hit 4:00 pm, we walked the girls to the front of the school and waited with them for their rides. Madi, Alexis, and myself kept switching shifts between waiting for their rides and our high school cheerleading practice. October 20, 2016 This was when the second pep squad meeting took place, but I couldn’t make it because I was already scheduled to work before we scheduled the pep squad meeting. Madi and Alexis let me know that they were going to teach them Basket and Go For It, since both of these cheers are on the simpler side. They are mainly clapping cheers and that way we would be able to tell how fast they can learn and grasp a concept. Madi let me know that some of the girls took a little longer to learn the cheers and the clap sequences so they were frustrated, but they fought through it. October 25, 2016 Madi made a cheer sheet with some simple cheers that we can teach the girls since they are still learning the basics of cheering. We made copies of them for each girl, and some extras, just in case we would get more girls. October 26, 2016 We had our third pep squad meeting today and not that many girls showed up. Even Mrs. Turner was surprised because she asked us “is this it for today?” and we sadly responded “yeah”. We taught them two new simple cheers, which were Action and Let’s Go. They are both very simple since we are still teaching them the basics of cheerleading and trying to get them comfortable with it. Since we are doing a club after school, we need to let the students’ parents know what is going and what we are doing with their children. We gave them parent letters to take home and media release forms to have their parents sign since we need to collect artifacts for our capstone and we can’t put pictures of their children on a website if we don’t have that form. We also gave the students a cheer sheet that has the words of some of the cheers that we will be teaching, and this way the students will be able to practice saying the cheers at home. October 31, 2016 While I was in my Calculus class, Madi was texting me because she was upset since she wasn’t getting any help with setting up the dress down from Alexis. I personally got upset with Alexis because I feel like she hasn’t really been pulling her weight and helping as much as she should. Her first block should be dedicated to her capstone, but it’s not, it’s dedicated to mentoring and that’s not a part of our project. Mrs. Zamorski helped me and Madi set up the dress down envelopes since she had just recently done one and she had the envelopes and templates. Mrs. Gunn helped by printing out all of the Tiger Time class lists and then I helped by assembling everything, like stapling the instructions of dress down to the envelopes. Me and Madi were both very stressed out and it was because Alexis didn’t help us, which is not fair since it’s her capstone too. We are a team, not just partners. November 2, 2016 Today, we had another pep squad meeting after school. We decided that for our warm-up we would take a walk outside because it was warm and we wanted to enjoy the weather before it got cold. Two of our regular girls, that usually come every week, did not show up because one was sick and the other had a family emergency, but that was ok, since we didn’t teach much. All we did was teach one new cheer and go over the old ones that we have taught the last two meetings. November 3, 2016 Since Madi wasn’t in school today, me and Alexis were in charge of getting the dress down slips, counting the money, and making the lists of students that weren’t allowed to dress down or didn’t pay. When Madi typed up the lists of students for dress down for the teachers, she accidentally wrote first block instead of tiger time, so the teachers were confused and that caused the money and lists of students to get all messy and confusing. Madi came back home that night and figured it out, so we were ok. November 4, 2016 Counting the dress down money was not bad at all and we gave it to Mrs. Chan, along with a flyer of what the money is for, so that she could save it for us for when we need it. With all the money the middle school students gave to dress down, we raised $260.00. After we were done counting and giving all our money to Mrs. Chan, our supervisor, Mrs. Turner, was very very kindhearted and generous, and she donated $50.00 and with this, we raised a total of $310.00, which will go towards our pep squad uniforms and any other things that they are going to need. November 9, 2016 Another pep squad practice took place today. At the beginning, we sat down and told the students that if they had any friends that were thinking of joining pep squad, that they should do so before the first week of December, because that is when we will be ordering uniforms and we don’t want to be short on uniforms and have some girls without them. We had one new girl join the team today, so we taught the cheers that the other girls were already familiar with again, so that way the new girls could learn it. We were very excited that someone else wanted to join our pep squad. November 16, 2016 Today was another pep squad meeting day. After we stretched, we sat down and talked about uniform sizes and wrote them down so that myself, Alexis, and Madi could start ordering them. Today was very exciting just because we have more people than we have ever had before at pep squad. We now have 7 girls and 1 boy, and this is very exciting to us. We went over old cheers that we had already taught and we taught 2 new ones. Basketball is slowly approaching, so we are all excited, including our pep squad team! November 23, 2016 We couldn’t have a pep squad meeting today since we had a half day at school and we thought it would be better if we just sent everyone home. Not all the children would have rides home at 12:30 pm, in the middle of the day. We will resume pep squad practice when we come back from Thanksgiving break. November 30, 2016 We had two new girls join our pep squad today, which is exciting, but it was frustrating that we had to spend the whole day teaching the same cheers that we have already taught. Even though we didn’t get to teach new cheers, the old girls still had a fun time practicing the same cheers that they had already learned. We told the girls to make sure they had their forms into us or Mrs. Turner, since she’s our supervisor. We need the forms from everyone in order to be able to take their pictures and be able to post them on our website. December 5, 2016 I went to see Mrs. Bout today so we could go over my research paper. While I was with her, we caught up on how the pep squad was doing. We talked about how we wanted to tie dye shirts with our pep squad so that they could wear those as uniforms, but then she brought to my attention that we raised three-hundred dollars, so having them wear tie dye shirts wouldn’t be appropriate. We decided that we had enough money to get nice shirts, like the seniors got. For the senior class, they were $15 so we didn’t think that was bad at all. After I finished talking to Mrs. Bout, I met with Madi to talk to her about the new uniform idea and what her thought on it was. She agreed with me and thought that the same thing I did. We had raised way too much money to simply do tie dye shirts and plus, the more they get washed, the more the color would fade so it’s not really worth it. We agreed on asking one of our art teachers to help us design and create the t-shirt. We filled Alexis in later. December 7, 2016 We couldn’t have pep squad today because we had a half day of school, so we had our principal announce over the loud speaker that we would have our practice day tomorrow, Thursday, December 8th. December 8, 2016 We had another pep squad practice today and I can honestly say that this one has been the best practice we have had yet. We had a handful of new girls, which made us so happy. Mrs. Turner couldn’t make it to our practice today since it isn’t our usual practice day, but we had another teacher fill in and supervise. Since we had a lot of girls, like about ten, we decided to split them up into two groups, one with new people and one with the old ones. The reason we did this was because the old girls had not learned any new cheers in like two weeks, so we didn’t think it was fair to have them stay behind while the others were learning, so we split them up so that way each and every one of them could have a learning opportunity. Me and Madi stayed with the old girls, and there was about five of them. We refreshed their memories by starting with a cheer that we already taught and then we taught two new cheers. Today was a very memorable day because Madi and myself felt an amazing connection with the girls and the one boy we have. We all sat there and laughed and made jokes. They look like they have gotten very comfortable with us and they are no longer shy. We have gotten them out of their shells and it is honestly an amazing feeling. They make us happy and we enjoy spending time with them, and this is what capstone is supposed to be all about. December 9, 2016 So much happened today, it was crazy. Madi and I were in class talking about what designs we wanted on our pep squad uniform shirts and then we realized that Alexis wasn’t really participating in anything. After I really thought about everything, I became very frustrated because I felt like it wasn’t fair to me or Madi. Since me and Madi both felt this way, we thought it would be best to talk to Mrs. Bout and see what advice she would have for us. After we finished talking to Mrs. Bout, we came to the conclusion that since me and Madi have everything we need and we get everything we need to get done together, that we don’t need to stress about her and how she isn’t helping. Mrs. Bout told us that we should try to sit down and talk to her and tell her how we feel, so we asked Alexis if we can sit and talk to her. During our meeting with Alexis, I feel like we didn’t really get to resolve anything, which got me even more frustrated. She practically shut us out and didn’t really take in what we said. Madi and I just came to the conclusion that we’ll let her do whatever she chooses to, and me and Madi will just get everything done that needs to get done. At the end of the day, the pep squad kids are enjoying themselves and we’re enjoying spending time with them, so that’s all that matters. After all of this happened, me and Madi came up with the t-shirt design and we decided that it’s going to be white and it will say “SMSA Pep Squad” on the front with a little pompom. If we have enough money, we will like to add our first names on the back of them, so they sort of look like jerseys. We originally wanted to have the pep squad wear black soffe shorts, but we realized that they maybe would not be considered appropriate for all parents, so we changed it to black soccer shorts and we were going to have to buy them. While Madi and I were going through our high school cheerleading bins, we found some skorts, that kind of look like tennis shorts. We got very excited because if we get this approved, we no longer have to go out and buy shorts, just for our one boy, and we would have the exact Colombia blue that matches our school colors. December 12, 2016 Today, Madi and I went to Mr. Rodriguez to talk to him about shirts for the pepsquad and he told us he would talk to his friend to see how much he would charge us. We told him we would like to see both prices, for short sleeve and long sleeve, and we gave him a picture of what we would like our shirts to look like. December 13, 2016 During lunch today, Madi and I went around the middle school to ask the girls from our pepsquad if they will be staying with us so that we know to order them a uniform with their names on the back. We haven’t really seen a computer design, but I’m sure they will be really nice. We also talked to Mrs. Bertero about the skorts that we found. She told us that we shouldn’t hand them out and let the girls keep them, in case someone will want to take on the pepsquad next year and they can have that as their uniform again. We also decided that we won’t be cheering at the first two games because the girls don’t know enough cheers and also our uniforms won’t be in on time. This does frustrate me and Madi because we feel like we’ve been going through with capstone for a while now and we won’t be able to appear at the first few games. We will just have to accept that we won’t be able to cheer and try to get through as many cheers as possible for the next game. December 14, 2016 We had another pepsquad practice today, and Mrs. Turner went home early today because she felt sick. Since that happened, we had to ask Mr. Dufner, another teacher, to supervise us. He came through and supervised us so it all worked out. We only had six girls at our practice today, which was kind of sad. It was basically our old girls and only one new girl. Since we didn’t have most of the students there, we decided that we wouldn’t teach any new cheers. We just went over old cheers and at the same time, we taught those old cheers to the new girl that hadn’t been there in a while. We agreed that Alexis will take the girls that missed practice aside and teach the cheers that had been missed from now on. Also, Joevanni did not come to school today and he texted Alexis that he wanted the name Selena on the back of his shirt instead of Joevanni and we all thought it might be too late. Madi went to Mr. Rodriguez to ask him if he could change one of the names or if it was too late, but he said he couldn’t make any promises. December 20, 2016 Madi and I went to Mrs. Chan to see if we could get the money back to give to Mr. Rodriguez. She said she would write out a check to him but that he needed to write an invoice for her. We also went to make an announcement at Mr. Laverty’s office to remind our girls that we will have pepsquad practice again tomorrow. Ms. Schmidt also approved for us to use the skorts for our pepsquad, but we just have to make sure that we sign them out and get them back once basketball season is over. December 21, 2016 We finally got our uniform shirts from Mr. Rodriguez today. When I went to Mrs. Chan to give her the money that we had left to give, she said we were still short five dollars. This kind of gave me a sense of panic because we didn’t have five dollars, so I had to run around and find money. Me, Madi, and our manager, Cameron, all put in one to two dollars and got Mrs. Chan the last five dollars. From there, she told me I could tell Mr. Rodriguez that we were all set, so I went to see him and he gave me the box full of the uniform shirts. They were so pretty and just exactly what I pictured. We also had a pepsquad practice today and Mrs. Boutilier came in to take pictures of all of us in our uniforms since we also gave them the skirts. We were missing about five girls, which was kind of upsetting because we didn’t know if they bailed on us last minute after we had already ordered them shirts. Also, there was one girl who hadn’t turned in any of her forms so we didn’t order her a uniform with her name on the back. Madi and I were so relieved that we had ordered one extra shirt without a name on the back and it fit that girl perfectly. Since we took time out to hand out uniforms, take pictures, and have Kenzie stretch us as part of her capstone, we didn’t have time to teach any new cheers, and this was upsetting considering that we have a game tomorrow. The girls are very excited to cheer at their first game. December 22, 2016 We had our first game today. Before the game, we had our pepsquad watch our high school practice and we even had a cheer off. The middle schoolers were actually way louder than our high school cheer team and it made me so happy. We practiced for about an hour before the game, and we taught the cheers that we do at the beginning of games, like “Good Luck” and “Rock Steady”. We went into the gym and gave the girls pompoms and put them in their lineups and we were ready to cheer. The pepsquad was super loud while cheering and they were so excited to know what cheer we were doing next. They made me so proud today and I can’t wait to keep cheering with them. Also, I feel like today I made a breakthrough with one of the girls. Her name is Alexandra and I feel like I have a personal connection with her. She is very comfortable with me, she jokes around with me a lot and she even feels comfortable enough to hug me and that makes me so happy to know that at least one of the girls thinks of me as more than just a coach. January 4, 2017 This was our first practice after a long winter break. When we got together with the girls, we sat for a little bit to ask them how their vacations went. We also all went around in a circle and asked everyone what they got for Christmas, and myself, Madi, and Alexis also shared. After we finished talking, we all stretched and got into teaching more cheers. Everyone was eager to learn more and they thought our cheers looked very nice. It makes me so happy when the children want to actually learn and show excitement. It lets me know that they enjoy our pepsquad and the things that we do. January 5, 2017 Today we had a middle school boys game. At first, the girls were shy about cheering because it was for the boy’s team instead of the girl’s team, and at this age they get silly when it comes to talking about boys or anything that involves them. We assured them that they would be fine cheering and that we would be there with them anyway. Madi, Alexis, and myself decided that it would be a good decision to sit down after halftime and let the girls cheer by themselves so they got a sense of what it would feel like cheering in high school, since our coach doesn’t stand and cheer with us. In order to do this, we had to think about who the strongest leaders were so that way we could put them in the front and the rest would have a good person to look at and follow when they needed help with the cheers. Overall, this game went very great, considering that they were very nervous at first. I was very proud of them because they were really loud also. January 9, 2017 Today was a little stressful because there were two middle school games going on at the same time at our school, just in different places. We had to think of who we would cheer for, while also considering what the girls felt comfortable with and spacing/safety. The middle school boys were in the main gym, where there’s a big amount of space for us to stand in, and the girls were in the field house, where the bleachers they put in would have to have us squished together. We thought that having the girls vote would be a good idea, but then we thought about how they’re squirmish around the boys so they would obviously choose girls. So then, we decided that because of spacing, we would just cheer for who was in the main gym, which was the boys. We asked all the girls if they were comfortable with that and they all agreed so we were ok. The girls were very loud at the game. At some points we were off, some girls would go faster or slower than other and that was a little frustrating but we just decided to laugh it off because all we can do is correct it. We had some good laughs on the sidelines because the girls would joke around about the game, and this was good to me because they feel like they can laugh with us, not everything has to be serious. January 13, 2017 We had another middle school game today and the girls seem to be more on pace with each other. The girls were happy because some of their family members came to watch them cheer, so they were happy. They cheered by themselves, for the most part, and they are getting better and better, and also more confident with themselves. January 17, 2017 We had not had a real practice with the girls in a while so it was nice to be able to see them and talk. We got into the conversation of grades because finals were coming up, and we noticed that a lot of the girls are struggling in school and one of the students even had four F’s. It made me upset when I found this out because I didn’t know that they were struggling and also that they needed help. We talked about it with them, and told them that school has to come first, before any sport, because being a student athlete isn’t just about playing or cheering, it’s about getting good grades too. We offered them help with school work and anything else they needed us for. I sat down and had a close talk with one of the girls because she touches my heart more than the others. Her mom was threatening to take pepsquad away from her because of her grades and I asked her why her grades were that way. She told me it’s because she was distracted in class and she misbehaved so she promised me she would fix her grades and behavior so that way she could stay on the pepsquad team. She hugged for about two minutes and looked very sad, so this made me upset but I told her I believed in her and that she could do it. January 20, 2017 We were scheduled to have a game today but we didn’t have school since it was the make-up day for finals. We told the girls they were not obligated to come and cheer because we understood not everyone will have a ride to school in the middle of the day. January 23, 2017 We were supposed to have a game today but because of weather problems, the team from the other town canceled and we told everyone to go home on their buses. January 25, 2017 We had a pepsquad practice today and only three people showed up. We didn’t worry too much about it and since it’s the beginning of the semester, they didn’t have homework, so we decided to have a fun day. We played Uno with them and joked around until it was time to go home. We all had fun and I know those three students who joined us had a good time as well. January 27, 2017 We cheered at another middle school game today, but it was kind of upsetting. Since we have a boy on our cheer team, he came to us upset saying that he wanted to quit our pepsquad. People in his class were calling him gay and he was very upset about it. We asked him what he wanted us to do about it, but he told us that he was still going to cheer today and then he would decide what he wanted to do. We were missing two of our loudest girls and it’s because of their grades. The pepsquad felt weird and quiet today at the game and it made me upset. Hopefully at our next game, everyone will be there and be happy to cheer. January 31, 2017 We were supposed to have another game today, but it started to snow so they canceled it and we had a half day of school. One of the girls called me because they were confused on whether or not they should stay after, but I told her to go home and tell anyone else if she saw them on her way out. February 1, 2017 Only one girl came to our pepsquad meeting yesterday, and it was kind of depressing. I feel like a lot of students are leaving now because of grades, and the one boy that we had on the team is getting bullied, being called gay, so he wants to leave. It’s upsetting to me that we started off with a really strong team and now we barely have anyone. I just think that it’s ok since we were going strong for a really long time, so I can’t be too upset with all the girls. We only have one more game left and our closing activity, so whoever decides to stick it out will make me very happy. February 8, 2017 We had our last game of the middle school season today and it was a little sad to think that this would be the last time we would be cheering with our pepsquad. Only about half of the girls showed up, but it made me happy to know that they stayed dedicated all the way until the end. They cheered very loud, and they made me go up with them and do one last cheer along their side, and this made me emotional. To think that our capstone and our time with these girls was really coming to an end was a bitter sweet feeling. March 1, 2017 We had our final meeting with our pep squad, which brought back that bitter sweet feeling. I brought in juice boxes, Alexis brought in pretzels, and Madi brought in cupcakes. We put a movie on the smart board, but of course, we ended up talking instead. The girls were showing us videos on their phone, and we were all laughing and having a good time. We wrote on a white board, “Reasons why we love Pep Squad” and the girls wrote their responses. They said, “we have fun,” “we cheer,” “they are cool.” Madi, Alexis, and I were talking about how we can’t believe that the season is really over and that our capstone went by so fast. It seemed like just yesterday we were putting up sign up sheets and meeting with classes to talk about our capstone. This felt like a great closing for us and the girls because we just relaxed and had fun, it wasn’t anything too work-oriented.