Mayor's Office

My supervisor set up a shadowing opportunity in the Mayor's Office for me today. I met with one of Mayor Stanton's team members and he gave me the rundown of how the office is structured and some of his responsibilities. He regularly deals with water, transportation, and the 62 city commissions (the Phoenix Sister Cities Commission included). We discussed several initiatives and various other programs that the mayor's office has tackled in the short time that Mayor Stanton has been in office. In addition, I had the chance to briefly meet with the mayor after some of his meetings. The mayor is constantly in and out of the office, day in and day out. His schedule is booked weeks in advance as businesses, departments, and people throughout the community consistently compete for his time.

At the end of the day, it was not only an opportunity for me to gain an understanding of how the office is run and how everything works, but to learn how the city is run. It was a really neat experience and I am very appreciative of the Mayor's Office for allowing me to tag along today and my supervisor for setting me up with the opportunity.

One Year Down

This year has gone by ridiculously quick! It feels like just yesterday that I was driving the grueling 11 hour drive to Phoenix from Colorado to start grad school. Now I am done with an entire year of it. I've had some great experiences so far in this program and I've met some great people. When I finished my undergrad, I was planning on finding a teaching job but I still wasn't sure if that was the route I wanted to go. When I started to think seriously about pursuing a career in public service, I realized that it was something that I would really enjoy. The next thing I knew, I was in my truck driving to Phoenix to start the MPA program. I was really excited but at the same time really nervous because I had never been to Phoenix before. Needless to say, I've had a great time and I've learned a tremendous amount of stuff this year that I look forward to applying in my future career as a public administrator.

Meetings

Last week I had the opportunity to accompany my supervisor to a couple of meetings regarding pending legislation and the budget. The first one we attended was the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce meeting. The meeting centered around reports delivered by the Budget and Tax issue committee and the Economic Development committee. The other meeting we attended was the Legislative Strategy Task Force meeting at the League of Arizona Cities and Towns. The day we attended those meetings was one of the most interesting days I have experienced in my time with Phoenix Sister Cities. Not only did I get to listen to different perspectives about legislation and the upcoming budget, but I got to meet numerous new people that were very passionate and committed about the issues being discussed. At the same time, I would be lying if I said that I understood everything that they were saying. At times, it felt like they were speaking a different language when talking about the pending legislation. I kept having to remind myself that most of the people at these meetings were lobbyists that obviously know there stuff when it comes to legislation and the budget. The best part of the day was the awesome catered lunch that was provided at the League of Arizona Cities and Towns meeting. Hey, everybody loves a free lunch!

Writing Effectively Workshop (Career Service Post)

Yesterday (4/19/2012 @ 3 pm) I attended the “Writing Effectively: Clear and Effective Sentences” Workshop administered by Duane Roen and Paula Schevers. It was a very interesting workshop because I went into it thinking that I already knew how to write effectively and that I was not going to walk away from it with any tips or new information to apply in my future writing. I was wrong. I learned numerous new things to incorporate into my writing. After the workshop was over, I started to think about my writing and realized that there are a lot of times when my writing consists of wordy phrases and is sometimes unclear. I found the main cause of my unclear writing to be that I am always trying to make my academic writing sound grandiose or pompous to impress readers. At the end of the day, regardless of the fact that I realized that I needed to incorporate a couple of strategies to improve my writing, I found that I am not too shabby of a writer.
The workshop went through a lengthy handout that consisted of several exercises that revolved around the concept of clear and effective writing. I will not describe each activity but I will give a few examples. In the first activity, we had to distinguish which sentence was “clearer” out of the sentences provided. The second and third activities had us eliminate unnecessary words and replacing wordy phrases, respectively. The fourth activity required us to replace nominalizations with action verbs and the eighth activity had us editing for parallelism in a series of items. Most of the exercises were easy but a few of them required a little more time and thought. Despite the fact that the workshop was a little lengthy, I thoroughly enjoyed. It was presented well and I can honestly say that I learned some great stuff that I can definitely use in the future.

Working on Website and Ramat-Gan

This week I have been working on several different things. I have spent quite a bit of time on the PSC website updating the corporate membership information and updating photos of board members. In addition, I have been making a big effort to obtain committee meeting agendas and minutes from the committee chairs in order to put them on the website and make them accessible to the public. Essentially, I have just been doing some maintenance in order to make the website look a little prettier. In addition to all of the work I have been doing on the website, I have been making some last minute adjustments to the Ramat-Gan Delegation Briefing Book that I finished developing about a month ago. We finally heard back from Ramat-Gan about what to include in the final itinerary which will be presented to all of the delegation members in a couple of days. The delegation visit to Ramat-Gan and the rest of Israel will take place from May 3 to May 16 and there is a lot of excitement about the quickly approaching trip. It is going to be an awesome trip. While I was doing a ton of research and putting so much time into developing the briefing book, I constantly had to remind myself that I am not going on the trip because I would get so excited about some of the places I was reading about. Jerusalem is a city that I have always wanted to visit and I truly believe that it is a city that everyone should visit at some point in their life. Not only is it one of the world's oldest cities, but it is the holy city to the three major religions- Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Even though I am not a member of the delegation, I am very excited for the 26 people that are going. A few members of the delegation include Vice Mayor Michael Johnson and former city manager Frank Fairbanks.

Disabilities Awareness Committee Fundraiser

It’s been a busy week here at Phoenix Sister Cities. We have been preparing for several different fundraisers including the Disabilities Awareness Committee’s “Evening of Art & Wine” on April 14th and the “Sicilian Wine & Cheese Tasting” on April 21st. The Art & Wine event this Saturday is going to be a really neat event because there is going to be a big display of the artwork from the International Competition for Artists with Disabilities that took place last November. The theme of the competition was “The Power Lies Within.” A total of ninety submissions were submitted by artists with disabilities, nineteen years old and over. Fifty-eight pieces were received from Arizona residents and thirty-two entries from Phoenix’s sister cities, including eleven from Chengdu, China; seven from Hermosillo, Mexico; three from Taipei, Taiwan; two from Ramat-Gan, Israel; and nine from Grenoble, France. The coolest part about the event this weekend is that the artwork is going to be raffled and the proceeds from the art drawing will benefit the Phoenix Sister Cities International Artists and Writers Competitions for people with disabilities. I will be attending the event and help to set up and take down all of the artwork. At this point, I have only seen pictures of all of the artwork since I have had to incorporate some of the pictures into the newsletter, so I am excited to be able to see all of the amazing artwork in person.

State of the City

On Wednesday, as part of my internship, I attended the mayor’s State of the City Address. It was an awesome experience and not quite what I expected. My supervisors and I left City Hall around 11:15 am and walked to the Phoenix Convention Center located a few blocks away. When we got to the North Ballroom, there were numerous dining tables set up leading up to the stage. What I did not realize was that it was a luncheon. I had been expecting everyone to be sitting in some sort of auditorium, somewhat similar to the State of the Union. Anyways, a delicious three course meal was served leading up to the mayor’s speech and I spent time meeting and chatting with city workers from various city departments. The mayor delivered a great speech and touched on a lot of points that people were looking to hear about. It was exciting to hear the mayor emphasize his desire to pursue and increase business with cities in Mexico. Mayor Stanton has done a great job in the short amount of time he has been in office at being involved with Phoenix Sister Cities and showing interest in our international partners, which includes Hermosillo, Mexico. There were many at the Hermosillo Committee meeting that I had attended the night before that were definitely looking forward to what the mayor had to say, particularly about the city’s dealings with Mexico, so that is why I made it a point to listen for that. It was a great experience and I look forward to being able to attend more State of the City Addresses.

Home for Easter

On Saturday night I flew to my hometown (El Paso, TX) to visit my family and friends and to celebrate Easter. It ended up being a great trip but it was very, very short. As a matter of fact, I was back in Phoenix  early Monday morning. I was born and raised in El Paso but moved to Colorado in the summer of 2000, so it is always great to get back there and reminisce with my family. After church on Sunday we went through what seemed like hundreds of old photos and talked about some of our favorite memories. I can't even tell you how many goofy pictures I found of my dad. By Monday morning I felt like I had been in El Paso forever, but at the same time I felt like I had just gotten there (with the latter being closer to the truth). The craziest part of my trip was when I boarded my Southwest flight back to Phoenix on Monday morning and there were like 7 people on the entire flight. Up to that point, I'm pretty sure that I had never been on a flight that wasn't entirely full. It was awesome and there was so much room for activities.

Resume Writing Workshop (Career Service Post)

Yesterday (April 3rd), I attended a resume writing workshop in Suite 110 of the Downtown Post Office. It was a very interesting experience and I can honestly say that I learned a lot in the hour that the workshop took place (3-4 pm). When I first arrived, I was instructed to take numerous different resume and cover letter samples and resume tip sheets in order to help prepare us and guide us in our future attempts at constructing a legitimate resume. What followed was a 45 minute powerpoint presentation and lecture about how to successfully construct a resume that is considered acceptable to most employers. The main concept that I took away from the workshop is that there is no one right way to write a resume. However, some general guideline do apply. The main part of the workshop described the sections that should be included in a resume and how those sections will vary depending on the job you are applying for. "Consistency" was significantly stressed throughout the session as it is very important that a resume maintain a consistent format, font, spacng, margins, etc. Throughout the lecture, the presenter asked several questions in order to facilitate discussion and to help people understand other people's experiences in developing a resume. 



As previously mentioned, I definitely learned a lot in such a short amount of time. I did not realize how important developing a resume actually is. Immediately following the workshop I went home and looked over my current resume. I was astonished at how many of the things the workshop said to avoid in resumes were present in mine. For example, the workshop advised to avoid any type of Microsoft Word resume template and sure enough, I had been using a template for years. All in all, it was a very beneficial workshop and I look forward to completely rewriting my resume to incorporate all of the tips and strategies to aid me in my future job search. 

Birthday dog

Today is my dog's birthday. She's two years old and she's pretty much the coolest dog of all time. Her name is Chesla and I named her after a buddy of mine that I played football with in college. She's a mix between a dachshund and a Labrador retriever so the best way to describe her is a black lab with a long body that forgot to grow. I've planned a bunch of activities for her to do today and she's going to have a blast! Oh, and I got her a birthday cake. Please don't judge me for loving my dog so much.

PSC Award Entries

This week at PSC there were a lot of different things going on and almost not enough time to do them all. On Monday, I was told to develop two separate title pages for award entries for the Sister City International Awards. One was for Youth & Development and the other was for the overall sister cities program. I was a little uncertain of what these cover pages were supposed to look like because all I was told to do was to incorporate numerous pictures, a title and the PSC logo on each cover sheet. So, I did as I was told and had them ready within the hour after the task was presented to me and my supervisors really liked them. Upon presenting the title pages to them, they explained to me that the entries were due by 5 pm EST, which put the deadline at 2 pm PST (I still think it is really weird that Arizona doesn't do daylight savings). Right when they said that I looked over at the clock and noticed that it was approximately 1:47 pm. Additionally, I noticed that they were still not finished editing both award entries, which were strictly emphasized to remain at 5 pages. As a matter of fact, both entries stood at around 8 pages. The next 13 minutes were ridiculously frantic as there was a distinct sense of uncertainty hovering over the room. At 1:57 pm my supervisors had somehow managed to to reach the designated goal and began the process of emailing both submissions. When it was all said and done, a sense of relief began to fill the office and the color began to fill back up in everybody's face. I'm still not even sure why they waited until the last minute to approach me with this task, let alone complete the award entries, but nevertheless the entries were completed and sent off. The Sister City International Awards must be a really big deal.

By the way, the time stamp on the outgoing email showed 1:59 pm EST.

Brothers

My brother came to visit me last weekend and it was the first time I had seen him in over a year. As a matter of fact, he is the first person to visit me since I moved to Phoenix, so needless to say, it meant a lot to me. It was really nice to be able to spend some quality time with him. He is a little over three years younger than me, which puts him in his junior year of college at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. We are a lot alike in numerous aspects that include how we are hard workers in whatever we are challenged with, we both love sports and we both love Tim Tebow. I think our liking of Tebow stems from the fact that we both share his faith and his passion for the game of football. For the few days that he was here we played golf, hung out poolside and watched some movies as we caught up on all of the new things in each other’s lives and reminisced on our childhood. Needless to say, it was a great couple of days.

Intern Errands

Last week I opted to work instead of taking any time off for spring break. I initially thought that there would not be much for me to do but I ended up staying very busy. Throughout the week I ran many errands to “The Cage” across the street. “The Cage” is actually a storage facility for many of the departments of the City of Phoenix that is located directly across the street from City Hall. I find myself venturing across the street numerous times throughout the week to pick up different items that are requested by the committees. For example, last week I had to go pick up 42 easels and prepare the Taiwanese flag for an exhibit that is being put on by the Taipei committee.

In addition to all of the errands, I worked diligently on the newsletter. In fact, I came pretty close to completely finishing the first draft. All that was left to add were a few bios of new commission members. Considering the fact that Friday, March 30 is the deadline for me to submit the final draft to the print shop, I think I have managed my time very well on this project and I cannot wait to see the finished product.

Newsletter and State of the City Address

As I have previously mentioned, one of my long term, and in a sense most important duties has been to develop the newsletter for Phoenix Sister Cities. I have been working hard to polish up the quarterly newsletter and hope to have it completed in the next couple of weeks. I have included in it numerous events that have taken place throughout the course of FY 2011-2012 and I am very excited to get it printed and sent out to the over 400 members of Phoenix Sister Cities. Some of these events include the Hermosillo Band and Bugle Corps performing in the St. Patrick's Day Parade a couple of days ago, the Matsuri Festival, several different fundraisers for city committees, and the Youth Ambassador Exchange Program, to name a few. Currently, the newsletter stands at around 15 pages and each page contains brief articles and pictures that I had to track down from various committee members and volunteers in order to incorporate them into the newsletter. Needless to say, a few of the items in the newsletter have been easier to develop than others. This is due to the fact that some of the individuals that I have tried to contact regarding content information have been slow to respond or have not replied to my requests. Regardless of some of these difficulties, the newsletter is coming along just fine and I hope it will turn out great!

While I was working on the newsletter the other day I received an email from a representative in the mayor's office. The email was an invite to attend the State of the City Address on April 11th. It technically wasn't an invite due to the fact that this yearly address is an event where the public is encourage to attend, but nonetheless, it was invitation to reserve a seat at the address. Additionally, I was informed that I will have the opportunity to ask the mayor a few questions after his speech. Apparently, my supervisor was nice enough to set up a "shadowing opportunity" for me after I told him that I am interested in pursuing a career in local government. I am really excited about this opportunity and I definitely can't wait to share the experience with you all.

Peyton Manning

I’m not sure how many of you are into football, let alone sports in general, but I think this has been an historic week for the sport of football. On Wednesday the Indianapolis Colts released 4-time MVP Peyton Manning on the eve of when Peyton was due a $28 million bonus. I didn’t get to watch the press conference on TV but I did listen to it live on the radio and I would be lying if I told you that I did not tear up listening to his farewell to the Colts organization and Colts fans everywhere. It almost goes without saying that it was a really emotional press conference that followed his 14 year stint in Indy.  Regardless of how I feel about Indy letting him go, I’m really looking forward to this next week when a lot of teams are set to make their case to acquire Manning. There’s been a ton of speculation about where he might end up but if I had to pick three places I would like to see him end up, I would say Denver, Arizona, or Miami. Here’s why.

Denver: Having just moved here from Colorado where I did my undergrad, I would be lying if didn’t admit that I have developed a soft spot for the Denver Broncos in my time up there. I really like to see them win because when they win all my good friends are happy, and when they lose all my friends hate everything in life. In my opinion, with Denver’s defense already dominant, Peyton would turn Denver into an AFC powerhouse. Even though I am a HUGE fan of Tim Tebow and I appreciated everything he did this year, I think he belongs in Jacksonville.

Arizona: Three words- We Live Here! Bring him here to Larry Fitzgerald and Early Doucet.

Miami: The only reason I have Miami on here is because my good buddy is a really big fan of the Dolphins. He is really, really mean when the Dolphins lose, which, in recent years has pretty much been all the time, so I know it would put him in a good mood for life if Peyton were to take his talents to South Beach.

Hermosillo Committee Meeting

As a part of my internship, it is required that I pick a city committee and attend their monthly committee meetings. I recently attended the Hermosillo committee meeting and I met a lot of great people. Even though I did not take down the official minutes I did take minutes down for myself in order to get some practice and report back to my supervisors and colleagues at the staff meeting. The Hermosillo committee is definitely one of the busiest committees and it was interesting to hear about all of their upcoming events and activities. The most interesting item on the agenda was the status report about the establishment of the Hermosillo Burn Center in response to the terrible tragedy that occurred in a Hermosillo daycare center in 2009. Tragically, 49 young children perished in a fire and those that survived will need care and surgeries for years. Since there are no burn centers in northern Mexico, Phoenix Sister Cities is currently working to help establish a Burn Center. As of now, there are approximately 12 sets of nurses that are being trained at the Maricopa County Burn Center and will eventually make their way down to Hermosillo. Needless to say, it was very good to hear that significant progress is being made in the establishment of the Burn Center and I cannot wait until the project is completed.


You can read more about the Hermosillo Fire Relief Fund and how to donate at
http://phoenixsistercities.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=121&Itemid=199

PSC Website

In recent weeks, my role has significantly increased in terms of the Phoenix Sister Cities website maintenance. Prior to this internship, I can honestly say that my experience in maintaining a website and doing other web-oriented tasks that require a certain technological savviness has been at a minimum. However, I have learned a lot in such a short period of time. I am constantly having to update the calendar by adding and taking out events. In addition, I am constantly adding pictures, biographies, and random teasers on the home page that link to other pages within the website. I encourage all of you to venture to phoenixsistercities.org and just browse around for a bit. It is a really neat website that describes all nine of the sister cities and the committees that go hand in hand with them. There is also information on becoming a member of sister cities. There is also a calendar (yes, the one I always update) that lets the public know about when the monthly committee meetings are and where they are held. They are open to the public and citizens are encouraged to attend. For example, the monthly committee meeting for Hermosillo, Mexico is held the second Tuesday of every month. However, since the second Tuesday of February was Valentine's Day, the meeting was pushed back a week to tonight (2/21/2012) at 6:00 pm at Rico's Grill. At the end of the day, the skills I am picking up through my time at this internship are proving to be invaluable and will benefit me greatly in my future career.

Board of Directors Meeting

Last week, myself and the other interns were invited to attend the PSC Board of Directors meeting. The meeting took place on the first floor of City Hall and dinner was provided. It was a really interesting experience as I learned how the meetings are conducted, how the agendas are laid out, and I was introduced to all of the commission members of the various sister cities. There were a few commission members that I had previously met but nonetheless, I shook a lot of hands that night. One of the main topics on the agenda was the upcoming delegation visit to Ramat-Gan, Israel. The commission members discussed the trip in great detail. They also spent a significant amount of time discussing funding. Since WorldFest 2011 was cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances, funding has become that much more of an important topic due to the fact that a large portion of funding comes from the profits made from WorldFest each year. All in all, it was a neat experience to be involved in the meeting and I am appreciative of the opportunity.

The interns and I also had the opportunity to meet with the two management interns at the City of Phoenix last week. They provided us with insight on their day to day tasks as they jump around from department to department throughout the course of their year long internship. If I remember correctly, one of the interns began her internship with the City Manager's Office, is currently in the Budget and Research Department, and next month she will transfer to SkyHarbor to spend the last few months of her internship.     She also described the application process to become a Management Intern. After listening to how beneficial the program is,  I can honestly say that I look forward to next year when I will be eligible to apply for the Management Internship Program at the City of Phoenix.

PSC Newsletter

This week I have been working on the initial stages of developing the quarterly Phoenix Sister Cities newsletter. The Spring 2012 newsletter will include numerous events that have occurred and will occur between the months of October 2011 and March 2012. Some of those events include the Ennis 5K Run & Walk, the Great Canadian Picnic, the Chengdu Performance at the MIM Theater, and the Matsuri Festival. Until now, I have never developed a newsletter but I have quickly become acquainted with Microsoft Publisher and am well on my way. On Monday, a meeting was held to determine the content and layout of the upcoming newsletter. Newsletters from previous quarters were presented to me and I was given guidance on what to avoid and what approaches to possibly take. In addition, I was provided with the email addresses and phone numbers of committee chair members in order to contact them to request pictures and brief articles regarding their respective events that will be incorporated into the newsletter. All in all, it was a great meeting and I feel well-equipped and confident about pursuing this project. The newsletter will take a couple of months to complete and be mailed out but I am excited to see how it will turn out.

CED Divisions Presentation

The early part of this week and the better half of last week I was presented with the task of developing a PowerPoint Presentation regarding all of the Divisions that make up the Community and Economic Development Department. Essentially, the point of the presentation was to show how Phoenix Sisiter Cities, which is within the International Relations Division, can help the other divisions and also how the other divisions can help PSC. For the most part I was told what information should be included in the presentation but it was up to me to determine how it would be presented and to add my own sense of creativity to it. Now, I have done my fair share of powerpoints but mostly for short class presentations where the neatness and preciseness of the information on the powerpoint was not a large component of success. However, this one was a little more challenging. In the end I was able to complete it and feel pretty good about the finished product. The best part was when my supervisor asked me to include "woosh" techniques. When I asked her what she mean by "woosh" techniques she tried to go further into detail by saying, "You know, like when the information just goes "woosh!" onto the screen one at a time or something like that!" Also, try to picture her rocketing her hand into the air every time she says woosh! Awesome. At that point I knew exactly what she was talking about and I was successfully able to incorporate the "woosh" effects into the presentation.

Chinese Week 2012

Although I have only been an intern here at Phoenix Sister Cities for a short time, I cannot even begin to describe how much I am enjoying the experiences and opportunities within the organization. Yesterday, January 23rd marked the beginning of Chinese Week "The Year of the Dragon" here in Phoenix and I had the privilege to be apart of the celebration as I was asked to help set up for the opening reception and and news conference at Phoenix City Hall Atrium. The reception and news conference have become a yearly tradition to kick off the extensive celebration and numerous activities that constitute Chinese Week. The opening event went very well as several people spoke to kick off and pay tribute to Chinese Week. Of those who spoke were Tony Tang who is the acting president of Chinese Week 2012, Councilwoman Williams, and Vice Mayor Johnson, who has devoted much of his time to facilitating the relationship between the City of Phoenix and Sister City Chengdu, China, where he visited in 2008. The reception was very warm and interactive as a variety of Chinese refreshments were served while highly respected martial artists performed a kung-fu demonstration and a traditional dragon dance. Everyone I met at the reception was extremely nice and outgoing and I sincerely enjoyed each and every conversation I had throughout the afternoon. Attached is the link to the Chinese Week 2012 brochure if anyone is interested in taking part in the festivities throughout the week: https://phoenixsistercities.org/images/stories/Chengdu/brochures/2012chinesebrochure.pdf

City Council Meeting

Today I was given the task of creating an excel spreadsheet to keep track of the members of Phoenix Sister Cities and the non-members that are planning on attending the Grenoble Committee Membership Mixer on February 1st. As I am still new to the membership database, it took a considerable amount of time to determine who is and who is not a member of PSC. The Grenoble Mixer is a yearly event that is highly anticipated by those in Community and Economic Development Department. Additionally, the Executive Director of Phoenix Sister Cities asked me and the other interns to represent the department at the City Council meeting in order to see who would be appointed the new Vice Mayor of the City of Phoenix. Council-member Johnson of District 8 was appointed the new Vice Mayor of the City of Phoenix to replace Ms. Williams. Towards the end of the council meeting, there was an elderly gentleman who was very long-winded and angry about a particular item on the agenda. When his two minutes to speak was up, he refused to sit down and he had to raise his voice after his microphone was turned off. Needless to say, it was very entertaining.

Phoenix Sister Cities Introduction

To start, I'd like to give an overview of what Phoenix Sister Cities is exactly. PSC is actually within the International Relations Division in the Community and Economic Development Department at the City of Phoenix. The purpose of PSC is to facilitate various educational, cultural and business exchanges in order to promote relationships and opportunities between the City of Phoenix and the sister cities. These exchanges occur through delegation visits as each Sister City is equipped with a committee of volunteers who are firmly committed to the goals of the program. Currently I am working on a long-term project that entails creating an itinerary for the upcoming PCS Delegation visit to Ramat-Gan, Israel, which is one of the sister cities to Phoenix. Other sister cities include Calgary, Canada, Catania, Italy, Chengdu, China, Ennis, Ireland, Grenoble, France, Hermosillo, Mexico, Himeji, Japan, Prague, Czech Republic (inactive), and Taipei, Taiwan. The PSC Delegation visit is set for early May, so I have until the end of March to develop the itinerary and tourism guide. Not only is the delegation set to visit Ramat-Gan, but they will also venture to Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. Besides the actual itinerary itself, it will include a description of each member of the PSC Delegation, a complete weather forecast, a historical timeline for each of the cities, and brief guides for what to expect as far as electricity, currency exchange, and even fashion. Currently, I am working on important historical events to share with the delegation regarding each of the cities. As can be expected, Jerusalem is taking a considerable amount of time. In any event, I am definitely looking forward to adding my own creativity and depth to this assignment and I look forward to sharing my progress.