my essay..

11/02/06
Today I visited Alex Padilla’s office in Pacoima, and accomplished two hours of my election participation project. As soon as I entered the office I met Ruben Zaragoza, which is a case worker for Alex Padilla. In case of any questions he said you could call him at (818) 756-9115. He showed me around the district office and showed me where I could find certain things. He quickly got me to work by separating Alex Padilla’s mail. I was to look trough all the mail he had and make a file for everyone who wrote to him. There was mail from hundreds of people. Some where school teachers who got their 3rd grade students to write to Alex, others were companies, and most were just people who appreciated his work. While filing his mail I came to the conclusion that the ‘woman with the big glasses’ from the movie “The Candidate” is real. There was one woman who sent Alex letters, little notes, and Hallmark cards. Ruben Zaragoza let me know that she did tend to write to him a lot. Once done with that, I began putting certificates into envelopes.
I realized while in this office that Democrats are busy people. Everyone in the office always had something to do, they never had a moment to just sit down and relax. Whether it was being on the phone or looking for papers that they lost, they always had something to do. Ruben was very polite and helped us understand the Democratic party a little better. I also got to look around the office and view maps that showed the area in which Ruben was in charge of. It was a very delightful and different experience.

11/04/06
I finished my election participation project hours today, and I must say it was not easy. I arrived at the Phil Angelides Election office in Van Nuys at 9:30 a.m. We sat down for a quick overview of what the day would be like. They began playing a song with the lyrics “Running, running, and running, running” repeating over and over. A couple of girls and I looked at each other with an awkward look on our faces thinking “Why are they playing this?” Then a lady said over the microphone “Today you will all be running!” Everyone in the room looked shocked (especially the girls with tiny skirts and heels), but I thought this was pretty funny. The lady explained to us that we would be going from door to door leaving Democratic information and door hangers on peoples front doors. Two other young ladies and myself got to team up with a lady named Doris who would be driving us around the town to drop off this information. Doris was to leave us at the corner of one block and wait for us on the other corner, while we went from door to door leaving the information. We did this from 10:00 a.m to 1:00 p.m. Finally after three hours of excruciating pain we got to go back to the election office and eat lunch. At about 1:45 p.m we were back on the job. Once we finally finished our task we went back to the election office and had a break. In the election office there was a lot of people making phone calls saying such things as “I am a volunteer for the Democratic office and I would like to let you know that elections are going on this Tuesday the 7th. I just wanted to know if you would be supporting us this year?” Many of the people handling phones informed me that it was not a fun job and they were getting irritated with people hanging up on them or cursing at them. I finished my 10 hours at 6:30 p.m and finally got to go home. This was a much more difficult task than working at Alex Padilla’s office. However, I must say that I had a greater experience working at Phil Angelides office.

Election Participation Project Essay
Accomplishing ten hours for the election participation project was not an easy job at all. At Alex Padilla’s office I didn’t really have to do anything that was difficult for me. Filing his mail and putting certificates in envelopes was an easy job. I think that doing the running from door to door was new to me, just because if anyone had questions for us we had to answer them. Most of the questions were “When do we vote?”, or “Where do I go to vote?”. These were easy questions to answer because that information could be found on the door hanger. So all I had to do was show the person the door hanger and say “Voting is going on this Tuesday the 7th and your voting location is found on the back of your door hanger”. Then I would just have to point out where they were to go for voting. Yet, some questions like “What does the Democratic party represent?” were not as easy to answer. At Phil Angelides office we were mainly told to let them know that we encouraged people to vote yes on Proposition 87, which establishes a $4 billion program to reduce petroleum consumption through incentives for alternative energy, education and training.
While doing my hours in both offices I realized that Democrats are very busy people. When I was in Padilla’s office I noticed that everyone always had something to do. The phones were constantly ringing and when they suddenly came to a stop you heard “Alex Padilla Pacoima District Office, how may I help you?” I had just spent two hours in that office and already I had a headache. All I thought about when I was there was “Either Ruben Zaragoza and his co-workers must really love their job or they must really need the money if they do this every day.”
I think that the thing I struggled the most with was finding the addresses while dropping of door hangers. Some of the addresses were not a problem to find but other ones took a while. There was a couple of door hangers which I had to take back to the office because I was unable to find the house they belonged to. Other times the address that the voter gave us was incorrect so we would waste time looking for the address and then we’d realize it was the Social Security office in front of us the whole time. Something successful that I did was not being rude to the people that I came in contact with while dropping off the door hangers. We were told to be polite and answer any questions that they might have. So I made sure to be respectful and courteous just because I didn’t want someone to throw the door hanger and information booklet back at me.
Out of my ten hours of my Election Participation Project the thing I enjoyed the most was filing Alex Padilla’s mail. It was a job that didn’t require so much physical involvement. While filing his mail I also got to look around and experience what the Democrat employees have to go through on a daily basis. I also learned a lot more from actually getting to talk to the employees, while walking from door to door with door hangers didn’t really fill me in on anything. As you can probably tell, what I disliked the most about this project was walking around Panorama City and Van Nuys leaving door hangers. This part of my project was the most draining because I was walking around constantly. Dogs barking at you, guys howling like dogs at you, and walking in the scorching sun would not exactly be the highlight of my day.
From my point of view, I think that the Democratic party was very effective in informing and convincing the public. Phone calls were made, door hangers were delivered, and the media did a great job on informing about Phil Angelides. If I were to turn on the television or radio and always hear “Vote Phil Angelides”, it would make me curious about why I should vote for him. After that if I walked up my steps and found a booklet with Phil’s face and what propositions he likes and dislikes, I would think “Maybe this guy could help us!” Then if I got a phone call explaining what Phil would do to improve our society, I would want to vote for him. I do believe that the Democratic party did an outstanding job in informing everyone about what Phil Angelides will do. Let’s just hope we don’t regret who we vote for on this year’s elections.
Volunteering in this years elections was a magnificent and unique experience. This event helped me to understand the political parties a little better. I had the chance that not many people have. I understand now what people in politics have to deal with every day. Furthermore, it has helped me to decide that I don’t want a career in politics in the future…it’s not meant for everyone!

let me know if its any good...its for gov't!

It probably does but I wish you luck with that essay as I seem to have trouble writing them.

I thought it was more of a journal ...