Welcome to this week’s installment of This Philadelphian Life. I’m your host, Max Amar-Olkus. This week we look into the life of a man that would do anything just to make sure his family wasn’t poor. As soon as he’d see the economy change he knew it was time for him to make a change too. Jerry Olkus made it through life by taking risks. Big risks.

In this project I learned a lot about my grandfather. He would always tell me these stories as a child but I would never really listen. Now that I’m more grown up and (arguably) more mature, I’m able to take a lot away from his stories. He puts effort into everything he does and many people have trouble doing this. I personally have problems with effort but this conversation has made me realize that I have to make a change. I learned that if I want to succeed in life it won’t just come to me. I have to actually be proactive and try my best in school and everything else in life. 

   Crossing boundaries can be both physical and mental and happens in many cases. When one crosses a boundary they can do it with or without the knowledge of them actually doing it. In this case my mother actually crossed two boundaries as you know. One being the boundary of comfort and the boundary of responsibility. In the case of my mother crossing her boundaries made a plus, even if some negative things happened without the situation. When one crosses a boundary it can set both cost and benefits it just determines on what the boundary is.  While I was doing this project I learned many things I didn't know about my mother and sisters. I honestly would not do nothing different then what I did maybe interview my sister Tiffany. Tiffany is the middle child with her son is the care of someone else. The only reason why I did not interview her is because the whole story is very emotional and with the problems she was diagnosed with she would make the story more sad then it is and its hard for her to talk about that story because it's a huge part of her life. I believe that my peers were right, I took great time and I believe that my overall topic was very interesting and even though teen pregnancy story's are common today the added information with the lies and my sisters conditions make it better.

If one wants cross boundaries they have to be willing to be brave, give it all they have and make sacrifices. It also comes with a lot of self motivation; to make a change one must feel very strong and confident about their goal. Crossing boundaries takes time and usually it is hard to do it on your own; one should accept help from others.

This was my first time using Audacity so I had problems editing things. I would recommend to use Garageband to avoid such confusion. I did not quite understand the way it was set up and wished things were more clear. 

Throughout this project I learned how make a podcast. The examples that were given to us in class were very helpful. Before this was assigned to me, I did now know all they key elements to make a well rounded interview. I used what I learned for my final project;  an intro, deep question, a conclusion and a reflection. The interviews we listened to gave me great ideas for how ask questions that will get the speaker to go into depth about the topic. 

I definitely feel that my strengths of this project was how the story was told and how it effected Julie’s life. I was able to get her to tell me things that I did not even know, and that ended up helping me to get more information on how exactly she crossed boundaries. Almost none of my questions made her have a one or two word answer, which was good. Another thing that made this project good was how we were both able to relate and have a great conversation about the topic. One thing that I do not believe that I did well on was my editing.