PROM DAY

I am very excited today because tonight is PROM! I love prom. 

I know a lot of people aren't looking forward to prom because of the drama. There hasn't been much of that with my prom group so I'm pretty excited. The only thing that I am worried about it the weather. It's supposed to rain all day today so I'm pretty stressed about that because my hair will either be really frizzy from the humidity or all the curls will fall out because of the water. 

Next week we have out Senior Trip to the White Water Center

And soon it'll be GRADUATION day! I'm super excited to graduate counting down the days 43 days!  

Spring Break Trip 2016!

Hope everyone had a good and safe spring break! Me and my best friend took a trip to Paris with our school. It was so much fun and I want to share all of the fun things that we did. (Also I just turned 18 the Saturday we got back so that's exciting!). So the first day, (which was super long because we had an overnight flight and got to Charles de Gualle airport at 7 in the morning) we went to the Champs Elysees and ate lunch, shopped and go to the Arc de Triomphe. Then we headed for a walking tour near Notre Dame, the gardens around behind Notre Dame and saw more interesting monuments around Paris. One of my favorite things coming into Paris on the river Seine was seeing the smaller Lady Liberty that they have that faces the one we have in New York. It really showed the friendship and support that we have for each other. The next day we went to the Palace of Versailles, which was so beautiful, we spend basically the whole day there because there was so much to look at. My favorite was the garden behind it because it was so huge and so thought out. That night we went to Montparnese which is the tallest building in Paris and has #thebestviewofParis. 

The next day we went to the Louvre which wasn't actually my favorite because there was so much to see and I'm not a big fan of just looking at paintings. We did see the Mona Lisa, which wasn't as big as I thought and its behind glass and a rope so you can't get behind it. After the Louvre, we went to the Opera district and visited the Perfume museum and learned about how perfume is made and the differences. It was actually more interesting than you might think, it's just hard to focus when you've been walking for a while and my legs hurt, after the museum we went shopping for a while then headed for Notre Dame. This time we actually got to go inside and see how gorgeous it really is. Pictures can't even describe how beautiful it is. One of my favorite things that we did the next day was, the Catacombs. For the people who don't know what that is, when the Plague hit Paris they ran out of room to bury bodies, so they built underground tombs where they take the bones of the bodies and build them. It was really creepy like in a horror movie but it was so cool to see it too. We headed to Monmartre which was a basilica(not a church) and had another gorgeous view of Paris, there we did more shopping and got bombarded by the guys trying to trick you into paying them after tying a string on your finger. That night we went to la Tour Effiel, it is low season there so we couldn't take the stairs up(I probably wouldn't have made it up anyway) but we went all the way to the top level and I don't think I have ever felt so happy to be that high up. Trying to take pictures from my iPhone couldn't capture how gorgeous Paris is at night. 

This next day was rough. My legs felt like jello but we got to go to three museum's Musee d'Orsay, Musee de Roubin and Musee de l'Armee Invalides. They had different things to offer; Musee d'Orsay had mostly paintings but my favorite was the huge clock that not many people new about that you could walk behind to get to the different levels. Musee de Roubin had sculptures and the last one was my favorite because it was an old military hospital and it had the tomb of Napoleon. 

Our last day in Paris we went to Claud-Monet's house and saw the gardens. I wished my mom was with me on the trip because I know how much she loves flowers and stuff like that. So I took a whole bunch of pictures of the prettiest flowers I could find. Then for the last have of the day we had to ourselves to go shopping...my last day kind of sucked because I was so sick and ended up throwing up at dinner which was not fun. 

I'm so happy to have had this experience and I hope to continue to go to different places and learn about more cultures!

Change of Heart

High school has been a tough four years, filled with trying to figure out whether college is the right move for me and figuring out what makes me happy. I HATED the classroom, I didn't understand why I was being forced to sit in a classroom and learn about stuff that I felt didn't impact me. I decided early on that college wasn't right for me and I didn't care about it from then on. 

Sophomore year I got the chance to go on a mission trip to Santa Matlida, Nicaragua for my spring break. We spent a week in this village building relationships with the children and other woman we met. Learning how they grew up and comparing and contrasting how I grew up with them. We went into a house where the grandmother was raising the kids because the father had died of kidney failure and the mother had died of cancer. The kids were unable to go to school because their grandma now has cancer and they had to stay home and take care of her and the house. More stories like this came up and I could feel my heart break into thousands of pieces. How is it that I take school so lightly when kids don't even have the option to go and they dream of going to school. I went through that whole week with a heavy heart learning about what the kids go through on a daily basis. We had gone around and asked what the ladies of the village would be if they could go to school and further their education. Most of them wanted to be nurses and teachers. Some wanted to be a construction worker, or an architect. Seeing their passion for learning really made me question why I hadn't taken it so seriously. That night in my bunk bed I started thinking if I was asked that question what would I be. And the weirdest job came to mind. Being a teacher was what I was meant to do. 

A teacher? Really? I hated being in a classroom let alone having to work in there. And now this was what I thought I needed to do for my life? But then I thought about it even more and thought about how amazing my teachers are/ were and how much they shaped my life. Not only teaching me things about school but teaching me things that I needed to know for my personal life. My teachers taught me lessons on how to be a better person and what kind of friend is better to have in my life. 

I got home and started realizing how much school is a gift to everyone who goes to it. So many people especially in America complain about school and say how much they don't want to be there but kids in third world countries only dream about miracles happening to them to be able to go to school. 

When I came home, I brought this new attitude with me. School sucks sometimes but it's important for me to work hard and get a college education to pursue my future as an elementary  school teacher. If any of my former teachers are reading this, I want to thank you so much for the amount of work that you put in everyday to help inspire and further each one of us. We complain so much and teachers don't always get credit or awards they deserve. 

Thank y'all for reading

UDHR week

This week was all about our human rights, we read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states all of our rights as a human being. A lot of them seemed like common sense to me but then we were asked questions about it and I thought about our rights compared to other countries I started to realize that they are so common after all. A lot of people say that we don't have freedom of speech in America and I'd like to disagree. For me personally because I know that many countries can't even mutter the words of "I don't like something about the country", they would be sent to jail or even killed depending on how severe the country is. 

One thing that I loved about the videos were that they talked about slavery. A lot of people know that I am very passionate about human trafficking and having the education spread around about it because not many people know about it. Human trafficking is mainly girls who are forced into a trafficking circle where they have basically sell themselves to give money to their bosses. 

Become a Human Rights Defender! Don't allow discrimination, stand up for the people who aren't getting the rights they deserve. Short and simple! Make sure to read the UDHR! It gives you an idea of what to stand up for! Thanks for reading! 

World of 7 billion Contest Week

Sorry I haven't written anything in a while!

These past two weeks have been packed with a video projects! We are doing the World of 7 billion video contest which touches on the topics of public health, water scarcity, and deforestation. The video had to be about one of these topics to provide education about it. My video isn't actually completed yet because I've missed a couple days of class but mine will be about water scarcity and how we take it to our advantage. It's gonna be a 60 second jam packed video that explains what we have been doing to destroy our water supply. 

I was able to see everyone's draft and they looked amazing! The way they made it interesting was awesome! I can't wait to see what the contest says! 

Genius Time and Film Editing week!

I know I'm a little late in posting. I was sick on Friday but I'm back now! 

So my Genius Time project is finally starting up. I have all my interviews this week that I'm so excited for. I did have one person drop out because her daughter is having a wedding cake taste. Honestly I wish I could go with her and eat some cake too....but anyway I'll have to find someone else to do it. But it won't be a problem because she gave me someone else that might be willing to do an interview so everything is going to work out with that. Tomorrow I will actually start my interviews with three people and then on Saturday I will actually be interviewing my mentors, Mario and Rydder from Nicaragua, so hopefully wifi connections and recording issues will work itself out. But I am really excited to see the final product and see what people have to say about what they learned and if they are now interested on going on mission trips. 

But also this week in DigCit class, we are working on our films for the Next Vista film contest. As you know my group has Angels and Sparrows Soup Kitchen, we just got our film last week of  interviews from the owner, volunteers and footage of people coming in and seeing how everything works at the soup kitchen. Talking to Sandy Tilley was so exciting because she really had a great story to tell about how she got started and everything she's been through with the soup kitchen. One thing that really stuck with me is that she never kept trying to start the kitchen. She went looking for help and people told her either that there were no hungry/poor people in the area or that they would help once she got everything started herself instead of helping her start things right away. Sandy would just smile and be on her way, until finally a couple of churches got the money together to build the kitchen, had volunteers help put up the building and opened the soup kitchen a week later. I tried to put myself in her shoes, thinking that if people were telling me that there were no hungry or poor people in the area what would I do? Would I continue on my way and look for other supporters or would I just quit and go home? It's hard to imagine being put in that situation but I'm glad Sandy was the one who kept persevering and believed that she could do something great. 

Thanks for reading! Hopefully I'll post Friday!  

DigCitLit

This week has been a busy week for our class! Monday we got out assignments for our Service Via Video Project. We are going to be creating videos for different organizations and sending them to an international video contest which could win money for our organizations. Our first stop was a Rotary meeting, which is an international service organization. Next we went to the Ada Jenkins Center to take a tour of the building. Ada Jenkins is an old school that is now used for different purposes like a dental clinic, a health clinic. They focus on servicing low income families with whatever they need. Davidson Lifeline was another non-profit that we are working with, educates people about mental illnesses. 

Next up was probably the class favorite, the Cornelius Animal Shelter. We were able to walk through the shelter, look at kittens and play with PUPPIES. The officer brought out four energetic puppies. The first was Fritz who may only be one years old but he had an old soul and a sweet-heart. The next was Nessi, she caught our hearts from the first time we saw her. Third was my favorite, Bam-Bam, a white five-month-old pit bull, who was one of the sweetest puppies I've ever met. I am totally against anyone who says pit bulls are viscous and mean dogs. You can raise anyone to be mean or aggressive, it's all about how you treat them and how you train them. Anyway, the last was Sparky, a small but sassy dog who had no care in the world about anyone. All she wanted to do was play with her friend, Nessi. 

Even though she didn't really pay attention to us we saw she was a good dog and loves to play. Sadly, none of us got to take any of the dogs home and we had to leave. But finally we ended up at my groups organization, Angels and Sparrows Soup Kitchen. For me I had already been to the Soup Kitchen because the lady who runs it goes to my church. But it always amazes me to hear the stories that she tells about all that she has done through the soup kitchen. Hopefully soon our group will be getting video of morning prep, when the people actually come in, maybe interview a few volunteers or people who eat there and the lady who runs it. 

This is such an amazing opportunity for both us and our clients to get the word out about their non-profit and for us to gain more digital and community learning and understanding.    

Thanks for reading!