D.R. - Day 1

Day 1

Before my trip to the Dominican, I was nervous. I didn’t know a lot of people and I was concerned that I wouldn’t know where I was supposed to be. But after being around the people for a while I wasn’t concerned anymore. God had a lot in mind for us and I had no idea what it was.

        The first thing I saw when I exited the Santo Domingo airport was a man shinning shoes. I wanted to take a picture but I didn’t want to offend anyone. My first thought was “Mom would think this is so cool!”
       
        That night I had a great night’s sleep. Unfortunately I was one of the few who did. I loved hearing the rooster’s crow, dogs barking and people talking. Hearing all of that is like hearing a person’s heart beat, it’s the proof that they are alive. It excites me to know that people are living all around me. This is very hard to explain but I’m a city girl, I used to live in a big city so I was pretty used to hearing things at night.
        We woke up at seven to the sweet aroma of eggs. And the first thing I saw out our window was a beautiful sunrise; the picture I took doesn’t do it justice.

       
        Our mission in the D.R. was to help finish a church building and to pumice and paint a school. I automatically went to help pumice and paint; there was no doubt in my mind that that is where I was supposed to be. Pumicing is basically using pumice stones (or a steel brush or a scraper) to scrape off the pealing paint from the walls. Myself and a bunch of other people pumiced pretty much all morning. This job seems insignificant and way too much work than it’s worth at first. But if we don’t pumice, the new paint will peel off of the walls, defeating the purpose of repainting.
        While I was pumicing, a little girl came up to me and said “hola”. I said “hola” back and was thrilled that she came up to me! She then tugged lightly on my colorful plaid shorts and said “Bonita”. I said “no espanol” and she left. I felt so bad, I could not understand Spanish! And there was no one around me to translate. I later found out that “bonita” meant “pretty”. Maybe learning Spanish isn’t such a bad idea…

I'm Back

Hello! Wow it's been a while. Well I wanted to let you know that I am back and ready to write.

I just recently got back from a missions trip to the Dominican Republic. On the trip I kept a journal that I just finished writing. It was a lot of work writing down everything that happened! A handful of people have asked me to tell them all about my experience, but I decided that I am going to basically rewrite parts of my journal as blog posts so that I can share my experience with anyone who wants to hear about it.

Writing and Media

I’m not going to lie; I was one of those “Twilight freaks”. I still love Twilight, don’t get me wrong but now I normally have to be in the mood for it. But that’s not the point. The point is that I have read all of the books at least once, watched all of the movies (that are out) at least once, and now I am reading the screenplay for the first movie. I can’t tell you how interesting it is to compare the different Medias.

The reason I am reading the screenplay is because I am taking a screenwriting class, I was supposed to read a screenplay based off of something else, like a book. I came to understand why movies based off of books are always so different. Books are detailed, drawn out and can give you limited access to information, movies cannot do that very easily. Movies have to fit a book that took you three months to read and condense it into a two hour film, saving the content and still make it exhilarating. I didn’t quite understand this point until sat and thought about it, a screenplay is something completely its own. It’s not a book, song, or comic book, it’s a screenplay and it follows its own rules.

Actually reading the screenplay after watching the movie helped me realize just how important the actors are and how much character they can put into their role. There was a spot in the screenplay where a teenager Angela says “There’s whale watching too. Come with.”

“Come with? Seriously?” I thought as I read it, "she did NOT say that, or if she did she made it sound a lot less awkward than it did reading it in my mind."  The actress brought a whole new life to this character. Of course I realized all of this before, but sometimes I need something to just “click” in my head for me to fully understand it, and normally what “clicks” in my head, makes absolutely no sense to others, but that’s ok.

My point in all of this is that I learned something, these three different media groups - novels, screenwriting, and movie making – I want to be involved somehow in all of them, and I need to separate them in my head, especially novels and screenwriting. 

How’s Life?

“Soooo how’s life?” people ask me. I’m never sure how to respond. Do they mean my whole life or my life within the last few days, hours, minutes? Do they mean to ask how I am doing physically, emotionally? Are they asking about life as a whole? If they are, I can’t think of a reason why the life of people, plants and animals wouldn’t be good. Maybe they don’t even care about the deep answers and they are just asking out of courtesy as if to ask “how are you?”  

I am probably over thinking this, but this question bothers me. If someone asks me “how’s life?” I have the urge to spill out my whole story, to tell them everything that I am going through at that moment, happy or sad. But I know that’s not what they are after. So I’ll try to give them one worded, truthful answers. “How’s life?” “Tiring.” This seems awkward to me. So what are they after? How do I respond to a question like that? What’s the purpose in asking if they don’t want to hear the whole answer?

DISCLAIMER: Anyone who has asked me this in the past, or will ask me this in the future; please know that I am not offended but if I tell you the drawn out answer well… you did ask. 

Church – The Building

It all started at Mahaffey Camp. Every year of my life I go there, and I can feel God, it’s like this feeling of peace and love. Even if I started out the week not feeling Him, I could before the week was over. Now I’ve gotten to the point where I can feel Him just by taking a step into the Youth Tab, even when it’s empty; so if Mahaffey Camp only consisted of the Youth Tab I’d still be happy.

I help clean two churches a week, it was by doing that, that I realized something special about the church building. When I’m in the sanctuary, and there is no one but God and I there, I feel Him sometimes even more than I feel Him when the pews are full on Sundays, it’s like our own personal meeting. And if I want to sing, I’ll sing over the vacuum; if my thoughts are running wild or I just want to relax, I’ll listen to my iPod. And if I want to pray, I can pray with no distractions other than that small speck of dust that just won’t let go of the carpet, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s the Who’s hanging on for dear life. 

Getting Started

Writing, without it I would literally go insane (not that I need any help). It helps me recognize my problems and form them into coherent words. It organizes my thoughts and sooths my mind.

Filming is a way that I can put all of my energy and emotions into one single thing that I love. I feel like I’ve found my place in this world now that I can film. Not that I live just for filming, but that’s what I look forward to at the end of the week. I really appreciate my friends and brother for putting up with my bossy, director like attitude, and my parents for being the "taxi cab".

Apologies for such a short post, I am just getting started believe me. 

HI This is Me

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