Service Via Video

We've been doing a lot with video production these past few weeks, with our charity work and  all the filming that our group's been doing. It's been a difficult process, made less smooth by circumstances, but we've been getting it done. I'm a little apprehensive for the next video project that we're doing for this class, but it'll be better, and even if it's not my favorite thing in the world, well. It's a skill, one that I can maybe use later in life. I've been learning patience, too, with how slow actually putting together things is turning out to be. We have so much interview footage, but we need more B-roll footage, or the video's going to be boring- something we learned from the teachers and while rewatching our footage. So much complication for something only 2 minutes long. 

The process is more important than the actual product to me, though. Learning how to make a good video is better than making something perfect and having no idea how. Don't get me wrong, it'd be great to have an awesome video to submit and to give Davidson Lifeline. It's just less important in my eyes.

Passion in Motion

On the DigCit field trip yesterday, I learned a few things. I learned a lot about what all the organizations we visited did- especially the Rotary Club and the Ada Jenkins center- and got a new investment into local charity. I especially connected with the Ada Jenkins center, since I have family that runs a very similar center in Brazil, where underpriveliged people can get the medical care they need but probably wouldn't be able to get otherwise. I also loved going to the Cornelius Animal Shelter and getting to play with their animals. There's a story my dad likes to tell about how we got our pets from the Charlotte Humane Society, and it's mostly my fault, though the dog is his. My family has also volunteered at and donated to the Angels and Sparrows soup kitchen before, so it was good to be there and see how it's changed. 

On top of all those specific things, though, I saw just how interconnected all the work that those organizations do is. They have a lot of workers in common, and often they serve overlapping communities. It seems to me that some people just have an inclination for service work, and they give back to the community however they can, even among vastly different organizations. 

I'm sure when I grow up that I'll give back to the community as much as I can. That's a habit ingrained in me by my parents and my school, and they've both allowed me to develop my own individual passions while setting a baseline for the quality of work that needs to be committed to.

That 'service learning' is a valuable skill and part of one's personality, at least according to me. I'm glad that LNC is implementing it as something they can do, but I think that students could be doing more, if they all could have the same opportunities as I've had. 

Let's Have a Holi-gay Party!

The regional GSA meeting was super fun! There were a lot of groups there, fifteen or twenty, and a lot of them were newer, but they all had really cool representatives. There were a lot of great ideas thrown around, too- like having the titular holigay party or having a bake sale with rainbow cupcakes, etc. 

One thing that struck me is how lucky I am to be in such an accepting school. One of the groups who came to the meeting, from Lake Lure Classical Academy, have had a very vocal uproar against "the gay club" and all clubs have been suspended while the board "[seeks] legal counsel on club protocol'.(1) It is illegal, as far as I know, to specifically ban a GSA from meeting, so we'll see how that pans out for them. I just hope hatred doesn't come out on top.

One thing that the GSA is doing is assembling a list of MOGAI authors and books to put up on the English Honor Society's bulletin board, so that's awesome. A few that'll likely get up there are This Book Is Gay by James Dawson, an author who recently came out as transgender (2), and one of my personal favorites, Honor Girl, by Maggie Thrash, which is a memoir. We also have our own bulletin board, but what's going on that in the near future is as yet unclear to me. Still, it's something to think about, and I hope we get a wider sphere of acceptance from the school.

1) http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article45081705.html

2) http://www.autostraddle.com/award-winning-best-selling-ya-author-james-dawson-comes-out-as-a-trans-woman-313744/

New GSA Opportunities

This week has been pretty quiet again- things seem to cycle like that, with a prep week and then a big thing, and then another prep week for a big thing, etc. Next week's big thing is the regional GSA meeting at Time Out Youth, a safe space and help center for MOGAI youth. Last week's school GSA meeting had a lot of people, and I've approached some of them personally and made a post to the group page in order to invite them to go. Some people are busy, of course, but a few students and faculty and I are already sure we're going. 

The meeting's focus is a kind of 'show and tell' about what we're doing to further the GSA's mission in our community, so I'll talk about my project and the Day of Silence and the safe space kit and all of that. It'll be fun to see how many people are there, and maybe I can pick up some ideas for the project from what they're doing as well. Plus, of course, they're providing dinner, so that's always a plus.

If anyone who's reading this is interested in coming, just to see what it's like, join the Schoology group with the code on posters throughout the school, and here's the info for the regional meeting: 

    Where: Time Out Youth Center (2320 North Davidson Street, Charlotte, NC 28205)

    When: Wednesday, November 18 from 6:30 - 8:30pm

    Who: Gay-Straight Alliance club members and faculty advisors from Charlotte and the surrounding region

I hope I see a lot of people from LNC there!

Something Deep About Pitching Projects

Last night was the class's community pitch event, and let me just say, first off, big things like that should not be on Thursdays. That should just not be allowed. It's exhausting, and it make it feel like a Friday, which is just terrible. But I digress. 

There were so many people there, as it was the opening night of the play, and being able to talk about my project with all of them was so amazing. Some of them were parents, some came from other schools, and a few friends of mine came too. Giving the same pitch over and over and over again was a little weird- must be how teachers feel, giving the same lesson every day- but I kept it interesting and I feel like there was a lot of support for the project. There wasn't even one person who was negative, which suprised me, if I'll be honest. It's so encouraging, though, to hear over and over that people actually like what I'm doing. The gift bags that I made to go with my presentation (picture below) went over amazingly, too.

And on top of that, there were so many people who came to the GSA meeting! At least four teachers came, and maybe twenty kids, all of whom seemed to be enthusiastic about the idea of having a safe-space club. And on top of that, when I asked a couple administrators about having a PD day where teachers get safe space training, they thought it was an excellent idea!

This project is picking up momentum, and I couldn't be more excited.

Right Before the Fall

It honestly feels like I'm almost at the top of the roller coaster, and soon enough I'm going to fall. So much is ready to happen- the community pitch event is next week, I have the safe space kit I ordered a couple months ago, the first GSA interest meeting is next week, too. I have so much cautious optimism in the things that are happening at school. 

I just need to keep my caution in check. I need to remember that I can do things, even when I'm so young. 

All things are now ready. They just need a catalyst to set them off- and that's me. I can do this. And anyone reading this can, too.

Let's make the world sit up and look.

Genius Time Update

I feel like I've done both a little and a lot this week. I recently looked back at my deliverables for the first quarter, and it genuinely surprised me how many of them I've gotten done. A lot of it was prep stuff that I want to follow up on this quarter, but it's nice to be able to think that I've done something, even if it feels like mostly talking to people and starting to arrange huge things that will pan out later. 

I want to especially work on scheduling dates with administration for later in the year. I really want to make the Day of Silence something big, and I want to nail down definitively a date for my fourth-quarter seminar. 

The fact that I haven't done that already is a faliure- a 'not yet'- on my part. I've been falling down on this class, prioritizing other things, and I need to refocus, at least enough to get a few things done. 

After I do that, maybe I can talk to my mentor a bit more easily, knowing I'm more secure in what I'm doing. He wants to help, as do other people at church and TOY and at school, and I need to step up and lead them.

We'll see how that goes.