To some families traditions are a time honored and excited experience, to others tradition is a bother. My family use to have a few traditions like going to Grandma’s house on Easter and Thanksgivings….but as time moves on some people want to try different things and the once treasured tridition is forgotten…When I was a child my whole family would gather at Grandma’s house after church Easter Sunday for lunch, games, tons of laughs, and easter egg hunts…Now that we are older it seems that that tridition has died…cousins go elsewere and all that is left is the memories of the times past…sometimes it would be nice to travel back in time and relish in the times we had together…
Fright Train…..
October 31, 2011 at 3:35 pm (Extra-curricular)
Fright Train is a haunted train ride. I am working in one of the scenes and I must say its a blast! A mile in the woods, there are about 8 horrible scenes that you pass while riding a trolley train. My team preformed circus of cannibals where the two cannibals were chained to a tree surrounded by dismembered body parts and bones. Two victims come prancing by the chained cannibals and stopped to poke and prod them. They then break free and rip them limb from limb…..Ok so we had a lot of work to do but when we weren’t performing our scene we were left in the middle of the woods, this can be either really cool or really creepy. In our case it was COLD!!!!!!!! Even though it was very cold outside my team and I enjoyed every minuet while there. Some times even friends forget that you aren’t going to hurt them while trying to rip out their guts, and so some times you might get kicked in the face or scratched in the face….but chains, if you’re not carefull, will chip your teeth… We are a strange group most of our group enjoyed sing-a-longs in the dark. So next time you hear that little bump in the night don’t worry too much its probably just my friends and I bumping back.
Life skills
October 21, 2011 at 10:44 am (Community Service, Extra-curricular, Leadership)
Wednesday nights are some of the hardest, most testing, most fulfilling nights of my month. In my previous blog, “Wednesday Nights”, I talked about the children’s bible study I help with but had to leave for a short amount of time to go home for the summer. Well I’m back and couldn’t be happier. The age group I happen to be working with are what we call the ” middle youth group” that’s about fifth, sixth, and seventh, graders. These kids though rough around the edges are intelligent, individuals who could have such a bright future if given the right direction. These kids are lacking in simple life skills that many people were taught in elementary school or in the home, but different homes mean different views when it comes to raising children. What I do is that I create games that, whether the kids realize it or not, teach the kids simple life skills. Some games work on communication skills others work on team building but the main idea still comes across.
Piece by Piece
September 28, 2011 at 10:08 am (LLC)
The world is one giant puzzle with smaller puzzles within it. The smallest puzzle is just a piece to a slightly bigger puzzle, and that slightly bigger puzzle is just a piece to the world puzzle. All the puzzles are connected to create a functioning world, but how do we put these pieces together? The first step is to find a small puzzle, lets say a college campus for example, and although the campus is diverse and functions relatively well there are still some pieces missing. Here is where we come into play. Say there is a leadership group on campus that can see that the campus has needs, and steps up to try to fit these pieces together, wont others within the campus see the need and help? If we as local leaders will model the way others will follow. Mother Teresa said “We can do no great deeds, only small deeds with great love”, if we take pride in ourselves and our campus; we don’t need to take on the burdens of the world for everything starts small and over time will grow. As leaders we cannot make people follow us but if we stand out of the crowd in a positive way, people will want to follow.
I am so smart, S.M.A.R.T
September 28, 2011 at 9:20 am (Extra-curricular, Leadership, LLC)
As a second year member of the Leadership Living Learning Community, I didn’t really know what I wanted to gain from this year. Now that I’m leading an improv troupe, I’ve realized that my leadership skills are slightly below what is needed to make this year, no, this semester successful. This semester I need to plan, organize, and teach the improvers the skills they need to know before our show at the end of October. This task is difficult to accomplish with the limited spaces to hold workshops and the limited time a week the group can meet. To make this work a council has been established to help divvy the tasks to make the workload a little easier to carry. The skills needed are simple enough but getting the improvers to grasp the concept and use them for the games seem to be a world apart. If I use each workshop from now until the preview show to build the skills I believe the troupe will be fine. The show is coming ever closer and every practice we have to drill out improv skills to make this show the very best for our audience.
US National WhiteWater Center
August 16, 2011 at 11:03 pm (Uncategorized)
Being a member of the Leadership Living Learning Community we traveled to the US National Whitewater Center to connect as a community and to work on team building skills. Throughout the day there was whitewater rafting, mega ziplineing, rock climbing and a high-ropes corse and many other challenges to concur. Our community broke up into small groups and worked on team building activities for a while until we were met by another small team for what our team leader called “the wall”. “The wall” is a twelve to fifteen foot wall with no hand or foot holes. The purpose of the challenge to lift a number of team mates over the wall and, if you are being lifted trust your team mates to catch you if you fall. I personally didn’t go over the wall but I was one of the people to lift the people. Our goal was eight people and through encouragement a preservation we surpassed our goal and ended up lifting twelve people over the wall. What I took away from this experience was that when the climber place their foot into my hands, they were placing more than just their foot they were also placing their trust into my hands. They were trusting us to catch them if they fell and trusting those who went before to help pull them up. After this exercise we can truly trust each other and use each other a support system to help pull us up when we are down and to help us reach our goals for a successful year.
Wednesday nights
June 23, 2011 at 11:52 am (Extra-curricular, Leadership, Personal)
Over the course of the spring semester 2011 I found a nice church to start going to thanks to the invitation of a friend. That friend told me about a kid’s bible study that she lead and that she needed more help. Teaching is what I do, and I love teaching; so I went one night to help, little did I know what I was getting myself into. That first night was crazy! There was a dinner provided for the kids then music before class. My friend asked me to help with her class of fifth and sixth graders. She told me that the kids were rough to work with and that she, some nights, couldn’t teach the lesson because she had to keep telling the kids to be quite.
Every Wednesday night I have been going to help with those kids. For the past three Wednesdays I’ve led some team building games to try to get the kids to work together. The first night the kids didn’t really want to help each other but after the games, when it was time to go in for class, we had them open their bibles and read a passage from our lesson. For the first time the room was completely quite! We had about fifteen kids that night and every one of them were reading! It was amazing! The following Wednesday we had seventeen kids and again I took the kids outside and played some team building games. This time it was different, as the kids were trying to get the whole group across the “river” they started cheering each other on and holding out their hands to help their teammates across. When everyone was across the whole team cheered. Later in class they were good and acted out their lesson. Last night June 22nd, 2011 the weather had us go inside and we had to improvise some games. We broke the group up into groups for the lesson then brought them back together to discuss the topic. The answers these kids gave were amazing… I couldn’t help but be proud of how far they have come since I first met them. Yesterday was my last Wednesday for a while due to summer classes ending and going home, but I can honestly say I will miss those kids and can’t wait to see them in August!
Out of the goodness of our hearts
May 22, 2011 at 10:50 am (Personal)
My friend Chris and I went to the mall to see a movie. We got our tickets and needed to kill some time, so we went to the arcade. Chris is really good at one of the games and hit the jackpot 1000 tickets! I walked over to where he was waiting for his tickets to finish dispensing and this lady walked over. The woman was with her six-year-old daughter and her husband having fun in the arcade when she was astonished over Chris’ win. The woman and I started talking about the arcade and how in fact it was NOT rigged. The next thing I knew we were talking about my view on life and how you can’t be timid in life you have to enjoy every minuet you have because you never know when it will be your last.
Chris joined the conversation and by the end she said “it’s not every day you meet generally good-hearted people.” She went back to playing games with her daughter and I had three tokens left. I ended up with 36 extra tickets and knew Chris and I didn’t need them. I found the little girl and silently handed the tickets to her and tried to walk away. The mother stopped, with a tear in her eye, thanked and hugged both of us.
I guess the moral to this story is that a little kindness even if you never give the little act another thought goes a long way.
Pathway
May 16, 2011 at 7:56 pm (Personal)
When walking through the woods one afternoon I stumbled across a winding pathway. I follow this path for what seemed like forever when the path suddenly split and went in different directions. The path that lead to the left became a very steep hill, so steep that one must use one’s hands to help them climb. The hill is very rocky and thick with thorns. The path that leads to the right sloops downwards to a lush meadow. Two paths one choice. Which path do I take? Most would take the path to the right. It’s a much easier path that leads to sunshine and a warm summer’s breeze. The other path is treacherous and difficult to hike why would anyone take that path?
I choose the left path. Each step is more difficult than the last, each step brings me one step closer to the top of the hill. I’ve reached the top. Tired, scratched my thorns I lookout over the valley and I finally understand why I choose this path. I can see for miles over green meadows and rolling hills. Life is like this path you can pick the easiest and stay in the valley or you can be brave. Sure the climb is hard and there are many obstacles to overcome but the reward is worth all your hard work.
Freshman Year of College is Finished
April 26, 2011 at 5:27 pm (Personal)
I can’t believe freshman year in college is over. It doesn’t feel like it’s been a whole school year, it feels like just last month we were moving into our dorms. Now everyone is packing their belongings, taking their finals, and going home…..Home…..For the past nine months UNC Pembroke has been my home. Even back in my home as I got ready to return to college I found myself saying I was going home, instead of saying i was going back to school. A lot has been gained this year some has been lost. Mostly sleep has been lost but that’s the price you pay to have decent grades and some late night fun with friends. I remember the frist time my friends and I walked through the drive through at the local McDonald. The inside closes at 10:30pm and we wanted some ice cream and although it felt weird to WALK through a drive through it soon became just another normality. One thing I have learned stands out from the rest… you are who you CHOOSE to be in college. Sure you can still have plenty of fun in college ask any one of my friends, but when the time comes to make plans for your future you want the real you to shine through and NEVER let anyone make you feel anything less than who you are. Because at the end of the finals week when you look back over the year past you have no one but yourself to either cheer or blame.
