Jake Landgrebe 4/29/14

The purpose of this blog post is to explain not only why I wasn't able to blog last week, but will also go into detail on what this was.

Last week, I went on a trip that my Boy Scout troop only does once a year during April vacation, we call the "April Trip". This is a week long camping trip where we not only camp but also participate in awesome and interesting activities throughout the week. The first day, we drove down to the shanendoah valley in Virginia. Once we were there, we set up our tents in the dark, sat by the fire, and went to sleep. The following day, we made our way to the Luray Caverns, the largest caverns in the East Coast. These caverns were beautiful and HUGE! The day after that, we took a canopy tour (zip lining) down a mountain, where the longest line was 975 ft long! Later that afternoon, we packed up and headed south towards a campground close to the Kings Dominion amusement park. After we spent the night there, the next morning we got up bright and early and hurried down to the park. We were one of the first people in the park, and had the park to ourselves for the first 45 mins. We went on roller coasters, spinning rides, drop rides, and had an awesome time. The next day we came back, wishing it wasn't over. The trip was a lot of fun, and I definitely wish I was still down in virginia.

Olivia Eburne Blog post for the week of 4/20

Blog post for the week 4/20

Hey y’all! I’m in the south again, as I mentioned last post (the survival of an early day, etc.) and I thought, “Why not write a post about this trip to Alabama?” 

So I will. It will be this post. So there.

 Y’all are now going to learn about my second adventure to the South. This was an April vacation trip for 8^th graders where we went and toured civil rights landmarks in Birmingham, Selma, Montgomery, Tuskegee, and Atlanta.  In all we saw five cities, five museums, four churches, four national park sites, three cultural institutes, two world headquarters, and a state house.

Day one: The first thing was that we had to get up early, but you heard about that.

We first visited 16th Street Baptist Church, which was the rallying point for many marches and speeches.  We also learned of the 1963 bombing that took the lives of four young girls, carried out by the local KKK.  Our speaker, Mr. Washington, was 18 years old during the height of the movement. We then went to the  Southern Museum of Flight  and closed out the day at Kelly Ingram Park.

Day two:  We visited the Slavery Museum and the National Voting Rights Museum. We experienced a slavery simulation with Sam, our tour guide. No history lesson could teach you the emotional impact we felt while we endured this treatment.

We retraced some of the footsteps of the Selma to Montgomery march,  beginning  by crossing the historic Edmund Pettus Bridge. We also visited MLK Junior’s first church, and had  a tour of the State house.

Day three:  We had a tour of Tuskegee University  as well as the George Washington Carver Museum. The third part was my favorite part, it was a tour of Moton Air Field, home of the Tuskegee Airmen, the first African-American group of air force fighters. They shot down over 100 German aircraft and never lost a single friendly bomber to enemy fire.

After that we went to Atlanta and toured CNN headquarters, which was quite cool, and we got to meet Carl Azuz, who write and anchors CNN Student News, which we watch a lot at school.

The last day we sent to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change.  After the museum, we went to the tombs of Dr. and Mrs. King as well as the Ebenezer Street Baptist Church where Martin Luther King Sr. preached.

Whew!

Razia Jan. Hero. Chelsea H.

One of the living heros I would like to profile is a woman by the name of Razia Jan. Razia was born in Afghanistan and moved to the United States in 1970 where she was the proprietor of a small tailoring business in Duxbury Massachusetts. She also served as the president of the town's Rotary club. Razia is the founder of Razia's Ray of Hope Foundation (based in the USA) and the Zabuli Education Center (located in Afghanistan). In Afghanistan there are many threats against females seeking education but that doesnt stop the Zabuli education center from opening its doors to the 354 girls from 7 surrounding villages who recieve a free education funded by Razia's Ray of hope. In order to keep the girls safe Razia's school is surrounded by a stone wall where guards and staff check the air and water quality of each classroom every day. 

Razia has received many awards for her humanitarian work, including the 2007 Woman of Excellence award from Germaine Lawrence Inc., multiple Rotary Club International Peace Awards, and certificates of appreciation from the Army Corps of Engineers and the American Legion. In 2011 Razia was honored by the Duxbury Rotary Club with their inaugural Amazing Woman of the Year Award. In 2012, Razia was named a CNN Top 10 Hero. Razia also recevied the 2013 Speak for Thyself from The Alden House Historic Site and the 2013 American Muslim Women's Empowerment Council Award.

In 2008 she moved back to Afghanistan (Kabul) where she continues her work with the Afghani people. 

Her foundation's website can be found here http://www.raziasrayofhope.org/   


Chelsea H.

Olivia Eburne Blog post for week of 4/13

Hey peeps! I haven’t posted in a bit, and I have no excuse other than the fact that I was swamped—first with catching up with my homework from missing school for Build-Vention (and I’m still not totally caught up.) I swear, the amount of homework I have is inhumane!

Then I had Easter preparations to attend to. Every year my mom and I make Easter hats, like the crazy ones you would find in Great Britain. Except for this year, where I opted to take the Steampunk route.

After that was Marathon Day, and at the last minute I went to watch the race with a friend. And then the same day I had to pack to go to Alabama. Again. Seriously, I should have just stayed packed. I am now currently in Alabama, having survived getting up at 3:00 a.m. in order to fly out at 6:00 am. I am running solely on adrenaline, but I did get awesome photos of the sunrise from the air!

But No More Excuses! I am posting now, and that is all that matters. I think that this post I would like to talk about the Build-Vention.

The Build-Vention was amazing. I don’t have enough space here to talk about every detail, I will have to save some for the next post. Stuff like meeting all these kind and like-minded people—I wish I could have caught every inspirational moment on film and put up a video with this post.  But I would have so much film I wouldn’t know where to start. 

Let me just say, though, that Tom Callos can really talk! We didn’t stay up listening until two a.m., like what happened last year, thank goodness, but he did get us up an hour early one day—I think in order to have more time to talk.  He was thinking ahead so we could still get to the job site on time!

Another thing is that we had mats—a whole lot of karate mats where people could grapple.  And boy, did people grapple!  There were people up till and past 10:00 pm, still grappling. I know it doesn’t sound that late, but trust me, after a taxing work day all you want to do is sleep, but there are other martial artists out there, asking you for a roll. So instead of sleeping you go and grapple for a couple of hours. It was tiring, but boy was it worth it! I learned so much by grappling with people from different styles than Revolution’s.  I know I couldn’t grapple for as long and hard as many of the people there could, that’s for sure! I mean, there were plenty of people who didn’t stop until Tom got up and turned off the lights!

After that they got up the next day at  6:00 am, already charged to work the entire day!  I don’t know how they did it.  I am a person who really needs my sleep apparently.

Anyway, it was an amazing experience, and I wish everyone could have gone.

 Note: I wrote this while I was on the road, but couldn’t post it till I got home.

Jason Mai 4/22/14

Jason Mai
4/22/14

     It is 3:44AM as I start this blog post. Yesterday I had the most weird, calm, interesting day. I awoke at 10-11am. Did my regular morning routine, brush teeth, eat, workout. Then I went to get a haircut. It was a simple day. As soon as I get home from my haircut my friend texts me that she is in the area and she wanted to hang out. I've known this girl forever, actually I've written about her in one of these blog posts. Anyways we hang out, we go around town. She shows me some cool areas in the town I've never seen, we shared thoughts, laughter, conversation and food, but she had to go around 2-3pm. You see this girl is always busy, people always calling her, texting her. It seems like everyone wants to be with her, so I ask myself and her about this. Why is she hanging out with me? I'm not an interesting guy. I do martial arts, go to school, make films. I feel like I am a very simple human being and I'm not sure how to put my thoughts into words...but there are no perks of being my friend. And what I mean by this is, it may seem shallow but I've realized that being friends with someone isn't just being friends. People these days are friends with selected people to get them what they want, I don't want to explain this in detail but if you understand, then you understand how messed up those people can be. For example I have a friend who gets really good deals on Nike shoes because his aunt works for the company, but I'm not friends with him because of that, hell I've never used that part of our friendship to my advantage. I know people who don't even know him and will ask if they can get him to get shoes. This is just one example.

     Anyways she had to go, and I didn't want to go with the people she was hanging out with anyways. They were losers, well at least one of them. It makes me sad that she hangs out with people that are so....bad. I'd say 85% of the people she hangs out with are a bad influence on her, but sometimes you need to be a good influence to the bad ones. That's how she sees me. That was her answer to why she hangs out with me, because I'm "genuine" and apparently a good influence on her. I'm glad as a women she does something that benefits her and not others. I almost feel as if she hangs out with me because I'm not like the other guys that she hangs out with. I don't always try to make a move on her, I don't try to make her do stuff she doesn't want to. Honestly I am her friend, and our relationship starts and ends there. We talk a lot about the future, I worry about her, but she says she'll be fine. I trust her, because no matter what, she seems finds happiness, and not every pent up teenager can say that. I don't know if I can even say I'm truly happy (I think I am) People ask if she really is happy? or if she is hiding it under everything. But for some reason I see that she is, deep down in her. Which makes me worry but also happy for her. I'm worried of what she believes is happiness, but what am I to judge what makes someone happy. It's just that I've known her so much of my life, and shes important to me. In another life, she would hang out with good people all the time, but the reality is, sometimes good people don't always get good things. I don't know anymore, because she is happy, and I can't take that away from her, I've tried to forget about her, ignore her. There is a gap in my life where I pushed her away in my life, and that was because of how hard it was coming with terms with who she was. How it happened. Why it happened. But we both have grown so much as people, we accept and move on.

     So she leaves and I'm with one of my friends. We talk, eat the food left. Go to the park, lie down on the grass, take in the sun. A bit later my friend's girlfriend and her friend stop on by, they sit down beside us. And we just start talking and talking, we were laughing and that was probably the first time I've took the time to sit down and talk to my friend's girlfriend like that. It opened a lot of doors, not all of them nice. You see I've only known this girl through my friend, but I knew enough. I knew she battles depression, and I know the things shes experienced, I don't want to get into detail to be honest.

     Later that night, we are talking over facebook and we start off with small talk but eventually we start talking about how she really felt about everything. I was surprised how open she was to me, I wasn't sure if because her boyfriend was my friend, or she just needed to tell someone. Either way I was there for her. We talked for maybe an hour over chat. About her depression and what causes it and what she felt about just...everything. As we got into more deep matters I realized my how much my words effected her, I saw that she was really really looking to me for advice. For support. For help. I tried my best, I try to hold together the unstable building with my roll of duct tape, through the binding of my words as they seem to hit spots in her soul and mind that calmed her. Relieved her of her problems that were still there. I didn't always tell her what was true, because as I learned over the years - sometimes people aren't ready for the truth and sometimes it is okay to lie. When the conversation ended, apparently I had left her at a better place then where she started. Helping her made me feel very...happy just doesn't hold the power of the feeling I felt. I could hear the tears through the text. Which leads me to my last point which is? Love.

     When we think of love, most people think of romantic love. But I feel like love exists between all people. Family love, friendship love, sure relationship love, but I think most importantly? Self love. Girls like the one I was talking about earlier isn't uncommon. Many many girls are insecure, hide their feelings from everyone. I feel so stupid for not being able to explain this, but I'll try, it is sad to see girls or anyone think they are not sexy, unique, funny etc etc. I can't fully express how I feel but I know that this is wrong. I just can't imagine how she feels, and it is so hard to connect with her because of that, but I try my best to weave my words of ignorance into her bleeding soul, but there is only so much I can do. Only so much her therapist can do, Only so much the drugs can do. Only so much the doctors can do. Only so much her friends can do. I can't do this anymore, I have so many feelings I want to write out on this page but its 4:38am I spend about an hour on this in the middle of the night, that is why this post is so late by the way, because I couldn't sleep without worrying about people in my life. But i'd rather be educated and pained, instead of ignorant and living in bliss.

     I need to go back to sleep, if I can. Oh and if anyone reads this blog post, I know it's long. Thank you, I need someone to know. I'm not as strong as people make me out to be, maybe I can punch hard or kick even harder but deep down this is how I think, and I wish more people knew that about me.

-Jason Mai

Living Hero, Sir Patrick Stewart. Chelsea H.

For my first living hero profile I'd love to tell you about my favorite actor, Sir Patrick Stewart. I was first introduced to his acting through the television show Star Trek: The Next Generation where he played the captain of the U.S.S Enterprise. As I got older I decided to look him up on the internet to see what kind of movies he was doing at the time and it was then that I found how cool he really is. He is a member of Amnesty International and speaks out publicly about domestic violence issues. He also came forth about being in a home where his father beat his mother, Patrick often pushing himself in the middle trying to protect her.
 “Our house was small, and when you grow up with domestic violence in a confined space you learn to gauge, very precisely, the temperature of situations. I knew exactly when the shouting was done and a hand was about to be raised – I also knew exactly when to insert a small body between the fist and her face, a skill no child should ever have to learn.”

-Patrick Stewart on The Legacy of Domestic Violence,

 The Guardian, 26 November, 2009

It is a sad reality that domestic violence is still such a prevalent issue, but it gives me hope to see organisations like Amnesty International doing their best to change the world.

Jason Mai 3/13/14

Jason Mai

3/13/14

     So today I finally finished shooting! Agh it was so stressful and mentally draining but I am done with shooting and now it's just editing and trailer making...and poster making...and soundtracking....yeah still have a lot to do, haha! But I am still excited that I am done with the actor depend parts because those actors....unpredictable creatures. Just today I have an example, I talk to one of my actors, lets call him David, I talk to David on Saturday, to remind him about the shoot we have on Sunday, that I told everyone in advance a week before, and have been putting down constant reminders on the Facebook group through out the week, so I remind him in person on Saturday, he gives me his word that he will be there, so I trust him. Then comes Sunday, it is 11:58AM all my actors are at the school they are suppose to be there at 12pm, I am there and all we are waiting on is David. Now here is some background information about David, and why this was so hard getting ahold of him. Firstly, he doesn't have a phone, so that I means I can't call him at a moments notice, sure he has Facebook, but he doesn't get on often and I do remind him on Facebook. Secondly he got kicked out of his house, so how do I find him, if he isn't at his own house? Buuuuut he does have it rough, he gots kicked out of his house, dumped by his girlfriend and fired from his job in about a week time span, so he can't give him that much...poop. But then again, he promised me, and the week before I gave it up, because he was in the middle of going through all of that.

     Basically this is what people need to take out of this story. If you promise to do something for someone, I don't care how busy you are, if you promised in advanced, you can't just back out of me last second without telling me and expect me to be okay with it, he still hasn't contacted me about what happened, no apology no thing, he just no showed. I was furious about last weekend because he didn't show up and we were suppose to shoot that weekend as well, but two times in a row! You gotta be kidding me, don't make goddamn promises you can't keep! And that was the hardest part with shooting, getting the actors together. So we improvised, changed the scene a little bit, cut him out of the scene, but we still made it good. I think the scene will still turn out decently.

     However, I don't feel anything about being done, I should be happy. Or something. I don't know what is going on in the brain of mine. All those hours I put into this film and now it's pretty chill from here, I just don't know what makes me happy anymore. I mean when I do shoot, and I do work on my film I happy, but for some reason the act of finishing doesn't. Maybe this means I have to do this for the rest of my life, haha! Maybe I need to keep myself working on film to be happy, that I can't really relax and celebrate. Nah that will change, I'm pretty sure a night with the guys a few pretty girls would change my mind. As for now...life is good, I have good things happening, and good people around me. Sometimes I don't realize that, sometimes we all don't realize. I just want life to be more exciting but...I have a good.

And with that note, I will end this blog post and go to bed before it is way too late.

Good Night