It all started with a trip Down Under.
(yes this is a selfie of me and the Sydney Opera House)
It was the first time I was out of the country and the first time I've traveled outside of the country without my family. I've never sat on a plane for so long until(... you must read until the end for me to finish the sentence). Australia for some reason was my favorite country and still is, so visiting this country really was a dream come true. Honestly. What I got out of traveling was a symptom called wanderlust. The sudden urge to travel to places you've never been to. And that's when I started to plan my next trip; Uganda. I wasn't even finished with my 17-day-expedition in Australia when I started planning to raise money for going to Uganda with a fellow Honors English teacher of mine.
(My fellow gang and I during free time)
Traveling to Uganda brought me many firsts such as traveling with a small group that had many possible but unlikely risks. Camping. Sitting on a plane for a full day and experiencing culture through poverty. This trip had shown me the greater things in life and made me want to rid all of my clothes and preserve water when I got home. But how realistic is that? Very realistic to a certain extent. Yes I did get rid of some clothes and I preserved water for a couple weeks but it just wasn't the same. What I missed so much about Uganda was how compassionate and appreciative the people were no matter how little they had. They showed amusement to the smallest things such as a balloon, and it helped me realize that life is made up of the little things. The fascination of a phone to a young kid is a wonderful innocence to observe and experience. It really took me back to when I was young. Now, this trip was almost like a social experiment to me too. What did Uganda have that we didn't? And what did we have that they don't? It may all seem very simple as the answer is technology, but when observed more in depth, it became clear that the answer lied in the human relationship between people. Even if they had low quality phones and such, people still made an effort to communicate and make face to face interaction. They didn't even have road signs, street lights, and paved roads in Uganda, yet they knew where they were going EVEN IN THE DARK! I feel as if sometimes these people aren't given enough credit, and are done no justice with those commercials of starving kids. Not everyone in "Africa" (I put it in quotation marks because Africa is not just all dark-skinned people) is a bone thin starving person. This inspired me to think of not what they need but how they could be innovative with the materials they have. After this trip, many things had came to mind. How could I help improve their living situations? When can I go back to Uganda? And where will my next destination be?
(Goal: To fill this out before it expires)
Above you see is my passport, my teacher Mrs. Byrne suggested a goal of getting my entire passport filled out before it expires. I have about 7 years left and possible 10 or so countries to visit before it is completed. I've visited only 3 countries, but I've been trying to find ways to raise money to go to Europe this summer. Anyways back to the whole point of this benchmark post. My big question before I entered Senior Year is "Does life happen by chance or by fate?" As I started realizing that it's a mix of both, kind of like a symbiotic relationship. Fate is determined by whether or not you decide to make a move in life while chance is given to those moments where there is neither action or intention to commit something. If that made sense to you, I gave you an A+. So how does this all lead to my senior project? Well let's tie the ends together.
I present to you my senior project launch draft. It tells about everything I hope to accomplish before I graduate along with my passions and hopes and dreams.
But do you honestly really want to know what I wrote about? Because if you do, I'll just link you a previous post where I've about this launch project, I could also write another post with my launch paper word from word. Here is my sorta summary to my senior project. Anyways, I've created this website with my friend Erica that focuses on human compassion and exploring.
I've created a list of things to also do before we graduate and some tabs on exploring and adventures.
I have also been wanting to create videos that show our potential of our talents of helping people and using my video skill.
We even have a little bio about ourselves and our mission.
So I guess you can call me crazy. Or out of mind. But really all I want is to help people. Using my talents, her talents, everyones talents. We all are part of the same world situation. We all can help each other. What I'm trying to accomplish is enjoying these last few months while making something out of myself and achieving my goals and others goals too. I want to make a meaningful few months, accomplish the incredible, give back, and build a portfolio and work that I can hopefully show to future employers. What I need to do now is finish what I've started, started what I've been meaning to finish and start getting this project rolling. A major part of this project comes out of the help of YOU! Yes you, my peers. I need advice, lots of it, for videos for critique for acting, for quite alot of things actually. This project cannot run without the help of others. So please, if you want to join this movement or help with my senior project that would be splendid. I promise I have some good things in store (: This will conclude my benchmark project.
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