Easley 1

I was nervous to think about jumping into the after school program without knowing much about it. But the experience I had in just one visit was amazing! The kids were done with their home work when I got there, so I played basketball with some 8-9 year old girls. After 5 minutes of shooting, two of the girls grabbed my hands and said "Can we play with your hair?" They marveled over the color and texture of my hair while playing "salon." A bunch of kids came up to them while they were "fixing" my hair and asked if they could feel it. It was adorable! I was the only white person in the vicinity for the whole hour, so it was a little bit intimidating to me at first (although I'm not sure why). The girls then played "school" and they were my "teachers." While we played, they gave me "spelling tests" and "reading assignments". I was able to help them with their spelling and math while we played. They loved my name, asked me if I knew the other girls in the class who had already visited, asked if we could be friends, wondered when I would come back, and just stared at me for long periods of time. These kids want companionship and crave learning and discipline as much as attention. I can't wait to go back!

Cultural Artifacts

I have a few artifacts that represent Chadasha. I attained these through personal communication with leaders of the group as well as through social media:

Commitment Form 2011-2012
Emails from the communication chair
Facebook page
Belmont's Student Voice Chadasha page

Humanities Symposium

I attended the convocation about the homeless newspaper. I learned a lot about the discourses of homelessness. The lady that started the newspaper spoke. She is a photo journalist with a vision! Hearing her speak with passion about the less fortunate was inspiring. It made me want to pursue people that I don't know much about and who I might be afraid to approach. Homeless people are still people; this is something that so many of us forget.

The Weight Room from the Outside View

I frequently visit the weight room for my own personal use, but I decided to observe the weight room from the outside perspective (literally). So, I sat in a chair looking into the weight room through the clear emergency exit door that connects the fitness area to the top of the Beaman.

I noticed a pattern by watching people go in and out of the weight room: the water fountain is a very popular thing (imagine that). This intrigued me, though, because I never realized how much people actually use water fountains until I sat watching it for 15 minutes. The funny thing is that I only saw one girl use it, and the rest of the constant flow of water fountain users were male. Then I noticed that every girl I saw walking out of the room had a water bottle in hand (aha!).

Also, I noticed that the weight room is not a social place. Lots of people go there, but very few converse with other people. I thought it was because everyone wears antisocial gear known as ipods ; I only saw one student with an ipod, and there was still no interaction between students.

Field Working Project Proposal

I am interested in conducting a field study on the discourse of missionaries and mission work...

why do we do mission work?
what is mission work exactly?
who can do it?
who is doing it right now?
how do missionaries accomplish their/God's goals?
when is it a good to time to start doing mission work/ministry?
what denominations/religions encourage it as an important ministry?
what types of mission work are there?
what are some statistics on what countries have the most missionaries or the greatest need?
how can one be involved without being the actual missionary?
what kind of organizations are mission oriented? how have they made an impact? do they have plans?
how can music be implemented within this discourse?