Month: October 2020

RCL

RCL #8: Ruining Halloween

| kak6449

This week’s RCL blog post will be a brief discussion that answers the question “is Halloween a paradigm shift for a day?” To answer this question, all you really need to understand is the basic idea of paradigms and paradigm shifts. A paradigm refers to a typical example or pattern of something. It is a model of something in the world. The simple definition of a paradigm shift is a change in view of how things work in the world.

Halloween is a holiday that originated from a Celtic festival on the day called Samhain, in which people would light bonfires and wear scary costumes to ward off ghosts and spirits. The commercialization of Halloween in the United States started in the 1900s, and the holiday has become a yearly tradition. Now, people dress up in costumes (which are not necessarily scary a lot of the time) and go trick-or-treating. Trick-or-treating originated from the same Celtic Britain festival because people performed dances around a bonfire and received treats to satisfy the evil spirits.

If you think about it, I suppose the development from the Celtic festival on Samhain into the commercial holiday of Halloween could be considered a paradigm shift. This is because it involves a shift in a societal view, the shift being the transition from a ritual into a commercial holiday. However, I do not believe that Halloween is a “paradigm shift for a day”. This is due to the fact that paradigm shifts happen over a period of time and are characterized by a large change in society’s views. Halloween is just a holiday celebrated by people; it is not a change in a societal view. For one day, people dress up and go trick-or-treating and scare each other, but everything returns to normal after that one day. The same goes for other United States holidays; they do not represent paradigm shifts— they just represent temporary practices that dissipate after one day.

This year for Halloween I do not have a costume planned (I suppose I should actually figure that out). However, I do have a very classy picture from Halloween a couple years ago, when I dressed up as a goth person. Don’t judge me too hard, and don’t be scared either, because I promise you that that’s not what I normally look like.

I think it’s a good look for me honestly. Anyway, enjoy your holiday everyone, and be safe!

Passion

Lodge Grass, Montana 2

| kak6449

Hey everyone! This is the blog post that I’ve been anticipating writing the most, because it’s hands-down my favorite mission trip ever! I’m going to try not to make it overly long, but no promises [edit: upon reflection, this is a very long post. My apologies, but again, I think it’s worth the read!]. Also this is one trip for which I have quite a few pictures, so get ready for those! This trip was in 2017, so I was 15 at the time. After going to Lodge Grass the year before, I was super excited to come back. The experience of my second year proved to be even better than the first.

For the previous trip to Montana, we flew to Denver, Colorado and then had a connecting flight to Billings, Montana. However, for the second trip, we decided to fly to Denver and then drive the rest of the trip to Montana to save money. We drove from Denver to Wyoming and stayed overnight at a small church in Wyoming on the weekend. Then we drove to visit a waterfall and then made our way to Lodge Grass. Here is a picture of my team in front of the waterfall.

The names of the people in the back row from left to right are Lucy, Maria, Christina (my youth pastor), my dad, and Carrie. From left to right in the bottom row are Emma, Abby, and my brother Jeremy. And then I’m the one sitting in the awkward position on the rock towards the left. I still keep in touch with most of these people to this day!

After one of our work days, we climbed the same mountain that we did the previous year. Here are a few pictures from that.

This is me, my dad, and my brother.
This is my friend Lucy, me, and my brother.

During this trip, my team did not spend the whole week working at the kids’ club like we did the previous year. Instead, we worked 2 days at the kids’ club and 3 days doing tasks around the school in the community. Some of the tasks we did were cleaning under the bleachers in the gym, cleaning out a shed, wiping down the lockers, and painting the walls in many of the classrooms. Cleaning under the bleachers was a difficult job because we had to sweep and mop the floors and wash the walls. There were soda and drink stains all over the walls from years of basketball games in the gym, and the floors were absolutely filthy. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures from that endeavor, but here are a couple pictures from painting the walls in the classrooms.

Additionally, working at the kids’ club was a really fun experience (although it was only 2 days). Some of the activities that we did were playing basketball, doing bible lessons and reenactments, playing tag and hide and seek, and having water balloon fights. Here are some of the pictures from the kids’ club and descriptions of those pictures!

The two pictures above are me with a little girl named Keala. She hung out with me all weekend and I was very sad to leave her.
This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip. This is a little girl named Amy. She loved to hang out on my shoulders, and this picture was taken right after she took my hair out of a bun. She was impressed with how soft it was, so she took it down (unexpectedly) so she could play with it.

All of the kids loved to be picked up haha. I was known for swinging them around and making them hang upside down, so I ended up holding a lot of kids throughout the week.
One of the boys from the town decided to pull up to kids’ club on a pony. It attracted a lot of attention.
This is just a picture of me eating lunch with some of the kids, with my brother next to me looking deep in thought.

At the end of the week, we had a cookout for the people in the community. This is where we got to see all of the children and people of the community for the last time, because we left the next day. My team was in charge of serving food for most of the time during this event, but I still got to run around with the kids late into the evening. Here are a couple pictures from that event.

The first picture is one of my favorites. Also, for the second picture, take note of how happy the girl on my brother’s shoulders looks. I’m not entirely sure what I’m doing in that one, but it doesn’t matter because I found it cute how happy she looked.

Ultimately, this mission trip left a profound impact on me. I really felt like I connected with the children in the community more than I had before, and I also developed long-lasting friendships with the members of my team. The culmination of my two mission trips to Montana really affirmed my love for serving the community, and the culture and love displayed by the Crow Indian people left a huge mark on my heart. In fact, I dedicated my first tattoo to the people I met and the experiences I had when I was in Montana. I got it as soon as I turned 18!

The mountains obviously represent Montana. However, the Bible verse has a double meaning. First, the verse 1 John 4:19 reads, “We love because God first loved us”. That was the overall theme of my first mission trip to Montana, because it was the verse we focused on in our small group Bible study times. “First love” is just a summary of that verse. The second meaning to that verse is that my mission trips to Montana were the first thing I was ever truly passionate about, so I like to consider them my first love.

RCL

RCL #7: Shaping My Speaking Voice

| kak6449

This week for my RCL post, I will be talking about Richard Biever’s advice on public speaking and how it relates to my Civic Artifact Speech. Some examples of advice that he gave in the interview by Marcy Milhomme were to focus on the objective of the speech instead of focusing on yourself, to take deep breaths while you’re speaking, and to practice using inflections while speaking.

I believe that the piece of advice I can utilize the most is focusing on the objective of the speech instead of focusing on myself. When I rewatched my speech, I remembered how much I was worried about how I sounded to my audience. I remember thinking that my voice sounded weird and that I was unsure of the inflections, tone, and speed of my voice. All of this overthinking caused me to trip up on my words sometimes. As soon as my focus turned from the purpose of the speech to the way that I was speaking, that’s when I messed up. For example, from the time 2:45 to 2:53 in my speech, I evidently became distracted. I began thinking about how I sounded instead of what I intended to say, so then I forgot what I was trying to say.

Improving this aspect of my speaking would be helpful because it would allow me to put more attention into the purpose of the speech, and this would, in turn, make my audience do the same. One thing that I can work on to improve this is to pause slightly whenever I need to collect my thoughts or when I become distracted. Then, I can continue once I know what I need to say. Sometimes when I’m speaking, I make mistakes because I try to continue a thought that I’ve already lost. Instead of doing this, I should pause to think. Pausing to think briefly can also be perceived as adding emphasis to the sentiments I’m expressing.

Another thing I can practice is just rehearsing in front of people. This can help because they can listen to me talk and give me constructive criticism on the areas of the speech that I need to work on. Therefore, I will know which parts of my speeches to rehearse more thoroughly. Repeatedly practicing my speech and receiving constructive criticism will help me become more confident in the matters I’m speaking about. As a result, I will not be so self-conscious about how I sound.

Steve Jobs is one speaker whom I believe puts a lot of thought into his words instead of focusing on the way that he sounds. This is shown in his Stanford Commencement Address. Notably in his speech, he pauses frequently to collect his thoughts before he continues. He evidently is confident in the topic of his speech, and this makes his words more fluent. This is something I strive to do when I speak so that my words come out more organized.

Passion

Farmington, Maine 3

| kak6449

Aaaand we’re back after a brief break in blogging! I hope everyone’s been doing well. So let’s jump right into this one. The passion blog this week will be about my third mission trip to Farmington, Maine (I know, there’s a lot of them. I’ll try my best to prevent being repetitive). Admittedly, my mind is feeling pretty foggy right now so I’m having trouble recounting what happened on this mission trip, but I’m going to try my best. It’s been a stressful and busy week haha.

This mission trip was on the week of the Fourth of July in 2017, so I was 15 at the time. From what I recall, the work I did on this trip was among the least glamorous work that I have ever done. However, this was work for which I could 100% see the results and the impact. On this trip, I spent the week digging a ditch. I was working at the dwelling of an old lady whose basement flooded terribly every time it rained. This affected her home to the point where mold was forming everywhere in the basement and encroaching into the main floor, and this posed a significant threat to her health. Therefore, we were tasked with digging a ditch from her house to the road (probably about 75 feet), installing a pipeline to filter out water, digging a large hole at the end right near the road, and then filling that hole in with rocks.

For the most part, the digging was not too hard. We had to dig about 3 feet down and one foot wide. However, when we were about 10 feet from the road, we actually encountered a HUGE obstacle: a giant boulder that was buried about 6 inches under the surface. We weren’t able to work around it because we were working very close to the sewer lines as it was, so we had to figure out how to remove the boulder. We worked an entire day trying to get it out, and eventually, after a lot of extra digging and a lot of manpower, we got it. I actually don’t even remember how we managed to get it out, but I do remember it was something relatively creative (sorry, that’s not very helpful information, I know). That boulder ended up being close to 300 pounds.

Ultimately, we were able to finish digging the ditch, and we installed the pipelines to remove the water from the basement. The following year, we came back to check on the woman, and she told us that her basement hadn’t flooded since we fixed it. One thing I love about these trips is that we are able to reconnect with the families that we worked with in the past, since we always come back to the same place. Overall, this task was a very good bonding experience for the group as a whole because of the obstacles that we pushed through to finish it. We were all extremely happy to be able to complete that task for the woman.

RCL

RCL #6: Civic Artifact Speech Comparison

| kak6449

For this week’s RCL post I will be connecting my blogging group’s Civic Artifact Speeches to each other. A common ideology that I noticed in all of these speeches (also including my own) was the idea that women are seen in society as dependent beings subject to the ever-present gender inequality reflected in society. I’m going to summarize the speeches presented by each of my group mates and then connect their main themes to each other.

Kelsey’s artifact is the red dress costume which originated from the book and tv series The Handmaid’s Tale. Kelsey explained in her speech that women sometimes wear these costumes to Women’s Marches to illustrate the message that if women continue to struggle with maintaining rights of expression and choice on abortion, then they will end up completely oppressed and devoid of rights like the women in The Handmaid’s Tale.

Meghan’s artifact was an inclusive Barbie doll collection launched in 2017, which includes Barbies of different races, ethnicities, and body types. She argued in her speech that these new Barbie dolls helped to spread positivity for all types of people who were not necessarily represented by the previous Barbies. Previously, Barbies only represented one type of woman: one with blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin, and a thin figure. The old model of Barbies emphasized an idea that the “ideal” woman was white and skinny, and this created dissatisfaction in young girls who did not fit that description. The old Barbies represented society’s emphasis on what the correct type of woman is, and the launch of the more inclusive Barbie represents a step away from that harmful ideology.

Haylee’s artifact was a poem that the pop singer Halsey presented at the Women’s March in 2018. Haylee explained that Halsey’s poem highlighted the difficult experiences of women when it comes to sexual assault. In the poem, Halsey emphasized that sexual assault happens to many women, no matter their status in society, and that the mere reality of this proves the existence of gender inequality in society.

Kelsey’s speech portrayed the theme that women deserve rights of expression and bodily choice. Meghan’s speech displayed the idea that women should not be limited by society’s views of standard beauty. Haylee’s speech conveyed the fact that women should not be forced into submission by men as a result of power imbalances related to gender. Evidently, all of these speeches are centered around ideas of feminism. They emphasize the rights that women should have by displaying artifacts which represent women’s oppression and lack of freedom.

Passion

Lodge Grass, Montana 1

| kak6449

Hey guys! This week I’m going to be talking about my first mission trip to Lodge Grass, Montana (out of 2). This took place at the end of July in 2016, so I was 14 at the time. This is a very interesting one because Lodge Grass is a town that’s part of the Native American Crow Reservation. While I was in Montana, I got to encounter Native American culture, which, as you may imagine, is much different from American culture. This made the experience even more enriching and impactful than the other mission trips I had been on. This post is going to include more details than normal, so just a fair warning, it may be quite long compared to the others (I encourage you to read it all though because this is one of the trips I am most passionate about. I think it’s worth the read).

First, I would like to talk about the general conditions I encountered at the reservation. Overall, Native American reservations are often extremely poor. None of the dwellings that I saw in that town were in very good shape at all. I often saw dirty children roaming the streets in groups, and I rarely saw any adults who could be considered supervisors. I stayed in the town’s school, which encompassed grades K through 12. The school was extremely run-down. Windows were broken, paint was chipped, desks and chairs were falling apart, and electricity was sketchy in each of the rooms.

Next, I will talk a little bit about the culture at the reservation. One really amazing thing that the Chief (Chief Whales) did for my work team is that, after one of our work days, he and a few Elders gave us a little presentation of a purifying ritual that they do using a sweat lodge. I am going to attempt to explain this ritual a little bit, but I may not do it justice. They explained that in this sweat lodge (which is a tent with multiple layers of blankets and cloth which keep heat in), they spend hours meditating. They generate the heat in there by pouring water on heated rocks. The Elders strip their clothes, close the tent, and spend upwards of 4 or 5 hours praying, singing, and meditating. This ceremonial sweat bath is meant to cleanse them of toxins and negative energy and stimulate vision and insight. After Chief Whales explained this ritual, we got a chance to go into the sweat lodge briefly.

Then, Chief Whales and an Elder named Adrian (who was a very sweet old man who did janitorial work at the school) did a presentation on spear throwing. This is a very specific and effective Native American tactic for hunting bison. They aim to hit a specific soft area of the throat at a very specific angle so that the spear shoots straight through the bison. This allows them to be able to reuse the spear. They emphasized the fact that they use every single part of the bison and reuse the spear, because they are not wasteful people. We then had the opportunity to try throwing these spears. The following picture is of some of my team with Adrian (in the middle).

Another activity that we did after one of our work days was that we hiked up a small mountain to see the sunset over the water. Here is a picture of my team from the top of the mountain! I am all the way to the left. My old youth pastor Christina (whom I mentioned in my last post) is next to me. Then it’s my twin brother Jeremy, my dad, and my friends Emma and Abby.

You can find another picture from this trip on my blog home page. It’s the picture in the little circle that’s over the description of my blog.

Finally, I will now describe the work that I did in Lodge Grass throughout the week. My team spent all 5 days working at the kids’ club on the reservation. At the kids’ club, we spent the week doing Bible lessons, playing tag, giving piggy back rides, and playing basketball. Basketball was a HUGE sport on the reservation. All the kids played it in their free time, and it was very competitive. Needless to say, I got my butt kicked many times when I played. The children we encountered here were much different from children from the other mission trips. For instance, they were far more independent at younger ages. Many of these children did not have strong parental figures, or they had parental figures who were consumed by alcoholism. I met one 12 year old girl named Malia who took full care of her younger sister Ariya and her cousin. Since the Crow children did not have strong parental figures to rely on, they quickly attached themselves to us. We developed close relationships with these children. Here is a picture of me with Malia (above) and Ariya (on my lap) when we reconnected the following year when I came back to the reservation for my second trip.

This mission trip was among the most impactful that I have been on. It currently holds as my second favorite mission trip, next to my other mission trip to Montana (which I will talk about in 3 weeks). The culture was the thing that impacted me most about the trip. It was also striking to learn of the conditions everyone on the reservation lived in, especially the children. I have a strong desire to go back to the reservation at some point in my life, because the Crow people left a strong imprint in my heart.