Fireside Chat Reflection - Limitless

At the beginning of this semester, Benjamin talked about the fact that one of these assignments would inevitably be out of our comfort zone at some point. This was that assignment for me. I do not particularly enjoy speaking in front of other people, and where this was our final exam, I felt like there was extra emphasis on this assignment. This made me even more nervous to speak. I was very influenced in class when we talked about the things that we believe. I decided to speak on a topic that was very near to my heart, and my beliefs, but was something that I had never spoken about with a large group of people. There were many topics that I could have spoken about, but I felt impressed that I should speak on the topic that I chose. I kept wanting to talk about other things, but this was the topic that I felt most passionate about at this time. With the decision to speak about the topic which I chose came a lot of stress and doubt, and also a lot of worry to make sure that I was talking about exactly the things that I believe. I wanted to make sure that this topic, which is very near to my heart, was represented fairly, and was represented accurately to my experience. Over the past several years, I have been very inspired by various TED talks and speeches where people discuss hard things that they have experienced in a hopeful manner. Although I have never heard her speak, I have been inspired by Elizabeth Smart, and her willingness to discuss the hard things that she has been through with the public. This semester, and the past several years of working on art have all been leading up to me discussing this topic, and being fair about the topic that I chose. For several years, I have promised myself that I would discuss this topic in public, and this was the first time that I was able to do it. For this reason, this project was extremely important to me, and was one of the most important to me of the semester. At the time, I did not explicitly express what I believe in from this presentation. I came into this project wanting to tell my story, and I wanted to let people gain their own insights from my story without me telling people what to think. I simply wanted to present a part of my story, which has never been presented in public before. However, I also wanted to present that each of us has problems and trials that we may perceive limitations from. But if we have compassion on our limits, and acknowledge them, we can still be limited in how we achieve things, but we will never be limited in what we achieve. That is what I truly believe.

Concerned Citizen Documentary: Annette Morrell

This has been one of my favorite projects thus far. In this program, I want to focus on making documentaries, so any chance to make a documentary is always good with me. After several other plans fell through, Hannah and I decided to film my aunt who lives in rural Idaho when I went up for a little vacation this weekend. For this project, I was very much inspired by some of the videos that we watched for class, but most especially the "stoop sitters" video. This video was integral in the creation of this project for me, as I wanted to create something that was both visually engaging, as well as interesting to view. This video also influenced me to choose a topic that was really quite narrow. The person that we chose to interview is not travelling the world, giving polio vaccines to malnourished children. Instead, she is teaching rural high school students the art of good cooking, and is encouraging rural children to eat healthy, and to eat with their families. I thought that this topic was too small until we viewed the “stoop sitters” video. After viewing this piece, I realized that all efforts to make our communities a better place should be lauded, no matter how small those efforts might seem in the grand scheme of the world. While filming this video, I really wanted to portray that these efforts to increase the quality of life of rural high school students is not a small thing at all, really, and that this is a truly noble effort. I also wanted to portray the fact that this goal is her life right now, and that she lives in the same way that she is encouraging her students to live. She plants a garden every year that provides produce for both her students and her family, and she is always working to live simply, naturally, and in a wholesome way. The things that she is teaching her students are things that she really believes in, and are things that she lives, and I think that that is a noble thing. From outside media, I was influenced by a video that we watched for class about a month ago. This short video portrayed a man that was committed to wholesome living, and who made intense efforts everyday to live in a natural way. This was quite influential to me, as I thought about wholesome living as a concept, and how hard that must be to accomplish. This was instrumental in the realization that wholesome living is noble, and the desire to spread wholesome living to other people, particularly young people, is significant, and important, and should be celebrated.

Concerned Citizen Documentary: Annette Morrell