The Story so Far. Aka Rambling about this ridiculously massive assignment our Troll-like (i use that adjective affectionately) English teacher gave us

The story so far... Where we have arrived right now is a momentarily very accomplished place. Our meetings with resident have been awesome. We've definitely reached some major checkpoints with regards to our event planning although I anticipate that we will shortly run into some problems just because we are teenagers and, well, foresight - what's that?  For Isabel and I, at least, our group dynamic is working just fine and hopefully Mikayla doesn't mind that we're pretty much taking all the work for ourselves. Adding Julia definitely changes things up a little bit. She will be invaluable with us using the BAC seeing as she has worked there the past few months but adding another person to a group that may already be to large will force us to adjust a bit. I think that our interactions with you, Hilt, have improved. In the beginning of the project just a little bit more guidance would have been nice and that was a tad frustrating but lately you've actually been really helpful. How surprising is that?

I've just realized that we should probably be blogging after each of our meetings at the nursing home. But we have been recording our entire interviews with them so that we don't forget anything and we're hoping to be able to incorporate some of what we've learned from them into our event. So far we've met with two ladies. Marcia spent her entire childhood traveling around and spent her teen years in Austria. She was actually on the first ship over to Europe after the war. Later back in Colorado Springs she and her husband started this program called S.H.A.P.E U.P (Showing How A Prison Experience Undermines People) which is literally the best acronym ever. And she has a brass belt buckle with that and her name on it. So pretty much a badass. (Oops. Am I to supposed to say that on a school blog?). Anyways their program operated for around 20 years with just the two of them running it. Almost every week of the year they would take around 10 kids that had gotten into trouble and would probably end up in jail if they stayed on the track they were on and they took them down to the prisons to talk with inmates that Marcia and her husband had selected. She said that it had a positive impact on the inmates and in all their records every teenager that went through that program never once ended up in jail. That's A LOT of kids that they helped set straight. And before that she taught first grade for 12 years and always requested underprivileged school because she loved to see the kids eyes light up when they realized someone cared and they started to understand things. The other lady Isabel and I met was Kathryn. I literally felt like I was in a movie. We drank ginger ale, ate popcorn and talked to possibly the hippest 90 year old ever. She's going to help us find more people to talk to. So that part of the project is going absolutely perfectly.

We asked both of them for a piece of advice and interestingly enough they both emphasized how important it is to carefully choose your friends and that traveling as much as you can and keeping an open mind are really the most important things.

I'm a little bit nervous about our event and getting our posters printed and put up, getting food donated, advertising, getting poets lined up etc etc. O.o

Now I'm just rambling. This isn't even reflecting anymore... So yeah....