Bliss - Live it, Give It - #6

Adopted Dreamer

            I have chosen a member of the Girl Scout troop and with her I will help her to become, more confident in a group. I would also like to help her be able to express herself through something she enjoys, such as drawing.

            I am going to work on having her talk in a group, so she will build confidence. As well as have her lead a few projects, so she will build confidence in herself. Because if you don’t believe in yourself, it’s hard for others to believe in you.

            Having her draw out things that she has a passion for is another thing I want to work with her on. Have her draw things that make her happy, sad, and scared. Maybe even have her draw out a wish or a dream. Have her draw were she sees herself amongst the troop in a year, then, I can work with her to get there.

Bliss - Live it!, Give it! - Take Action

To take action with this journey - was 2 part:
1.  I worked with my adopted dreamer to help her find ways to express herself and to create her own works of art.

2.  I shared my dreams and my Girl Scout experiences with various Girl Scout troops and groups of girls.  I talked with a group of girls who were my age who were not sure they should stay in Girl Scouting - we talked about dreams and interests they had - I shared how Girl Scouts could help them do those things.  I also talked with a group of Junior Girl Scouts who attended a council event -- I talked about travel and my dream of traveling.  Through Girl Scout Destinations I am able to travel.   This summer I will be traveling to Iceland for 10 days.  And a second trip to Ireland.

Bliss - Live it, Give it - #10 - Celebrate

            When I finished the last edit of the novel, I felt great! I had finally finished a book, from beginning to end, with a plot and characters and everything. I had always created scenes, but never had I created a 12 chapter novel.

            And now that it is finished I have two places of which I will post it so that other people around the world can read it. Wattpad.com and TeenInk.com, both of these websites I have posted poetry, but now I have a story to post and I’m excited. And what will be really rewarding is getting to see what people say about it, and if they vote for it, and rate it.

            I also plan on sending it to a few friends, to see if they can give me feedback on the story, see if there are things I can add, take out or change. Because a story can never be perfect, there will always be things that can change.

            What this journey has taught me is that, if you work hard enough on a dream, it can happen, but a star won’t get you there, you do.

Bliss - Live It, Give It - #9 - Moving Dreams Forward

            My dream was to finish a book and I did, but I didn’t just, sit down and write it. I did everything from the brainstorm to the outline, the rough draft and the editing. And the thing that helped me find the way to the last page of my novel was the Map.

            The Map was a book that had questions everywhere from, who’s your hero? to what is his/her positive ideal? These questions helped me to create a plot, create the characters and to create the emotion. The Map had me answer questions and write scene that would go into my book, but with exceptions like “only use an adjective every 100 words” or “do not use and adverbs”.

            It had everything, and it taught me and showed me the way to the very last word of my book. 

Bliss - Live It, Give It -- 7 & 8 -- Adopted Dreamer

             I chose my Girl Scout and she agreed that I could help her. The first two weeks I worked with her on expressing herself through other forms of art, which she enjoyed. She took photos and learned about composition and how a picture can tell a thousand words. She practiced taking pictures of the other Girl Scouts while they were doing a project, trying to capture what they were doing in a single picture.

            She also told me that she enjoyed drawing. We worked on lines, shading and other drawing techniques. She tried 3D dimension drawing, as well as still life. But her favorite was anime and cartoons. I had her draw what she was good at in anime as well as what she wished she could invent. Both were on drawing.

            She then took what she knew on how to express herself through art, and went and began to express herself through writing, on her own.

Bliss - Live it, Give it -- #3

Magazine Survey

Does the media effect how a girl thinks of herself? In my opinion, yes, for some. When you look through a magazine, you see pictures of girls and women portray what they think is “perfect” or the “ideal image”. It raises the standards for girls on how they think they should look like, or even how they should act. And with that, it also changes their interests and their dreams. What they want to be when they get older or just their goals for the year or even semester. The media has a big impact on what girls and women think of themselves.

When I create characters for books I create what I think is an ideal person. Someone with values I think are important, such as, leadership, friendship and passion. And lots of times I look at my characters that were supposed to be after real people, say… me, and I have transformed them into what I want them to be, not what they are.

And that happens with people, not characters; they try to change themselves for what they think are the better. Just because of what they read or what they see. I have conducted a survey of one of my favorite magazines Justine! and I have learned much about this magazine through this survey versus just reading it. I would strongly suggest doing this same survey for a magazine that you read.

 

 

            Magazine: Justine Magazine

            Month and Year: April/May 2013

            Count the number of ad pages

            11 Ads for beauty and makeup products and services, including perfume

            29 Ads for fashion and accessories, including jewelry, handbags, shoes

            6 Ads for other products and services

            Count the number of pages with editorial content

            18 Editorial or non-ad pages

            Survey the subjects or topics addressed in the editorial content, aside from beauty and fashion

            0 Arts and culture  1 Charity work, philanthropy  1 Travel

            0 Architecture, home décor  0 Dating and relations  0 World affairs

            3 Celebrity news, gossip  2 Health and fitness   16 Other

            2 Careers, business  0 Money management

Count the number of:

0 Women in photos who look like you

2 Women in photos doing something active like kayaking, biking, tennis

1 Women in photos who are or seem to be working

4 Women whom you would describe as looking “perfect”

5 Articles about women that you are interested in reading

1Ads that seem to reflect your values and standards in some way

2 Articles that seem to reflect your values and standards in some way        

Bliss - Live It, Give It #5 - Fashion some passion

            I have a passion for writing poetry and stories, and I never let that passion show until I read a poem to the public at Austin City Hall.   It was in front of Austin City Council on honor of the 100th Anniversary - on the day they read a city proclamation.

http://100actsofgreen.moonfruit.com/#/blog/4560533971/The-Year-of-the-Girl/1866396

           I had shared my writing on the internet on various websites, but never to a group of people. Not because I didn’t think my writing was good, but because I thought that maybe other people would think that my writing was bad.

            But in reading the Bliss live it! the girls guide and leaders guide, I have learned to cast aside these people or “passion busters” when it comes to my passion.

            A passion buster is someone you don’t be yourself around, someone who makes you less confident in your abilities and someone who doesn’t take your dreams and passions seriously. I have known these kinds of people, but I have learned to change, not only how I act around them, but have changed how they act around me.

            The best way to stop a passion buster is to, be true to yourself and to your dreams and passions. Which means to always act like yourself, and if they say something that makes you feel like your not taken seriously, be up front about it, and ask that you are taken seriously. And follow that up with demonstrating that you yourself take your dreams and passions seriously and that you don’t feel embarrassed or apologetic about following them. Because it doesn’t matter if other people don’t like your passion, it only matters that you do.

Keep Texas Beautiful - Youth Award

Thank you Discover Green Board member - Dianne Chase for nominating me. 

And for April Rose, Tree Folks - Executive Director and Kate Lipinski with Girl Scouts of Central Texas for supporting me.

http://www.ktb.org/programs/awards/youth-and-educator-awards.aspx

My Silver Award - Daisy Day's

This is the link to the Daisy Day Guide I created for 2 different Daisy Journeys
 -- It's on the top page of my "bio" page

http://www.discovergreenyel.org/#/all-about-sarah/4554218166

My Gold Award - You Tube

Apache Foundation -- Also created this video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kA5STFOKp4&list=UUUYagpwQ5b7ASLVr0GzKohA&index=1


And we had TV coverage as well --
http://www.keyetv.com/news/features/morning/stories/pflugerville-teen-helps-make-city-greener-258.shtml

My Gold Award - Thank you Apache

Girl Scout works hard to GO GREEN in Central Texas

Explore Newsletter: March 2013
4/22/2013

Apache donates trees to help revitalize community hit hard by drought.

Fourteen-year-old Sarah Young is the type of girl who likes to see the results of her hard work. With the help of the Apache Foundation Tree Grant Program, the results have been plentiful.
“(I am) making a difference right here, right now, by planting a tree. I can come back two years later and say, ‘I planted that tree, and it’s still alive, and it’s growing, and it’s making a difference within the environment,’” Young says.

Sarah Young helps 73-year-old retired minister and Pflugerville resident Alvin Meissner plant a tree she provided through her Girl Scout Neighborwoods project.

Through her Girl Scout project called “Neighborwoods,” Young is distributing trees in neighborhoods in Pflugerville that need greenery the most. Her arborous efforts recently got a big boost from Apache, which provided 550 trees to help her canopy the Central Texas town northeast of Austin.
“Without the support of the Apache Foundation and the tree grant, I could not have completed my Girl Scout Gold Award project,” Young says. “The 550 street trees will have a lasting effect on our community.”
The Girl Scout Gold Award represents the highest achievement in Girl Scouting.
In all, about 14,000 trees have been planted through Discover Green, a neighborhood tree program started in 2008 by Sarah’s brother. Since taking over the program’s reins two years ago, Young has distributed some 6,500 trees.
Young is welcome to apply for more trees from Apache in the upcoming 2013-2014 planting season, says Wendy Craven, director of the Tree Grant Program.
“What’s happening in Pflugerville is a prime example of how we want to see the tree program work,” Craven said. “Efforts to revitalize the environment with trees are being led successfully by members of the community – in this case by a remarkable young woman – and the citizens and local government officials are fully supportive and enthusiastic. This is quite a success story for Apache and we’re honored to partner with Sarah and Pflugerville.”
Planting trees in Texas has never been more vital, as the ongoing drought and rapid urban growth have taken their toll, says April Rose, executive director of TreeFolks, a Central Texas charity that promotes comprehensive urban forestry practices to public, private and government audiences.
“We’ve got to educate people that we need their help to establish new trees,” Rose says.
Part of that education is recognizing which trees to plant and where. All trees from Apache are native to the areas where they are donated to ensure their prosperity. For her Central Texas efforts, Sarah received Burlive Oak, Texas Ash, Lacebark Elm, Desert Willow, Prairie Flameleaf Sumac and Cedar Elm trees from the company. She says she evaluates each yard to make sure the trees can grow properly.
Sarah vows to continue her efforts to make Pflugerville as green as possible and expand her determination to other cities. She says she will reapply for another Apache tree grant next season.
“I would like to create more cities that are green,” she says.
"What's happening in Pflugerville is a prime example of how we want to see the tree program work," says Wendy Craven, Tree Grant Program director.
Since 2005, Apache has awarded 3.2 million trees to nonprofit institutions and communities across 16 U.S. states through grants from the Apache Foundation. The trees will improve the environment and the quality of life in these communities for decades to come.


http://www.apachecorp.com/News/Articles/View_Article.aspx?Article.ItemID=3250

Bliss - Live It, Give It #4 - Dream Catcher

Writing a good story...
Finding a way to get there ...

A friend and I both had a love for creating stories and new worlds to escape to. We created, together, short stories about time traveling to the past or appearing in a whole other universe. But these were just short stories. What we both wanted was to create a full length adventure/fantasy, together.

            It started out as a map that I drew and a plot that she made. We both gave each other ideas on characters. But we couldn’t create ones that were real enough. So, we molded them after us. Sora and Danica, she was Danica and I was Sora. We put ourselves into the story, so we, as a character, could escape to the world that the ancient winds would blow us to.

            We wrote scene after scene together, it was what we did. It was never finished, but I still have it. It was a dream then and for me it is still a dream, to write a story from beginning to end, with a friend.

My way to get there was with a homeschooling curriculum "One Year Adventure Novel".  I accelerated the curriculum to write it in half a year.