Oh My Goodness! SYNTHESIS!

Thursday, February 26, 2009


Childhood

Photojojo has given me the excellent [and probably totally obvious] creative idea that connects words with pictures! Ahaha!
I previously was going to do a story based on a picture [which sounds cool, but is actually pretty high maintenance for someone like me who has a lot of story ideas bubbling around even without external stimuli] but the newsletter for this week presented the opposite effect: The Picture Dictionary.
You choose a word (an abstract one, generally) and then take a photograph which represents it. And, as it happens, I have a copy of Word Nerd [and a ton of writing prompt books that also involve word-y things] that would be perfect for this assignment! Brilliant!

Perhaps you are wondering why I am writing at 9am on a Thursday [or maybe when I read over this, it will make perfect sense, who knows?]. Well, we had an unexpected snow day come down on us last night, so school was canceled - which is both good and bad. Good because I need the rest and recuperation; bad because we have one less rehearsal. Oh well, it comes.

Today, aside from the excitement of a free day, I wanted to give out my impressions of viewing the Darius Goes West movie for the second time with the cast actually there. First of all, it's still an awesome documentary! I was really impressed by how many people it attracts time and time again. The Sammamish theater was packed top to bottom, and they said that it was the same at the 1pm showing as well. Though I had already seen the film, it reminded me about all the different issues facing this world and how we can actually help out; no matter who you are, there is a way to help. For Darius, it is getting to the 1 Million DVD goal, which would help people learn about Duchenne muscular dystrophy and aid in finding the cure (which is much closer to happening than people think - I know that whenever I think about curing a disease, I believe it's way off in the future, but no!).
Anyway, the best part of the night was not [at least for me] just the film itself. It was the fact that the filmmakers were there to talk to and question and say "goslabi" with. As a stupid side note, I love Southern accents (oh, Georgia boys...) and these guys were always cracking jokes ("cause you know, he's always hanging out at the gas station" - haha) and making the entire audience laugh. It makes sense because the point of the movie was actually not to be a downer, as many documentaries seem to be, but to raise awareness for a bevy of different issues [accessibility for disabled people, Duchenne, the freedom/lack thereof for someone in a wheelchair...].
All throughout, I kept thinking that this would only happen in America. Since we were talking about it in bio, oddly, I also thought about cystic fibrosis and other diseases that need a lot of care and attention. And, well, it made me really grateful. Grateful because Life is a precious gift, and sometimes I can't even believe that so many people exist on this world without having to go through some hardship like that. But, in the end, it's only a hardship if you treat it like one (similar to awkwardness) - if you try your hardest to be as great as you are, there should be nothing in your way. And that's their mission, and a mission I can totally agree with.
Aside from all the serious stuff, there was a "goslabi" eating contest to raise money [through pain!] and they made a lot of cash just from doing that. Aidan was running around all over the place, and Mindy Leffler gave a great talk about the current research (which really made me hopeful that this might be cured or the quality of life improved very very shortly). Overall, it was just a great night and I hope that their message will continue to reverberate until this disease is cured, these places accessible, and these dreams realized.

Unfortunately, I had no camera/got completely nervous after the movie let out so I did not nab a picture with any of the guys. Darn it! So, instead, my picture today is of the word:

Childhood - (noun)
1. The state or period of being a child.
2. The early stage in the existence of something.

This was not drawn from
Word Nerd, but I just thought it fitting [perhaps because Duchenne affects children or perhaps because my dad made pancakes before leaving this morning; either way, it's quite representative today]

Check out some more posts featuring my photography.