Slow fade, and...... perfect!

So last night, I had an opportunity that was pretty great. The F.O.R. Club at the high school, put on a movie night at the stadium. Everyone sat on the field and they played the movie on the jumbotron. Savannah Peters told me that the F.O.R. sponsor was really nervous because she had NO idea how to work the equipment up in the PA box and that it was the same equipment that we use on the announcements. And she asked if I would be interested in coming to help. (They were watching Radio.) I would be working the sound board. So I got there at 6:15 and I went up to the PA box and ran the sound board. Which is was kind of nerve racking because I was the person with experience with this kind of thing. That was kind of a weird thought.
But so they wanted some music while they played some games at the beginning. So I plugged my ipod in and turned up. Then I had to make some announcements over the loud speaker. So I turned down the music, up the mic, and did that. Then they started the movie. So I turned down the mic, and up the movie. We had a walkie talkie and so did the principle. He was down on the field to tell us if we needed to adjust volume. So I was adjusting volume for a while and then we just sat there and watched Radio!
Then at the end, I thanked everyone for coming and asked everyone to take their trash and then turned my i pod on again.
It was really fun! I had never done that before, but it wasn't hard! We do harder stuff on the announcements. :)
Anyway, it was fun. :)

Contestant # 1 is.........

That's right. I had another "cameraperson" extravaganza! So this time I went to be one of the camera people for Mr. Ba. Mr.Ba is a beauty pageant for boys. Let's just say that it was hilarious! If you remember, for the talent show, all 3 camera's were up in the balcony. But this time, Baileigh and I were on the floor in the back corners. And Jake was still up in the middle balcony.

Baileigh, Jake and I 

It was pretty much just like the talent show, and everything was pretty easy. Except a couple. There was this guy right? Well, he was doing some sort of booty shakin. And Terry said "Alright Rachel, I want you to zoom in as much as you can..." When he says that you start zooming in and then position so it goes faster.  "... and I want you to follow his bum." And I was like " uh........ okay." So i did. It was WEIRD! Then another time, there was a tap dancer, and Terry said "Alright Rachel, let's see how good you are." And I was like "oh gosh." and he goes "I want you to zoom in as much as you can on his feet and follow his feet." I was so scared! But I did it and uh...... it wasn't that bad. :) I followed his pretty well. :) 

So, you always hear people working an event like this say "Since it's live, we don't know what will happen." But I never really thought about all the different meanings of that for different people working. Until, now. They were in the talent portion of the night. And I thought, this won't be bad. It is just like the talent show! And it was. Until.......... so there was this guy named Andy. And he was singing. And with Andy, you never really know what to expect. So it was fine. We were following him pretty well. But then, he runs down the stairs and into the audience and was running around in the audience! And right when he did that, all three of us and Terry were on our head sets like "WHAT THE HECK IS HE DOING!?!?!" So we had to do our best to follow a silhouette. They didn't bring the lights up at all so he really was a silhouette. And every once and a while, he would go somewhere and it was so dark that we couldn't find him. THAT was ridiculous. It was funny afterwards though. :)

So, yeah, that was pretty much a lot of fun. :) 

Lights! Camera! Action!

So a couple weeks ago, the Broken Arrow High School had our talent show. And because of my broadcasting class, I got to go and be one of the camera people!

  

I was really excited. 

So there were three of us. Baileigh, Jake and I. I am on the right side, Baileigh is in the middle, and Jake is in the far back corner. We are all on the balcony. Our teacher (Terry) that was in charge actually recording the thing was down stairs in a back room. So he talked to us through our very fun and professional looking head sets. (I am wearing mine in the picture.) He was on what is called a Tri-Caster.

 It is a computer screen about the size of an i Mac screen, with a keyboard that is longer than the screen and is made up of tons of little buttons with abbreviations and letters and numbers on them. And certain buttons light up a certain color when pushed, and each color means something. Terry told which person which shot to get when. 

He would say, "Rachel, be prepared to give me a full body." So then I would zoom in as far as possible, focus, and zoom out to full body. "Got it" I reply. Then Terry says "Rachel, I'm coming to you in 3, 2, 1, you're live." We weren't really live, but our camera was the only camera that he was recording. Then he would adjust who gets what shot and what camera he was recording depending on what the person on stage was doing.  

At first it was REALLY nerve racking when I was live. But after a couple acts, when he told me that I was live and I was like "oh cool." It was still fun, but not as scary. The talent show was like 3 hours and we barely sat down the whole time. 

Can I just say that if you are going to be in a talent show that is being recorded......... DON'T DANCE! It was so annoying when we had dancers, because we had NO idea where they were going to go and we had to follow them and keep them in the middle of our shot. It was kind of hard sometimes. But we REALLY loved people that played the guitar and sang because they were sitting down with a mic on them and their guitar, so we knew that they COULDN'T move. :) So then who ever was live would just get their shot then be able to sit down for a minute. But not very long at all, cause we had to be ready to do a slow zoom out at the end. 

Some people that didn't go would ask me who performed. And you know what I would tell them....... I honestly, have no idea. I was focused to much on where they were going and where they were in my shot and what Terry was saying, to even pay attention to who it was. There were sometimes that we could pay attention. Sometimes with singers, we would all turn on the talk buttons on our head sets and critic the singers. Like we would comment if they were flat, or didn't quite hit a note or whatever. That was fun. :) 

So then afterward, we had to stay and clean up. Which was a very time consuming process. We had to untangle like 15 cords, and we were all in charge of tearing down our own camera and head set. It took a while. But it was so fun! It was kinda annoying though cause high schoolers would come up there sometimes and they would like run around. Which shook the camera. So that was annoying, cause it messed up my shot. :) But it was great!   

Goin the the TEMPLE and we're gonna get married....

MICHAEL AND BROOKE GOT MARRIED!! Okay, that still sounds kinda weird. 1. Because of Brooke and Brooke.......

and 2. because it is always weird to say that your sibling got married! But it's true! (For the record, Kelli, Alison and I TOTALLY called it. :P) So Saturday August 18, 2012 was a WONDERFUL day. I have never seen my brother so happy! Because..........

I really want to put this song on my wedding play list but some how change it from "chapel" to "temple" :) Anyway, It was a beautiful day and we had GREAT weather! So, I am really excited that Brooke number 2 is in our family now. Cause she totally fits in!!

Can you guess what their colors were. :) Anyway, I have no idea how to describe to great that day was. Anything I can say, I know they would think is an understatement. So, how about some pictures. :) These were some of my favorites.

I see how happy they are, how happy my parents are, how happy all of my married siblings are, and all I want is to be that happy! I WANNA GET MARRIED!! I can't wait for that day. :) Anyway, just by looking at these pictures, you should be able to see what a great day it was. :)

The Wonderful Blessings of Camp

I had a crazy experience at camp this year. So I was a Youth Camp Leader (YCL) this year and the YCL's and the actual leaders get to camp on Monday to get ready for the rest of the girls on Tuesday. On Wednesday, each level goes on their level hike. So the YCL's and the leaders go on their hike on Monday to make sure that they can lead the girls on the hike. 

So I went on the hike with my leaders and fellow YCL's on Monday. (I was a YCL over 2nd years. And the 2nd years have the longest hike- 3 miles) We left around lunch time and we were all supposed to be back by 8:15 at the latest. (Since it was so long-we knew that we would be the last level back) One of our leaders had the really, really, REALLY bad map and was leading us. She knew where were where, but when we came out onto the man road we weren't where she thought that we would be. So at 9:30, we decided that we should call someone. But both our walkie-talkie's were not working. So we had to use our leaders phone. She called the stake camp leader and tried to explain where we were. (It was dark by this time) So we just stayed where we were so that they could find us. They sent us 2 trucks and they finally found us. On our hike we saw tarantulas, baby frogs, a turtle, and an armadillo. (Every night at camp, the YCL's had YCL devotional in the lodge from 10:30-11:00. Then we could finish going about our business. And it was VERY important to our YCL leader that we have that time all together as YCL's.) When we got back to camp, at about 9:45, we went into the lodge to find out what we were supposed to be doing. Our YCL leader, Sister Long, reemphasized to us how important it was to her that we have that YCL time all together. She told us that they waited for us for 45 minutes. Finally, "one of our YCL sisters asked if they could say a prayer for us." That we would be safe while the truck people came to find us. And then they had to carry on with the night. Since they prayed, they knew that it would be okay to continue. So they had YCL devotional and were going about their business when we got back. Then Sister Long proceeded to talk about how, while at camp, we need to look for moments of pure joy and happiness in our lives. She then asked us to share a moment when we felt pure happiness that day. People gave some answers, and then I thought "Why not learn something from what we just went through?"So I raised my hand and said, "I think that for us, at least for me, the happiest moment of today, was when we were standing in that road and saw the headlights of the trucks coming to get us."And then she went on to talk. 

I have never sweat so much, or soaked one shirt more fully. It was really gross. From then on, throughout camp, we were known as "The Girls That Got Lost". :) 

It was a WONDERFUL experience. As tiring as it was, it was such an amazing experience. And I had the blessing to be able to go through it with some of my VERY good girlfriends. :) Man, I love camp! :P

it's yall i love

I can't even express my gratitude to my Heavenly Father for my wonderful family and friends. When I think about yall and what my life would be like WITHOUT yall?!?!? It makes me want to cry. Thank you so much for all yall do for me. I can't express how grateful I am. I love yall so much.

p.s. thank you is the biggest understatement I have ever heard in my life. 

Rachel's Challenge

Rachel Joy Scott and the picture for Rachel's Challenge

          On September 29, 2011 Craig Scott came to South to talk about Rachel's Challenge. For those who don't know, Rachel Joy Scott was the first person killed during the Columbine shooting at Columbine, Colorado High School on April 20, 1999.

          The 2 shooters were 2 boys that were current students of Columbine High School. They were made fun of. They planted bombs in the high school cafeteria a little while before the cafeteria would be filled with high school students eating lunch. They then went outside and waited to watch part of the school blow up. But the bombs failed to go off. In their anger the boys walked through the school shooting students and staff. Rachel Joy Scott chose to go out and eat lunch under a tree with her friend. One of the boys shot her in her leg and her arm about 3 times. Then one of them walked over to her and picked her up by her hair and asked her if she still believed in God. She said "You know I do." and the the boy said "then go be with Him." and shot her in her head. Her younger brother Craig Scott (the person that came to talk to us) was in the library at the time. The library is where the most killings happened.

Craig Scott in 1999

Craig Scott now

Craig was under a table with his 2 good friends. One was black and one was white. When the 2 shooters  came to the table, they looked at Craig and his 2 friends. The white one they killed just to kill, but the black one they shot because he was black. Before they shot him, they started making racial jokes and then last thing that that boy heard in his life was racial jokes against him. The 2 gunmen actually had a gun to Craigs head but thank goodness the little sprinkler things on the ceiling went off and distracted them. And they never came back to kill him. At this point in time, Craig didn't know that Rachel was already dead. When the 2 boys left the library, Craig heard God's voice. He said simply "Get out of there." He then got out from under the table and said "come on guys, I think they are gone." they all started running to get out. They got out and when they all got behind a police car, the 2 boys again entered the library. Craig believes that God spared his life for a reason. Rachel was always writing in her journal. During the last class period that Rachel would ever go to, they were doing a group assignment. Her partner kept trying to get her to put her journal away and help with the assignment. After class, she went up to her teacher, showed her teacher what she was drawing in her journal during class that day and then the last thing she ever said to that teacher was "someday, I am going to make a difference in this world." This is the picture she was drawing.

Her eyes crying 13 tears onto a rose. There were 13 people killed that day. 

Now I am not saying that if people are rude to someone that this WILL happen, but this is a very clear illustration of why we need to be kind to each other. It was so touching when Craig came to our school. He basically had the entire school in tears. There was a different sense of unity in school that day and i believe that that is how it always should be in every school, every day. Unfortunately, it's high school, but that doesn't mean we can't do our part. 

Oh, and I encourage you to look up more information about Columbine, Rachel Joy Scott, or Craig Scott. And then do something to tell other people. I decided to write a song inspired by Rachel Joy Scott that hopefully many people will hear and be able to remember her and share her story.