2016 Recap

2016. What an interesting year. I can say I had some great moments in 2016 and some moments that I wish could have happened differently. To start off the year I got accepted into the one school I applied to! I got accepted into Liberty University! I couldn't have been happier. Looking back in hindsight it was the right decision for me. It's been so cool to see the plans God has for me unfold over time! In January and February, I also had the opportunity for two of my films to premiere at two separate film festivals. One of the films won "Best directed" in the high school category and my friend Tim and I won a $2,000 lens and a $800 camera body. That was such a neat experience for me as I'd never won anything for my work before. 

As graduation got closer and closer I did have the opportunity to work on a few more film projects in March and April (of which you can see below)

 

 I had a great time being able to have one last experience with some friends in high school before we parted ways. In May, graduation came. It was a neat experience that wasn't your typical high school graduation. I didn't know anyone that I was graduating with the exception of my family and one other friend that I'd known. I was ready to put that chapter of my life behind me and move into the wonderful world of college! Over the summer I worked as a lifeguard at Water Country USA. That job taught me so much about people and how to have people skills. It brought me out of my comfort zone and made me do things I didn't think I could have done before. Over the summer my family took two vacations with one to the lake and one to the beach. In addition to that, my friend Tim and I took a three-day trip to Chincoteague island where we shot a video for a boat tour company on the island. This was also the day that I got in a moped accident and almost got killed by a truck as I crashed a moped while crossing traffic. I wasn't hurt except for a few bruises on my shoulder and a $600 repair that I had to pay for.

Screenshot from when I almost hit the truck.

Luckily the whole thing was captured on video to be relieved for the foreseeable future.

In July I turned 19! I still wouldn't call myself an adult.  Learning to make difficult decisions as an adult is something that I've been working on. I got to celebrate my 19th birthday by eating Chinese food with some of my close friends and family including my sister, my friend Jacob, Jacob's girlfriend Hannah, and Jacob's sister Jordan. 

19th Birthday!

With the end of the summer came move in day for school. My roommate John also lived in Williamsburg so we both knew each other before moving in together. We've become great friends and I couldn't imagine doing college without him.

The first semester brought so many awesome opportunities from working on the production team to support convocation, to being on camera for football games, basketball games, and even getting to work some concerts! Making friends in college was something that I wish I had done a better job of this semester. I am happy with the few people I did meet, and hopefully growing those circles as life at college goes on! If 2016 had taught me anything it was to never take things as they appear as they can be radically different later on. You've just got to trust God and go with the flow! His knowledge of our plan is something that we can trust in.  It will be better than we can ever imagine.

Until next time

Michael 

Lonely But Not Alone

Today I thought I'd write something about something that's been on my heart for awhile and was prompted by a conversation I had over dinner with my roommate and my roommate's girlfriend. She told me that I didn't have any friends that I met at college. Sadly she is correct. I haven't met any friends while I've been at college. The only people that I've ever hung around with I've known previously from Williamsburg. This was further compounded by the fact that our hall held a Christmas party on Wednesday and I knew only two out of the hundred or so people there. So between those two events, it caused me to look back and examine the fact. Now this isn't to say I'm this social recluse while at college. I do know people from my job that I work with. However, this is the only time that I see them because most of them are upperclassmen that live off campus. This leaves me with a group of people that I've known from Williamsburg. This group has been my primary group of people that I've hung around with. This circle is fairly small and consists of about four people. More and more recently I've felt more and more lonely and often spend most of my meals alone. It's fine with me. I'm an introvert at heart and being by myself doesn't bother me too much. However, when I look out to my friends and see them making friends and having good experiences it makes me wonder what I'm doing wrong? Maybe it's a fear of rejection or opening up to people, maybe it's just not wanting to meet new people? I'm not quite sure. But either way, I'm slowly realizing how lonely my life is. Don't get me wrong I've got around ten really good friends that I cherish deeply. I'm glad I know who my real friends are after high school after around 90% of them decided not to talk to me anymore. I wish I would have known this sooner. Part of me wants to reach out and meet new people. Part of me doesn't know how. Part of me isn't sure if it's worth it. I do know that while I may feel lonely at college, I do have a heavenly Father that is always there watching over me and is always there walking by my side. It's definitely something that I may have to work on but for now, I don't know where to go from here. Just thought I'd share something that's been on my mind.

Until next time
-Michael

Not Your Stereotypical College Blog Post

This post may come as a surprise to you reading this. College has been pretty easy. While I am aware that the vast majority of college students would disagree with this fact, this has been my experience so far. I'm sure that when I look back on this post in my senior year of college I'm going to laugh at myself for even suggesting such a thought. But here in the present, this is my current summation of college so far. This may have just been the particular set of classes that I took but the workload for these classes has been surprisingly easy. There wasn't more than a quiz a week, sometimes with the quiz being open book. At least in this semester, I didn't have a terrible amount of papers to write. The only papers I had to write being reflective papers based off of my experiences in life. I did have to write a twenty-page screenplay for one of my classes. However, this was not too terribly challenging as I was able to space out the paper and write little chunks throughout the week to get it done. Sleep is another thing that college students bring up about not getting enough of. I've had at least 7-8 hours a sleep per night without staying up crazy late to work on assignments. Again, this could be just the luck of the classes that I chose for the semester but I believe that with proper time management you can accomplish much in college. We all have the same amount of time in a day. It's all about how you manage that time in order to get done what needs to get done. At the end of the semester, I'm actually bored with these last two weeks. I have one more assignment that is another reflective paper that is due as well as three "finals" with all three being just regular tests that don't carry any added weight for the class. The last thing I want to do with this blog post is come away arrogant or insensitive or clueless about what college is actually like. This is just more of a way for me to say that I believe the college experience can be changed to suit the changing world of education. The delivery of education is changing with the internet, YouTube, Kahn Academy. I believe that colleges need to learn to adapt to this way of self-taught, project-based learning for various career fields that would benefit from it. For example, basic college classes should be optional if you can prove that you can test out of these classes. Of course, such a thing already exists called CLEP. However colleges are in the money making business and want your money to pay for more classes even if they are unnecessary because of knowledge already possessed by the learner. I can say in my first semester of college I haven't learned anything more than I already know. I would consider myself to be an active learner in the fact that I continue to learn even beyond the classroom and often research topics just for fun. This may have contributed to this fact. In summation, I'm looking out to next semester to do more with this college education that I am receiving and looking to challenge myself more as to alleviate the current boredom I possess in college. Lastly, HUGE disclaimer. I love Liberty University and the experiences I am having here. It's been great to be able to learn how to live on my own and develop new experiences and learn through this production job I have. I don't regret coming to college for the professional hands-on opportunities I am receiving as well as the contacts that I am making.

Until next time,
Michael

So College & Other Such Life Updates

I'd lying if I said that it hadn't been awhile since my last post. Much has changed since my last post from over a year ago. Most of these changes have been for the better. If I went through all the changes in my life that have happened in the past year it would probably go on for at least 20 pages. No one wants to read an essay, so I'll try and keep it somewhat to the point. This should also motivate me to post on here more often so I don't have to spend an eternity catching everyone up.
I'll pick up where things left off in the previous post. If I hadn't updated this post you might have thought everything was doom and gloom. For that period of time in my life, it was. But looking back a year later everything I was so worried about and fussing over really means nothing in the grand scheme of things and my life is better because of what happened. What wasn't said after I had posted that post was that my parents had decided to pull me from my school a month later after I made that post. At first, I was furious. I questioned why my parents would do such a thing to me. I was sad and deeply troubled and angry. I went through the summer being angry at my parents wondering why they would take me away from my friends with such a short period of time until the end of the year. I finished out my junior year of high school reluctantly. For a period of time, I refused to do schoolwork until I was put back into school. This was a foolish move on my part. Summer of 2015 came and went as I worked at my first job as a lifeguard at Water Country USA. It was a great learning experience. It taught me how to deal with the public and develop some people skills. It also opened my eyes to people that were different than me. Some of these people were international students from different cultures that I had to learn to work with. All in all, it was a great experience that taught me much about the world. August 2015 came and decisions had to be made of where I was going to go to school for my senior year. It was decided upon that I was to go to school at Liberty University Online Academy. This was a way for me to finish high school online and have a dollar for dollar tuition match scholarship for my time at where I'm now at college at Liberty. That senior year would be full of new great experiences, as well as some experiences I wish weren't the case. I'll start with some of the positives. The first was that I made a few new friends that I'm so grateful that I did. My life is better because of this. That year taught me how to manage my time as well as gave me so much free time to work on some projects that I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do otherwise. The first of which was a documentary on an organic farmer that won best directed at a film festival. The film festival was sponsored by Canon and as a result, I won a $2,000 lens. In January I had another opportunity to showcase one of my films in a film festival that premiered on the big screen in Hampton. It didn't win, but I was impressed that my work could go that far. As the spring of 2016 approached I had the opportunity to work on a short film with one of my friends. Because of this online school, it allowed me the free time to do this as well as develop my relationship deeper with one of my homeschooled friends Wyatt as the year progressed. With the film shot, it was time to graduate. I graduated from Liberty University on the football field in May 2016. It was such a good experience. It made me realize this was the path I was supposed to be on. This was the point in time I realized I wouldn't have had such a good year with meeting some new forever friends as well as the experiences I had. One other small detail I should mention is that I got accepted into Liberty in January 2016. It was very exciting! It gave me something to look out and forward to! Summer 2016 came and it was back to work at Water Country. That summer was the least fun out of the two summers at Water Country. It felt like I was working for the whole summer and didn't have time to see many of my friends before I went off to college. This isn't to say that I didn't have any time to see any of my friends. I did have a chance to see often the people that matter most to me. Prior to going to college, I applied for a production job at Liberty. After a lengthy interview process, I got hired to do production at Liberty. I am essentially getting paid to do what I love producing events, football games, and basketball games. If you would have asked me a year ago if I would have had this opportunity I would not have believed you. I'm so thankful for this opportunity.
I'll spend the last part of this quite lengthy post talking about some of my initial thoughts going into college. After the first few weeks many of the friends I thought I had from high school turned out to be not as genuine as I thought they were. One of them eliminated all contact from me, another turned to alcohol, and yet more of the people I thought were my friends ended up being as such. At first, I was crushed. I thought to myself "all these people that I thought were my friends, but it was one lie" With that being said I am extremely grateful for the select few friends that I do have. I'm so thankful to have them in my life and I wouldn't change the friends I have now. They're so real and genuine and I can count them for anything. Friendships are great things and to have a great friend is something that is to be treasured. I've learned that even more after being at college. It's also been nice learning how to be independent and learning how to do all these adult things. I'll share my thoughts on college itself in a later blog post as this post has gone on for far too long already.
Until next time
-Michael

Fall 2014 Update

It has been forever since I've posted here. But I feel as though I want to keep the readers of whoever reads this updated on what's going on in my life. I'll pick up where I left off back in May. After prom and after school ended I wen't on vacation to Smith Mountain Lake for the first week of my summer . During the rest of the summer I interned at my local church where I learned a lot about graphic design and picked up some knowlege on some video editing tips. This past summer I also saw Lindsay Stirling in Concert. That was an absolute blast. We also wen't to the beach where I had perhaps the best week of my life. This fall I entered Junior year and with that came a lot of new challenges and some that I've never experianced before, some good, and some that I will never want to experiance again. I have a feeling it will be a good learning experiacne for me. Also wanted to update all you loyal readers on the Washington D.C videos that I've been talking about for the past two years or so. The second season has completed production and are just waiting for some of the finial videos to be edited by another member of the production team. The videos I have done were completed last July, but still working on getting the rest of the season finished from my other producer friend. Two trailers have been released for this upcoming season on my YouTube channel. Very excited for this year as we tackle the presidential homes in Virginia. Unfortunatly Victoria and Caroline won'e be joining us but there are some new faces. As I said before, this year is totally different, and while it is different, I hope it brings good things.

Until Next Time
-Michael Lemley

Life Update August 2013: New beginnings and things that never change

It has been almost a month since my last post and many things have happened since that time. This summer has been fantastic and I've learned many things about myself and where I need to go in life and how I can get there. Next week school will start again and while I will miss the pleasures of summer it's time to get back to work as there is much to be done. Our monuments project will pick up again as we still have to make brochures and then continue onto more museums and then onto more monuments. Now that I think about it I'm getting excited again! I love working with everyone and overall I'm excited about the road to come next year and by the end I hope to look back at everything I accomplished. Onward...

Michael

Summer 2013

It's summer. The wonderful time of the year filled with beautiful weather (for the most part) as well as water, pools, vacations, spending time with friends and the like. So far this summer I've been to my school's graduation as well as a few graduation parties. Afterwords I went to Smith Mountain Lake located in southwestern Virginia on vacation for a week. It was very relaxing and refreshing to spend a week there. Upon returning from the like life has been fairly bland for the most part and I've just spent my days in front of the computer watching YouTube videos. I really need something to do with my time and make it more productive. I want to try and finish all 120 episodes of Lost this summer but I don't want to do it all at once. I also miss all my friends. Most of my friends have graduated and have moved on with life and the ones that I do have left I miss very much and think back to the great times we have had...So for now summer is very bland and I wish I could do something more with my time. I know I have many things just over the horizon it's just a matter of them coming to me, or me going to them. There are a few things that I'm really excited about and some things and memories and events that are in the back of my mind that I miss very much and I wish I could relive them again soon....Things are changing.....

-Until Next Time
Michael