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
No comments:
Post a Comment