Nicaragua Spring Break

As college students board planes at the beginning of spring break to go on vacations, they might look around and notice some familiar faces not going to the beach. They are instead headed to Nicaragua on a mission trip.
A group of 16 college students from Journey Church decided to spend their break participating in a religious mission trip. They arrived in San Rafael, Nicaragua on Sun., March 14.
Sam Rafael is located on the western coast of Nicaragua along the Pacific Ocean. The team had a full schedule of events planned for them once they got there.
“We helped build the beginning foundations for a church, spent a lot of time playing with local kids, and prayer walked through the city,” junior Addison Durrett said.
During the prayer walk, the team stopped and prayed for different things the town was suffering from. When they came across homeless, they would pray that they would come into a job. When they came across sad children, they would pray that they would make a new friend. When they came across suffering families, they prayed that their troubles would cease.
They helped start the building process of a church in San Rafael. Oklahoma Alumni Shaun Heath came up with most of the design for the new church building.
The church is not complete yet, but the foundation has been completed.
During the trip, the students stayed with the pastor of the church’s family and had to sleep on the tile floor in sleeping bags. The room was crowded and hot with 16 students trying to fit into the same room.
“The sleeping arrangement wasn’t unbearable, in fact it made the mission trip feel more like I was going out of my comfort zone,” freshman Annabelle Irvin said.
Not only did the team have a different kind of sleeping arrangement, they also had to bathe in a different kind of bath tub. The river that runs through the town was the teams only option for bathing.
“We had such tiring days that bathing in the river actually felt refreshing,” freshman Randi Nicholson.
After baths, every night the students would gather around together and worship God by singing praises and hearing the word taught by the church’s pastor, but there were a few things different about this kind of worship compared to the worship back home.
“I loved the free spirit of worship and how here in Nicaragua we could all get away from our troubles and just let the word of the Lord touch our hearts and sing and praise him without any worries," senior Brent Potter said.
The last day of the trip, the team got to go down to the beach in Pochomil and play with children. They flew kites, built sand castles and played in the water. They had a picnic on the beach and bonded with each other after a long week of hard work.
When the day was over, the drive to get back to the house was two hours. They all loaded up in the back of a pickup truck and endured the ride together.
“We got about 50 people and all of our tables, chairs, supplies, coolers and more all on one truck!” junior Mary Winter said.
The next day, after they said their goodbyes to their new friends, they headed for the airport and returned to Norman on Sun., March 21.
"It was an amazing experience and definitely rewarding," Durrett said.
The team has had this mission trip planned since before Thanksgiving break, and
to go on this trip the team had to raise $1500. They raised the money by sending out support letters to friends and family asking for donations. Also, as a team they sold t-shirts and had a babysitting night on Valentines Day weekend at the church.
To prepare for the trip the team had bonding nights. They went to concerts and bowling together. They also had training seminars on how to relate to children and adults from the Nicaraguan culture.
The team had two interpreters during the week, Peter and Alex Salcidio. They were members of the church and brothers.
Brent Potter and Jessica Cox were the two leaders in charge of organizing and overseeing the mission trip. They both plan on going back to Nicaragua and other developing countries on mission trips.
Journey Church meets regularly on Sundays, and the college program meets on Tuesday nights at 9pm.

Journalistic vs Academic

I think it is difficult to write journalistically because in news stories I want there to be a concluding paragraph. I also want to editorialize my news article, which is not good. Also, I like to use complex sentences and in journalistic writing simple sentences are preferred. In journalistic writing, it needs to be composed of simple words as well and in academic papers you are encouraged to broaden your vocabulary. It has not been that difficult to switch because I was in yearbook in high school, and I was trained to write journalistically. I attended many seminars based on this subject alone.

NAHJ

NAHJ.org is a website dedicated to the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. This website is important for all aspects of mass media because it informs members not of Hispanic culture what is going on with the Hispanic journalist of America.
The website also has many links to opportunities for Hispanic journalist as well as stories that Hispanic journalist might be interested in reading.
NAHJ.org helps Hispanic journalist find ways to break into the business. The website is a good tool to learn about upcoming events and deadlines.
NAHJ.org could apply to the whole mass media by connecting with a culture that might not want to read any other source. The news on this site applies to Hispanics and no other culture, therefore making this site a comfortable place for Hispanic journalist to visit to get the most information that pertains to them.
If there was a website that was only dedicated to eighteen year old blonde hair green eyed girls that want to be broadcast meteorologist I know I would visit it frequently. It would only be targeted at me and I would learn about opportunities that are only possible for people like me. I would be everything I would need to know and help me as well along the way. The advice would always be beneficial and the scholarship possibilities would be directly targeted at me.
My only minority is that I am a woman, and I know this is coming out of minority quickly. I hope by the time I have children that everyone is equal and there are no minorities because there is not an underrepresented group.

Writing with sensitivity

Writing with sensitivity and respect for members of other cultures should be easy because as humans we should respect and love everyone, but that usually is not the case.
Most people have preconceived notions about cultures that are not their own. These notions could be negative or positive, but in reality they should not exist at all.
If someone wants to only write for one culture or community then they should not write for the local newspaper or a big city newspaper because that paper usually goes out to many different cultured people. The people that want to write only for their culture should create or join a paper that is dedicated solely to that certain culture.
The daily local papers that go out to everyone have to be especially careful in what they print to not offend anyone. It can be a hassle that some people get offended easily, but at the same time we need to respect that maybe we do not understand what everyone goes through and try to be as considerate as possible.

Immense Text

My biggest flaw about writing correctly is that I always try to sound really intelligent. To sound intelligent you have to use big words right? Well, I am not too good at spelling, especially big words.
I feel like Joey on Friends in the episode where he is trying to come off as smarter than he actually is by using the thesaurus to change every word he uses when he speaks. Needless to say his friends told he actually sounded dumber than before.
I know that my highschool prepared me for this kind of writing because I took the initiative to be in yearbook. My yearbook advisor was the one who taught me how to write journalistic. She also entered me into UIL journalism competitions, and I actually placed once.
As a yearbook staff, we took many trips to journalism conventions. Our advisor was also a national advisor, so we were expected to always be at the conventions. During the conventions, the best journalist from around the nation would come and speak to young high school journalist like me. I would always think they were really interesting becuase I knew it was the field I wanted to enter.

The basics of JMC 2033

JMC 2033,Writing for Mass Media, is a class for JMC majors are required to take. In this class, you will learn how to better your writing skills for the media. Also, the class teaches you how to become a better communicator. To take this class, you had to have made a grade of at least a C in JMC 1013, Into to Mass Communication.
Throughout the class, you will complete many assignments. You will also take quizzes at the beginning of every lecture, this is also how the teacher, Kathryn Jenson White, KJW, will check for attendance.
The lectures last 50 minutes, and the labs last an hour and 50 minutes. The lecture in on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 10:30. The labs meet twice a week. All of the JMC 2033 students go to the same lecture taught by KJW. There are only 15 students in each lab however.
The required texts for this class are "Writing for the Mass Media", "Media Writer's Handbook", "The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual", and "New Directions in Diversity".
The Attendance policy is that if you miss five classes of either lecture or lab, you receive an automatic F for the class. A student can not continue with a JMC major until this class is passed with at least a C. Grades from the lecture are 50% of the students total grade. The other 50% comes from assignments due in labs.
Desire to Learn, D2L, is where all information for the course is listed. To stay up to date with the class, D2L should be checked regularly.