Laura: 2 Points – Activity: FORMING FRIENDSHIPS

Barbara and I both want to leave some type of written record of our lives for our children and the generations to come. I had thought that, if nothing else, I would print out the ABC Life pages and make them into a scrapbook because they capture things that I’ve done and thought about. But Barbara started “My Memories to My Children” – a collection of her answers to many questions about her life (based on hundreds of prompts that she found in a book). It’s a massive project but one that I will start myself (I just have to find the time…yikes!). So when our Newcomer group formed a new activity, “FORMING FRIENDSHIPS,” whose main focus was on asking questions that reveal a little bit about oneself, we both were interested. Barbara attended last month but I didn’t get a chance to join in until this month – our F month. Their questions had us searching our memory banks (“who was your craziest/most interesting teacher?”, “when was the last time you did something for the first time and what was it?”) and revealed intriguing (often amusing) things about our fellow attendees. What a fun experience – we get to further our own cause and enjoy new friendships!

2 Points – Movie Theme – FITTING IN

We watched the movie “Dumplin,” which was about the overweight daughter of an ex-beauty queen. Growing up, she was closest to her aunt and never quite fit the image of what she thought of as her mother’s ideal daughter. As a form of protesting the perfect beauty pageant image, she decides to submit her application to this year’s pageant. Along the way she forms Friendships with two other “outsiders” who don’t FIT IN. However, going through the pageant process, they all discover that fitting in doesn’t have to be the same for everyone. By being true to themselves, they found that they only needed to “fit in” to themselves and that was the real “prize.” We found this movie to be full of clichés – from her skinny best friend to the cute guy who falls for her to another of her group placing in the pageant and her mother growing closer to her. Despite all the clichés, we didn’t dislike it as much by the end as we did in the beginning.