Hey there, Jasmine Pagaduan here to bring everyone a new perspective to our adventures in Los Angeles! Quiet but witty, I'm the kind of person to silently tail the others and simply observe. I'm going to cut my intro short, since Rebecca seemed to have summed me up quite well in our first day blog. So let's get this started shall we?
Our day started just like yesterday: a six a.m. wake up call to attend the first service with the West Angeles Church of God in Christ lead by Bishop Blake. Following our frenzy to get ready, we arrived at the main campus of their church and were blown away by its beauty. As Amy put it, "It's like straight out of a movie!" And indeed it was: as we walked into the lobby of the grand church, it's massive size alone blew me away. Growing up in small towns like Victorville and Lompoc (if you have never heard of these towns, that is how small they are), I've always been accustomed to small churches, so a grandeur sight like this was most definitely a step out of my comfort zone.
Shortly after recuperating from the size of the lobby, I followed the others into the main sanctuary where I was taken aback yet again! The sanctuary housed a floor with a guesstimate of thirty-or-so rows of movie theatre seats while there was a balcony above them with ten-plus rows. The front of the stage was a huge stage that was fully capable of holding a drummer, two keyboardists, a guitarist, bassist and a massive choir that I was so sure could rival the size of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in Salt Lake City. My mind was having an over overload, trying to process the astounding size and beauty of this place.
As the service began, I started to pay attention to how the congregation behaved during song service: dancing with a vigorous enthusiasm, the members joyously sang along with the mass choir, some of them even brought tambourines to jingle along to the beat. There were so many traits within these people that really threw me through a loop: energetic, very welcoming, enthusiastic. I suppose I can say that it was all just too much for little me to take in. Nevertheless, the experience was certainly one that I will not forget any time soon and I don't think the others will forget it either.
After church, we came back to our warehouse for a change of clothes in preparation for our City Search: a scavenger hunt game that included interviews with an L.A. native, a tourist and a homeless person, job searches, the prices for apartments, and the list can go on and on. Being in the middle of downtown L.A., we knew we had to make this a real adventure for all of us and what better way to do that than act out the scenarios our checklist gave us?
However before we could even start on that, we bumped into two homeless men and entered a rather fascinating conversation with them. Both of them stated that the system was making sure they could not acquire an apartment of any kind through methods such as paperwork, TB testing, and waiting lists. In personal opinion, I did not find this such a heavy burden though considering the fact that they were in a sort of "the sooner we have a home, the better" situation, I really could not blame them. They also voiced their loathing of the corrupt officers in the LAPD, stating that they caught them for some of the most trivial violations. This was such a strange statement to hear, especially after listening to Sarah's comments about the LAPD playing a game of basketball with the homeless which was apparently a "front" to the two men we talked to. The conversation with these two really left me thinking: who is right? Who is wrong? Is it the homeless fault for not being able to meet society's standards to survive properly? Or was it society's for not providing sympathy and helping those in need like the churches, missions, and other charities? Evidently as Rebecca put it, there are a lot of "gray areas," which means there are not a lot of clear answers and that fact alone is perhaps the most painful one to embrace because we cannot figure out how to solve this issue without a definite solution.
Well, on a lighter note, our quests in the City Search had suddenly transformed into a mission of espionage as we eagerly assigned each other the various tasks in our list, one scenario in particular became a favorite among us all: a very eager Amy dragging an equally reluctant Gatra into a relationship to discover the cost of an engagement ring.
Following our "lovebirds" into the jewelry shop, I watched the two discuss about the ring with dear Gatra being straight-forward and simply asking, "What's your cheapest ring?" Meanwhile our lucky lady, was detailing about the type of ring she wanted. It did not take long for the reluctant bachelor to be pulled aside and after some calculations with the jeweler, was given a business card with his cell phone number to talk about a cheaper ring at another time when Amy was not around.
By this time, Rebecca and Justin had entered the shop and were being pulled into a misadventure of their own: in a desperate effort to look normal, Rebecca started to conjure up a tale that she and Justin were searching for a gift for Justin's mother. Before either of them knew, they were being presented with two watches that were at least $1200. Desperate to escape her web of high tales, our leader was able to jump ship by suggesting that Justin call his father for a confirmation and that they would be back some other time and in haste left the premises of the shop with me in tow while Gatra and Amy followed us shortly after. Engagement ring query: success! Effort to look normal: fail.
After an afternoon of laughs and giggles, as well as a lunch with a man in need, we ended our day at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, where shops were closing, and street performers and artists (including an anime portrait artist!) were out ready to earn profits of their own. During our time there, we witnessed an amazing trio of performers: a 70-year-old dancer, an amazing soprano saxaphone player, and a tap-dancing trumpet player. It was quite a day! I'll look forward to whatever is in store for tomorrow...
No comments:
Post a Comment