Amanda James Daily

That’s when I decided to expand my search of good ways to spend my time, and I remembered my friend once told me how she lived with a French family outside of Paris by responding to a listing on  HelpX.Net (It’s a good website for people who want to travel around for little money and have the opportunity to live with locals and get to really know a place, rather than just be a tourist. )

I was shocked to stumble across a journalism/ organic farm listing that advertised the opportunity to work with an Oscar-winning filmmaker on a farm in Carrboro, NC.  There’s no way I could’ve found this match if I’d been looking.

The next day, and the next day, I called the farm and volunteered to help out.  It took about 5 phone calls to convince them that I had no expectations, lots of free time, and I didn’t mind if they were about to leave the country, so I might be doing non-journalism work to help them get ready.

(More to come. Class for now…)

Welcome to North Carolina

Blisters from bass guitar made the plane ride unbearable but by the time I landed in North Carolina, I’d forgotten what it was like to have a finger not throbbing.  Plus, I had a whole new audience to share the news with, so I was excited that I had something to show for my hard work.

After the holiday festivities ended, including Moravian Love Feasts, a Happy Birthday Jesus Party, and several non-Jesus parties with friends from highschool, I needed a new way to spend my time besides relaxing on different couches in my house and spending too much money running unnecessary errands.

That’s when I starting researching WWOOF.org late one night. I wanted to find something fun and difficult to do that would make me feel exhausted by the end of the day, so I’d know I’d done all I could do in a day.  Plus, I’d been sitting in front of a computer for what felt like the past year, since I spent the summer interning and writing, instead of working outside, so organic farming seemed perfect.  I had saved up all the means to travel to Costa Rica to do it, but skepticism from e-mail responses with farm owners there had plunged the energy out of my pursuit…