As the son of a politician my view and life have changed compared to that of the average kid. My dad probably isn't viewed as a politician because he actually doesn't hold an office; however, he is running for county supervisor.
Lately its been affecting my life by the fact that when I have prior plans to do something such as do homework, hang out with friends, play video games or something like that, it will get interrupted. My father will need me and my brothers to do something for him or for when of his political friends. These tasks will vary from all the way to simply putting stamps on letters to go out for a couple of hours to drop literature concerning the election.
This extremely annoys me, more than it should in fact. The simple of act of sealing envelopes, placing stamps or stuffing letters with literature don't bother me if we do it briefly. If we do these thing for a long time we discover we would rather be doing literally anything else than the droning process that we are taking part in at the time.
When we go out and drop literature this also annoys, though far more than the other droning processes. For this activity you have to be on your toes because you never know when you might run into someone that's outside and then give the literature directly to them. When they are outside that is when the chances increase exponentially that there will be some negative response. That is the worst part of the whole experience of lit dropping as we call it.
Just recently I was lit dropping and was approaching the door to drop the papers in front of the door when I notice someone raking to the side of their house. So I go over to him and he takes out his ear phones and I explain to him what I was doing. He suddenly starts criticizing the people that I was handing literature for, saying that if he wanted to vote he would make an informed decision by researching the candidates.
These kinds of situations is what make me abhor even the idea of lit dropping. I guess that these kinds of situations help me with my people skills, but that's about it I'd say.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Know Who Your Voting For
After hearing this I was really discouraged and out right mad. I believe in the right to vote and that it is a privilege so when I heard this I was upset. Not being able to vote doesn't make me unconcerned with the election it will affect the next four years of my life and that includes a big portion of my college.
I really want what's best for this country and I believe together, we are able to make that decision. I believe this country can choose the man best fit for president to lead this country, but only if they are informed of what each candidate stands for and the plans and policies they would implement if president. These interviews clearly represent that a vast majority of the people who are planning to vote aren't informed of the issues that each candidate represents.
I believe that either of the candidates elected will become good presidents, but when it comes to their vice presidents choices. Well let's not get into that right now. I believe that they would both be good presidents because of McCain's experience and Obama's significant support group that even consists of other countries. Both would be able to achieve a lot within their candidacy and would frankly be a breath of fresh air, which our country desperately needs.
I feel that we are having this problem of ignorant voters because of all the hype that candidates try to create. Nothing against Obama, but I feel that many people are going out to vote for him only because he is black. Now on the other side I also feel that many shallow people are going to vote McCain only because of his selection of running mate and the fact that she is fairly attractive. The point is the candidates are being voted for, by ignorant citizens, not because of their policies, but for another reason, something that will have nothing to do with how successful they are as president.
For these reasons I am glad that we have the Electoral College select our next president and not popular vote. As delegate Gerry said in 1787 defending the Electoral College, "A popular election in this case is radically vicious. The ignorance of the people would put it in the power of one set of men..." This quote unfortunately is still relevant because shown by the video there are still many ignorant voters and I am therefore glad that we still are using the Electoral College.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
After the Loss
It's the fourth quarter with the clock winding down, we are down six and we are driving the ball down the field. With 5.5 seconds left and on the Xavier's 14 yard line we throw it up to our tallest wide receiver so that he could go up and make the play and win us the game. The whole night the referees had been lopsided favoring Xavier with penalties against us and with no calls on Xavier when there were obvious penalties made. Again the same thing happened on the last play when our receiver was obviously being hold down by the defensive back. The time expired. Our season was over.
The realization hit that we had in fact lost. We reluctantly walked to the 50 yard line to shake hands with the opposing team. The opposing teams facial expressions told the whole story. How the game came down to the last second and how we had given them a scare.
Even though I don't play much at all, on special teams, emotions were streaming through me. Ones of disappointment because we were the better team and had the better players, sadness because for many seniors this will be their last football game, anger because during the two games that we had played them at least five of our starters got hurt, including our quarterback. Lastly the emotion of motivation and this was for all of the juniors all, promising that this isn't going to happen next year.
We made our way to the buses after our coaches didn't mention the game and congratulated us on our season. On the buses we sat there most of us had our heads down, still with our helmets on, leaned on the seat in front of us. I had millions of thoughts sprinting through my mind as I stared through eyes I weren't completely convinced were my own.
Silence and reflection were the conversation topic on the way to Kennedy accompanied by the noises made by the bus.
We arrived at Kennedy with some fans waiting around for who knows why. The seniors in the locker room were crying for good reason as we threw our football gear into our lockers. I left to go home.
At home I made no attempt to ready myself to go to sleep. I sat on my bed fully dressed in our game day clothes, shirt and tie. While reflecting on the game I realized that fortunately I, and all the other juniors, had another chance to beat Xavier. Thinking of this only saddened me and made the senior's situation more real to me. It also motivated me; I've even kept the newspaper article to remind myself because next year it is going to be different.
The realization hit that we had in fact lost. We reluctantly walked to the 50 yard line to shake hands with the opposing team. The opposing teams facial expressions told the whole story. How the game came down to the last second and how we had given them a scare.
Even though I don't play much at all, on special teams, emotions were streaming through me. Ones of disappointment because we were the better team and had the better players, sadness because for many seniors this will be their last football game, anger because during the two games that we had played them at least five of our starters got hurt, including our quarterback. Lastly the emotion of motivation and this was for all of the juniors all, promising that this isn't going to happen next year.
We made our way to the buses after our coaches didn't mention the game and congratulated us on our season. On the buses we sat there most of us had our heads down, still with our helmets on, leaned on the seat in front of us. I had millions of thoughts sprinting through my mind as I stared through eyes I weren't completely convinced were my own.
Silence and reflection were the conversation topic on the way to Kennedy accompanied by the noises made by the bus.
We arrived at Kennedy with some fans waiting around for who knows why. The seniors in the locker room were crying for good reason as we threw our football gear into our lockers. I left to go home.
At home I made no attempt to ready myself to go to sleep. I sat on my bed fully dressed in our game day clothes, shirt and tie. While reflecting on the game I realized that fortunately I, and all the other juniors, had another chance to beat Xavier. Thinking of this only saddened me and made the senior's situation more real to me. It also motivated me; I've even kept the newspaper article to remind myself because next year it is going to be different.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Walking into the Bathroom
It was freshmen year in high school and the day started out normal like any other day. In my first three hours of the day I could feel my bladder filling up and was wondering when I should make my move, to go to the bathroom. I figured I could make my way to the bathroom sometime during lunch. Lunch came and passed and I had forgot to go. I return to class only to realize that this is going to be a struggle to hold it in. I tried to get an opportunity when I might be able to ask the teacher to be excused to the bathroom, but it never came. We were doing activities the whole time, no time for a bathroom break.
My seat in the classroom was located the farthest away from the door. This factor and the teacher's rule of staying in your seats until the bell rings, was a disappointment because it only delayed me going to the restroom. When I finally exited the room, the hallway traffic was in full force as people shuffled closely together trying to reach their destinations. I started shuffling in the crowd only trying to go to the restroom, finally I arrived at the restroom. As I was entering though the oddest thing happened, some girls were walking out. I then realized that I was going into the wrong bathroom and immediately said "Oops," because that was my instant reaction to the situation. The most embarrassing part though, for me, was walking out back into the hallway full of students who really don't have anything better to look at then a guy walking out of the girls bathroom.
The experience, even though embarrassing, was a good lesson learned on checking the bathroom sign before entering. Too bad I didn't actually learn as another time that year, as a freshman, I walked in to the girls bathroom, but fortunately for me it was during class and I don't think anyone saw. After that near embarrassing moment though I have since learned the lesson of which to enter when wanting to go to the bathroom.
My seat in the classroom was located the farthest away from the door. This factor and the teacher's rule of staying in your seats until the bell rings, was a disappointment because it only delayed me going to the restroom. When I finally exited the room, the hallway traffic was in full force as people shuffled closely together trying to reach their destinations. I started shuffling in the crowd only trying to go to the restroom, finally I arrived at the restroom. As I was entering though the oddest thing happened, some girls were walking out. I then realized that I was going into the wrong bathroom and immediately said "Oops," because that was my instant reaction to the situation. The most embarrassing part though, for me, was walking out back into the hallway full of students who really don't have anything better to look at then a guy walking out of the girls bathroom.
The experience, even though embarrassing, was a good lesson learned on checking the bathroom sign before entering. Too bad I didn't actually learn as another time that year, as a freshman, I walked in to the girls bathroom, but fortunately for me it was during class and I don't think anyone saw. After that near embarrassing moment though I have since learned the lesson of which to enter when wanting to go to the bathroom.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Climbing a Mountain
My friends and I went to Colorado this summer to drop off my sister and help her move back into college and also to visit a friend working there over the summer. While visiting him we decided to climb a mountain, named Gray's peak. This is the first mountain that I would have climbed at the time. Being an inexperienced mountain climber, I handled the weather in a way in which I regret. I had at first dressed up for colder weather and because hiking requires a lot of muscular activity, so my core body temperature rose and I began to perspire. Even though my core body was hot, my appendages were still chilly and I therefore kept my sweat shirt on. I began to get too hot for comfort, even with my cold surroundings, so I took off my sweat shirt and became instantly relieved. This feeling only lasted for about a second until I realized my mistake to sweat. My moist body was chilled by the mountain breezes while my appendages remained cold. So I placed the sweat shirt back on again to warm up and again I become over heated and start to sweat after a couple of minutes. So then again I took off the sweat shirt just to experience the same sensations that came upon me the first time. This process repeated itself at least a couple of times, just making my body more moist than before. After we had climbed the mountain, returned to the travel head and arrived back at our camp site, I was finally dry. My t-shirt showed it too as I lifted up my arms to see a stained white outline making a ring around my armpits. While discovering this, one of my friends noticed it as well. It was a sort of show and tell as I showed off to my other friends what I had just accomplished. I blamed it all on my lack of experience in mountain climbing and how I didn't know to not start out in too warm of clothing.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
What I Hope to Write About
Throughout this blog I am going to be writing on a series of topics. These hopefully will be focused around politics, and the candidates, sports (mainly football), and awkward situations that have plagued me or someone I know in the past. I'm not making any promises that I can stick to these topics, because I'm not sure how I will write so much about them, but I'll try it out.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
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