Its Had its Ups and Downs

Blogging... Oh where do I begin? Should I talk about how much I have despised it? Or should I talk about the good feelings that rush through my body as soon as I’m finished.

I have wanted to talk about something specific to keep the entries to the main theme of the blog. But the desire was not as strong as the work and time that I would have needed to put into the blog if I were to do that. High School is a hectic time, especially if you are in multiple AP courses along with sports with which you have to miss school for. Like in mine and others case.

Blogging, to me, was just a new dimension of homework. At some times I enjoyed it, like when I glanced back at previous posts and realize how far I’ve come in writing. I also liked reading friend’s posts over topics I was interested in to hear what their view on it was.

At times I would be so frustrated with blogging. I remember times when I would tell my mom that I would rather re-shingle the roof than blog. The intense hate came from the fact that I was so far behind sometimes with how many blogs that I needed and felt stressed out about that.

Whenever I am sitting in front of a computer, I am always jittery (If I am not sleeping because of how tired I am). Even now as I write this my legs are moving back and forth. I don’t feel very comfortable sitting in front of the computer screen, just staring at this lit up screen portraying pictures coming from some cyberspace.

I try to minimize my time in front of the computer as much as I can, I would much rather be outside playing basketball, or reading a good book. Maybe I feel so awkward in front of my computer is because of it’s location in my house. It is in the corner of my living room and while sitting in front of it, I can see out side our big window. Trees fill the window every time I glance outside from the computer seat. The picture and the idea of not doing homework call my name stronger and stronger the more painful the homework becomes.

Blogs seemed to be more of the painful kind of homework. But it did help me become a better writer. So it was a good thing overall, even though sometimes i abhorred just thinking about it.

Homework Stinks

Homework stinks so much. Here is my thought process about it.

Instead of sharing my day at school with my parents and siblings at the dinner table, I complain about all the homework that I have because it means that I have to do school outside of school. This consequently means that I get to spend less time doing what I love doing and more time doing what I hate doing. One thing I love doing is hanging out with my family, whether or not we are getting along at the time. We play cards or just talk, I love it all. Instead of doing that, I do homework, not because I am interested in what we are doing in class, but because I am required to.

I remember a time in my child hood when I loved homework. This was because I loved learning. When I was very young my sisters and I would play school. Yes that’s right learning was so fun to me that it was a game. I would do the mini math booklets with simple math problems and practice my penmanship writing down random letters.

Now school has twisted the fun that I used to have learning into a dislike. I still like learning about things. But it’s about things that I want to learn and not what the school wants me to learn. I like history and if I had the history channel I would watch it all the time. I like learning about my faith and why I believe what I believe that’s why I read “More Than a Carpenter.” I like learning about math because most of the time it makes since.

The other day a teacher was talking to me about how he doesn’t mix school with home and vice versa. He does all his grading at school and never has to take tests with him when he leaves because he makes time for it at school. He also says that if he has problems at home that doesn’t affect his attitude at school even though it may be on his mind. I then praised his practices because it seemed like the perfect argument for getting rid of homework. He told me that no one in his class should ever have homework because he gives them so much time to work on it in class.

I wish every teacher gave as much time towards the homework or just got rid of homework and relied on having their students learn in the classroom.

I like Summer

Winter is a terrible part of the year and because of it summer just has to be splendid. I believe that it is, compared to the school filled winter. Sure here in Iowa the humidity is always like a million or something, but at least when I go outside it doesn’t require me to put one about five extra pounds of clothing just to walk outside to do a simple chore, like taking out the garbage.

Summer is great for a number of reasons. Probably the greatest reason of all is the absence of homework. School is awesome and a great opportunity to spend time with people that you often don’t get a chance to, but that’s not why people dislike it. It’s the homework, at least that’s how I feel about it. I know that it is necessary to help a student learn because a class period isn’t enough time to get everything accomplished that the teacher wants. I also know that it helps significantly increase your knowledge if you spend time with the subject outside of school. What bugs me is the time that is taken away from other very important things in one’s life. It takes away time, from your family, from your friends, from your sleep. These are all things that I consider extremely important and I feel that if you prioritize homework in front of those things now, that later in life you will put your work in front of those priceless facets.

During the summer you get to spend time with friends and family. This means camping trips with campfires accompanied by some kind of adventure and with this adventure sprouts hilarious stories usually of ones own embarrassment that can be shared and enjoyed many times. In this time of fellowship we grow closer to our friends and family. During that time of year you are able to do those exciting adventurous activities that you wouldn’t be able to do during summer or any colder time of year like going in caves. If you have ever been in a cave then you know that it is relatively cold in there and if you don’t have gloves your hands are sure to be very cold at the end of the trip. If you went at any another time in the year it would be even colder and when you exited the cave you wouldn’t be warmed as much if it wasn’t for our humid Iowan summer air surrounding us.

This is why summer rocks.

Video Games

Most adolescent males would say that they love video games. I am among those males that would generally say this, but the other day, when working on some homework and thinking about life, I came to a different conclusion.

While working on homework, my brother was playing one of his favorite PS2 games. Frequently being distracted by his game I was not able to fully give my attention to my homework. However frustrating this was for me, because of how little of progress I was making, I kept dividing my focus between the two.

Then I thought of what my grades might be like if instead of playing video games, studied for classes or did my homework. I also thought of all the books I could have read, all the knowledge I could have possessed, but missed out and spent that time playing a game that doesn’t and isn’t real. Believe me I’ve asked myself why I waste my life away, in front of a TV in an imaginary world that’s impact is not felt in reality.

I wanted the time back. Some games record how much time you’ve played on it. I’ve come to hate it; it only reminds me of how much time I threw away to the game.

I feel it is a prescription drug to the adolescent male. If used appropriately it can be beneficial. For example occasionally playing a friendly game with a couple of friends can be fun and entertaining, while building friendships it is productive and possibly healthy to a male of that age. But if you overdose, it can corrupt and destroy your life. It will control your moods, content when you win or beat the game, but aggressive and quick to become angry after a frustrating defeat by the video game.

Even now as I blog my brothers are being consumed by the screen that portrays their digital character, fighting off the bad guys. If one has immersed themselves in video games their whole lives, at the end of their life they will undoubtedly wonder, “What have I accomplished?” This could be many great things, but the excessive time used on that game could have been used to impact someone’s life for the better or do something study harder and get into a better college.

I have spoken to many older people who all agree that it was just last year when they were in high school. All of them wish they could return to take that opportunity that they had let pass to affect someone for the better.

More Than A Carpenter

I recently read the book "More Than a Carpenter" by Josh McDowell. In this book McDowell discusses many arguments put forward about Jesus and really researches who he was historically. One of the first chapters is about Jesus and what people think he was. To many he was a great moral teacher and nothing more. That was what frustrated McDowell to dedicating a chapter to the topic. He says that Jesus could not have been just a good moral teacher, while proclaiming to be God. He was either, lying about being God and knew it, was crazy and really believed he was God or was actually God. He goes through each topic and debates whether or not each one is correct or not. He also talks of the validity of Biblical records and how they are reliable. There was a theory that the New Testament was a second century document and he researched the legitimacy of it. When researching these topics he goes to ask professors for the truth about the subject, what they do and don’t know, what they are sure of and what they think could be. I think that because the people he interviews are real with him it strengthens his logical stance in the book.

McDowell, however, waits until the end of the book to state why we should consider this book as anything more than a stubborn Christian just justifying his beliefs. He mentions at the end of the book though, that he was once a skeptic. Not just a skeptic, but a hard core hater of Christians and religion in general and wouldn’t hesitate to argue against them.

He changed however when he sought out to look for evidence discrediting Jesus and who he and other people claimed him to be. He was challenged to do this research by a couple of Christians on his college campus. When he finally accepted their challenges, he became a very influential professor.

Anyone curious enough to read the book, whether someone who believes in Christ or not, I would recommend it. Throughout the book he cites where he got his information so one can follow up on it if you have some doubts. I know if you are a teenager, you are thinking, “Who cares about that kind of stuff?” Here is the thing though, if you find out that there is someone or something bigger than yourself. Lets say you find this one thing later in life and decide that you should be living for this purpose, than why waste the days you have in your youth to live for something that you will later determine worth dying for.

Practice

My dad has suggested that I get used to talking about myself because of interviews that I will eventually face. So I was asked "What are your strongest leadership skills and what are you doing to improve your weaker ones and how will you use your leadership skills to impact your future?" This is my response.

My strongest leadership qualities are my coaching-style and unifying abilities. My coaching-style of leadership enables me to encourage people within my group no matter the circumstances. It also helps me to lead by example. With my hard working example and encouragement, the group usually does a job well. As the middle child of my family, I have grown up being the peace maker most of the time. When fights would develop between my siblings, normally I was there to either point out how pointless their fight was or to separate them from each others grasp and then tell them how stupid it was to fight over that particular item or idea. My negotiating skills have taught me how to unite members of my team, because with them quarrelling it is 100 percent more difficult to complete the task.

One of my weaker leadership skills is the ability to refocus my group on the task. When something or someone diverts the attention away from the original reason of a meeting, then I usually get caught up in it as well. I am working to improve this weak skill by leading an accountability group. This way I am able to practice getting my group back on task when something distracts us from the point of the meeting.

The leadership skills that I have acquired and the ones I am currently developing will help me in the future no matter what professional field I decide to go into, from engineering to missions. I will have fine tuned my ability to unify a group. This will help in situations where I find there is a conflict between members of the team and I will be able to deal with it and overcome that obstacle because of my past experiences. In the future I will have developed the skill to keep my team on task, working productively and efficiently to complete the job without being distracted. When I am older and have a family, my productivity and efficiency will allow me to spend the maximum time possible with my wife and family. My coaching-style leadership will not only help me achieve in the work place by encouraging co-workers, but also at home. Leading by example and encouraging my children to work with me on chores and house projects; I can teach them invaluable lessons on leadership.

Kevin's Birthday Present

This was a poem that I wrote a friend of mine, Kevin. It was his birthday and since I hadn’t got him something goofy like I was planning on. I decided to write him this poem during my release after school.

Hey I’m Kevin Riley, look at me
I’m kind of great and now nineteen
I like to pick on rosie, I think I’m a star
Like that one time I kept him out of his car
Then I tackled him to the ground and made a scene
But its ok, cuz I’m nineteen

Hey I’m Kevin Riley, look at me
I’m kind of cool and now nineteen
I like to throw the bottle discus really far
And I’m still enjoying guarding his car
Then I faked punched him, right in the spleen
But its ok, cuz I’m nineteen

Hey I’m Kevin Riley, look at me
I’m kind of stupid and now nineteen
I take pleasure in running around
Making sure that rosie’s not homeward bound
Then he started to bleed on some grass that was green
But its ok, cuz I’m nineteen

Hey I’m Kevin Riley, look at me
I’m kind of stinky and now nineteen
There were video cameras in the parking lot
The whole event was on tape and now I’m caught
I’ll just say “what’s up man” and I’ll be clean
But its ok, cuz I’m nineteen.

Hey I’m Kevin Riley, look at me
I’m kind of smelly and now nineteen
I finally let that awesome, good looking kid run away
After the managers came out to see if everything was ok
Yo I’m Kevin Riley and I’m kind of mean
But its ok, cuz I’m nineteen

Your welcome for the awesome poem

If you read one of my earlier blogs describing the event that I alluded to than you will understand all my references. After I gave it to him for his birthday I asked him if he was going to frame it. Of course he replied with a resounding yes. Whether he does that or not, well that’s debatable.

Before School

Studying sometimes, most the time notEveryday I arrive at school around 7:20 and head to the library. First hour starts at eight and so one might ask why I would get to school so early. For a couple of reason, I choose to come early to school.

The first of the reasons is that our parking lot gets very full, very fast. When I drive to school I want to get as good as a parking spot as I can. Parking closer to the school for some reason is a big deal to me. I’m not sure why, but just knowing that I parked closer to the exit because I got here early is relieving.

Another reason I come to school early is to finish some incomplete homework that I chose not to do the night before. In the library I am able to focus on doing home work if it is due that day. I also ask friends if there was any other home work that I had forgotten to do. This way I can do the assignments I remembered and the ones I forgot. It also helps that many of my classmates are in the library in the morning because if I have a question on the home work, I can ask them for help.

One more reason that I come in that early is that it helps me get ready for the day. I come in very drowsy from the lack of sleep that I got from staying up too late the last night. The time consisting of sitting at a table in the library, whether doing home work or just talking with friends prepares me for the day of interaction. It is like I am a wind up toy that is wound up during the first 40 minutes of the day at school. The 40 minutes of winding keeps me going until about 5:30 at night when I find myself doing working on school work when I suddenly get extremely tired. At that point I either choose to take a nap, or stand up and go eat something to rewind myself for another period of time in the day.

To me coming in early is my morning coffee. I don’t really like coffee at all, but I know people who drink coffee every morning to help prepare for the day. Fortunately, my technique of becoming alert and attentive doesn’t stain my teeth.

Bottle Discus/ Trackour

I have mentioned before in my blog that I have sixth period release. Because it is track season, a couple of other friends and I who have that period off are able to create games when we feel like not doing homework.

One of these games is Trackour. Trackour is a play off the new popular sport called parkour, also known as free running. Trackour however is exclusively for track runners only. All we basically do is jump on to the high jump mats doing flips yelling “Trackour,” extremely loud. We have done Trackour a lot this year, but we are very discreet about it. Our coaches openly oppose and discourage us from doing this new Trackour thing. They believe, for some reason, that someone will get hurt from doing it, they are probably right.

The other game we have just recently begun playing is called Bottle Discus. It originated on a cloudy Wednesday afternoon. The people who were in the gym gathered to have our first discus off of the season. We used a partially filled water bottle as the discus and the floor markings as the ring to stay in. It is a pretty popular sport within our track team, and even as I am writing this a friend of mine is bugging me to go play Bottle Discus.

Yesterday was our first out side competition for Bottle Discus and it came down to the last throw to decide the winner. Kevin edged me out with his last throw, beating me by a few inches. We don’t actually measure how far we throw, but we can eyeball it pretty darn good. Between throws we marked where the bottle landed with odd things. We used sticks, crumpled up tape and small flags that we found to show our farthest throw.

One time while “trackour”ing we helped a friend of ours move some mats under the basketball hoop and then stacked them on top of each other. Then he was able to climb over the top of the backboard and stand on the rim. Then he sat on the rim. It was the purest form of Trackour I had ever seen. Yet I couldn’t keep focus on it because I was scared that he was going to hurt himself. He is a good track runner and if he had hurt himself than that would have been the end to Trackour as I know it. Luckily the sport is still alive today, because he returned to the ground safely and without the coaches ever knowing what happened.

Night Routine

Every night for some reason I arrive home from track, take a shower, eat and do some homework. As night approaches I tell myself I will go to bed early, so I don’t hate myself the next morning. For reasons unknown to me after about 8:30 I get energy to mess around with my two younger brothers who always have energy. Messing around with them only prevents me from getting a good night’s sleep in.

Last night I was getting ready to go to bed when the computer caught my attention and before I knew it I was looking up videos on youtube. After I finally pried myself from the screen I continued to get ready for bed when my brother started causing trouble. He wouldn’t leave my parent’s room and they were trying to go to sleep so they called me in to take him out, too lazy themselves to force him to move. I enter the room to find him lying on the ground attaching him self to the bottom of their bed claiming to be scared of something. He started to flail as I grabbed his arms and yank him up to his feet, unfortunately though, I couldn’t make him stand up. He refused to stand, and I realized it was necessary to make him feel a little pain so he would stand up. To make him do this I pushed a pressure point, behind the jaw and under the ear. That made him stand up quickly and I finally got him out of the room.

Then when I thought the ordeal was done, we got into a wrestling match which I easily won, with my brother being only 12 years old. Whenever I walked away from pinning him, he chased me down only to repeat the process. With the task accomplished and the wrestling match won, I again continued to ready myself for the night and finally went to bed. These situations occur much too often for my liking.

Like the night before last while watching a youtube video, my brother and I were amazed at this break dance move that we saw. So for about 30 or so minutes we tried to learn and perform the move on my living brown room carpet. It seems that these events happen all the time, whether due to my brothers or to my spike in energy level. I do know one thing though, that it would be great if I got to bed the first time I tried.

AP Exams

With the AP exams approaching, everyone is trying to study everything they have learned, or not learned, throughout the year. I have always thought that the best preparation for the exams starts with the first day of class. If you do the reading and home work assigned throughout the year the less you need to review what you have learned. The problem is though, that many times you do the assignments just to get them done, not to learn. With three AP classes this year, I am a culprit of practicing that many times throughout the year. I had to do it because of the extreme amounts of home work that was assigned on those random nights.

I completed home work without learning many times in order to continue increasing my GPA. Unfortunately for me however, our GPA has no impact whatsoever on your exam score.

This time of the year is when the AP teachers start handing out practice exams to help prepare their students for the real deal. When I sat down this year to take some of those practice tests, fear and regret greeted me with a punch in the face. I feared that when I actually took the AP exam that I would be as clueless as I was when taking the practice test. I regretted those nights when sleep became a higher priority then learning. The nights I did the homework only to keep my grades and GPA up instead of doing it to learn and further ready myself for the AP exam.

The last two years I have only taken one exam and I passed last years one, but not the one my freshmen year. So hopefully I pass two of them this year and get to be an AP scholar. But I am worried about this year because my attention is divided between three classes. Because of this my reviewing time compared to last years is cut into thirds. I am very lucky this year that they have greatly reduced the prices of the exams. If it was the same price as last year’s exams then I would be paying around 240 dollars for the three tests. Thanks to this new scholarship program, these exams will cost around 150 dollars. Hopefully, I do well enough on the tests than I could be refunded and the tests could end up costing as little as 51 dollars.

Eating Healthy

This past week, in order to better ready myself for the Drake Relays I decided to not eat sweets. I didn’t let anyone know about it, but just politely refused to eat sweets, desserts and chips when over at other people’s house. I think it has had a lasting impact. On the way home from Des Moines, where the Drake Relays took place, we stopped to eat. I bought a big bag of chips still disgusted with my performance in the race. To me that bag was like a girl’s cookie dough, which she especially eats when feeling in the dumps. After eating the bag, I felt that I shouldn’t have eaten it. Even though I felt bad, it was a welcomed feeling. With this feeling in me I know it will be easier to eat healthier, now and down the road when my metabolism has slowed to a crawl.


My father used to be an athlete, he ran all the time and talks of his self-discipline and his 5 mile daily routine. I imagine he did those things, but that’s all I can do, is just imagine. This is because he now weighs around 250 pounds without the motivation to exercise on a regular basis. Recently I have become worried about his weight, because with it comes dangerous correlations such as heart attacks.


Because I have overall been doing a better job of taking care of my body, I have decided to try and make my dad’s body a little healthier too. I do this by occasionally making him do sit ups, which many times, he declines to do. Living at home I do not notice changes in our family like my sisters, who attend colleges out of state. Like the time my sister pointed out to me that she was worried for my dad’s health because he’s gained weight. I sized him up and I came to the same conclusion as she did.

So I started to pry into the exercise life of my parents that seemed nonexistent. My dad says that because of us kids that he isn’t able to, and I love being used as an excuse (not). The situation encourages me, because if I can control what I eat now as a kid then I believe that I won’t have a weight problem when I get older.

Post Drake

In my other post about the Drake Relays I mentioned how we had a very good chance of winning the 4 by 800 meter relay. With the members of our team we all expected to be first. Now after it is over I am going to talk about how we, or should I say I, screwed up.

My team and my coach told me to get ahead early as the first runner of the relay. I was planning on it, but when the gun went off and I started to sprint so were the other runners and faster than I was. I tried to go faster and not get trapped on the inside. They were going too fast and I thought to myself that if I wanted to run a decent race than I would need to conserve more energy than I was. All other teams had either their fastest or second fastest runners running the first leg. They did that so their team wouldn’t be going into the second leg second to last like ours. We would have done a lot better if Anthony a faster runner than I had gone first and also if he hadn’t tripped when I tried to give him the baton.

I came down the last 100 meters using energy coming from somewhere not known to me. I was within ten meters of Anthony and I saw that directly behind him was a first leg runner laying down on the blue track. The warning wouldn’t and couldn’t come out of my mouth, I was just too exhausted. He tripped and got back up adrenaline filled. After I handed him the baton, I stood there and realized because that guy was laying there we would probably not win this race. In disbelief I stood where I had handed Anthony the baton until one of the track managers came over to tell me to come to the field. Filled with adrenaline, Anthony ran the first part of his race way too fast and ran a bad time for his ability.

Overall we ran four seconds slower than our qualifying time, which was very depressing. Thinking about how if I had just run faster than that guy that Anthony had tripped over we would have done much better. Even though I am pretty upset about it, I am using it as motivation to work harder and when state comes around I am planning to place first for the 4 by 800 meter relay.

Abortion To Others

The views of famous figures and their quotes on abortion both pro life and pro choice

Abortion has always been a touchy subject, so I thought to have a combination of quotes from famous people on the subject to get a feeling of what the more intelligent or important figures in society think. The quotes are from both pro life and pro choice advocates.

Former president Ronald Reagan said, “I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.”
“Society does not need more children; but it does need more loved children. Quite literally, we cannot afford unloved children - but we pay heavily for them every day. There should not be the slightest communal concern when a woman elects to destroy the life of her thousandth-of-an-ounce embryo. But all society should rise up in alarm when it hears that a baby that is not wanted is about to be born.” ~Garrett Hardin
A Planned Parenthood advertisement pointed out how that 77 percent of the anti-abortion leaders are men, and that one hundred percent of them will never be pregnant.
“These concerns (for orphan children in India and elsewhere in the world) are very good, but often these same people are not concerned with the millions that are killed by the deliberate decision of their own mothers. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today, Abortion... For the pregnant women who don't want their children, give them to me, said Mother Teresa.
Senator John Kerry once said “Too many people in America believe that if you are pro-choice that means pro-abortion. It doesn't. I don't want abortion. Abortion should be the rarest thing in the world. I am acutally personally opposed to abortion. But I don't believe that I have the right to take what is an article of faith to me and legislate it to other people. That's not how it works in America.”
Margaret Sanger said, “The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
Mother Teresa said, “If we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people to not kille each other? Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.”

John Kerry’s quote brought to my attention that I had fallen under the misconception that he addressed. It helped me realize that not all democrats/pro choice people are for abortions. If I could ask one question to Margaret Sanger it would be “How is it merciful to kill someone?” As for mother Teresa, I can see how much she loved people as God’s children when she says, “… For the pregnant women who don’t want their children, give them to me.”

Drake Relays

Yesterday, our team had a meet in Waterloo. Yesterday, our track team participated in a larger than normal meet in Waterloo. This day was important for a lot of track teams because it was the last meet to get a qualifying time for the Drake Relays. The Drake Relays is the biggest track meet in the Midwest region. Located in Des Moines, it attracts professional, collegiate and high school runners. This year is the 100th year of the Drake Relays and they are celebrating it by having many famous track stars came back to watch the events. This includes Michael Johnson, four time gold medalist at the Olympics. For high school runners they take the top certain amount of relay teams and individuals with the fastest times. This year all of our relays have made it into Drake, which is quite an achievement.

I run in the four by eight hundred meter relay. I believe that we actually have a shot at winning it because we have the runners that can absolutely beast it. Kyle and Anthony are two members of the team there best times are 1:55 and 1:57 respectively. However, when we qualified for Drake, Anthony ran a 2:02, five seconds slower than what he’s capable of. If you take five seconds off of our qualifying time than we have the fastest posted time in the state. I’m not trying to be cocky, but we have a very good chance of winning. I say this for a number of reasons. First because in the last five meets my time has dropped one or two seconds every time all the way down to my best time as of now of 2:05. Second because of Anthony and the time can drop and also because Kyle said he is going to run a 1:53, which I fully believe. Third because our other runner, Spencer is also dropping his time, which now is a 2:08, he is a long distance runner and therefore doesn’t have the best foot speed. As he works on his short distance speed, he will get faster making our chances of winning very good.

It begins next Thursday with field events, the high school running events are next Friday and Saturday. Even though, I am really nervous, I think I am prepared to run to the best of my ability and let my teammates do the rest.

The Remaining Tingle

I was recently reminded of a scar on my left ring finger the other day when it was unintentionally bumped. This is because it tingles like your funny bone does, unfortunately though it is still not that funny.

The scar came to be during the summer of my transition into high school.

I had played baseball back in the day and was a pretty good out fielder and chose to try my skills at it once again. I was terrible at the game, but I was a pretty good runner. I was bewildered, and still am, of how much conditioning there is in baseball. You run ninety feet from base to base yet for conditioning you run miles on end.

I rode my bike to practice that day and after conditioning, we played a slow pitch game to get lots of practice base running and fielding. Coach had given us the option to steal whenever we decided to. I had stolen second base and was going to try for third on this next pitch. The pitch was tossed and I took off for that white square and the catcher threw it to the third baseman. I thought I had him and slid into the base and as Brenden (the third basemen) went to tag me, he stepped on my finger.

I couldn’t tell if I was out or not. My hand was throbbing and I looked at it to find blood all over the place. If you don’t know what a baseball cleats/spikes are like, they are thin, square pieces of metal on the bottom of the shoe lying on its side to “dig in” to the ground, or in this case my hand.

I was taken to Mercy Care North. There they gave me stitches, which was a painful process. The doctor had to give me three shots of Novocain and injected it into the wound, which was excruciating.

That was not the last very painful experience I had with these stitches. It was hard to sit out of soccer, which I was playing for my middle school. When the time came for my stitches to come out I was more than ready because I hated my inactiveness. At the doctors, lying down they began to cut off the stitches. Earlier they had told me this would not hurt. They were wrong, as they tugged on one of them, my whole arm started zinging. That’s the only way I can describe it. It was like she was hitting the funny bone inside my finger over and over again. I theorized that that one stitch that intensely hurt was under or through a nerve and when the nurse tugged on it then it went ballistic.

Moral of the stories, don’t get gashed and need stitches; ever. Trust me on this one.

More Frustration

In Spanish class today, we talked about some of the culture of most Spanish speaking countries in accordance to their religion, Catholicism. We were talking about this because today is Good Friday and Easter is this Sunday. My teacher, Sra. Bark, was talking about some of the rituals and celebrations they practiced, and added a side comment about how her mother was appalled that we were having school today. That led to Max saying that because of the rule separation of church and state it justifies school being in session. Sra. Bark then said that he couldn’t tell her that when there are clubs like FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) and FJA (Fellowship of Jewish Athletes) and when there are prayer sessions at the flag pole.

Reanne Mason, a student in our class, decided to pipe in at this time by saying something along the lines of “FJA contradicts itself because fellowship is a Christian thing.” I cringe as I think in my head “You have got to be kidding me.” Even Gandhi said that he liked Jesus, just not his followers. It is because those followers don’t represent Jesus as they should. They are often prideful as Reanne is here, claiming that the word “fellowship” is only Christian.

After making that statement Max and Drew, two classmates, decided to challenge that statement. She continued to defend her statement, all the while I was wincing. They disproved her pointing out that a word cannot be owned a religion, that words are used by whomever and that there aren’t restrictions on who can use them. Realizing that she had lost, she angrily says, “Just shut up and listen to her [the teacher].”


I was extremely frustrated, to say the least because I have had some talks with Max about the question of an existing God. She is a catholic and lets the world know what she believes every chance she gets. In other words she’s obnoxious. She is misrepresenting Jesus to the class and all the while confirming to Max that there is no God and even if he did exist, he wouldn’t want anything to do with him if that’s what his followers act like.

I think she means well when she does things like that, but really she is hammering away on the already battered reputation of Christians. I think I would propose one thing for her to do before speaking, and that is to think about the implications of her words.

The Blog Influences My Decisions

Blogging, I have come to realize lately, is becoming a bigger and bigger part of my life. It has been influencing my decisions. It could be a bad or good thing when you look at it.

The good part of it is that I am now more adventurous and spontaneous than before blogging. I want to be able to write about something I do during the week. I want to lead an interesting life with interesting stories, not only so I can tell friends and family about it, but also to whomever may stumble across my blog.

The down side of it is that the things I choose to do may not be the safest or smartest actions to take. If I am iffy on whether or not I want to go to a certain event my deciding question has been, “Would it make for a good blog entry?” If my answer is yes then, more times than not I attend the event, unless my parents object. They might do this because they are worried for my safety, and they probably have good reason for it too. I am after all a teenage boy without the wisdom that most adults posses.

Earlier in my blog I wrote about my experience at Hy-Vee and how Kevin decided to guard me from my own car. Well at the track meet before when they had asked me to go with them, I was reluctant, but I weighed the options. I thought that something might happen that was blog worthy, and luckily and unluckily for me it was. Unfortunately though, it was at the expense of my body because of a good form tackle from Kevin.

Blogging, yes, has been a hassle because I often get behind. On the bright side though, it has made me more adventurous person. The adventures come with the risks and the chance that I might experience a blog worthy event.

Kevin Beat Me Up

The Saturday was looking promising. The sun shining, a bit of a wind, but not that chilly because of the heat felt when standing in the sunlight. That day we had a track meet, just down the road at Xavier High School. It would have been at Kingston Stadium, but the football field is being replaced. I went there around two and found the wind was quite strong in the open area of the track, but still the sun was successfully countering it. I ended up doing all right in my races. The meet had gotten pretty cold by the end and a couple of friends and I decided to go to the Edgewood Hy-Vee to eat. I agreed to go, but decided not to eat.

We were done chilling there and decided to go home, tired from the races. We were hollering our good-byes to each other. I unlocked my car to get in and started opening the door, when suddenly Kevin sprinted over and slammed it. Kevin is a goofy fellow of sorts and for some reason unknown to me decided to not let me get in my car to drive home. I thought it was pretty funny, because it was so ridiculous. Every time I made the move to open the driver’s door he would shut it. I realized he wasn’t going to leave any time soon, so I started trying strategies to enter the guarded car.

At first I tried to turn the tables on him and go over and stand by his car. That failed because he followed me, but never gave me too much space for me to have time to sprint back to my locked car and get in. The next plan was for me to get in my car from the passenger seat and then lock the doors. That way I could just slide over and finally make my way home. It almost worked, but when he sprinted around the car when he saw me unlock it and closed it. I tried that method again, and I was literally in the car when he got there. He pulled me straight out of the car. The last method I used, which kind of worked, was I challenged him to a race. He started at the back of my car and could run as soon as I touched the door handle. I faked him out as I pretended to go for the handle. He sprints at me screaming, but I say “False start,” and thought he would stop. He apparently didn’t hear me as he tackled me to the ground.

I lay there on there ground and Kevin, standing above me asks me if I’m ok. I told him I would be in a little bit. It came to his attention that there are probably video cameras, filming the parking lot. So he thought it would be funny to act like he was beating me up as I laid there on the cement. Then two of the managers came out and asked us if everything was alright. We started laughing because we imagined that they saw us on the camera and had thought Kevin had beat me up. We told them that everything was fine. They left and Kevin finally let me go home, injured and tired.

6th Period Off

In a school day there are eight periods, zero through seven. The normal school day consists of periods one through six. This trimester I am lucky enough to have my sixth period off. With this time to spare I go to the library and try to get as much as I can done. The problem is though, that often times I get distracted. On some occasions I get lots of homework done, that way I don’t have to do as much at home that night. Other, and most times I get off task and usually end up spending my time just lackadaisically doing homework.

With this time off, I go to the mostly quiet IMC. I am the most productive there. It is because I can’t get comfortable, I know that the librarians will get on my case if I’m not doing school work. At home, however, my body tells me to rest and relax. Many times I will do that instead of getting busy with my homework like I know I should.

Some of my friends also have sixth period off and I sit next to them while working. They sometimes ask for help with a certain project they are working on, like writing poems. Because I enjoy rhyming words of course I always agree to help. Those are the kinds of distractions that stop me from getting too much accomplished before school gets out.

I also have over the time of this trimester have planned out how to get down to the locker room at the exact right time. They open up the locker rooms at 2:35, so I leave at 2:30 every day and take my time to get down there. Most of the time I get there right before they open it up, then I am able to get ready for track as soon as I get there.

Recently, I have been blogging with the time I have. It helps me stay focused because my friends are still sitting at the table and with me typing away on the computer it takes a little more to get me sidetracked.

Sixth period off also provides for some interesting stories. One time upon scribbling my name on the sign-in sheet, my friends greet me and I say hello back. The librarian, for some reason, didn’t seem to like that too much and told us to not spend so much time being friendly and more time working. That didn’t help my efficiency because instead of working on homework, we kept on joking about how we are, from now on, going to act like we hate each other.

My Sister's Miracle Knees

My sister had knee surgery today; the medical team performed an arthroscopic surgery. It is a surgery on joints, but this way is advantageous compared to normal open surgery, because the joint does not have to be opened up fully. This way it reduces recovery time and pain for the patient, or in this, case my sister Abby.

Abby has had knee problems for a long time now. She attended many checkups where the doctors or physicians have taken x-rays to determine what was causing her the excruciating pain. With all of the checkups and scans they had performed they had determined what they had suspected, that the cartilage in her knee was breaking off. They showed her x-rays, pointing to places where the cartilage should be and how much has worn away.

Abby plays collegiate basketball in Lakewood, Colorado for a D2 college called Colorado Christian University. Her plan was that she would suck it up, endure through the pain and have surgery once she was done with basketball. This way she wouldn’t correct her knees and then go back and play more basketball just to ruin them again.

She chose to have a certain type of injection in her knees once every three months, which would reduce the pain. The problem with the shots, though, was that with each one she had, the less affective the next was.

She came home for her spring break this week with the plan to have surgery on her knees. When she arrived she had discovered that her surgeon at the University of Iowa was booked until July and had been falsely told otherwise by an assistant. Fortunately for her though, He knew that she needed it and made room in his schedule while she is home.

He performed the surgery and discovered that there was no broken cartilage, floating around in her knee. The thing that was causing her pain in her knees was extra tissue that had grown inside her knees. The nerve endings were pinched with every step she took, creating the pain she was eager to be rid of. Her knees weren’t permanently damaged at all; she has perfect knees for her age. She was extremely happy when she told me all the things that she was going to do, now that she had good knees. She said she was not going to avoid stairs anymore, start running consistently instead of the alternate biking and swimming, climb mountains with her friends, and be able to play with her future kids.

Our Frustation of Ourselves

I have grown up as a Christian essentially my whole life, but not really knowing what it means until around middle school. It was there I had the opportunity to see the clear distinct differences between the lukewarm/cold Christians and those devoted to live their lives trying to glorify God.

It makes me mad how some “Christians” live out their lives. Sure, when asked they would reply with, “I’m Christian.” But actions speak louder than words and those who agree with Christian theology yet don’t live like it, push negative thoughts about the faith into others heads. People see those “Christian’s” actions and realize that they don’t want to be a part of that faith because they aren’t living any different than of them, yet wasting time attending church.

It also frustrates me that people, very high up people in the church screw up. These screw ups though aren’t the normal sinning of lying, or small shoplifting, but socially unacceptable things that even criminals would cringe at. The priests and ministers of mega churches who secretly lead different lives then come to church on Sunday to hypocritically preach.

One time I was debating with a friend if God existed and he kept on asking why those ministers would do the stuff they did. I could see where he was getting at, but I didn’t have an answer. I asked “How am I supposed to know the reasoning behind someone else’s actions?” He still was baffled that those people would do those things even though the minister believed in a certain lifestyle. Nevertheless, what they have done doesn’t help my case.

The catholic school of Xavier, just down the street from Kennedy, doesn’t help either. I know that probably most of them don’t really care about God, even if they believe he exists. As a Christian I support the idea of creating a school where they could teach that kind of theology and such. But the kids that are being forced to go there are creating an unappealing image to Christianity. There are many occasions when I come into contact with them, primarily through sports. Their actions don’t represent what their school tries to as they would sometimes throw water filled condoms into the opponent’s showers and then dart off.

The term “Christian” is more and more becoming only something you circle on a survey and less about living it out.

Spring Break

When many people think of spring break, they only want it to come sooner. I do too, but there is a downside to it, at least in my mind there is. As of right now we are going until the 11th in June and there is no way that I want to be in school that long. Some of my college friends and siblings get out more than a month before we do. I am so desperate to end this school year that I might even propose that we skip spring break to take a week off of the days we have left of school.

I know that the seniors would absolutely go crazy, because they automatically get out by May 27th due to them graduating and all. I would too, though, and I wouldn’t want to take it away for them. After all, when I am a senior and it so happened that year that spring break was taken away from the students I would probably go ballistic. During the week that we were supposed to be out I would probably protest with my actions and refuse to pay attention. I would later regret this, but I wouldn’t care at the time because of the injustice being dealt to us.

Now that I am on spring break there is no way that I would trade it for being back in school. The thought of having to wake up early is painful for me at this point. I do wake up at a reasonable time, around eight every morning to attend track practices. It is enjoyable to have that much of the day and not be dead tired compared, to the school day, which most people go through struggling to maintain the small gaps between their eyelids.

I would suggest one thing, to all the high schools and universities across the nation. That is that spring break should be the same days for everyone. I have two older sisters in college. We enjoy hanging out, but it is prevented due to the fact that their spring breaks are a week off each other. To make it even better our spring break is in between their weeks off so when I do get to see them, we couldn’t hang out. Yeah we will get to talk a little bit, but it will be prevented from going in depth because of all the homework that needs to be completed by the next day.

Playing With Dangerous Words

This summer I went on a mission’s trip to Mexico and while I was there, I made a new friend. His name was Tim and before the trip we had only been acquaintances. It was fun goofing around with him, but once we messed around a little too much.

On the missions trip we were building three houses for families in Juarez, Mexico. The first day of work we needed to lay the foundation. The process was easy compared to stories I’ve heard from past trips where the group finds a boulder in the middle of where they were going to lay the cement. Fortunately for us though, the ground was level and we discovered no large obstructions, such as a boulder.

There was a problem, however, when we began to lay the cement. These problems were not inanimate objects, as one might suspect, but little dark skinned curious kids playing in our material piles. The sand pile especially attracted the most attention from the neighborhood kids. It was surprising to us as they played in the sand, because as we looked around the building site we figured they had plenty of sand, which with they could play. Some way some how, our sand was more fun to play with, and it was a bonus because they didn’t need to pile it up before playing in it.

We tried to playfully discourage them, by chasing them away, pretending to be a monster. Occasionally, we would quickly run over there before they noticed and picked them up and carried them far away from the pile. Eventually discovering this plan was as ineffective as eating soup with a knife, we debated on what to do considering those of us at that time were not very good Spanish speakers. We were still joking around when we, Tim and I, remembered the word to kill (matar) in Spanish. In the command form of the verb we ordered someone to kill the children playing in the pile (mátalos), of course jokingly, we then realized of our mistake. We forgot that they could understand, quickly we turned to them to say “Chiste, chiste, chiste,” which is the word for joke. My hope is that they didn’t think that we meant it and forever have this fear of Americans for what we said.

A Sure Strike

Today, the youth of America have countless places where they can go to entertain themselves. Almost all the children of today’s society know of all their opportunities to go out and have fun as children. Going to Chuck e Cheese, Play Station, the movies, playing video games etc… Once children have experienced a little of any of these things, they start to express their urgent need for them. I was that child and luckily for me, my parents were strong willed and only occasionally allowed us to influence them. An occasional Chuck e Cheese and Play Station made the experience that much better when we did get to go. I am especially grateful for their resistance to our consistent begging for a N64 or Playstation. When I went down to Mexico for my youth group’s mission’s trip, I was able to witness the conditions that these people faced in a city where it’s government is slacking and the people mostly living in severe poverty. The holes in the roof of their make shift house shout out how much they need help. Like, I’ve heard many people say before, kids are resilient.

After working each day some of us had the chance to play with the neighborhood kids. The kids would cry “hombros” (shoulders) for some of us to lift them up and take off running while they would screech and clench on to our heads.

I’ll admit sometimes we lost focus of working and played with them too soon, before we had finished up for the day. The third day of work, during one of our breaks we went with the neighborhood kids, ages probably ranging from about 5 to 8, to a nearby field. This was not a field as you would probably think of one, the ground not made of dirt but of sand, the ground was littered with pieces of garbage trapped by the scattered knee-high leafless bushes. We went there to try and catch some lizards, which unknown to me were very small and even quicker than they were small. Fortunately, these kids were pros when it came to catching lizards. They spotted them at the roots of bushes yards away and surrounded it while one of them moved closer with a stick in hand in order to get it out of the shelter of the bush. The lizard would dart across the sand from one bush to the next and the kids kept on repeating the process. Until one time when the lizard darted across the sand and one of the kids, probably around 10 feet away, throws a small rock at it and nails it.

Impressively the lizard ends up dead after the kids checked it and the high fives are exchanged. They can have fun better than most of us can, while creating memories to boast about for years and years to come.

Track is Wasup

Yeah, track has now startedYeah, track has started since last time I have blogged and so far it is going ok. Our first track meet was this Monday at Wartburg College in Waverly. Their facilities are extremely new and very nice, but like all track meets this early in the year, everyone is slow and they are on an indoor track. Indoor tracks are 200 meters around while the normal track is 400 meters, so it messes with your head a little bit. I run mainly 800’s and 400’s, so instead of running 2 laps and 1 lap races, I ran 4 laps and 2 lap races, which definitely messes with your race. It messes up your strategy because you are not sure when to conserve your energy and when to go all out and pass other racers to finish. Also another aspect of an indoor track that is annoying when running is that the turns are much sharper than a normal track and when running the turns I could feel my feet slide all the way to the right in my shoes, and it felt that I was on the verge of tripping.

We got out of class at 12:15 that day, 2 minutes before my class got out for lunch which meant that I had the privilege of eating on the bus there. It also meant that we would arrive at the meet at 2:15, approximately five and a half hours before my first race was to start. For some reason, that morning I had decided it was more important to get to school five minutes earlier than I would have if I had chosen to pack myself a snack for the long track meet. Fortunately my dad showed up and took me out to subway because I had so long until my first race.

We cam back and it turned out that they were and hour ahead of schedule, but I still had plenty of time to get ready for my event. I warmed up and then ran my 800 in a decent time. Afterwards, though, I was dead tired and could feel my heart beat pump through my entire body as I struggled to get up and make my way to the bleachers, where we were sitting. I tried to rest my legs and try to prepare for my 400 that was coming up, but I didn’t have enough time. The meet was significantly over an hour ahead of schedule and that meant less rest for me so I completely got dominated by the 400 and finished with an extremely poor time. My first race gave me hope for this season and that I might be able to do well in the season to come.

How We React

I was wondering how we reacted to certain events and I came across three theories. So I decided to research them and here are my thoughts.

I have come to this conclusion through past experiences that I have had. The first one confirming that the James-Lange theory is accurate in its assumption that we act before we think. One day I was playing football in a league that was only designed for passing. I was running my route when the quarter back threw the football my way. It was a little off course and I decided to dive for the ball. I ended up touching it, but not being able to catch it. I rolled once on the ground to gain control of my body and as I laid there about to get up, I punched the ground with my fist. I was angry that I hadn’t held on to the ball, but didn’t label it as anger until I was up on my feet again. I know now that I should have labeled it as anger and then thought about my actions before performing them because I ended up breaking my finger with the little intelligence I used.

I also believe in Schachter’s Cognitive theory of thinking and labeling an emotion and then acting on it because, like the first theory, I have experienced it. It happens many times during the day, because I have a couple classes with the same friend. Sometimes this friend annoys me, but it’s only joking around, but it still gets kind of annoying. I know that I am annoyed and have labeled it so, and in order to stop the annoying action that he is administering at the time I decide to inflict pain on him. It’s not serious, just like a smack in the chest or something like that, but it’s only temporary and he eventually begins to do it again. Then I will have to repeat what I did before. Because I label it and know what I am feeling at the time and then decide what to do from it I know that it represents the Cognitive theory in action.

Obviously the only one I haven’t mentioned is the only one I don’t think I’ve experienced. It is the Cannon-Bard theory, which says we label our emotion and act on it at the same time. This is why I think I haven’t experienced it. It is because I don’t think we can simultaneously perform actions, I think it may happen quickly, but one always has to take place before the other it seems. The gap between them may be incalculably small, but there still is an order to which things happen.

It Would Be Nice

In my five year plan, I would like to have picked out an enjoying career path that I will follow and be ready to dive right into it. I also want to not be too attached to my job so if God calls me to do something else I will be ready to leave it at any given moment in time. Within these five years it is my goal that wouldn’t stray away from my faith at all, that I would actually grow. I would also want to meet the person that I want to marry. In addition, it is my hope that throughout my college years I would have found a church that I regularly attended and was involved in their ministries.

It is important to me to have a career picked out and have a job to dive into after college because it provides a steady income. Everyone knows that with money comes power, some abuse what it is meant for, and that is helping people. There are direct and indirect ways of helping people. The obvious direct ways of helping is by donating to charities or giving money to or feeding the homeless. The indirect way is a lot easier and convenient, but not as meaningful or helpful to those who have less. This comes in the form mainly of shopping and the stirring of the economy so the effects are extremely mild. It’s important for me to have the ability to give up my job at any time, because if God has greater plans for me than who am I to tell him no that’s not what I want. Even though it might not be what I want, but I may think I know what is best for me, but can guarantee myself that my way is not the best way and that God’s is. It is also very necessary that I maintain and even grow in my faith. It’s necessary because actions speak louder than words and if I never go to parties and instead spend time reading the Bible or having Bible studies, people are going to begin to wonder. They might ask questions and then I’ll have the opportunity to share my faith with them.

I would have also liked to find someone that I possibly marry because like everyone else, I desire for that companionship. For me, finding a church to get involved in is important because that way I can grow in my faith and help others do the same. I believe it is important to get involved with ministries/missions while being there because I can’t think of a better way to show Christ’s love for everyone.

I will feel utterly amazed that I could accomplish so much. Amazed that I could decide on a career and stick with it, enjoying it along the way. Also I will be bewildered that I found a companion who genuinely cares for me and is willing to spend a lifetime with me. Relieved is the next emotion that will run through my veins because I used my time in college to be a witness to others. They will look at my actions and question why they drastically differ from those of others. I hope I can use this to talk about Jesus to them and explain what he has done for humanity.

Many obstacles that I will overcome while pursuing these goals will come from Satan and the sin nature within me. It will tell me in college to take care of only myself and that I can do it by myself without God. Screaming at me to do things I know I should not, like getting drunk at parties or not to go to church because I have too much homework or other non eternal matters. I will overcome them by recognizing their origin and what the negative impacts they would have if I succumbed to their pleas.

Bloggy Doggy

Blogging, for me has become like a pet. A pet, however, that is graded. My blog is a dog that has some kind of super power, the power to stay alive when not being fed. At the beginning of my ownership I didn’t take good care of it, I fed it once a week at the most. It obviously survived despite that I didn’t feed because, like I said, it has a super power.

I really became serious about blogging when January came around and I saw that the lack of feeding my dog had contributed to giving me a poor grade in the class.

It was the summer time and my dog, Rosey, normally just lies around and does nothing really. I noticed that every time I opened the drawer where her leash is stored she flips out. She runs up wagging her tail begging for her to be taken on a walk, wanting to experience something besides the feel of the floor. The summer wasn’t particularly busy for me either, and so I decided to talk her on a run every once in a while. Even though we went around the block consistently, she still darted towards me, barking, whenever I opened the leash drawer.

That is how it is with my blog, whenever I start up the computer; my blog seems to be yelping at me. And just like the first couple times my dog ran over to me begging I decided to ignore her. When I chose to walk my dog, it didn’t become a chore to me anymore, it was actually somewhat enjoyable. That was where I messed up with the blogs. I perceived it as a chore and therefore wanted to avoid it at all costs. When January came along for one reason or another I subconsciously decided that blogging was not going to be a chore anymore.

Now that it isn’t that bad and even sometimes enjoyable to write about something you enjoy. No, my blog doesn’t have a theme to it; I’m all over the place with my topics. I think that is why I have stripped the title of “chore” that I had given it, away. Just like when I thought of walking my dog no longer as a chore, I no longer treated it like one. Even though blogging takes a little bit more thinking, it improves your writing skills, which walking your dog, does not.

Something to do

It’s hard to imagine, but I know it will come. You can’t stop time and neither can I. So the years will pass by and before I know it two years will have gone by since this post. I’ve talked with some “older” people in my youth group, they all say the same thing. “It was just like yesterday when I was in high school.” I know one day that will become me; I will face the same problem of not being able to stop or even slow time.

It is my goal that over the course of two years I will have given my all. In sports gone all out and been to the Drake Relays and state for track, hopefully placing in both. For some reason urgency has made me work harder than before. I was just a freshman just yesterday it seems, and I could have and should have worked harder than I did. Now that I’m older and because time is of the essence I push myself harder and more often. “Time is of the essence,” is a common phrase, maybe even clichéd, but how true it is. I should have realized when I was freshman that this time in high school is only going to last so long and that I need to give it my best all the time. In school gone all out and been a valedictorian. The drive to do well in school comes from the phrase “Discipline, or regret.” With this in my mind I try to imagine if I had C’s in all my classes and what affect it would have on my grade point average and class rank. It would close doors to scholarships that I would have previously been able to attain. I choose discipline; most of the time. Even when grades come though, there is regret and questioning. Could I have worked harder?

It is also my goal that through the hard work of my high school career that I would be accepted into a good college that will grant me scholarships for sports, academics or both. Also to be making new, genuine friends in this unfamiliar atmosphere that I will be in.

It’s important to me because we all learn things through experience. Even as a baby we learn through experience, I wouldn’t know what hot was in less I touched or felt something that was supposedly hot. With all the learning that can be done in a college experience I want to maximize it. I want to learn a lot to help and educate others, to make an impact on their life.

Academic Achievement hopefully

By the end of this year my hope is that I would be in the top 20 for my class of 2010 and get at least a 30 on the ACT test. Even though it is going to be very difficult, if do all my homework, study for all my tests thoroughly then I believe that I can accomplish and possibly exceed this far reaching goal.

This goal is important to me because it involves many aspects of academic challenges that would enhance my educational career. It will open up scholarships that weren’t available to me before because of my new improved class rank and grade point average, which will have to increase if I hope to improve my class rank. It is also important to me, because of the situation that I have been placed. As of right now, really my only option, because of money situations is the army, navy, or air force academies. I feel constricted at the moment, wanting to give other colleges a chance. If I at least get a 30 on my ACT test, I believe that colleges that I’m interested in will start contacting me and sending me pamphlets of information about their school.

When I achieve my goal, my first reaction will be to pat myself on the back, because I have put in a lot of work to get here. I will be surprised that I have actually made it here and also grateful. Grateful because I know without encouragement/pressure from my family and friends I know the journey would have been much more difficult. I will also be grateful and humbled that God has blessed and for some reason unknown let me achieve this goal through the gifts he gave me.

I recognize that in order to complete my goal that I must make sacrifices. Obviously I have to sacrifice some of my time that is normally spent sleeping, even though I already do this, I must cut even further into it. Another problem that I have that needs to end if this goal is to be reached is my trouble with transitioning from one activity to the next. Often times I will sluggishly go from one chore to the next such as when I eat, I frequently watch TV. When I am done eating, I continue to watch TV and waste time that I should be using to study or doing homework. Other times when I finish homework I will take a nap that was supposed to be for a couple minutes but turns into a couple hours, I got to get rid of that bad habit to accomplish this goal.

There are obstacles that will get in the way of me meeting my goal by the end of the year. Those obstacles are the leisurely activities that so easily entice me, watching TV, playing video games, watching movies, playing computer games and the napping. By focusing on my goal and the realization that my family doesn’t have enough money to pay for my college education will help be attain my goal.

Personal goal

When the end of the school year arrives I would have liked if these goals of mine were to be accomplished. My first is to go to state for track for the 800 meter race, whether it be by relay or open. Also my goal is to have my time for the 800 meter race to be my personal best, hopefully under two minutes. I would have also liked to be in the best shape of my life both physically and mentally.

This goal is important to me because of my family’s position on the economic ladder. My parents will not be able to pay for my college and if I do well in track then my opportunities for a college experience, outside serving in the military, increase dramatically. It is also important to me because through this one goal, I will have built characteristics that will help me succeed much later in life. I will have gained much self discipline, by forcing myself to run and stay active when I don’t feel like doing so. Years down the road when my metabolism begins to slow, I am confident that this built up self discipline and mental toughness will help me maintain my weight. The attributes that I posses can be traced back to when I first started training.

When I achieve my goals I will feel that I have accomplished something to be proud of, and definitely humbled. Humbled by the fact that God would have blessed me with the ability to run the way I do, to train with intensity. He created me after all and gave me the talent to run, so what can I brag about if all I have was given to me.

In order to obtain this goal I must sacrifice many things in my every day life. I will have to begin to eat for track, such as more potassium in my diet. This means for me less cake, pie, ice cream and more bananas and assorted fruits. Obviously, I will sacrifice and expend a lot more energy throughout the day and that means being more tired while I’m awake. I will be drowsy in the day because of my exhausting workouts, but will have to maintain my focus in class. Sacrificing many of these things will be important, but I must get rid of the time wasters of my life. Primarily playing video games and watching TV are things that I must sacrifice to attain my goal. These activities just take up too much of my time, and if I want to truly succeed, they must go.

The only obstacle in my way is me. That’s right, me. It’s the tiny voice inside me that calls me to relax to take it easy. It beckons to me, yodeling to the Swiss part of my laziness. But I must become deaf to that part of me.

Carbon 14 Dating Inaccurate?

Is carbon 14 dating inaccurate?

Many of us, including myself had taken the word of our 7th science teacher who taught us that the world is billions of years old. Many of us know this as carbon dating that has told us is this so called fact. Well for starters this is how carbon 14 dating works.

Carbon 14, or radiocarbon as it is often called, is created in the upper atmosphere by the action of cosmic rays converting ordinary nitrogen into carbon 14. Ordinary carbon (carbon 12) is found in the carbon dioxide in the air we breathe, which, of course, so that your body, or the leaves of plants, or even a wooden piece of furniture, contains carbon. When carbon 14 has been formed, it acts just the same as ordinary carbon, combining with oxygen to make carbon dioxide. This is continually being cycled through the cells of animals and plants. Once carbon 14 is formed, it begins to decay radioactively back to nitrogen, at a rate of change which can be measured. If I were to take a sample of the air, for example, and measure how many carbon 12 atoms there are for every carbon 14 atom, this is called the C14/C12 ratio. Scientists are able to do this because C14 is so well mixed with the C12, which they expect to find that the ratio is the same if they sampled a leaf from a tree or a part of your body.

In order for this theory to be correct, the ratio of C14/C12 has to be the same. Scientists know that the industrial revolution has impacted it and can work around it, but how do they know what that ratio of, say, thousands and thousands of years ago.

There are factors in the past that seem to skew the ratio. The measure exponential decay of the earth’s magnetic field suggests that as you go back in history, the strength of the field increases rapidly. A stronger magnetic field would mean more protection against cosmic rays, therefore reducing the amount of C14 atoms created.

Here are some examples of some things that baffle C14 dating technique. A freshly killed seal is dated by C14 showed it had died 1300 years ago. Living mollusc shells were dated at up to 2,300 years old. Living snail’s shells showed they had died 27,000 years ago.

Academic Goal

By the end of this year my hope is that I would be in the top 20 for class rank. Even though it is going to be very difficult, if do all my homework, study for all my tests thoroughly then I think I can accomplish this far fletched goal.

This goal is important to me because it involves many aspects of academic challenges that would enhance my educational career. It will open up scholarships that weren’t available to me before because of my new improved class rank and grade point average, which will have to increase if I hope to improve my class rank.

When I achieve my goal, my first reaction will be to pat myself on the back because I have put in a lot of work to get here. I will feel surprised that I have actually made it here and also grateful. Grateful because I know without encouragement/pressure from my family and friends I know the journey would have been much more difficult. I also grateful and humbled that God had blessed and for some reason unknown let me achieve this goal through the gifts he gave me.

I recognize that in order to complete my goal that I must make sacrifices. Obviously I have to sacrifice some of my time that is normally spent sleeping, even though I already do this, I must cut even further into it. Another problem that I have that needs to end if this goal is to be reached is my trouble with transitioning from one activity to the next. Often times I will sluggishly go from one chore to the next such as when I eat, I frequently watch TV. When I am done eating, I continue to watch TV and waste time that I should be using to study or doing homework. Other times when I finish homework I will take a nap that was supposed to be for a couple minutes but turns into a couple hours, I got to get rid of that bad habit to accomplish this goal.

There are obstacles that will get in the way of me meeting my goal by the end of the year. Those obstacles are the leisurely activities that so easily entice me, watching TV, playing video games, watching movies, playing computer games and the napping. By focusing on my goal and realizing that my family doesn’t have enough money to put me through college will help be attain my goal.

I Hate Winter

I look outside and I see about a foot of snow on the yards that were full of green grass not that long ago. Don’t get me wrong I like the winter, but only because of the things that come with it. I like the holidays that come and the time that we are able to get away from school and spend with friends and family. Even though I may have homework over break, Christmas is still a time to cherish in the year. Also an aspect that I delight in when winter comes around is the days when the pure snow is on the ground and the temperature begins to rise making the white snow fit for making snow men and even better snow balls to throw towards your younger brother’s face. Other than that the winter is just not that great of a time in the year.

The winter is a time when the trees look like they should be in a scary movie, because they had shed their leaves. The roads are bad and car accidents became more frequent and more deadly. Travel is terrible in a snow storm or the roads are icy and you aren’t allowed to go anywhere, or worse, often times you are on your way home from a family get together a ways from home. While traveling home you run into a storm or bad roads, you were going 60 before to be cautious, now you are going 20, it’s terrible. What usually is a 30 minute drive turns into a couple hours long drive.

Another aspect of winter that I used to like, are the snow days. I have come to dislike these days off of school, for a couple reasons. For a snow day means that you have to make that day up at the end of the year. The worse thing about it though is that you are happy about it when it happens, but when June rolls around and the summer that was yours is being taken away from you, it is horrible. Even though it is outside our control we wish that we didn’t have those snow days. Another thing that I dislike about snow days is that often times your parents will not let you go and do stuff with friends because if its too dangerous for schools to be in sessions then it is also too dangerous for you to go and hang out with your buddies.

This is why winter is poopy.

Football Year Round

Well for anyone who doesn’t play a winter, spring, or summer sport then Football is a year round sport for them. That is, if he attends all the workouts scheduled. For me I’m lucky one could say because I am in track, but the only reason I started doing track as a freshmen was for football. I was going out then only to get faster for the next season, only to make myself faster and gain a competitive edge on fellow teammates I was trying to beat out for a spot on the team.

I played basketball for Kennedy as a freshmen and sophomore, but decided that it wasn’t worth the time I would have to put in to go out this year. So instead of hoopin’ it up I’m trying to study more and get more homework done and am also lifting with the football team. Our grueling lifting is just I said it is grueling, we lift four times a week and on the day we don’t we have morning “mat drills” as we call them. These morning workouts are for the cardio aspect of football and we work on our quick movements that are needed in game situations.

To make the workouts we go through more beneficial to the player, we often drink protein shakes to acquire the appropriate amount of protein to help our beaten up muscles recover. The protein is bought in powder form and mixed into a liquid of your choice, some use water, but I use milk. Drinking it with milk is much better tasting than mixing it with water, but the problem is I can’t drink it at school because there is no place for me to put milk if I brought it to school to consume while lifting, which is better somehow for the recuperation of your muscles.

It doesn’t take a genius to discover the affects of protein shakes after you have had quite a few of them yourself. The side affects are terrible you find yourself farting all the time even as I am typing now I can feel my stomach churning. I’m not a doctor so I don’t know how it all works I just know that once I guzzle down a few protein shakes then something goes wrong in my abdominal region. Once I feel that sensation a couple hours later I start to rip and don’t stop until deep in my sleep in the middle of the night. My suggestion is that if you can avoid drinking them it will keep your nose a lot more comfortable than if you started.

Wasting Time

“Why do I waste so much time?” I often wonder to myself as I go to bed at night. There is a reoccurring pattern during the normal day and it goes like this.

I wake up in the morning and automatically feel like I can sleep more because I am capable of getting ready for school quickly. When I finally convince myself to get out of bed, I experience regret because I realize that I not only need to get ready to be at school on time, but also to finish some homework I hadn’t been able to get to the previous night. Before school in the library I am panicking about tests or certain homework that I need to study for. That is the time I am most efficient, going through one homework assignment after another like nothing. Unfortunately though, during classes when I have everything done for that day I become extremely lazy always saying to myself, “You can do that at home tonight.” I go home from school and tell myself I don’t quite yet need to start on my homework for the night. Apparently I love the instant gratification, because I always trick myself into not doing the homework until late at night and then I don’t even finish and save it for the next morning when I am far more efficient. I go to bed that night regretting that I had left homework to do in the morning. Also before falling asleep I tell myself that I’ll try harder tomorrow and succeed in doing all my homework before going to bed. I wake up in the morning only to repeat the set of emotions.

I’m not sure what stirs and calms the motivation inside me to do well in school. It seems to be calmed when there is entertainment as an alternative to homework. I try hard to avoid entertaining myself at home, but with two younger brothers always entertaining themselves and my dad helping them its difficult to ignore. It’s mostly the movies that calm the motivation, but when it is over I become motivated again. This is short-lived because of my desire to go to bed. If I could better ignore the enticing movies or the loud video games then my life would, in all aspects, improve. I am not saying that I wouldn’t miss video games or movies, but I would be better for it. I would have better grades; have more time for reading and more time to talk with friends to keep in touch. Sure I enjoy “wasting time” but when you think about it, it’s just not worth it.

The Little Middle Finger Problem

It is very possible to have known me for a long time without realizing of my deformity. It is a peculiar one, one that I can hide well without bringing too much attention to myself. Well if you didn’t know before you probably imagined through the title that I have a short middle finger.

When I was younger I went to PCI and they ran a bunch of tests on me. I was about six years old at the time and the experience left an impact on me. They molded two casts to fit my hands that I would wear at night. The diagnosis was that my middle finger was growing into my ring finger on both hands. To correct this I wore the cast at night, which held the finger straight up and down, hoping to improve the growing path of it. I remember the cast well, because at that time in my life I was sucked my thumb as I went to sleep. I recall the cast, which was also around my thumb, so well because it made me give the habit up, otherwise I would be sucking on the disgusting tasting plastic the whole night.

I also remember the doctors talking about a long term brace; they might be able to put on my hands when I was 13. I looked forward to the day when they finally would correct my fingers permanently, but the age came and passed, and lost hope to ever attaining “normal” fingers.

With that in mind I began strategizing. I planned what to do and not to do in order to keep this problem on the down low. When I raised my hand, I kept it in a fist as to not expose it. When I cross my arms, I put both hands under my arms. I will never initiate a high five because that might cause for an awkward high five as they begin to study my hand. Most of the time I will walk with my hands stuffed in my pockets or into a semi clenched fists.

The bottom line is that I must use caution when I am in public. I use the strategies that I have explained and most of the time they work. When they don’t though, I am obligated to explain why I am the way I am. I must say to them that this is genetics seen in a deformity. My mom has it and so does her brother. I am unfortunately required to answer all the rest of their questions which are quite dull such as “Is it weird to do stuff?” Honestly people, come on.

Ringing for the Army

A friend and I excitedly volunteered to ring bells for the Salvation Army. We signed up on one of two sheets for this opportunity in our A.P. US History class, remembering the day and time, Saturday 10-11, but not the place that we were to go. It bothered me that I didn’t know where we were going, but during the school week we had the opportunity to look at the sheet, but I kept forgetting to look at it during school.

It was Friday night at 11pm when I remembered that we still had no idea where we were to ring bells tomorrow morning. I made a few calls and narrowed down the options to two, Mt. Vernon Rd. Hy-Vee and the Oakland Rd. Hy-Vee. The next morning I awoke with a sense of urgency, and a good reason for it. We still didn't know where we were going and didn't want to drive all the way out to Mt. Vernon Rd, to find out if that was where we were supposed to go. I had to do something quick so I decided to call our teacher, Mr. Benedict, but he didn’t pick up. Fortunately though as I was talking to my friend he called back to clarify that it was either Oakland Rd. Hy-Vee or Edgewood Rd. Hy-Vee not the Mt. Vernon Rd one. That made things easier because my friend lives in that neighborhood.

We decided to split up, one of us go to the Edgewood Rd. one and the other to the Oakland Rd. one, to determine where we were actually supposed to be. We both went at 10 a.m. to our different destinations and because I lived closer to the Oakland Rd. Hy-Vee that is where I went. I arrived to find no one there and proceeded to call my friend while still waiting inside my car, avoiding the cold, but more importantly the wind. He confirmed that I was at the right place when he saw others ringing at the Hy-Vee he went to. I got out of the car with my winter gear on, planning not to get cold and put on the Salvation Army apron and began to ring.
When in the car, on the phone with my friend waiting for him to answer, I had a clear shot at the red bucket that people so often put change in. When I observed though how many people were just walking by, I became discouraged and thought that it would be an awkward time standing there while people walk by the entire time. So I was extremely surprised when I had started ringing that people actually started placing money in the red bucket.

I thought to myself “Why do people become more generous when I’m standing here ringing a bell in the cold?” I reasoned with myself that it was because I was standing there in the cold that these people gave to the Salvation Army. They also might have believed in what it was going towards, but I believe the main reason was that I was there, sacrificing some sleep to come and ask for money for those who need it simply by ringing a bell.

Boring Snow Days

A snow day always sounds good, while sitting in class. However, when I consider the consequences of it, I reevaluate my liking of them. We had snow days on Wednesday the January 14th through the 16th, essentially a five day weekend. When you read this you are probably thinking “Oh, he is going to talk about how much fun he had during those days.” Actually it is quite the contrary.

My sister (who is attending college at the time) decided to go and visit one of her sorority sisters between her semesters. She is currently mentoring her friend and has made a commitment in investing a lot of time in her, to help her succeed. Unfortunately for me, my parents allowed her to take the car I was using at the time. Even worse for me though, was that her friend lived in Michigan and she would be gone for a week.

I was fine with the situation, because the car was going to come under my control (for the most part) when she returned, which wasn’t that long. I was patiently awaiting my sister’s return throughout the week and was glad when Friday morning came. I was to get my car back that day, not sure when, I just knew that my sister was coming home that day. I came home after a football workout and was told by my mom that she had been in an accident.

My first question to her was about my sister’s safety and after she confirmed that she was safe she defended my sister by explaining to me that it wasn’t her fault and described the situation to me. She then told me that she was on her way home being driven by her friend’s dad. I asked about the car and she told me sadly that it was not looking so good and it was still in Michigan and she wasn’t sure how we were going to get it back. There was a possibility that it was totaled, but we didn’t know at the time.

The next week we didn’t have one full day of school and unfortunately I was stuck home on the last three days of that week because I was without a car. The first day I was extremely lazy and promised to myself I would be more productive the next day if it was a snow day. It was and I used my time a little bit more wisely, but it was a close call. I disliked those snow days and wished there had been school, so I could have been spared of boredom.

A Hug?

It was my seventh grade year and I was excited for band to start (at the time, yes, I was a band geek). The previous year I had worked relentlessly to better myself at playing my instrument, the trumpet. I thoroughly enjoyed playing the trumpet, with its ability to hit many notes and the deafening noises that I could extract from it. My work had paid off and I was one of the best trumpet players in my class. By the end of the year I was clearly the best trumpet player and was without a doubt in my mind going to be first chair next year.

I was right, I came in, a seventh grader, first chair but lacking the enthusiasm that I had possessed the year before. That trimester I coasted along because I became disinterested in playing the instrument I had once loved to play. For that trimester’s concert there was a trumpet solo, and because I was first chair I had the honor of playing it.

The night of the concert came and I was pretty nervous, but it didn’t bother me much the reason being it was not a difficult solo. We went on stage to arrange ourselves into the classic half-circle with everyone facing the podium where our band instructor was going to be conducting. I only hoped as I set up my music that nothing would go wrong and I wouldn’t feel embarrassed in front of all these people.

The song in which I had my solo in came and we played along when the rest of the band quieted down to hear me play the solo. As I was playing I was only thinking about how to hit the next note just right and remember myself saying in my head that I nailed it as I continued to play the song mindlessly only reflecting on my solo performance. I was tremendously happy that I didn’t somehow make a fool out of myself and thought I was in the clear.

The concert ended and we packed up our instruments while parents began to gather to pick up their child. While the parents were coming I noticed one of my friend’s moms who came over to me and congratulated me on my solo. I thanked her and she extended one of her arms as if to give me a high five, but it also could be interpreted as an invitation for a hug. My mind began to race, thinking ‘I have never hugged another person’s mom before’ and ‘does she want a high five?’ The arguments and counter arguments for each action were being chucked back and forth in my mind when I though ‘if she is going for a hug and I just high fived her how would that make her feel.’ I decided to give her a hug and at once left her presence not being able to bear any more awkwardness. I could ask her still today what she was going for, but I doubt she remembers because it was a much bigger deal to me than I’m sure it was to her.

Difficult Christmas Presents

Every Christmas each person in my family gives two gifts. In order to determine who we will give these gifts to we draw names out of a hat. The first person’s name we draw is the person we buy a present for and the next is the one we make a present for.

This year I was given a make present, as they are called, that my sister would paint my room (which was pink with unicorn wallpaper because it was her room when she lived here). This gift, however, takes a lot of effort, obviously unlike other Christmas presents. Most Christmas presents you reap the enjoyment of it right after ripping it from its cage of wrapping paper. Christmas passes and I start to slightly begin to prepare my room to be painted, while my sister is still home from college. Unfortunately this present means that I will have to sacrifice some of my time to help my sister give this present to me.

I realized how sacrificing it would be one night when I wanted to go and hang out with some friends and she confronted my saying that she wanted to work in the room that night. I ended up going after she played the devil’s advocate and exclaimed that after all, it was a gift from her and shouldn’t require that much work from me. Regrettably that was the last time I escaped from the work that needed to be done. The painting was mostly done on that Sunday and I really believed that we were going to finish the project within a couple days, so I could move back into my room. It still isn’t finished today and let me tell you, I have gone into my room a number of times to do an odd job, such as looking for my bag pack. Also I have gone there a number of times to drop my stuff when I arrive home only to be denied of the space that I used call my own, but its floors are covered in towels to prevent the falling drops of paint from staining the room.

I am currently sleeping in the basement and enjoy it for its chilliness, because I love to sleep in the cold. Unfortunately though, it is a hassle to make the trip up and down our flight of stairs for little things that I have left down in my current quarters. However aggravating these nuisances may be I am still very glad my room is being painted, because that pink was really really pink.