Making My Moolah!

Welcome back everyone to my ever fascinating blog. Lately I've been talking about my new position in the working community, and at least for the first paragraph I will continue to do so. I have made my first paycheck and have just gone out to cash it. I don't think I have ever made this much money on my own before. Surely with a lot of help from relatives around Christmas and birthday, but never $200.00 in the course of 2 weeks of working. It's a strange feeling that I've never had to deal with before. The idea that I could go out right now and start buying many of things that I've always wanted as a kid baffles me. The thought that I have the freedom to do such things is so foreign to me due to my reliance on the parents for so long.

With all of the new and odd things going on I began reminiscing of my past. More than anything I began to remember my former stepsister Bethany. I remembered my brother had her as a friend on Facebook so I decided to go and look for her. The first thing I find when I go looking for her account is this. I had heard that her mom wasn't all there, but this truly brought her situation to light. I was so out of touch with the rest of the events in the world that I didn't notice when this came up on the news. Remembering my old sister brought back memories of sneaking candy past the parents in our backpacks where we would hide it behind frame of her bed and the wall. The world doesn't turn around one person. My life has gotten much better since then but there is nothing that can replace the joy I experienced as a child back then.

Despite everything that happens to me I still manage to come back here to my blog. I have to say that I'm glad to have some kind of outlet from what I have to say. I think I might go insane if there weren't some way of getting my voice out. We all have opinions and I don't care who you are and what you say, you have something you wish to say. You want your mind out for the world to see how clever you are to find someone to relate to. A world alone inside your head is the darkest hell I could imagine for anyone. Trapped with myself forever would be terrifying. The incessant nagging and the knowledge of all of my own faults. It's people out there like you reading this now that make my life worth waking up for. Thanks for being there for the last 2 1/2 years.

 

The Epic Struggle

Hello everyone and welcome back. Despite the basis of this blog being based around home schooling, lately things have made a much steeper turn towards my new-found life in the working world. Lately things have become a juggling act of being able to keep up with my school work and the working world. I think that I have been doing very good of late since I haven't had another meltdown from the stress that I have become all to familiar with. A few small headaches and some really frustrating nights but nothing so horrible that I couldn't get over it with a good nights sleep.

On top of the average work load I need to keep up my debate within the school. I think debating is extremely fun and interesting as it requires you to go outside of your average comfort zone to go up against someone with conflicting ideals to yours. What other ways are you going to get that kind of adversity without traveling the world? The new resolution or idea for the Lincoln Douglas style of debate is whether or not minimum wage should be a living wage. Pretty convenient if you ask me. if you are considering my new job right before the subject. Either way, it will be really interesting to see people's opinion on whether or not it should be a living wage or not. I personally believe that it should be living for people over a certain age, but for someone my age who gets to save all of the money that he gets, no. It should be minimum wage for the average teenager looking for a job, but for the majority of people there should be some kind of security. Even if you work at Walmart.

Despite the new found responsibilities, it hasn't been that bad. I'm enjoying myself at least a little bit of late. The problem I find is the lack of time I have to do something in my free time due to other responsibilities. My weekends are not my own as well as my evenings and this was exactly what I was not looking forward to. I will get used to it, but it will not be done over night. I feel as if I've become ever distant from my friends as they continue to enjoy the time that they have and here I am trying to earn a paycheck. There is an obvious division in personality's between us in a good way, but lately it has been a little to noticeable for me. Things don't straighten themselves out, yet I don't even know if this a problem. Time will tell.

Not the Sick Day!!!

Welcome back everyone to another entry on my ever expanding blog. For the first time in the last eight years or so I have become sick during a school day. I would like to attribute at it is willpower or something equally manly but I can't quite pin down why. One of the best parts though is that it was possible for me to be in attendance for every test and never have to make up any work within the school day. Sadly I managed to get sick on the last day of the previous quarter which was for my finals. This means that I now have to fit in the makeup work in my now busy schedule. I can never truly stress just how much I hate sick days. They are awful and I would've gone to school either way if I was allowed to go. Too bad they kick you out of school if your throwing up.

Along with my random sick story, I have been slightly stressed out of late. This is due to the finals that I have missed on my sick day along with my new job. I have the job and it is not going to be too easy for me to keep. I know that everything is going to test me with new problems to throw my way. Things I was thinking that I wasn't prepared for. I will stay strong under the duress of new events and be thankful for what I have because despite the stress, I know that this will pan out in the end.

Despite all of this, I'm optimistic. The reason is that I now have money to be used for whatever purpose that I want! That's the stuff that I put to the side outside of the money for the car. It is really good to have some kind of freedom. Whether that is freedom to leave the house to a location over a mile away or the monetary freedom that comes with having a solid paycheck. I don't think that I say it often enough but I'm lucky to have a family such as this.

Growing Pains: Take 2

It's amazing how fast things can move within the course of a week. Since I last wrote in my blog I managed to accomplish something that I thought would take ages to do. I managed to get a job. This places me as the first kid in my family to get a job and leads me on the path to start getting the car off of the parents. I will be working at Chili's like I said that I would and I'm so stoked and yet, at the same time, I'm kind of sad as well. This is my contract into being somewhat responsible with my life. I now have more than just my family who rely on me now  on a day to day basis. All I can do is take it slowly and make sure the job is done right. I was going to say something about hoping for the best but if I'm busy hoping for things to be done than nothing is going to get done.

On top of this, I have obtained the ability to drive on a full motorcycle for the first time. Meaning that I could take my dad's Harley at the age of 16 and drive it downtown for fun. In theory of course. My dad might kill me if I took his Harley out for a joyride without his permission. Instead I'm thinking of getting a Kawasaki type motorcycle when I have the money. It will be cheaper to get around on, a lot more fun, and strangely for me, it seems to be less nerve racking than any car that I have driven in my short amount of time. Strange I know.

Now I can't forget the most pressing issue of the moment. The Holiday season. Personally, my family celebrates Christmas and no matter what it looks like. Despite this being one of the "Happiest seasons of all" it is also one of the most stressful. The organizing for both sides of the family, the gift shopping, the making sure that everyone can attend, and the over the top dinner. Some people find Christmas the best and jump all over it with the lights strewn around the house and some holly over the doorway, but my dad's side of the family isn't quite like this. We don't have the tree or anything like that and instead focus on the gifts, dinner and most importantly family. Still, One of the hardest times of the year.

The Beginning of the Future.

Welcome back everyone to yet another fascinating week of events. Of late, everything has been going down. For example the 15th was my birthday and that is where I got my very first smart-phone. I've always been against smart phones in general but I find that they are extremely useful. The ability to work your schedule everywhere you go or be able to just listen to some music. I use it way too much in order to hate as much as i used to, but the problem beyond everything else among cell-phones is that they are self fulfilling. If you didn't have one cell phone than you wouldn't need the others. There isn't much point in having them in the first place as there are other tools that can serve the same purpose.

On top of my new smart phone I also have recently applied for a job. For the job I have already gotten my second interview. I'm extremely happy about this as I will be able to work at my first establishment. To top it all off, it is not at a fast food chain like McDonald's. Instead I will be working at Chili's which is a location that I would willingly eat at, the people there are really nice, and I could be able to earn my first paycheck. I hear the paycheck is what really influences most people to start working. We'll have to see though.

Finally it is the end of the semester for the most part outside of one pesky day. You see, we just got a snow day right at the end of the semester and now we have to make up the last day of finals after we get back from break. It is extremely annoying since now I have to keep up my studying over the course of the 3 week break. The good news is that despite this, we do have some snow to make the week go by a little bit faster. Besides. It's a good excuse to keep working on my subjects even during break.

December Madness

We are all in the thick of the busiest time of the year here within many lives including my own. Everything is coming up all at once including the holidays, tests, and the most important is birthdays. Within the month of December we have 4 different birthdays on both sides of the family. My uncle Aaron, my cousin Max, dad, and myself. Because of this we all get together as a family too eat dinner and have a combined birthday between the two houses. Tonight we get together and we celebrate by eating at one of my favorite locations. The Rusty Horse Tavern. During one of my earlier blog entries I reviewed this place but no matter how hard I search I can't find the original post. I have searched everywhere and can't find a single reference to the place. I will say that they have some of the best burgers I have ever had making it perfect for everyone celebrating here tonight.

Along with the excitement going is all of the tests. Tests for Math, French, Debate, and English. All of them being fit in desperately at the end of the year. It is a lot to take in and not too easy for the students to cope with. All of the reviews and finals come down on your head quickly and without mercy as the schedule is thrown on its head. I can say without hesitancy that the schedule is a humongous mess. No two days have the same schedule within a week. No one even bothers to keep track as we're too busy working on studying for all of the tests.

I never realized how much I loved listening to music until I lost most of my time on the computer. Nowadays I can't really listen to any good music. You just can't find good music when everyone listens to Country, Rap, or some other misc music that I can't describe. Now the only time that I can listen to good music is on the computers at school or on the Chromebook while writing my blog. It's at times like these when I wonder whatever happened to my MP3 player.

Decisions

Welcome back everyone to another fantastic blog entry!  Lately I have decided to make a deal with my parents which isn't exactly what I would call nice.  The deal that we have made limits my recreational time on the computer and how this deal came about is actually kind of funny.  More than anything it comes with the simple fact that I'm addicted to gaming by all accounts.  Spending 8+ hours a day if I can help it.  By limiting my time for the day down too 2 hours a day is far more moderate and allows me to focus on other things. There is also the fact that I kinda miss the days where I was a kid and played with my friends without a care about if I got online for the day.  Back in the days where the computer was a magical machine that I had no idea how to use and where the PlayStation 1 was something I caught in slight glimpses.   by going back to limiting myself in such a way It can allow me to get back into things such as reading. I bet we all remember that strange time period where people actually wrote words for fun!  I could also use this as an opportunity to possibly hunt for a job but I don't know how well this is going to work as, like always, I don't actually have much time to spare during my week due to the amount of homework. Still it won't hurt to go looking now before the next semester hits.

Of late in school I'm dealing with a lot of remembering things.  For example, the remembering of all of the different French phrases and words which is going fairly well, but then I also have to work on trying to remember on my oratory speech for Debate.  The main problem with both of these things is that my memory has never been very good.  I've gotten better over the years and have even managed to not brush my teeth foot lotion or load the washing machine with some of the kitchen trash.  Besides that though, trying to remember speeches or new words and enunciating them properly is probably one of the hardest things that I have had to do in a long time.

Coming up in the next two weeks are the finals for all of my classes.  The worst 2 weeks of each semester hands down.  A 40 minute test most of the time turns into a rescheduling of the class schedules for everyone and a lack of new curriculum.  Rarely does anyone learn anything during this week unless the class doesn't have a final.  It's infuriating more than anything.  I can't stand having my schedule moved around to the point where I'm sitting in one of my classes for 2 hours while my other classes I get 1 hour.  Usually all of my classes are about 1 hour and 30 minutes but when you throw off the balance like this within classes, you end up in some really annoying classes for way too long next to some people that will ruin a somewhat good day.  I can guarantee you that the next couple weeks are going to be the most hectic weeks of the year.  Ranging from birthdays, to lack of my computer for time passing, too finals will leave this an interesting end to the year.

The Tournament!

Welcome back everyone to another blog entry and we will open up with one of my current sports. Whether you consider a sport or not were talking about the world of Debate. Lately within School my debate team has been working hard to help set up one of the best tournaments within the Missouri area and in order to do this I had to go and collect judges, contribute to setup, and finally help out for the rest of the weekend in some way. These ways of helping could include helping monitor pods, Keep track of ballots, or help time rounds. I ended up not getting a job like hall monitor so I ended up timing different events such as Lincoln Douglas debate which is mostly philosophical debates, and Foreign Extemporaneous which is doing a persuasive speech with only 30 minutes of prep time prior to the speech. While these are fun to sit through eventually these things begin to wear on you after looking at the same walls for about 8 hours for two days in a row and listen as the arguments seem to blend together you just want to go home and relax.

I manged to get one of the new people to my household to help judge in a few different rounds. His name is Manny. Lately he has just moved in to live with the family for a while. Now personally I don't know him as well as I could since he is a fairly quiet person. Despite sharing a room with him at the moment he is quiet and usually keeps to himself. I won't go too much into detail about him because I have just met him and what I do know is for him to share if he ever wishes. I haven't really gotten much of his personality yet since I don't see him often enough and for this reason I won't start laying judgment or compliments on his character yet and he has turned out to be really nice so far.

Before I wrap this up I have to address Thanksgiving at least a little bit so why not my favorite foods. After all this is usually what people associate with Thanksgiving. Personally I love turkey as much as the next person but the sides are where all of the deliciousness lies. Lets start with the most basic food of all. The bread. Whether this be a fluffy roll or maybe just some slices of white bread the rest of the meal is not complete without this simple addition to the table. For me personally there needs to be some sort of potato such as mashed potatoes or maybe some potatoes Au gratin. There really isn't a limit here on the potato dishes. Finally there is that oh so beloved cranberry sauce that looks like dog food when it comes out of that can. There is something strangely alluring to me about this odd looking substance. It is sweet and has a strange gelatinous texture that you really can't get anywhere else except for with jello. If anything, this is probably my guilty pleasure as far as anything canned or packaged. All of these answers can vary by person so you don't have to agree with me on these foods, but for me dinner just isn't complete without these staples.

Autumn's Fall

Welcome back everyone to another blog entry. Lately things have been changing rapidly. For example there is the recent change in temperature. Within the last few days the temperature here in Missouri has dropped drastically, and I absolutely love it. The signs of the first winter are here, and it has almost completely bypassed Fall. This constant cycle of the seasons has made way for my absolute favorite season known as Winter. There is nothing like the bitter chill outside to bring everyone inside huddling under their blankets and relax as the twinkling crystals of ice glisten in the sky as the crystals softly provide for the earth, its' own blanket made of a bright white.


Another one of the changes comes from school revolving around Debate. A personal favorite class of mine due to how simple and difficult this class can be all at once. We now have a new resolution for debate, and this one is going to be pretty fun for me. The new resolution is "Resolved: To be 'forgotten from the Internet' ought to be a civil right." The really cool thing about this resolution is that the entire case is focused around Google. One of my personal favorite companies on the internet at the moment. I'm so excited about this project that I have a massive document of accumulated facts just waiting to be cobbled together into a working case.


Within all of the changes occurring at the moment it is hard to remember the amazing holiday that lies in wait around the corner. Thanksgiving, My absolute favorite holiday. As I have mentioned last year as well, many of the other holidays don't mean half as much as they should to me. Halloween feels tacked on, and simply there for just candy, Christmas feels more like just the act of giving and receiving gifts over the old values that it's supposed to have, and New Years just doesn't have the right levity for me. Thanksgiving can be seen as just another holiday to start stuffing yourself silly on turkey or whatever meal tickles your fancy, but it is one of the few holidays throughout the years that can guarantee me time to sit down with my family. To reminisce on the years before. The people that sit around you will stay within your memories for years to come as you give a proper thanks to times you've had, have, and will have.

Time Doesn't Fly!

One of the few words that I could ever consider to be my favorite would be the worde time. Time is something so mysterious yet it was a measurement created by man. All of the great truths in the world usually have some kind of flaw. The speed of light is not a constant, and if you cut the earth in half and make the two pieces drift apart the earth loses the gravity we have become so accostomed too. I can't lie that it's facts like this that drives me crazy sometime. Few constants exist that are reliable and the thought of them can chill one to the bone. Did you know that there is a virus that attaches to other illnesses to make them incurable? Dieing of the common cold would just be a sad way to go. Coincidences in of themselves leave you fearing for your life. Stories of people dropping dead in some strange way like a man hit by the same taxi that killed his brother and both dieing at the same age on the same moped. Something to chew on eh?

Happy early Halloween! Don't you love a good thought provoking story? I know I do and I find that facts among all other things are just the easiest way to bring that chill down your spine. Some people get it through bungee jumping or skydiving, but for the mostly sane we stick with our stories. I gave a nice misleading title to my story so that people would read the title and think it was another average post.  The second factor to making it work was the idea that surprise would help. Surprises are shocking and jarring. If you didn't know what you were walking into it would come as that much more terrifying. Honestly I hoped you all enjoyed the little distraction from the mediocre. After all surprises lye around every corner and it would be a shame to miss out on all of them.

Speaking of mediocre I think it's about time to get on track for the first time today. Lately I have been working hard on increasing my skill in French in order to have an easier time with getting my grades up and keeping them there. In order to do this I have taken up working on the side on a website known as Duolingo. I quickly saw improvements in my writing and speaking of French immediately. I don't like handing out praise to locations so quickly, but even my dad has been using it and it's helping him brush up in the hazy areas of the beautiful French language. If your ever looking into increasing your linguistic skills or to learn a new language I would recommend it personally.

"Put it in The Stack Over There"

To be honest with everyone out there I am super busy lately. I'm working my hardest to do all of my work right and it's starting to get to me. As I've mentioned before this is the first year that I've really had to work hard to be able to keep my grades up. A little bit more bragging on my part but it's true and it's starting to get to me. I'm making mistakes here and there its starting to ware on me. I've missed a couple assignments and then I'm trying to keep things together at home and I just need to keep going, but more than anything at the moment I need a break from it all.

On a more lighthearted note I'm working on writing a story for my English class. The story needs to be horror which sadly isn't my strong suit,but more than anything that is because I feel that horror just isn't the same anymore. I mean a good jump scare still gets the same feeling of terror across but that chill down your spine just isn't the same. For crying out loud, list a single movie, game, or book made recently that gives you the same kind of thrill from horror that you might get from one of the older forms of media. That would be my own opinion of course but I would love to hear your guyses opinion on the subject.

I remember ages ago stating things like I intend to get my name out on the social networks at some point. The funny thing about that is that now I'm using things like google plus a lot more often and I personally enjoy just looking at some of the interesting things you might find. A good laugh every once in a while to lighten the mood. Because of me going around Google plus I seem to be getting a few more views every once in a while. I think my activity alone is just getting people interested in the other things that I might post or do which is interesting to think on. Still I do get the word out a little bit more about my blog and who knows, maybe my blog could pick up someday.

Falling into place

The weather, oh the wonderful weather. It's finally becoming Autumn again and it means for me that I'm getting closer to one of my favorite times of the year, winter. Autumn has it's perks though like the beautiful changing of the leaves and the true beginning of the school year. After all, school doesn't really begin until sometime after the first quarter of the year is up. That is when the teachers come at you full tilt because by this point in the year they know for a fact how to approach the class.

Speaking of class, I have a new class. I have taken a huge liking to debate starting primarily with the recent tournament that I have attended. I decided to go into Lincoln Douglas debate and did an awesome job and came back with 3 victories and only one loss. After my previous records I was absolutely astounded to see a complete turnaround. Originally I was pretty terrible with my cases but now they have turned out awesome. I was so close to getting to the outrounds but I was off by one win to even be recognized on stage for an award, but you know, I don't think it could have gone much better.

Last thing on my list for the day is my complete lack of focus for the moment. The reason for this is just the long weekend. It has left me throughout the day, completely unfocused to the point where during math class I almost tuned out the teacher entirely and it took all of my willpower to stay on track. Even at the moment I struggle to complete my blog because of the urge to just fall into my gaming or read my book at the moment. In all, a lot of has happened over the last few days.

Second Language

I love the idea of being able to speak a second language that I can then use at a later point. This second language of choice for me is French as I have explained many times on my blog before. Only recently though have I truly been able to get the mechanics of the French sentences down. I'm only getting started but I finally have been able to learn some more of the basics. Stuff like Je parle Francais assez bien, is simple but so much fun to say. I've even got my dad going through French again and it has just been a learning experience between the two of us.

Speaking of French, my class is starting a fund raiser for the foreign language department in my school. This definitely won't be that hard. I have about 2 get all donations and then turn them into my teacher. We are selling cookies and magazines if that makes any sense. The first thought that came to mind though is of all things a bank. I don't know if banks would buy from a student looking to fundraise for their school but wouldn't that be the jackpot for this assignment? I mean just think about it real quick. You tell them that they can buy entire buckets of cookie dough fairly cheap and then you sell them a subscription to several newspaper for all of that waiting time that the bankee has. Just a thought.

I'm on a foreign language roll at the moment so lets not end it now. In order to keep my language skills up I do other things on the side that aren't too horrible. The music that I listen to at the moment usually consists of French lyrics. I also go and read some French articles every once in a while to help myself  get to a higher level of understanding of the French language. Simple stuff like this helps every little lesson that you do on a day to day basis sink in a little deeper. A little bit of immersion leads to a higher comprehension of everything you study of another language or culture. 

I love Science!

How many of you out there go and read up on some of the current events of the moment. I personally read up on it at every chance I have and because of this I want share some of the really cool things I found today. Definitely nothing like my last 2 entries which got me up to 300 posts, but I have to say I think you will enjoy some of the new things I have found.

More than anything one of the big themes of today in the tech world is the synthetic squid skin. Sounds extremely comfortable, I know. I can't wait to order it either. The primary idea behind this product though is not for comfort but it is one of the first forms of camouflage that we have at the moment. It is controlled through certain electrical currents which activate changes in texture and color. Perfect for all of those people who want to hide in a public setting.... I take that back. There is little to no way to hide in a public setting. In fact the instant you start changing colors people are going to look at you in some strange ways. You can check this one out here

Keeping on the theme of stuff with tentacles they now have a soft robotic arm. Amazing stuff really. It fills up with air and bends with the environment along with a few subtle tweaks in order to grab things. Of course eventually they intend to get this to work so that it could even pick up people which might be kinda scary. With the way things are going in robotics at the moment I wouldn't be surprised if they could do it either. After all we also have robotic cheetahs that can move faster than cheetahs. If you want to check out the robot tentacle I personally liked this link.

I'm thinking of doing stuff like this article hunting a little bit more often. Still It might be about time to start changing the name of my blog. Maybe even make a second one instead and try to keep this one dedicated to school work. It could work after all and then build off of that. I could even attempt to make a website that would allow you to get to all of the different locations. Awfully ambitious, and I'm known to not follow through with things, so we'll see how this goes.

Friends Forgotten pt. 2

Welcome back to part 2 of Friends Forgotten. This is my list of friends whom I have made throughout my almost 16 years of living. What does this accomplish? What this is supposed to do is give a great example of how friends have impacted our lives throughout time. I'll keep this short since I want to expand on this idea at the end so let's hop into this.

From part 1 of this entry I mentioned that there is 2 Jack's throughout my life who I attribute myself too. Well it's time for Jack C and there is only one thing I can call him. That would be determined. Without a doubt Jack C would fight for whatever he wanted. He was extremely loyal to all of his friends if not a little crazy at times. It was Jack who helped me remain as a kid keep my imagination moving at 50 Miles Per Hour and test the very levels of my patience at times. Much Like Carson I see him on a day to day basis but it's very rare if we ever stop to chat.

Reaching the end of my main examples we reach Daniel. Daniel was a very interesting friend for me as without him I probably wouldn't have become less shy and break down some of the boundaries that I had set down for myself. Daniel was a fantastic friend until one day we began to quarrel. We began to fight back and forth between each other until it became just too much. He was the first friend that I lost simply due to incompatibility. It stunned me for ages but it wasn't until much later that I realized just how much he had done for me. Without him I wouldn't have my current groups of friends nor would I have dealt with such an experience at a decent age. I have always hated conflict but Daniel helped me get over that over time. He doesn't know this all of course but then again, things are fine as they are.

Next up are 2 of said friends that I met through Daniel who I constantly talk too. Starting with one of the more recent ones there is Kale. Kale reminds me of myself when I was younger. He has a much more relaxed air around him as well as a little bit more "street smarts". To be frank he is just an all around awesome guy who reintroduced me to the world I used to see. Kale for the most part opened back open my eyes at seeing something familiar. Sometimes you forget that people have it worse than you. Don't mistake that for pity. He has just seen far more than I have in my life

Finally for the moment is someone I have mentioned many times on my blog. His name is Alex. Alex is my current best friend as their can only be one at a time. He is infuriating, big, and irrevocably smart. I Kind of think of him as my 2nd brother as our relationship has gone that far. We throw ideas of morals, basic concepts, and beliefs off of each other. We are almost like Philosophers in arms against the basic facts that we take for granted. With him I test the limits of my knowledge as well as always having someone to go to when I'm in some kind of annoyance. We have known each other for almost my entire time here in my little home.

There are a ton of people I have not gotten too and I don't know if I want to post another 2 or more blog entries of this. It is a fun subject but it would get boring for everyone else pretty quickly. In brief then some of these people include Trevor, Jason, Kendra, Kiele, Chris C, Kandace, Madeleine, Amber, etc etc etc.  Those are only the ones I could think of off the top of my head too. Give me some time and I could probably make that list bigger. The point here is that friends will come to you with new ideas that challenge your own. This brings out the best and worst of who you are. This is due to the conflicting ideas and adaption that you have to go through for those you hold dear. I could list the last names of almost all of the people on this list but for their sake I won't be doing any of that. Internet smarts help for their sake. Sit and think on who those people are for you. The ideas they invoke on you stick. Like a wet sock hitting a wall, you just don't want to touch it. You will leave those ideas where they are and continue to learn the many lessons they may have taught you. Who has influenced your life the most. Pay your homage to them even if they are being honored in your memories.

Friends Forgotten pt. 1

Today is very Important to the American people and of course many people all over the world for varying reasons. Just last night we had received a visit from an old family friend seeing him reminded me of how the friends I've had and have possibly lost throughout the ages. Not saying that they wouldn't remember me, but instead this entry on the internet is here to remind us of those we have drifted from that may have influenced our lives willingly or unwillingly. Lets begin down a trip through memory lane with some of the friends that have helped me throughout the ages.

The obvious one for me is my first friend whose name was Jack M. Jack M, because there will be two Jack's on this list. Anyway Jack M was an amazing kid and even if he has forgotten me he provided me with my first taste of friendship. I didn't actually meet him until 1st grade either which goes to show how lonely I was up till that point. It is him and all the fun times that we've had together that has given me my appreciation for having close friends and family. Without him I probably would have been miserable.

Up to bat now is the twins known as Brent and Logan. These two kids and me went back to the point where they were bullying me. I know how strange that sounds but bear with me. They started bullying me ages ago which got me onto my bad habits of revenge. Once again that sounds terrible, and yes it is, but here we go. After tricking them with some help from my dad they quickly began to leave me alone. It wasn't until about a month later after the trick that we ended up becoming friends. After that one day they didn't seem to do anything bad other than be really hyper kids.This helped me by allowing me to humanize even the people that seem mean or even cruel to us at first glance. With their help I can stop and think about why someone is that way before jumping to conclusions.

Next up is my first friend of this area I'm living in now. His name is Carson and he is without a doubt in my mind an extraordinary man. Carson is just one of those people that have that personality that you gravitate towards willingly or unwillingly. Carson was my rival for ages and I tried to beat him at everything but he was always one step ahead of me making extremely furious at times that I would always be outdone by him in just about every area. You win some you lose some. What did Carson teach me? He taught me how to fail and the benefits of having good friends. He was amazing as he surrounded himself with people that were just as smart as him. No bragging on my part since we have drifted apart since. Mostly due to the home schooling situation but you never really know.

Christopher was without a doubt another such genius. He was friends with Carson which is how I met Christopher. Chris has always been a whiz with math and cars. An engineering genius who knew far more than anyone of our small group combined on any one vehicle or electronic. Even then it was him who I give credit too for reminding me that friends are never as lost as you may first believe. The reason I say this is because I knew that he had been forced to go to a different school and even then we managed to find each other again over the inter webs on Google plus. Amazing stuff for me because without this he might have been another lost friend.

This is getting a little bit long so in order to make sure people don't lose interest half way through the article I'm going to start wrapping this up for the day. Remember those that you may have taken for granted and those small words that helped you carry on. One comment can change your life as I will demonstrate in pt. 2 of Friends Forgotten

Long time no See!

How is everyone today because just like last time I'm busy. Always busy, so happy with how things are going at the moment. For the most part my life is revolving around my school work which leads to one schedule set in stone. Wake up, Go to school, get home, do chores, maybe go to TKD, some homework, Dinner, Finish homework and then wrap up the day with a little bit of free time. Not complaining but this leaves very little time for seeing my friends or doing the things that I did just last year. A lot has changed over the Summer and there is no way I'm going to turn down a good challenge.

Everything outside of my Math work is actually pretty fulfilling which I will get back to that Math work later. Starting out the day with French isn't that easy because I'm not really functioning well by 8:00 in the morning when I'm waking up at 5:45. Next up though is Debate and it is proving to be a very welcome class right before Algebra. I also find that I'm not half bad at debate at the moment but it is only the first couple of weeks so we'll see where that goes. Finally other than Math there is English which is interesting enough but could be worse. I know that taking projects home that are due in one day can be annoying but I really didn't mind.

Lets get back to the math work... I hate it. I really do not like that class at all, but I intend to stick through it. Don't get me wrong the teacher isn't that bad in my opinion and I may hate math, but that still isn't the problem. It's the curriculum to be precise and that there is all grind and no lick of fun. No real help and notes constantly. I will keep going in class as I will have to take the class either way but on top of that I will need a challenging class during every semester as well as getting ready for the harder math classes yet to come.

Back to school

It's been ages since I last posted on August 9th meaning its been a good 2 weeks or so. Either way I have to say I haven't had much time up until now in order to be able to post anything. If I did post anything in between it wouldn't have been that good of quality and even now I'm debating on how good it can be. The main reason for this is due to the amount of time I am dedicating to my homework. At the beginning of this week I have managed to spend over 3 hours a night towards homework.

The worst part about all of this is that I seem to have become extremely grumpy towards the people around. I have become somewhat stressed out due to the work and time I have put into the school day. I know for a fact that it will get better with time but that's not something that I want to happen later. I want things to improve sooner rather than later because this stress is really starting to get to me lately. I try so hard to be happy I sometimes forget that just like every other kid my age I just want to go out and do something. What that something is, I have no clue to be honest with you but it has to do with my current lack of goals I think.

With that out of the way it is pretty good to be back as I'm sad to say I lost my newspaper role but gained another interesting class in return. This happens to be debate which has proved very fruitful for me with learning a few more social skills and allowing me to learn more skills in a conversation to inevitably out do my parents in an argument someday! I will eventually defeat them at their own game and hopefully get whatever my choice may be for that one argument but I don't know if I want to write a whole speech on potentially defeating them in a game of debate.

Camp Kick

Right on que Camp Kick has come back around to show us that school is almost here again. Last time I posted on camp kick was last year on August 9th. That post should cover most of the things I did this time as well. I didn't do much else that I didn't do last time so I'll probably just link the post to the camp kick post from last time. In fact you can find that one right here. Sorry if it looks like this is a lazy way of getting out of posting a new blog but there isn't that much else to cover that wasn't posted last time.

On to a new subject that isn't camp I have to say that I am very happy with my new school schedule which has given just about every class that wanted except for one but I'll get to that soon. In the first semester I have French 1, Debate and Tournament Forensics, Algebra 1A, and English Language Arts 2. A pretty good setup personally since after my failures with taking French on my own its about time I finally get that class down. In fact I am determined to get all four French classes which is going to be a pain in the neck. For Second session I have Chemistry 1, French 2, Geometry, and Computer Applications which to sum it up lightly the only things that I am not looking forward to are the math classes half way through my day. Other than that everything is going to be awesome this year.

There is that one class that is missing from my list of things that I am doing. Have you guys noticed yet that I haven't mentioned that Newspaper is not on my schedule. Well I have and it is bugging the hell out of me. I'm going to attend the workshop that is coming up to meet with the teacher and see what is going on with my schedule. I heard that she overbooked her class which will highly limit my ability to work on my English like I was hoping to do with Newspaper. It was just another outlet for what I was planning on doing but I did get English 2 which will tide me over for session 1.

Camp Week: Part 3

Alright everyone I have been given the task of wrapping up the rest of this today. No easy feat so before I begin a warning for everyone that I may begin to ramble or become unfocused during this entry as I go over the last 3 days of the camp. Now that we have that out of the way lets begin shall we?

Lucky for me there is only a little bit really worth mentioning on Wednesday. Mind you a little in comparison to other days. Lets start out with the Great Object Hunt! That's what I'm calling it at least. You remember how there was a point system while we were at camp? Well there were 4 random objects hidden around the camp with varying point values. There was a Football helmet, a bowling pin, a toy dinosaur, and a mascot for one of the local sport teams. People had claimed everything except that solitary bowling pin. This seemed baffling to me why the only bright white object which isn't that easy to hide was the only object never found. After all, bowling pins aren't exactly small and they happen to be bright white most of the time as well. Too put it bluntly I never found it either and this left me hugely dissapointed. I even went to the farthest corners of the campgrounds finding buildings that people didn't even know exist.

Next up was a small game similar to grab the bacon. A game where you have a square formation of people all around the football with each person having a number. When your number is called you run out and attempt to bring the football to your side. This game instead had 8 inner tubes like used to raft on water sitting in the middle in a tower. Our team decimated during this little exercise as we had 2 very heavyset instructors who were allowed to participate and ended up dragging anyone that tried to get in their way. It was amazing to watch but the fun soon ended even though we won there was obviously a casualty. One of the girls that were participating ended up getting trampled when someone was trying to bring back one of the inner tubes. I still don't know who did it personally.

After the injury all of the teams ended up retreating to the other side of the field and formed a humongous prayer circle. I honestly felt stupid sitting around doing nothing. That's what I felt at least. This massive display of faith and the only thing I could think was this feels ridiculous worrying about someone that not only do I not know but also worrying about something that is completely out of my control.  I was probably one of the only ones thinking this though as it was an amazing sight to behold. Something I will not forget for a very long time as it blazes in my head remembering it now.

Come Thursday most of the previous night is forgotten and people move on with their daily routine. On this day our prankster team member starts his plight on the few points that we had gained throughout the week. Starting out in the morning we all find a frog in grass as we wait in line for the breakfast doors to open up. This one mischief maker then decides to pick up the frog and hold onto it until later and breakfast is starting to wind down. He then runs over to one of the tables full of girls and throws the frog onto the table very much alive. This soon freaks out all of the girls ridding us of a lot of points. This though is sadly the beginning of his second prank.

I don't know all of the details on this one but I do know that this is how we lost the remainder of of the points we had. The same kid soon decided that during one of the morning prayers I believe on the same day to steal the bullhorn and walkie talkie of one of the instructors at the camp. He then walked all the way back to the cabin blaring the bullhorn without any of the instructors noticing. He is soon called out about the bullhorn at the next prayer meeting but he manages to keep the walkie talkie hidden for a while.

Next up we reach a brand new experience for me which is Skeet shooting! First time I have ever fired a gun personally but I had a general idea on how to fire a gun. It was truly amazing wielding a weapon for the first time and of all places at church camp. Mind you I never hit a target which left me fairly sad but I did manage to fire a 20 gauge shotgun a few times before returning to one of my favorite board games I have ever played. The game of Risk.

The first thing I always hear Risk compared to is Axis and Allies which I have never played before and neither can I find a copy of this game either. The entire game is based around world domination which I have all of the strategies to win but sadly none of the luck. The luck comes from the fact that you need to roll dice in order to determine who wins in a conflict and I had all of the awesome defensive positions and knew where to move my men but I could not defend any of the locations when I needed to. This left me sad as I lost yet another game due to some strange rules that I don't agree with. For example if one person wins then they flat out win without any casualties to their troops. This is nice for when you are attacking but because of this you can attack for a very long time after you have enough troops in one location.

One of the final things for Thursday was the Talent show. Let me tell you all something right now. I despise Talent shows! Seriously though they are pretty bad most of the time as people just end up doing a lot of singing without any real work other than remembering the words to one song or another. Usually a very popular song of that week. Also known as the flavor of the week songs. This talent show I saw some surprisingly nice talents like one kid got up on stage and did a full drum solo. Another kid managed to recited a ton of  Hamlet which was just astounding to watch him do. Even the Judges were dumbfounded by this talent of his. My team sadly were singers. I had nothing to add to my team really but the song the majority of the team was doing was clever. The classic song "Lean on Me" The kind of song that gets everyone on their feet as they start swaying back and forth with lighters in their hands singing along. Sadly we were running behind on time at this point of the show and we didn't get to finish the song costing us dearly and we overall lose the points that could be gained through this event and the whole point competition.

Here we all are on the last day of the camp trip and this day is pretty simple for me to write about. The reason why is because after the goodbyes for the day there isn't that much to talk about. I was so fatigued from the constant upbeat atmosphere as well the constant interaction with other people. This may have made me overlook some potentially interesting details on this last day and this left the most memorable part of this day the getting back to Kansas City part of things. There was the bus ride home where I was surrounded by a bunch of kids who were determined to keep me from napping on the way back home. Along with annoying me to the point of almost snapping they decided to pick on the bus driver on the way back as well. I was happy to make it home alive just like everyone else may have been but these kids didn't exactly help my confidence of getting home safe.

Anyway here we are at the end of the blog post and I hope you all haven't fallen asleep yet as I didn't have that hard of a time with this part of the blog like I thought I would. In fact it was easy enough that this only took 2-3 hours instead of the estimated 5-6 I was dreading the thought of. Now that this is done my next blog entry can be about other things like the fact that school is coming up soon and the plans with that.