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                 This is our eighth blog that we are writing, very crazy thinking that we have been writing these for eight weeks now. Time is just flying by and before we know it we will be walking up to the stadium.

                

                 I am writing this blog on a Saturday so that I can get in into the computer before Sunday, this being that I will not have access to a computer tomorrow because I will be going to Phoenix.

               

                On Monday while we were on our trip to the Ronald McDonald House for Mr. Roadrunner, I noticed a sign that said “Flatbush Zombies May 1^st.” I looked it up to see how much it would cost, and it only being twenty-three dollars a ticket we decided that we will be going to this venue.

              

               Now actually getting everybody to be able to go was kind of a hassle. We barely decided for sure that we were going to go about 16 hours ago, so we have been working with the time that we have. Another hassle was that Danny’s mom wasn’t sure if she wanted Danny going with me because I have only drove in Phoenix one time before. In the end, we were able to convince her that I am a well-qualified driver and that I can be responsible for her son’s safety.

               

            I am excited to go to Phoenix for a couple reasons: 1. the concert. It should be a good concert, although their last album wasn’t all that great, I am hoping that the live show will be better. 2. Tomorrow is the first day of National Burger Month, a celebration that I personally take part of. 3. Its Phoenix, and it’s always nice to get away for a little bit.

              

            This to my readers is probably a very boring blog to read and I am very sorry for that. I will try and make it up for you guys with my next blog.

               

            Have a good rest of your weekend and may you have happiness in whatever it brings you.

25 hours of my day

                 Talking to people has never really been a problem for me, especially if I am close to you. I may mumble here and there, but that is just how I am I guess. The whole scenario changes for me, though, when you put me in front of a crowd. I never really enjoyed talking or doing anything in front of a crowd, I would much easily prefer being around just a few people.

               

                It may seem kind of odd that I say this, because my dream job would be to one day be a sports broadcaster on ESPN. I feel as if it would be different because I would be talking about something I love.

               

                Earlier in the school year when we would have assemblies Mrs. Thompson at the last minute would hand me the microphone and say you are talking for the school. This would make me mad as well as nervous, but as usual I would go up there unprepared, make a fool of myself, and go on with my day. I would be lucky if Julian was attending a certain assembly because Julian loves to be on the Mic.

                

            With this coming up week I as well as some other senior boys will be participating in the Mr. Roadrunner pageant. Watching this pageant as an 8^th grader some of my good friends Ryan Baldonado and Dylan Barela were up there on the stage singing “Spending all my time” by Aaron Fresh and it seemed like to be pretty cool to be a part of. Sitting here now, only two days away from the actual thing, I do not really know how to feel about it.

               

           Another thing that is on my mind is that I will have to give the senior speech at graduation. Coming into my senior year this was not supposed to be my job as I was the VP but under certain circumstances I became the president, and with that got stuck giving all of you a speech. Not to make that seem like a bad thing.

             

          Speaking in front of crowds is not a lot of people’s strong suit. Some people out there could care less and just not think about it, I am not one of those people. I will be still performing for Mr. Roadrunner either way, and whether I think hard about it or not I will still have to talk at graduation. I have grown over time to just not care as much. This pertaining to having to do certain things, the events that happen around me and all that life has to throw at me. Although I am not fully there, it is helping me. I hope that I can take advantage of what is to come so that I can use it in my future.

After Some Time, You Just Get Used To It

                Being that I am going to try and show instead of just tell in my current blog I will be expanding on my blog from last week “three is a great number.” 

                As I said in my last blog my friend Danny lost his grandmother recently, her funeral was last Friday.

                

                Chris and I entered the room for which her funeral was partaking downhearted, Chris walked ahead of me. The smell of the flowers mixed with the whispers and soft music could have been the aroma of a nice restaurant, but sadly this was no restaurant.  I noticed that my grandpa or “Pops” was already seated; he was sitting in a pew by himself. I, thinking that I would try and be a good grandson, decided to go say hi or at least burn time until whoever was to be coming to sit by him showed up.

                

                There was already a certain feeling in the air, a gloomy feeling which you would expect being at a funeral. I journeyed over to the row for which he was sitting and said.

“Hey Pops”

               

                 He glanced over, then turned to me and said.

“Sorry, these seats are taken…”

                

              Now this took me by surprise, I was expecting something in the lines of “nothing much” or hearing that he was good, but instead he looked me dead in the eyes and told me that his seats were taken as if he felt threatened  that his grandson was wanting to take a seat that he had saved.

               

              I paused when he said this and from what I remember I did not say anything or just said “oh.” He then went on to say.

“Did your brother get his license?”

            This being that my brother turned sixteen just the Saturday before.

             I responded with “yes he did” and he came back with “oh, cool.”

               

             After he said his last comment I paused there for a second while he looked straight ahead, after a second or two I walked off to sit with Chris for the rest of the service.

                

             Like I said in my last article, my grandpa and I have never been close, while just recently he has gotten closer to my brother. I have accepted the fact that he and I will never really be close, which is fine with me. But when he went out of his way to tell me that I couldn’t sit by him when I didn’t even want to; that I found to be kind of funny.

                

            From experience over my years, you learn that everybody’s social skills are different. With this I lead myself to believe that, or at least hope that, he does not have very good social skills. He could just be lacking social skills or just doesn’t know what to talk to me about. He loves cars where as I enjoy sports; two completely different things. I don’t blame him for not creating a bond with me; I grew up watching him and my father as they had a distant relationship. I just hope that, in my future, I can create and keep bonds with my children and grandchildren. 

Three is a Great Number

I have three sets of grandparents. This being that my father’s mom and dad got divorced at a young age and eventually remarried. I never second thought it while young, I actually believed that everybody had three sets of grandparents and was a little shocked to find out otherwise. This being many years ago, I am grown now. Since then, I have realized that as you age and with all that comes with life, you become closer to some grandparents over  others.

I have always been closer to some grandparents over other ones. I was and am still definitely closest to my mother’s parents. I say was because my “papa” died during my freshman year. I still see my “nana” the most out of all my grandparents, and even though Bryan (my brother) was closer to my papa I still feel as if I was close to him as well.

Then there is my pair of grandparents on my dad’s side. One of which lives in Holbrook and the other of which lives in Ohio. Although the long range in distances apart I feel closer to my grandparents in Ohio than I do to the ones here in Holbrook. This may not be true for my brother, who shares a common love for cars as my grandpa here in Holbrook.

I just find it amazing how you can be close to some grandparents and not close to others. They are all blood to me and yet some of them such as my “Pops”(the one that lives in Holbrook) will speak to me twice a year, maybe three or four depending on the year.

This past Friday, Good Friday, my friend Danny lost his grandma. Her name was Donna Odell but we knew her as Granny. Granny was a great woman and always kind to all of us as Danny’s friends. I bring this up because I feel as if I was closer to Granny than I am to my own grandpa that lives here in Holbrook.

With saying this it does not mean I feel any type of anger or emotion towards my grandpa, I just wish that over these years we could have been closer than we have. I do still Love him. As I am growing, so are they, and it makes me sad to ask my Mom how old they are becoming and getting answers such as 72 or almost 80. 80 years old is up there, even 72 are up there. I have realized that I need to be thankful to have had three sets of grandparents because if you don’t realize it now, you never know when it may be too late.

I wish that over the years I could have spent more time with my grandparents, I always seemed to be busy with sports or school or something going on at that time. You need to appreciate the family that you have not only grandparents, but parents, siblings, cousins, even friends. Like the common known saying you do not know what you have until it is gone, which sadly even applies to family members. 

The Afterlife

Before I start writing I would like to let my viewers know that I will be talking about some controversial stuff that some may not want to hear. So if you are easily offended or do not want to think about this topic of life after death, please do not read…

Ever since a young age I have been a deep thinker, not by choice, but I am. With the deep thinking I, at about eight or nine started to wonder what was to come with death, essentially the afterlife. As I grew I came upon more and more theories that would keep me up for hours at night when trying to sleep.

                

           I just found it unsettling of how I cannot know what awaits me, but that is life’s biggest secret.

                

           Now don’t get me wrong, I do believe in God and I do go to church often. But there is always room for speculation in my head. “What if the other religion is right?” I would often find myself asking, but after a while I just learned to not think about it for the better of myself. What I have found is that there are six basic theories of what happens to you in the afterlife.

Materialism:  This is essentially the belief that when you die that is it; there is no afterlife, just black. When looking at this it is pretty easy to take in knowing that Hubble has found over 100 billion galaxies and is saying that they will be able to find 100 billion more as telescope technology increases. This is the typical belief of atheist people. When looking at how big space is and it is forever growing it is easy to say that we as one human being does not matter and with that we have no afterlife.

Paganism: Paganism is the belief that after you die you come back as a “lighter” form of yourself, such as a ghost. With movies and TV today the idea of ghosts is probably more common than it was before. There are in some cases, where we have heard of the ghosts that live in certain areas. There is also a rumor that I have heard of that says that when you see your pet looking around rapidly that is them seeing the ghosts that we as humans cannot see. I believe in ghosts, but not that we all come back as them.

Reincarnation: The idea that the same soul that you have now will come back as another form. It is you but it is not you. I have often pondered this belief, the reason why is that the Earth has been around for millions of years maybe even billions and since the creation of man there has been even more people than that. It is easy in my head to say that the same souls that were here from the beginning are here with us today, and that is why we all have our own styles and ways of living because we are in fact from different time periods.

Another reason that I believe reincarnation to an extent is that I look at my two dogs, they are so happy. I think to myself what did they do to deserve to be a dog while I am a human. This may seem odd but it is a just thought.

Pantheism: similar to reincarnation but you are put in a body based off of your karma in your past life. So back to what I was saying earlier, for this belief maybe my dogs were actually bad people in their past life’s making them dogs now, or maybe it could be even reversed of that. That because they were good they get the easy life of a dog and I am being punished as a human. With Pantheism there is a level where you realize what you have done wrong and that is where you find your peace with yourself by working up levels of lives.

Immortality: the belief that the actual soul survives, not the body. Whether it is through stages such as reincarnation or not, people often think of this as Christianity. I do believe in this a little bit, only because I feel like it is unfair to judge a person off of their one life experiences. They could be placed in bad situations, which everybody does, but some people have much tougher lives than others. How they fulfill with their lives decides if they need another life essentially to reach their eternal destiny of heaven or hell.

Resurrection: this is known as the new Christian belief. The belief that at death, your soul stands alone and enters either heaven or hell where it will stay for eternity.

As I told you earlier I am a Christian, that doesn’t mean I do not believe in these other possibilities as well. I find myself asking if I am “disobeying” my religion in a way by thinking as I do, but I feel that there will be people to think the same as I do all over. You could even say that through the Christian belief that this is a way of “the devil” trying to stray me away from the belief of Jesus, but it is not that, it is that I am open to knowing all the options.

                

           Another topic I would like to bring up is the idea of eternity. I am unsettled by this idea of a never ending, at I young age I feared death as I do still now. I would tell my parents that I was scared to die and that I wanted to live forever. Now older I find that maybe it is not the death that I am scared of because every person, whoever you are, sadly has to die one day. The thing that I do find to discomfort me is the idea that we do not get an ending, eternity is what it is. As well as none of us know what awaits us at the end, and that is truly scary.

The Most Wonderful Time of The Year

                I finally rolled into my bed; it was about one or so. I am able to go to sleep pretty easily, but throughout the night I find myself waking up with what is to come the next day on my mind.

              

            You may be asking yourself what I am talking about that is coming up. Is it Christmas? No. Is it my Birthday? No. The thing that I cannot sleep over is March Madness.

Now yes, it may seem a little silly to lose sleep over a college basketball tournament, but ever since I was in the seventh grade I have loved college basketball and all that is to come with it. For those of you who don’t keep up with college basketball, March Madness is a 64 team single elimination tournament. You can compare it to the state playoffs for high school just larger. It is action packed along with emotion, hence the name March Madness.

                

             The reason I bring this up is I want to talk about how each and every one of us are different in our own ways. As humans we tend to like and get excited about different things; whether it is food, music, or anything else. For example everybody seems to like Dr. Pepper, where as I cannot stand it. 

                

            People will always like different things than other people. That is how it has always been and always will be. What tastes good or what music sounds good in our ears is not chosen by us. We are not robotic, and the preferences in options is what makes each of us, us.

                

             When I couldn’t sleep I felt as If my mind was overloading itself to where I could not sleep for more than an hour at a time the closer I got to waking up. Until I finally just said screw it and got myself up to watch the first of many games for that day.

                 

             I don’t know why my body wouldn’t let me sleep, but I can remember doing the same thing as a child when it was Christmas the next day. It is odd because now that I am older I do not do this for Christmas but I do over March Madness.

              

            We all get excited over different things whether it is sports, holidays, coming up events or parties, a concert, maybe even a vacation. Whatever it is that gets you excited is part of what makes up you. I would love to hear in the comments things that make each of you excited, or maybe even a time in your life that you were excited for, that kept you from being able to sleep. Thank you for reading. 

One More Night

With my birthday being this last Friday and me turning eighteen, I have yet hit another mark on my path towards graduation and my life changing, hopefully, for the better. As I move ahead on my journey I will hit more marks and the marks will not stop there. After graduation is when it gets to the real stuff; moving out, a new roommate, paying rent if you have to pay rent, getting a job, and all the good stuff that comes with the real world.

One of the hardest things that I will probably face is not seeing the same people I have been used to seeing from anywhere to four to twelve of the last years of my life. I do believe that the people I am cool with I will keep in contact with, maybe not as much but that will be fine. But my real close friends: the Steel V’s, the Fugly Boys, the Slydawgs. I can almost guarantee that we will be as close as we are now.

I write this being that twelve hours ago or so I was just hanging out around a campfire, laughing and just having a good time with some of my closest friends. They said that it was a campout for my birthday, but I told them it should be a campout for everybody, not just me.

Now when I say it’s a campout, it kind of is. We are still doing all the common things that you do when you go camping except for we do it at the “dunes” instead of a forest setting. We have gone here before, usually around spring break time. In the past campouts you just have fun and go home the next day knowing there is time for another. But with this one it made me realize that we are upon our last or last few campouts and last everything’s together as one big group in high school.

Although we got some sprinkling here and there and had three big wind storms hit us, last night’s campout had to be close to if not the best one I have ever been  a part of. It was a good bond with some guys I have not seen so much of anymore but are still my close friends. And even if I do find a whole new group of friends when I am off at college or later in my life, they will be second to the group that I have been raised with in this little town of Holbrook. I am truly blessed with my friends.