Make Up Blog: The Finale

So this is it, the final one. I have spent countless hours trying to think of an idea to write about, and I have none left. So I'll write about whatever I can think of. I've noticed how bad my blogs are compared to everyone else's. Everyone else is out there writing a page worth of stuff and I'm sitting here struggling to write 250 words. Also, I've noticed how low quality my blogs are compared to all the others. You all are writing great pieces of art with pictures and everything else. I'm writing boring stuff that not even I would read. I tried doing the whole picture thing, but I got to lazy and thought they added nothing to my blogs. I tried to use a picture of Chris shooting a rifle during one of my blogs, and I thought it was pretty alright. Also, if Chris Will is reading this blog, stop laughing at me and go away. Moving on. My writing skill has improved slightly from writing these things. It has really taught me how to fill a paragraph with some bs to help make it longer, which I think will be a valuable skill in college. It has helped me figure out how to put my thoughts into words, but I think it just happened because I am writing these words as fast as a shark chasing a whale. Well, I think this about wraps up my final blog. Farewell everyone, and by the way my birthday is coming up soon.

Make Up Blog: College

After a battle between two great schools in Butler and Centre, I have decided that I will be attending Centre. I was leaning toward Butler for a long while, and they offered a lot because I got into their college of pharmacy. Now I don't even know what I want to do. That's the great thing about Centre. When I go there I have a while before I decide what I want to do, which is something in health care. If I went to Butler and attended the college of pharmacy, I would be stuck with pharmacy, and if I ended up not liking it I don't think I could get out of the CoP and try to study something else. Money was also a factor in my decision. Butler didn't give me all that much, while Centre gave a pretty good amount. And Centre was a lot closer to home than Butler. I think Centre is a 45-60 min drive, while Butler would have been a 3.5 hour drive. Mercer, one of the colleges I was considering before, would have been a 7 hour drive. Now I'm just trying to figure out which residence hall I was to live in. I'm lucky and don't have to worry about having a crazy roommate because I'm rooming with a good friend of mine. I won't be far away from my friends either, since most of them are staying in Kentucky. I am very excited to move in in Septemer!

Make Up Blog: Review Of Senior Year

Senior has been a mix of good and bad. On the good side, I have had the most fun I've probably ever had at school, especially my b days. My b days consisted of aiding forMr. Reed's during first block, sitting in the band room during second block, and sitting study hall for fourth block. The only real class I have on b days is English, but it has been very enjoyable this year, unlike most of my past English classes. My a days have been alright. All 4 years, my a days have been my more difficult day. The bad side of the year has been my grades. The 3 years before this, my grades have never been below a b, and now if I see anything worse, I kinda panic. That's happened a lot this year. I haven't had the best work ethic this year. It's not that I didn't care about my grades, but I found it really hard to work on anything. I would think that I could just do something later, but never got around to doing it. I think I just took too many hard classes for my senior year. You always hear how some barely do anything their entire senior year, but here I am taking 3 ap classes, which is the most I've taken in one year. I'm only taking two ap tests this year, and I'm thinking I will do pretty good on my calculus exam. But, I'm nervous about the English test. I've never been strong in English, but I've been studying pretty hard, and I think I'll do fine.

Non-Fiction

Until recently, I have hated having to read non-fiction books. Most of the time, I would be required to read autobiographies about some I don't really care about. I had always thought of a non-fiction as just that, a boring book about someones life who I don't really care about. But a couple of weeks ago I read Behind the Beautiful Forever's by Katherine Boo, and I thought it was fantastic. It really felt like I was living in the Mumbai slum with her. And now I am reading the non-fiction book American Sniper by Chris Kyle. This is an autobiography on Kyle when he was a SEAL sniper during the war in Iraq and it is amazing. Kyle holds the record for most confirmed kills by a sniper, and the longest shot by a sniper. The autobiography follows Chris Kyle as he goes through training to become a SEAL as well. As I got further into the book, I could see how the training to become a SEAL can affect a person. They are pretty much brainwashed into thinking that  they are the best fighters in the world, that they are invincible and that dying in battle is the only way to die. But, it also shows how many lives this mentality can save. There are multiple times where he would run out in the middle of a fire fight and pull someone out who had gone down. It is an amazing story, and is definitely worth a read.

Everything Comes to an End

Since we are almost done with our last year of high school, I think it's fitting I write about doing something for the last time. While high school won't be my last time in school, it will be the last time I have to wake up at 7 in the morning every weekday and go to 7 hours of prison time, at least for a while. That is something I am looking forward to ending, but there are things I look back at with sadness for having come to an end. Baseball is one of those things. My time at SLYB were some of the best times of my life, and I certainly made a lot of friends from it. After the last game of my last year, I knew I was done playing baseball. But, I tried playing for the older league during the fall, but do to a knee injury I stopped, and never went back, which I really regret. Even though it came to a rough ending, the 8 years I spent at the baseball park were amazing. I am coming up on another thing I might do for the last time, which is playing music. My last concerts for band will be next month, and after 8 years of percussion I think my whole musical career will come to end with those concerts. Music in college would take up a lot of time, which I think I will have very little of. It will be a bitter sweet experience because since music has been a huge part of my life, especially in high school.

Baseball!

Baseball season is almost here, and I couldn't be more excited, as the Reds are #1 in the power rankings to start the season. If you follow baseball at all, you would now how amazing the Reds season was last year, and how disappointing it was at the end. They lost 3 games in a row to the San Fran Giants and made Buster Posey a hated man to many people. Flashback: I was sitting in study hall listening to the game 5 of the series between the Reds and Giants on my phone. And then it happened. An infamous grand slam by Buster Posey that led to the Reds collapse and ended their hope for the world series. I don't think I talked to anyone for the rest of the day I was so upset. But, even though it ended badly, their were still some shining moments from last season: Homer Bailey's no hitter, having the best record in the MLB, and winning the NL central. And everything is expected to be even better this year. They have arguably undoubtedly the best hitter in the MLB with Joey Votto, the hardest throwing closer with Aroldis Chapman, and one of the best pitching staffs in MLB. Oh, and we got rid of the strike out king Drew Stubbs, and got the coolest Korean player ever, Shin-Soo Choo. All of those add to a great season that starts in 11 days.

Poetry

"Poetry is basically anything that calls itself a poem" is what my view of poetry is. I think that you could just write a description of anything, use some fancy language, and call it a poem. I hate the fact that poetry can be about anything. I also think poetry is all about identity. If someone is a well known poet, they could write some scribbles on a sheet of paper and it would be considered a masterpiece. They could write a description of a piece of grass, and while it may be the most boring thing in the world, it would be studied at every school and be inducted into the poetry hall of fame. I don't understand why some of the poetry I have gone over in past English classes ate so famous. Most aren't interesting, most don't make since, and most of them are completely ridiculous. I also dislike all of the different types of poetry. If poetry was all rhyme, I might have liked it, but unfortunately it's not. It feels like there are a hundred different types of poetry, and you can't use rhyme in any of them.

High School

I can't wait for high school to be over, and I'm sure its the same way for every senior. I don't know if it's just  me, but I feel like I've been doing the same thing for the past four years. Wake up too early, go to school, sit through two or three classes wishing you weren't there, go to lunch and get some nasty food, sit through one or two more classes, go home, sleep, and repeat. I would like to know how anyone is supposed to find joy in that. I know school isn't supposed to make you happy, but being bored doesn't help any. It has come to the point that in some of my classes, I sit and watch the clock to try to see if I can see the number switch or I just sit and stare into oblivion until the class is over. For example, my percussion class. I have been in that class all four years I have been here. We have gone over the same things every single year. I can kinda understand because we always get new players who don't know what they are doing, but I'm not learning anything new when we are going over what a quarter note is for the thousandth time, or when we play 6th grade music. I would be much happier if we had an advanced class, but we barely have enough students for one class. Well, that got a little off topic, but at least I let out some of my feelings.

Open Letter

Dear short mans disease,
Why have you chosen me to embrace your gift? While I think of myself to be of average height, I am reminded everytime I see my friends that I am far under average. I am a midget compared to my friends, who average about 6'3", while I am around 5'7". Not only you affect my confidence around tall folk, but you give me a wild disadvantage in almost every sport. I would love to be able to dunk, but instead, because of you, I get stuffed every time I try to go "hard in the paint". I'm too short to be a reciever in football. I am too short to have a good serve in tennis. Line drives go flying over my head in baseball. I always got picked last when I was younger because you graced me with your presence. The only advantage I have is that I do not have to duck to avoid hitting my head when I walk through a building. So please, if you could go away and give me a few more inches of height, I would not tink of you in a negative manner.

Make Up Blog: Beloved Themes

How do you deal with uncomfortable memories or traumatic events from your past?
Dealing with an uncomfortable memory or traumatic event from my past is something I don't even try to do. I don't know why but events that have been traumatic, to me, are the ones I have the hardest time recalling. I remember a traumatic event I experience when I was on vacation during either my freshman or sophomore year of high school in Cancun, Mexico. I was in the pool with my cousin and I heard my uncle say "Oh my God, is that a kid". I looked over and saw a kid floating face down in the pool. I remember swimming over to him, picking him up and handing him off to someone. I can't remember what he looked like, but I remember the blue-ish purple color of his lips. I can vaguely remember the doctors, who happened to be on vacation at the time, struggling to bring the child back to life, and the mother freaking out. I don't know if it is because of the adrenaline rush I had during that time or because it was a traumatic event, but I have a hard time recalling that memory, even though it is something that I should be proud of. Memories that are uncomfortable to me, I seem to forget or lose very easily. But, most likely, I am glad that I repressed them, as I would probably not want to remember them.

Make Up Blog: Stress

Stress is something that I am very used to, especially when it comes to music. As a percussionist, ever since fifth grade, I experience enormous levels of stress whenever I get a piece of music. Percussion is different from most other instruments because you are the only person playing that part, so you don't have 4-5 other people to cover up your mistakes and most of the time, you are who the rest of the band listens to for tempo. During my beginning years of music, those two reasons gave me some pretty hard times in class and made me very anxious. I still remember during my first middle school concert, I barely played at all because I was so nervous. The stress from not only learning the music, but performing it was enough to make me worried sick all of the time. I don't know when it happened, but the stress turned from giving me a negative affect to giving me positive affects. I became less worried about my music, and actually found it easier to play. I somehow learned how to control the stress, either from learning from my mistakes or from over the top practice. I went from not being able to play a part by myself to playing the main solo percussion part in this previous years marching band show. I used to hate being stressed over other people having to rely  on me for things such as tempo or hitting the right notes, but now it gives me a sense of control and confidence.

Guns on Campus

Guns are tools that I am very familiar with. All of my uncles, some of my aunts, and my father own a gun, with most owning more than one and most owning at least one assault rifle. I even have a couple of cousins, who are younger than I am, who own a gun. Many people might consider these family members to be "redneck", and I agree. As for myself, I asked for a hunting rifle for Christmas, and while my dad was fine with it, but my mom and the controversy over gun control won over.  I have never felt scared or endangered when I am near a gun. This is mostly because I am educated on gun safety, I know how they work and I can always trust the people around me when there is a gun present. But, I would definitely feel threatened if kids in college were allowed to carry a concealed gun, because most of them wouldn't know how to be safe with it. I'm not saying that we should make strict gun control laws or ban assault rifles, but I don't think it would be a good idea to allow kids who are still in school, even if it is college, to carry a gun. I wouldn't care if a student kept a gun at home for protection, because I plan on purchasing one when I move into a house or apartment, but we cannot allow them to be carried in public. I think there could be an exception if the college offered a class on gun training and safety, and after completing a semester or two of the class, you could get some sort of Student Carry and Concealed License.

Chris Will at my grandparents farm

The Road vs. Other Apocalyptic Stories

The Road is the only post-apocalyptic story that I have completely read. I am currently in the middle of reading, along with my inquiry project book, World War Z by Max Brooks. World War Z is a novel about interviews a man did on survivors of a zombie apocalypse. The interviews explain how the apocalypse started, how it was solved, and how people lived afterwards. While The Road and World War Z are both the same genre, they are completely different. While The Road follows the story of an unnamed father and son duo, World War Z follows multiple people and multiple stories. Also, while the reader is told that World War Z is a about a zombie apocalypse, we are never told what caused the apocalypse in The Road.
The story/movie I thought of when I was reading The Road was the movie The Book of Eli. While The Book of Eli followed the character Eli, carrying the last surviving bible to the coast, The Road, is very similar in that the boy and the man are traveling south. We are told that the apocalypse in The Book of Eli was caused by a nuclear fallout. There a lot of similarities in the experiences the characters from both stories face. Both face cannibalism, having to fight for survival, a shortage of supplies, and in the end, death. They also share a religious kind of theme.

End of The Road

Having finished The Road last week, I must say that I very pleased and enjoyed it immensely. I was attached to the characters the whole time, I understood a lot of the underlying messages of the story and had a style that was very fluid and easy to read. The setting of The Road was incredible. The way McCarthy created the setting was almost perfect. He was able to create a type of environment that no one has ever experienced, but at the same time make it feel like you have lived in it. The use of a road as the main setting was genius. Everyone in the world has experienced or seen some kind of road before in their life, so it's very easy to envision a road covered in ash. There were only 2 things that I didn't really like about this novel. First, at some points, the story seemed to move very slow. This mainly happened when the boy and the man stopped moving on the road. The dialogue during these parts were very boring and usually consisted of the man saying a short phrase and the boy responding with one word. I know that this kind of dialogue is important for the readers to understand the characters more, but I don't understand why McCarthy had to make whole scenes that boring. The second thing I disliked about this novel was the ending. I have read some novels that have pretty terrible endings, and while this ending may not be as bad as some of those, it is definitely not a very good one. McCarthy leaves us with the boy going to some group we know nothing about, besides that they have a veteran and a religious woman, and doesn't give us any closure about what happens to him in the future. For all we now, the group could have gotten the boy fatter and then eaten him. The story builds up too much about how the boy IS the future of Earth to just leave us with that kind o ending. I want to know if he turns out saving the human race by bringing the survivors together, or if he did something like become emperor of the world. But, overall this was a great novel, and has definitely lived up to the good things people say about it.

The Road

I have enjoyed reading The Road so far. I believe the tone that McCarthy creates is almost perfect for a post apocolyptic story. The tone, so far, has been sad and pretty depressing. The tone may be one reason for much of the story feeling boring and slow. Many parts are boring and feel dragged on, the dialogue between the boy and the man is very short, and many of the mans flashbacks are sad and depressing. While it may not make for a happy story, I believe the tone is what makes McCarthy's world very realistic. Many movies and other novels portray life in a post apocalyptic as non-stop excitement and adventure, but after reading some of this novel, I believe every day would be a struggle, as there would be very little to do besides look for food, eating and drinking, maybe moving to a new area, and sleeping. The sense of hoplessness that this story gives off is disturbing. Throughout what I have read, I am starting to see death as the only escape for the man and the boy. This brings up the question is suicide okay? That is what really disturbs me. We are always taught that you shouldn't even think of suicide and that life will always get better, but this story is about the struggle for life and how it will not get better for these characters. The boy basically has no future, unless the world is rebuilt, he is starving and freezing every night, and even if he does live much longer, he could be caught and eaten or enslaved.
Well, that was my rant for The Road so far.