Student Council Elections

Well I ran for Student Council again this year. I did run last year, but I lost. Luckily, I did get second place in that election and since the secretary position was untaken, I took that position. So naturally, I ran again this year.

My main slogan last year was, "Wake up to a cup of JOE!", so this year, I went with the same idea - "Are you ready for your second cup of JOE?". For the most part, I think the campaign idea was good, and it was constantly a source of laughter and applause when I would yell to people in the hall my slogan.

I was running against three other candidates this year, Scott Navert, Carey, and Juan Bravo-Iniglez. All three of us had to get up in front of the Freshmen Class and do a pre-prepared speech for them. Scott, Carey, and Juan all had good speeches, but I don't think any of them had quite the humor mine did. My opening line - "GOOD MORNING VIETNAM!" Insert solid minute of laughter from the freshmen here. (If you don't get it, it's from The Office.)

With all of my humor and campaigning, I still didn't make it past the preliminary votes, and Juan and Scott ended up being the final candidates for president, and later, Juan won. Student Council Elections can be kind of unpredictable - I had no idea I would have any real competition from Juan. I was actually pretty confident.

Oh well. I suppose that I have enough on my plate right now as it is, with finals coming up and everything. But next year... (Vote for Joe!)

David Ford: Go To Hell

Freaking awesome music video I found the other day while I was surfing. All credit to David Ford. Good job man, you got crazy skill!

Back to Same Old Nothing

Well, as some of you may or may not realize, the main reason I haven't been posting as often this month has been largely due to the play. It's a bigger commitment than I realized when I joined up. Not to say anything against it of course. It was really fun, and I had a great time doing it, but it was still some work getting it all done and memorized and everything. For all of our hard work though, we did get both an article in the paper and some free food. In the end, alot of people came out and saw the play, and it was fun to do. So I'm quite content with it.

Wil I do it again? Probably.

At any rate, things come down to this. I find myself yet again with a considerable amount of spare time. And of course, I still don't seem to want to do any homework ahead of time. So where do I go? To The Internet! And it always gets me thinking after a night of surfing how incredible the technology is that we have. When you think about the processes that take place behind a TV or computer screen, there are incredibly complex and unbelievably fast things happening behind it to make the images and videos that appear to us. It's all taken for granted.

But not to say that technology is perfect. Here's just one of the biggest problems I've run into, although I admit it's specific to blogging. Here's the problem. If you've got time to blog, it often means you don't have too much to blog about. And that's exactly what's happened to me.

Well I'll have to get over it and start putting my days back into words. I've nigh forgotten how to give a good summary of a chosen day with all of my recent posts. You'll have to forgive me. I am going to try to put a little bit more work into this blog in May, and I'm sure with finals and Student Council Campaigning, I should at least have something to write about. So keep reading folks. Sorry if this month wasn't as prolific or high quality as the ones before. I've been busy, but now I'm back on track. Back to same old nothing.

Banned

To add injury to insult, my account at school has now been banned. I am basically now entirely cut off from the school's computer. There's now only one of two ways for me to use the computers at school: use my little brothers account or borrow a friend's account here at school.

And why, you might ask yet again, would someone like me be banned? Well I got hacked. I should have seen it coming, I suppose. After all, my password for my school account is alcatraz014. Call me Captain Obvious.

Of course, it takes more than that.

Most BK students know all this, but for anyone who's not, let me give you an overview. Here at the school, everyone signed in on a BK account has access to the "G Drive". The G drive is a public drive that anyone can put data on. Documents. Pictures. Programs. It's the last in that list that got me in trouble. There's been a game on the G drive called Unreal Tournament. Ever since it was on there, there's been a constant war between the students and the administrators. The administrators keep deleting it and the students keep putting it back on, trying to hide it from the teachers.

These students don't usually make it far before their school account is banned. And that's exactly what happened. Whoever hacked me put Unreal back on under my account. And now I'm paying the consequences.

To make matters worse, I've got another Saturday School this weekend.

Someone stop technology. I'd like to get off.

Blocked

Most of you already know. My blog has been blocked by the Bishop Kelly servers. This means that nowhere in the school building can you reach my blog.

One might ask, why? You could point out that there is no objectionable content on this blog. But apparently Bishop Kelly thinks differently.

I do hang out with the same crowd that hacks and puts games on the shared drive. I can't say I've become one of them, but I can say I'm on their side. Maybe it's just because it's fun to finally be able to do something on the computers that you weren't, or just something that you aren't supposed to be able to do. But none of these people are malicious, I know that.

At any rate, the story comes down to this. Those links on the sidebar? That's what's gotten me banned. There was a special YouTube link on it that was able to sidestep the Internet blocks. There was also a MySpace link of the same kind, only it was barely functional, seeing as you couldn't log on.

And so now what does one do?

Thespis

Do any of you know who Thespis is?

The king of theatre, founder of acting itself.

I'm not sure he ever even close to imagined acting like it is today. I may or may not have mentioned that I joined the school Spring Play. It's pretty fun, but it's rather difficult. The times of the practices are usually 3:30 to 6:00 PM, but the play's almost here and we're doing night practices now - 6:30 to 10:00.

The acting is fun, but it's hard work. One of the reasons I have been posting much is because I've been running lines. This week and weekend is our performance week, and I doubt I will get anything done but acting. Today is our first performance for the Senior Class. I have a semi-large role. But I'm not nervous. I'm ready.

The play's called "Totally Over You", and it's about four boyfriends who get dumped by their girlfriends who want to date celebrities. The boyfriends then proceed to trick the girls into thinking that they are celebrities. It's a comedy.

If anyone in the area would like to see it, it's everyday from Thursday to Saturday at 7:00 PM and Noon on Sunday. I'll see you out there.

Back from McCall

In celebration of the end of radiation, our family and Troy went up to our cabin in McCall this weekend. It was a short trip but Troy, Andy, and I all got to get one last day of skiing in at Tamarack. I'll probably give you some pictures and videos of that at some point.

At any rate, Dad seems to be doing pretty well. He's still not quite himself, but I can't expect that so soon after finishing radiation. He's still taking plenty of medications to help him. But my point is, he is recoverng, however slowly. That's all I can wish for.

This week will be somewhat busy. I have a BK band concert and tour in the middle of the week as well as a shadow on Wednesday. I'll make sure I'll get some footage from the concert for all of you. Hopefully I'll come up with something to write about too. Because I'm stuck. Ah well.

Such is the life of a blogger.

Last Day Of Radiation

Today was Dad's last day of radiation. We've come a long way since Groundhog's Day. It's been more than two months. As many of you know, my Dad, Gary, has been taking radiation treatment for a while now. And today was his last day.

He's doing alright now. He's still not quite himself, and won't be for about a week. But then, if everything goes well, he will be himself again. He'll recover.

Well it's in fate's hands now. I'll keep him in my prayers.

USJ

I have a lot of memories from eighth grade. It was a really great year for me. That may be why I wrote so much at the time.

One of my favorite memories from the eighth grade though, is the USJ. What's that you ask? Well it's the United States of Joe! One day I decided we needed some sort of organization to unify the class. And I knew I was the perfect guy to do it. So the USJ was born!

Right away, I had many loyal subjects: Zack Funke, Andy Harrington, Richie Harrison, and most of the boys in the class all joined right off the bat. With a growing population, I gathered the necessary props - a flag with Latin words on it and a cool emblem, a national anthem, and some incentive for other people to join.

First off was the flag. I had just read House of the Scorpion and I thought that the emblem should be a cool-looking scorpion. So I googled scorpion and found a nice one. As for the words, I used Paint and inserted "USJ" and "LIBERTATOS NOSTRORUM NUMQUAM CAPIENT" which means "the freedom of us shall never be taken." (I was thinking about Braveheart at the time...)

Next up was the anthem, and it was unanimous. We held a vote, and the anthem became "We're Not Gonna Take It!" Before the week had passed, the class would randomly burst out into a chorus of our anthem.

And finally came the incentive. I had saved up $20 for something like this. What do all eighth graders like? Candy! So off to Albertsons. Before you know it, we had a personalized goody bag with four candies in each one and labeled for each citizen of the USJ. The morale of my subjects soared, and I soon had many new citizens.

But of course, this couldn't last forever. Before the nation could live long, we found opposition from a few of the boys. Which wouldn't be a problem if they hadn't been the largest and toughest boys in the school. We soon found ourselves challenged to an airsoft war. But before I could organize one, I came down with appendicitis. My Vice President had to take over, but he was not exactly liked in this new position of power. Morale went down, and when I came back to school, weak as I was, the USJ no longer had the strength to counter the threats that it was receiving from these boys. And so ended the USJ.

But it was one of my great memories from the eighth grade. And it's another perfect example of me taking joy in the randomness of life. It's what I do best. And I will never forget those happy months that I was the president of the USJ...

Mondays, Part 2

Here's another part of my half-finished book. If you want to read the first part, here it is.
Mondays
A little background information - I wrote most of this while I was in eighth grade. At that time I went to St. Mary's Catholic School. Great place. At any rate, recess was a very big thing for most of the students, mostly because of competition. As eighth graders, we played the seventh graders in football. It often got really tense and at times both teams were known to cheat and play dirty. It was mostly from this that inspired this 2nd part of my book.
Enjoy! Comment if you like it!

After Algebra, there was History with Mrs. Lancaster. As usual in the class, I sat with everyone else, but read ahead, ignored the teacher’s discussion and did none of the checkpoint questions that everyone else did. So far, I’d been doing this for a month with no consequences. While they were reading about the War of 1812, I was reading about the end of the Depression. I had asked Mrs. Lancaster if she knew that I wasn’t with the class, but she just laughed and told me to do my work. She was a character.

While switching back to homeroom Andy bumped into me and said, “You suck. Wait for me next time you jackass.” I did my best to ignore the comment, and set my things on my desk. It was hard to ignore him sometimes, but it was always harder to punish him for it. For example, if I punched him for insulting me or annoying me, he would not logically link the two together and stop doing what caused me to punch him, but defiantly say something along the lines of “I didn’t do anything. You’re just a jerk.” This did nothing for either of us but further infuriated me. But for now it didn’t matter what he said to me. It was time for recess.

The school was small, maybe two hundred kids for the nine grades it offered: Kindergarten through eighth grade. Each of the grades got recess, but this was the last year that I would get the privilege before high school. The upper grades- the fifth, sixth seventh, and eighth grades- had their recess right after the lower grades, which were fourth on down.

As for the games, classes usually compete against the others. Eighth versus Seventh; Sixth versus Fifth; and so on. The sport was a variable, and the game pool included kickball, bump, basketball, dodgeball, four-square, wallball, red-ass, and many others. But the eighth and seventh played two-hand-touch football out on the grass field. It was what the two classes lived for. There was rivalry and friendship out on that field, and each football game was better than the last.

I ran out onto the field to face the seventh grade with my team. The odds were stacked against us. They had perhaps a seven-man advantage. Nick, our quarterback was shouting orders at everyone. We were receiving the kickoff. The ball soared into the end zone and Mark kneed it for a touchback. Hike! Nick dumped it to Luke, who made some good running yardage. Hike! An incomplete pass. Hike! A long pass to Mark. Hike! A short dump to me, touchdown. Score, 1-0, us.

I was a surprised at a touchdown so early; we weren’t usually this smooth this early in the game. When you’re in a football game and you’re outnumbered, no yardage marks, and no first downs, it’s hard to get a good start. On top of that, there were no referees, so if they cheated, than oh well.

We kicked off and I managed to tag the recipient before he could make it too far. John and I rushed Peter, the seventh grade quarterback. We had to rush through maybe three times as many blockers, but we pretty consistently made it through and if we didn’t make a sack, then we at least put good pressure on their QB, Peter.

So it was their ball. Hike! John and I sack Peter. Hike! QB run, maybe a ten yard gain. Hike! Incomplete pass. Punt! A quick recovery for us. We didn’t do so well for the next series of plays, and the game continued in such patterns until the score was 2-2, until it was late in the game. We had the ball perhaps fifteen yards from the end zone. It was fourth down, too long to give an easy pass, and too short to give a soaring one. I whispered to John, “I’ll be open.” On the hike, I ran straight into the end zone as fast as I humanly could. Still running, I turned to see the ball hurtling toward me. Still running, I felt my foot connect with a leg, and tripped over it. Crashing down, I saw Peter grin and make a grab at the ball.

He missed of course, but my class immediately sprang into action. John, having seen the deliberate tripping laid Peter out on the grass, and the seventh graders tried to come and wrestle us down. They weren’t able to; they couldn’t. While our age and strength may not be much use for two-hand-touch football, any sevie would be sadly outmatched to us when it came to fighting. But it was very hard for seven of us to fend off fifteen of them, even with our advantage of strength.

There wasn’t much else but tackles, but the two classes were in an all-out brawl by the time a teacher came and broke it up. He took the ball and said a little speech about our behavior, and said that the next time it happened, it would be gone for the week. It’s a simple thing to say, right? Not for him. He turned this into a five-minute long ordeal. I didn’t pay much attention, but there was something strange about how he said the speech. It was probably just that his voice kept on squeaking in the middle of it. I didn’t care. He was a pathetic teacher, and I had disliked him ever since I first set foot in the school. The only reason we hadn’t gotten in worse trouble was because he wouldn’t have known how to deal with it. All I gathered was that if it happened again, the football would be taken.

The bell rung and we clamored up the stairs, walked past the huge map of the world, and into our separate classrooms with plenty of exchanged glares.

To Be Continued...

Boredom VS. Stress

Well I'm stuck again. This time it's at school. I've basically decided that I'm not going to do any homework. I just don't want to work right now so soon after spring break. Luckily, this hasn't hurt me too much because BK has kind of been going easy here, letting there students down easy. It's a good thing too, I wouldn't be able to handle regular weeks of school right now.

Since I stopped doing homework, I've actually felt better as far as my health. But to counter that, I have become tired and bored at points in the day. It's almost seems synonymous with how energy is always conserved. General mood seems to be conserved as well, at least for me. I can switch some of the stuff around, but it'll probably stay about the same.

So what's better? Being unproductive, but bored and tired? Or being productive, but feeling stressed? Most people would agree that it is the second choice, because the second choice allows for doing homework and projects and all that. In fact, most people try to stear clear of that first choice. But I'm trying it out for a little bit. I think it's best to find a balance between these two. It's not good to be lazy all the time, but being obsessed with work is probably not good either.

And so I find a balance. And it's what I call living. I'm not constantly working and I'm not always lazy, but I'm able to do both. Sometimes this means that I miss a homework assignment. So be it. I will not sacrifice all of my spare time and energy micromanaging my life just so I can get good grades. But I won't sacrifice all of my schoolwork so I can live a stress-free, boredom-riddled life.

So when it comes to Boredom vs. Stress, I use an old trick that any skilled musician does when he doesn't know exactly what to do. Improvise. Go with the flow. And for Goodness' sake, try to make it look good.

Maybe Our Last Day of Skiing?

There's me going off the dip. I'm actually in the air but it's hard to tell from this picture.
There's my brother going off the grind. Here's two pictures from the peak of Tamarack.
One of Troy's cool jumps...

So it was a great last day of skiing! Next year it'll be even better...