AUTHORITY!!!

Wow. Well, the other day, I had a day where I did really nothing but enjoyed myself. Being completely carefree, I really  was able to feel happiness pulsing through my veins like juice. Just kidding. Anyways, on Wednesday, I got together with two of my best friends, DJ, who goes to my school, and Jonathan, who used to go to my school, but moved away a year and a half ago. We left school, got in a car, and headed down to a special movie theatre called the V. I. P. theatre. It’s an awesome place, where all the seats recline. The “concession stands” are really a sushi bar, a bar for sub sandwiches, and another with slushies, donuts, and other sweets. Seriously, it was awesome. After we all got some really good food at the food court in the mall where the V.I.P. theatre was located, we mosied on down to the theatre in which we were going to see our movie, and got ready to watch it. We were planning to see “The Bucket List,” a movie about two old guys, who, diagnosed with cancer and given one year to live, decide to make the most out of their time left on earth. They make a list of everything they want to do before they “kick the bucket,” including such activities as, skydiving, driving Shelby Mustangs on the racetrack, and going to the Great Pyramids in Egypt. In the end, they manage to cross off everything on their list, and have a lot of fun while doing it. They are both changed for the better.

          After we finished that movie, Jonathan, DJ, and I decided we weren’t done hanging out together and we wanted to have a little more fun. We went to the arcade in the mall, which turned out being a small, dark little room with many games not working and a shabby feel to the atmosphere. Although it might not have looked good, we managed to have a blast in that little place. We each bought 40 tokens, and we went to work using them on the various games. One good thing about the arcade was that most of the games cost one token, even the motorcycle ones and the driving shoot’em up games. We even all got together and played teenage mutant turtles together, which was a blast. Although the game was probably one of the stupidest I’ve ever played, just being together with my friends made it fun, and we played that one until we got sick of it. There was a basketball game there, which was also fun. In the end, I ended up standing in it and cheating to get more tickets. It’s not like there were any good prizes though. Although there were some pieces of candy, plastic pieces of junk, and a pack of yu-gi-oh playing cards, I don’t think I would have wanted anything besides the awesome sticky penguin I got. You know, one of the ones on a rubber strings that you swing into stuff. Anyways, we eventually ran out of all our tokens, and it was time to leave and go somewhere else. After wandering about the mall for another half an hour, Jonathan had to get back to his dad, and I had to get back to my house. We got in the car, and drove for a while to Tony Roma’s, where we dropped Jonathan off and then kept going to drop me off.

           Overall, this was one of the most fun things I’ve done all year, something that lightened my day and that would keep me feeling good throughout the week. And I missed two hours of school for it!

I know that in my last post, I talked about how I usually make up my own life lessons and that although my Dad started the whole thing, I made them up too. However, recently my dad talked to me about one that is bigger and more important than others have been, and I know it probably can help me out a lot. It’s mostly about humans’ reflex to get into their “fighting stance” when they are threatened or wronged, and why that reflex is bad.  I’m not talking about actually getting your body in a position to punch or kick someone, but when you react in a certain way to stuff.  If we all could learn to chill out, then we could stop problems before they start.           At school, there is one teacher I have had some squabbles with. One day in his/her class, I was having a bad day, and because of that, I had been behaving poorly and was ready to just get out of there as soon as I could. When there was about 1-2 minutes left of class time, the teacher gave us time to work on an assignment for homework. I decided not to work on it and to clean up my things to get ready to leave. This particular teacher had had problems with me staying too long in her class trying to clean up my stuff. I thought I was doing something nice, but she didn’t like it and thought I was just wasting her time. This is when I got really mad, and started to yell, saying that I was trying to do something nice, and stuff like that. She got really mad and yelled at me too, and I was thankful when the bell rang a second later.         Well, I know that acting like that was not good, and that I was the one at fault in that situation. By letting anger seep into me when the teacher said something to me, I reacted in a violent way, which only led to a worse situation. After other situations where I felt bad because something had happened where someone had been mean or something, my dad helped me realize that, although I wasn’t blatantly trying to start a fight, if I could just calm down, I could stop these kind of things before they happened.       It is all human nature to be angry when we are threatened or in an uncomfortable situation, but since we are civilized, we need to “put off the natural man” and control ourselves. I need to keep working on that, because if on that day with the teacher I had sat back, calmed down, and done what she had said then we all would have been happier and in a better place then we are now. In other times, I just need to sort of breathe deeply and/or think before I do what it is I want to do or say. If I think about most of the things that have happened to me, I can understand and realize that if I had just calmed down, and responded in a way that was not aggressive or meant to hurt the person, then the conflicts could have solved in a relatively easy way, and all of us could be happier.          Now, I don’t just want to be a preacher, because that’s something I also hate; I really don’t like it when people talk about something and how we can all be better and they don’t do it. No, I’m seriously going to be doing this as well, because I know that with it I can be a lot better and a lot happier. So yeah.  

Okay here goes. This is my first life lesson I’m going to talk about, and I hope this sort of like works out for what I’m trying to do. Well, for anybody who doesn’t know what a life lesson is, it is like sort of a little thing that you remember that will help you in life. My dad always used to tell me, “This is a life lesson,” and stuff like that whenever I got in trouble or was mad at someone. One time I got in trouble not for doing anything but for being with someone when he did something bad. But now, I make up my own life lessons, mostly from mistakes I make that I don’t want to make again.  Okay, here’s one that I hate. It just really bothers me and I don’t like it. Lots of times, when I used to eat in the cafeteria, I would put my lunchbox down on the table in front of the place I wanted to sit, then go wash my hands, so they would be clean before I ate. Then, when I get back to the table, there are more people sitting there. One is sitting in my seat, and my lunchbox has been pushed all the way to the end of the table. I haven’t ever been bold enough to say “Excuse me, but I was sitting there,” and I really should.  When I end up at the end of the table, I end up not being able to hear anybody else talking, because the discussion is in the middle or the end of the table. I hate that. So here, the lesson is, “Guard your spot until there are everyone else is seated.” Or else you’ll end up away from everybody, stuck in a seat you hate. 

You know, since the last time I posted about that great day of skating and fun, there hasn’t been a lot of skating or skating thinking, and I’m starting to realize that skating for me isn’t like it used to be and that I don’t know if it ever will be. It’s sad, but I’m just not into it. I’m sorry to anyone who wanted my blg to be about that or the topic of skateboarding, but it’s just not me. These are my last words about skating for the time being. I may, at some later time, go skating again and have lots of fun, but it will never again be a passion for me like it used to. That time in my life was a great blessing, but now I have other interests and hobbies. I have new friends, and it’s just not really a part of me.

For me, skating was life, and it’s funny how much I loved riding around on a little plank of wood. The whole art of skateboarding is using your muscles to make that board do stuff. It is a simple idea, yet so complex when actually tried and tested. It brought so much joy to my life, and I was immersed in the cultural aspects of the sport as well; I read skate magazines, watched skate videos, and talked about it with my friends. It was a great activity that kept me fit and healthy, and that allowed me to have fun when I had nothing else to do. I loved it, and I’m sure it loved me too. One can never forget the feeling that comes along with landing a new trick for the first time. Just knowing that you landed back on the board after your first sketchy kickflip ever makes you want to yell and scream with joy.

As ironic as this is, all of this makes me just want to go outside and skate. However, I know that won’t las for long and the longing will soon fade into the back of my mind. I wish I loved it like I did, and I will still skate from time to time. I heard somebody say once, “Once a skater, always a skater.” It may have been someone on the skateboard-city website. That is so true. I will always respect those who participate in the activity and, like I said, it will still be fun for me to go out and do with friends. But for now, my blog doesn’t realy have a topic, just a sort of mash of stuff. It’s more about life. And the life lessons that I learn. Oh yeah! There’s my topic. I can’t wait to post on it.

Well, I’m not exactly sure what freedom means, but to me, it is a certain idea. Here goes. I think that freedom is being able to do what you want, but with reasonable restrictions that prevent one from going TOO far. I’m so grateful for this freedom, especially the freedom of speech we’ve been talking about in English and Social Studies. Having freedom of speech, I can say most anything I want, as long as it is not affecting others in a negative way. I can go on and on about basically whatever I please, and that really is a great blessing. I can give my opinions, my beliefs, and my feelings to others freely. The one part of speech that can be bad is when you threaten someone or make up lies about them, which is called slander. We are not free to do those things, and I believe that to be good. Those hurt people and are not something we should be able to do freely, because these rules to freedom are to help, not hurt.  However, us students in Ms. Rumford’s class need to remember that those rights are the rights of adults. Being students in a school, we have less rights to do what we want and we must be careful. For instance, students have rules against swearing. People could say that that is unconstitutional, but, since we are kids, it’s fine to have those rules. If we went up to a teacher and said “You are a hag,” we would get in big trouble. Although we have freedom of speech, we are not allowed to do that. Just recently I got in trouble with one of my teachers. I was trying to do something nice for her, but she didn’t like it and got mad at me. I didn’t really yell, but my voice got more emotional and angry as I told her I really was trying to do something nice for her, to help her with something she needed help with. Then she yelled at me even more, and I left. I’m freaked out to go to her class, and I have it today. Yikes :( Also, all of this stuff really pertains to bloggers and our blogs. We have somewhere we can post whatever we want, but that doesn’t mean it will come without consequences.  Ms. Rumford told us about a kid who got expelled from his school because he wrote on his blog that he was going to (Listen now, this is funny) that he was going to hire a *hitman* and kill his teacher. lol. That is just funny to me. I mean, who would ctually put that up? Later he said he was “joking,” but it was too late. I mean wow. Try to think about what you’re actually saying, eh? Like that boy/girl (I’m not sure), we have to be careful about what we say. Like Ms. Rumford said “The Internet is not something you can hide behind and flippantly cock your head and shrug you shoulder in a sign of arrogance.” We really do need to think about what we are posting, ad make sure it is appropriate for everyone. Think about it. Is it something you would say to your grandma? I don’t really know what we’re supposed to be talking about now, but yeah.