Summertime????

Every Summer for the past eight years I have gone to Camp Kooch-i-Ching in International Falls Minnesota. This summer I plan on spending my time a little bit differently. Even though I have had many great times at camp I feel like I have been missing out on the fundamental childhood summer experience. I want to be lazy and have my mom nagging me to clean my room and spend my mornings eating lucky charms and playing video games with my buddies. However, I also want to use the time I have been given to do something meaningful. Most of my friends are some type of an athlete at New Trier and whenever I got back from camp they would tell me all about their summer school sports and how they really improved their game. I love to play basketball, however I am not the best player. So I not only want to play over the summer so that I can improve my skills but also so that I can have an oppurtunity to play because there is nooooo way I am making the basketball team.
Branching out from Wilmette is also on my list of things to do. I plan on taking a road trip to the East Coast so that I can visit some people I left behind when I came back to New Trier. Nevertheless I also want to do something extrodinary. I want to go to a foreign place so that I can experience a new atmosphere that I know nothing about. I have looked into becoming an exchange student in Equador so that I can not only see the world, but also so that I can take steps to learn spanish.
So for anybody reading this; Im not 100% on what im doing so if anyone knows something better, comment on this blog and let me know what im missing.

Scrubs

Lately I have been watching the television comedy "Scrubs" quite a lot. A few years back I set a series recording on my DVR and watched every episode, since then I would catch the occasional episode, but lately I have started recording it once again. I always thought Scrubs was hilarious for the first three quarters, however, the last quarter of every episode I felt that it was overly dramatic and sappy. When J.D (played by Zach Braff) puts the ribbon on every episode, he always speaks in this quiet breathy tone and reflects on what we all have learned in the past twenty minutes. After a while I got so feed up with the endings that I would only watch part of an episode then move on to the next one. Nevertheless, now that I am older and more mature when I watch Scrubs I am able to appreciate the subtleties of the closing of each episode. At first I thought Scrubs was a simple comedy that was funny, but tried to be too deep at the end, but I was wrong. Scrubs is a complex show that can hit the viewer in both the gut and the heart. After watching a movie like "Garden State," which was written and directed by Zach Braff, I can now fully appreciate the dramatic endings of Scrubs. So for all those people out there who say that they don't like Scrubs because of the sappy endings, they are wrong. Take a second look.

Babysitting

This Friday I decided that I was going to be responsible for the first time in a long time. I decided that I was not going to go out and have fun with my friends. Instead I decided that I was going to spend the night in some foreign house watching over some kids in an attempt to put some money in my pocket. This teenage right of passage as everyone knows is called babysitting. The night began with me running a little bit late so i was frantic to find the house, which was located on 900 Greenwood. However, in my hurry I neglected to read to street signs correctly so I ended up standing on the door step of 900 Elmwood. Coincidently this was the house of a kid I know by the name of Charlie Gilvarg. So when I knocked on the door and his mother answered I was a little bit confused. Obviously when she asked what I was doing here I didn't have much of an answer. Therefore, I just smiled and walked away heavily embarrassed. After the first speed bump I succesfully got into the right house and aquanted myself with the two kids I was going to be looking after. It did not take much time for them to become comfortable with me because instantly after their mother left they were pulling on my ears and attempting to wrestle me. Normally I would have no problem horsing around a little bit, but it seemed that a new figure in the house wrestling with the kids really threw off the Three Huge Bernese Mountain Dogs. The dogs came pilling into the room and persisted to bark at me like they were Cujo. They were slowly inching towards the couch and their massive teeth were far to close to my leg for comfort. Ufortunately I had to tell the kids that the display of WWF moves was over. After that the night went pretty smoothly. I just put the kids to bed and watched a crap load of TV. Pretty good Friday Night.

Senior Class, Tisk Tisk

As I watched the final seconds of the New Trier Football game vs Barrington I couldn't help but look around and see just how weak our student section was. The student sections, which is about 1/3 of the home teams stands was not even half full. I am normally a positive guy, so I suppose it would be easy for me to say, "oh its ok at least we have half." But after thinking about it I have decided that I am going to be a Negative Nancy. There is no reason that our student section should not be to full capacity and loud as hell at the potential last game of the season. So as I investigated this issue even further I soon found out that the reason our student section was so small was that there were barely any seniors in the stands. This is unforgivable. If its your senior year you must be bleeding Green and Blue at every football game possible. Once I started searching for information I could not stop. However, I wish I had because this next bit of information I am about to share is so gruesome that I didn't sleep a wink last night. The reason that most of the seniors weren't at the football game was because they were at the SOCCER game. Everyone knows that soccer is football and basketballs friend that neither of them like, therefore to skip a playoff football game to go to that soccer game is disgusting. Granted the soccer team is better than the football team, but there is nothing like going to a New trier football home game. Stuffing yourself full of steak sandwiches and watching your friends lay people out, even though watching your friends get hit is very fun too, I can't not think of a better way to spend a Saturday Night. So to all of you seniors out there who skipped the football game. Tisk Tisk

What If?

As Election day comes closer and closer I find myself wondering what our country will be like after the new president is decided. There has been so much hype that Obama will ride in on his white horse and save the country from all of its problems, but what if he doesn't? What if hes not the right man for the job and McCain is the better candidate. My biggest problem is that I just don't know for sure. People say that four years with McCain will be like another four years with GW, but what if it isn't. What if McCain knows exactly what to do and will help our country flourish. In my household I have both prespectives being thrown in my face all day long. My Father is a very dedicated republican and he has already voted for McCain, whereas my Mother is very much a democrate and she cannot wait to see Obama in office. I have had lengthy discussions with both of them and both arguments have valid points. As far as my family goes, financially we would probably benefit from having McCain in office because he will not tax the upper class, but as far as the welfare of our entire country goes we would probably benefit from Obama. The more I think about it the more I just don't know and the not knowing is quite irritating. Therefore, I am kind of glad that I am not old enough to vote because if I was I would not be sure that I made the right decision.

This weekend I was very excited to watch Saturday Night Live because I had heard that the Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was going to appear on the show. It was funny however I was expecting a little more. On two occasions she was supposed to actually do something (a character or a song) in a sketch, but right before the skit she would say, "I was going to but i decided against it for the good of my campaign." It was still funny watching Tina Fey do another impression of the Alaskan Governor, nicknamed Caribou Barbie, and Amy Poehler's rap was hilarious, nonetheless I felt a little short changed. I was looking forward to seeing such a composed individual be really goofy for once, but it never really happened. So I got to thinking; was she originally going to be very silly in these sketches and changed at the last minute or was it her intention all along to be somewhat serious? I guess that when you are running for office you can never be too serious.

Long Weekend

When I first came back to new trier and was told that we had an upcoming 5 day weekend I was pretty excited. At my old school we would never have holidays like Yam Kippur or Columbus day off . Instead we would just extend our Christmas break and spring break, which in some ways I guess is better, but there is nothing like having a shortened work week. There is nothing like having a Wednesday feel like a Friday or waking up Monday morning to the sound of your alarm going off, which I forgot to deactivate, and knowing that you can just turn it off and go back to bed. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end, so as I am writing this on Monday night and getting ready to go back to school after our long long weekend I am looking back on all the fun I had. All of the relaxing times watching movies with my brother who recently came back from college and all of the intense ping pong games, which I played far too many of. All in all it is very nice to have a little break from time to time.

Homecoming

As I step foot into the main hall of New Trier and see the para-pros for the first time in two years it can only be describes as surreal. When I left New Trier after freshman year to go to boarding school In Connecticut I never thought that I would come back. I assumed that I would have so much fun at school that I wouldn't miss my family and my friends that much. I was so jazzed up at the idea of living away from home in a different state and starting a new chapter of my life that I completely forgot that I love living in Wilmette. I love everything about it. I love my house and my family and my friends. I love waking up on a Sunday morning and driving down to Sarkis so that I can take down a plate full of Lorettas and cheesy hash just so that I can get sick and pass out 15 minutes later because that food just sits in your stomach like a rock. There was so much about the north shore that I missed that it seemed quite obvious that the only smart coarse of action would be to come home. However, after being away for so long I have forgotten many of the subtleties of going to such a huge school like New Trier. During my free period when I attempted to get some work done in the library, I was perplexed when the librarian notified me that there was not a single place available in the entire library that I could do my homework. So I'm sure that there will be a few more speed bumps along the way of my complete transition into New Trier, but I know that it will all be worth it. It's good to be home.

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