Honesty and transparency make you vulnerable. Be honest and transparent anyway. -Mother Teresa Sometimes to fit in, you need to stand out. Yet, standing out can also direct some unwanted attention, whether it be from teachers, classmates, or even family. What I discovered in the seventh grade is that standing out will show you the difference between who you think your friends are and who truly is someone who accepts you for who you are and has your back.
In the seventh grade I decided to be a little different from the other kids in my grade. The reason was because I was made fun of all the time in the sixth grade, but I didn't know why, so I thought of a way to direct all the negativity towards one thing. I decided to take on an almost "edgy" or "punk rock" persona in the way I dressed for school. For some reason I thought that this would work, but I didn't take into account what my friends and family would think of me. Some really didn't know what to think or how to respond and decided to simply not have anything to do with me. Others stuck with me all the way and remained my friends. Eventually, I settled into a personal style that was more reflective of who I really am, and I'm confident I'll stay with this style for a long time to come. This experience did show me two things: 1. To silence a critic, you just overload them with stuff to make fun of. This disarms them, because it shows that you really don't care what they think. 2. More importantly, a true friend will stick with you no matter what. A group project is like skating, people think that you can just lace up some skates and jump right onto the ice and instantly be a hockey player, but it doesn't work that way. It takes lots of time to perfect the ability to work in a group, and once you’ve perfected it the people you’re working with may not have even scraped the surface of working in a group efficiently. That was not the case with this Moby Dick Video Project, for me at least. I believe that my group found ourselves in a situation where we could have fun and joke around a little bit while creating a good, presentable product. This is definitely a change from some past groups that I have had the pleasure of working with, and by pleasure I mean me staying up till 2:00 in the morning scrambling to finish the project we had two weeks to work on, but was half finished (by me) and then put off for the rest of the time we had until the night before it was due. That wasn’t the case and I feel that this project was a huge success and hope that future group projects go just as well.
You know what really grinds my gears, when you buy something and either part of it is broken or not oriented properly. For instance, I got a new guitar for my birthday and right after bringing it home I found that one of the strings was broken. Then I went back and told them to replace the string. Then I went back home and found that the first two frets of the high E string buzz instead of creating a not. Either I got a faulty guitar or I'm doing something wrong I don't know, but it's just not right!
Some people think that the off season is a time to treat as an off season, not me. I in fact try to play as much hockey as humanly possible during the off season. But what's weird is that I never get bored. Most people would get bored after doing something over and over, but for some reason I can't get sick of hockey.
Here's a poem that I really enjoyed. I believe that it describes winter as well as anybody can called Blow, blow, thou winter wind by William Shakespeare:
Thou art not so unkind As man's ingratitude; Thy tooth is not so keen, Because thou art not seen, Although thy breath be rude. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly: Then heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly. Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky, That does not bite so nigh As benefits forgot: Though thou the waters warp, Thy sting is not so sharp As a friend remembered not. Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly: Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly: Then heigh-ho, the holly! This life is most jolly. The end of the hockey season has come and that means it's time for me to get back outside and play track and field, or at least that's what usually happened. Not this year, now we have to wait until the snow clears and the fields thaw. I'd be quite surprised if we even had spring sports!
So the rhythm ensemble performance is on Friday and I am so siked. I can't wait to just get up on stage and play all three notes I get in a five minute song! I'm just kidding, I really am excited about this performance and am perfectly happy I get three notes. Any more and I'd probably ruin the song since that seems to be what I'm good at.
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