Best Cousin Ever

I was trying to think about what I should be blogging about and I remembered the other night that I found my Junior HS yearbook, I went through it and it brought memories back ... some good and some not soo good, some funny and some that I'm going to share here!

One of my cousins just moved to NY and was fresh to the US.  I didn't hang out with Ria because she had her own set of friends, if I remember correctly they named their click the Nutty Buddies.  They were a different set of friends that I had and I was the "cool" one, so much has changed!  Even though we were in the same class, we kept our distance.

It was my final year in IS 73 and I think things were going pretty well.  Our homeroom was in the girls gym and we got to play basketball during homeroom and we were also the very few students in school that had a locker that we could keep out stuff in for the whole day.

This day came along where I opened my locker and I found a note fall out.  Not knowing what it was I picked it up with no expectation until I saw it.  My friends were around me when I picked it up and saw what I saw ... it was a white piece of paper with a lot of colors on it.  The colors coming from letters that were cut out of magazines and glued to the paper, yes you're right in picturing it like a ransom note.  That's exactly how it looked and when I first saw it without reading it I got a little scared, all these thoughts ran through my mind for the quick 2 or 3 seconds - did my family get kidnapped, am I going to be kidnapped, etc.  Then I read the letter, I can't remember exactly what it said but it was along the lines of I've been watching for you a while now and I like what I see.  See you soon, xoxo.  

The reaction of my friends were the "ooo's" and "ahhhh's" with some massaging my shoulders in the happiness that was felt amongst the guys that were around me.  

Into my bag the random love note went and we went to our next class.  The conversation for the next few hours was us trying to figure out who this girl was.  We went down the list of girls that it might be and the list of girls that I was hoping for.  

I found myself looking at this note a few times, looking for any clues on who it might be.  But no clues were left, it seemed that it was put together with the precision and the careful hands of an actual kidnapper.  

I even remember some girls who would be looking at me and this would peek my interests and wonder if that was the girl who left it in my locker.  We went through the gammit and tried to figure out who had access to the locker room in the girls gym that early in the morning.  

After all the detective work and all the speculation, the truth came out.  All that excitement, all that anticipation to meet that girl who I was going to fall in love with and live happily ever after came to a crashing hault when I found out that the person who put this all together was none other than my new cousin who had just arrived.  

Don't get it twisted, this isn't a story of cousinly love, but a horrible cruel joke!  Way to make a good first impression on your cousin who you're going to see everyday, geeze.  You don't know how fragile the heart of a 14 year old boy is until it's crushed by a practical joke that echo's through the rest of the class as they laugh when the punchline is you.  Tramatized from this experience?  Definitely!  So if you're out there reading this entry Ria, know that you could possibly be the one who is the cause of me not being married right now!  

That ransom love note could have set off a chain of events where I didn't want to talk to any girl because I didn't want to make a fool of myself.  

I joke, it was actually a really good trick that I did not see coming.  I do believe that I tried to get her back but was unsuccessful in trying.  Well I guess that means that I still have to try to get her back mmuuuhAhhaA.  I wish I had kept the random love note ... it would have been a great memory of one of the first few times my cousin tried to communicate with me!

+ mon

Getting in Trouble

Do you remember those times in school when you knew you were going to get in trouble for something?  Be it something you did and you knew the teacher was going to talk to you, or you did something and someone was going to find out.  

Those moments when the teacher knows you did something and says "Simon, I want to see you after class" or something similar are the worst!  You sit there the rest of the day with nothing else on your mind except that, you worry about the impending doom that is coming your way at the end of the day or whenever you're going to talk to your teacher.

I thought those days were long gone where you'd sit at your desk with that feeling in your stomach and just watching the clock tick away.  You think of what you're going to tell them but even though you have your "excuses" or your "story" it makes no difference, the anticipation of getting in trouble is still there.  It's even not limited to school, it's for when you're at home too and you know that you're in trouble when your parents get home from work.  So it's 3pm and you're home from school, the teacher or principal has already called your parents.  Now you wait till 6 or 6:30 until they get home ... those 3 hours are horrible!  You can try to keep your mind busy but it's never going to work.

So now I'm 29 and I'm in that situation again.  I have to talk to my boss about something I did here at work and I'm still waiting another 45 minutes to talk to him.  I found out at noon about this and it's been eating at me the whole day.  

No matter what the issue is in school, family or work, it could the smallest thing, but it's just that waiting to get yelled at or waiting to get in trouble is the worst part - it's sometimes even worse than the actual "punishment."

I sit here waiting for what lies ahead ... should I start packing my things in that all too familiar cardboard box that we see when someone leaves their job?  The anticipation is killing me!

+ mon

Waiting for Gym Class

This was an entry that I put in my old blog (which no one read lol, and I was going to post this yesterday but it slipped my mind, so here I am posting it today).

Back in high school I remember having gym class at most twice a week. The rest of the time you have the "other" classes that just fill up your schedule, like science, math, english, and all those other classes that are just there to fill your day so you don't have idle thoughts. Having that crumpled program card in my pocket and looking at it each day, even though I knew where I was supposed to be and what class it was, then seeing that day that had gym on it. That feeling was awesome, it was a countdown until you were able to go into that gym class again.

I guess going to gym class was different from going to the park and doing things with your friends like playing basketball or baseball. Being in that gym class gave you the opportunity to show off to your fellow alumni your skills, or lack thereof. All our fellow classmates would see us in is sitting at our desks buried in a book (as we fell asleep), or doing projects with them for whatever filler class we might be attending. There was hardly any time to show those other people in the classroom what kind of athlete you were, or there was never any time to show that you weren't just some nerdy kid.

Being able to gym class and show that you are somewhat coordinated and others very well coordinated was a big thing. The circle of friends expanded just because of your abilities! Even if those new "friends" you met in gym class weren't the ones you hung out with all the time, you would now get the head nod in passing in the hallways, or if you were lucky the pound or the high fives. That was what gym class was about.

But there was only that one day or if you were lucky two days you had gym. Each day would just be another countdown until you got to wear the same clothes as the other guys and match with everyone in the PE uniform.

That's how it feels for me again. I'm back at that spot where I sit here day in and day out just waiting for the next volleyball game so I can do my thang and show my coworkers that I'm more than just a suit and tie. It's fun that way, and I like it more because you have a sense of teamwork and accomplishment, even if your team lost all three games. I would rather do that then going out for "drinks" after work.

Well here I sit, one day a week of volleyball is not enough for me. I'm going to check out a new league tonight, and possible another league. So there's a potential to be in three volleyball leagues, so that means three days of gym class ... wish I had done this when I was younger and maybe I would have been in the Olympics or something. But it's funny how you can do this stuff when you're older since you have the cash and nothing else to do.

So now I look at my program card and wait in anticipation for gym class tonight that is in 2 hours and 30 minutes. Then maybe gym class on Sunday as well ... I'm starting to like this program that I got.

Game on!

+ mon