Stay Happy

With my senior year winding down, there are many things that I can reflect on. Whether it be the memories I have made, good friendships that won’t be the same after we leave or, just the feeling of having people around you. But, the most important thing that I will take away from high school is how I learned that if you are happy, nothing can stop you. It can’t be one of those small moments of joy that come along either; you need to be continuously happy. Not an overly exaggerated happy either, you just have to find yourself a happy medium (no pun intended). There are many different ways that you can stay happy.

Have a fun physical activity that you participate in with friends every week or so. In school this consisted of 007, playing racquetball or anything else you can think of with my friends. By doing this you release a natural chemical that relieves stress.

Surround yourself with good people. You can’t have someone around that is always trying to bring you down. It is not fair to yourself, so get those “downers” out of your life and move on. My parents taught me well on this one, because I have never really surrounded myself with any person that would try to put me in a bad situation.

Give back to people that have helped you and to others that can’t. If you help around the community more, then you will feel better about yourself and you feel like you are actually doing something good for once. I have helped with youth basketball for as long as I can remember, and that is a pretty long time because I have a good memory. And watching the kids learn how to play the game and seeing them fall in love with the game will brighten anyone’s day.

If you stay happy you will live longer. That is my own opinion, because just think about it; if you are sad, why would your body want to live anymore? I don’t think my body would want my mind to suffer anymore either, so it would start to shut down. If you are happy though, your body will stay strong and you will live a lot longer.

So, stay happy my friends.

Spaz Attack

Throughout my four years of high school I have met many different people. They have all impacted me some way or another. But only one person has had such a big impact on me that I will never forget her no matter where we end up. Fifty years from now I will be telling my grandkids stories about her and the many different things we did together and all the different hardships we faced and pushed through.

When we were in kindergarten we were pretty close but that was only at school. One day we were running through all the kids swinging on the swings. Everyone kept making it easy, but she had to be herself and be the one to not make it. One of the kids hit her and she went flying across the playground and landed hard on the ground. But she got up and walked away from it, ear bleeding and arm scraped up. Most guys would have cried, but this girl is a tough one.

There for a while in the middle years of school we didn’t talk too much and didn’t see each other very often. But we were still in the same school and saw each other every once in a while.

In high school we didn’t really talk to each other. She was in my third hour class and one day I made her mad when I drew a Nazi SpongeBob on her paper while we were grading them. After that wore off we started to talk and realized how much we had in common.

Last year, we always got in trouble in Strong’s class for talking too much, well she did, I didn’t because I don’t talk as loud as she does.  But most of the time she got in trouble it was because of her laugh. Everyone who’s anyone in Holbrook, Arizona knows the laugh instantly.

And I’m sure by now you probably know who I’m talking about. Jessica is one of the best people I know. She will drop anything she is doing anytime to help someone. And she knows how to make badass videos too. So every time we have a video due for class, almost everyone asks her to make the video for them, which is like 90% of the work. And she would do it without complaining, just because she doesn’t want to see her lazy friends fail.

Anytime I need someone to talk to she has been there for me, even though her messages don’t make sense half the time, she is still the best at helping me with my problems.

She is also a beast basketball player, but everyone knows that. She still can’t beat me at 21 though.     

Stay Positive

Change, this is a thing that some people love and are willing to try and make happen themselves, while others dread change and hope that their life stays exactly the same. Those are the people I like to call cowards. Others, like myself, are stuck somewhere there in the middle.

Most people get seem to get caught up in a daily routine, and if one thing gets altered from their daily routine the person gets totally thrown off. And this is what seems to me to be a big reason for people having “bad” days. I believe that days like that should not be considered “bad,” but instead they should be labeled “different.” The only days that need to be labeled bad are tragic ones, like a relative dying or someone close being injured.

Part of life is learning how to adapt to change, but sometimes our lives can seem to be going amazingly well at a certain point, and a person might want it to stay the same. But even though everything is so good, there is only one place to go when you are at the top and that is down. This is why people that have less, seem to be happier to me because they only have one place to go, and that is up.

The people that take on change like my dog eats his treats, which he just goes straight after them with nothing holding him back, those are the people that I believe live life to the fullest. When something good happens I your life, you want to keep it that way right? But, what if an even better opportunity presents Itself to you, but you are too scared that that change will mess up the vibe you got going. That is when a person can mess up, in my opinion, you should take that opportunity. Even though the first little bit will be tough because you have to adjust, it will turn out better in the end, as long as you stay positive.

That leads me to my personal example, in my situation; I didn’t have a choice in what happened. My knee was messed up and there was only one way to fix it. Surgery, and six months of rehab. So I could have either sat around and cried like a baby and not done anything to get better, or I could work my butt off and come back to play baseball better than I ever have before. I took the latter route.

I changed my attitude, and started to work hard, lifting weights, running, going to physical therapy and pretty much anything else you can think of, and now look; I recovered from a terrible injury and my whole body, not just my leg, is stronger than before. Balls I hit that one hopped the fence last year are going over this year. And now I am right up there in the tops for the state with many different statistics.

Moral of the story…move on from the past, embrace, and create your own future.

Arguments

Why do we always argue so much? This I want to know. I myself seem to get into many arguments myself. Partly because I find it fun to argue with people because when someone gets mad they say things that they don’t mean to say. They also say things and they don’t come out right. People always seem to repeat themselves a lot in an argument. Now, I understand that there are some things that need to be argued about, subjects that have to do with the well being of our country and what not, but there are also many things that don’t need to be argued about. Things like teammates arguing with each other in sports, or a husband and wife that argue all the time. I don’t like the thought of divorces, in my mind if two people choose to spend the rest of their lives together, they should. There shouldn’t be any thoughts of infidelity or unfaithfulness. You made a choice and you should stick with it. I believe that poor choices are the reason for most arguments. I also believe that if you are mad at some person for some reason, you should tell them. Just telling a person that you believe that they are doing something wrong will make them want to change a little. That is how it has been for me; I just wish people would tell me more often, because when they do, I try my best to change, because I want to be able to please people.  That is why I try not to argue with people, because once they have their mind made up, there is pretty much no way to change what they believe.

Also, people are made to get along, but since there is so much negative going on in our world, most of us are unable to see what is actually happening. Science has come to the conclusion that if you put a group of random people in a situation like being in a giant hole, they will work together to find a way out of that situation and find a way to safety.

So, I believe that if we have fewer arguments, more agreements and if we try to work together more than we do now, I believe that we would all be happier.

Why Do We Play Video Games

Many gamers spend countless hours saving princesses, shooting bad-guys, and fighting our way through multiple bosses, but what keeps us coming back to these wonderful and or not so wonderful experiences? Many researchers around the world studied that videogames have multiple affects on our society: how they discourage violence, inspire creativity, and or nurture laziness. However, people rarely ask why we play videogames in the first place. What drives us to collect coins, kill zombies, or roam around the cities looking for people to assassinate? Scientists and psychologists have now only began to understand why. But unlocking the mystery behind this desire may do more than help us understand our obsession- it could- possibly help shape our society.

Some gamers (not all) throw around the term "escapism" when talking about their many hobbies, but this is only a brief/hollow explanation for what actually motivates us to play games. The word "escapism" contains some negative implications suggesting that those who play games feel the need to break fee from their slavery of the real world or their reality. I personally enjoy retreats to other realities, I mean who doesn't, ones more fantastical than our own- but not always are we driven to play games just to escape our real world lives. The real motivations we play games are more far complex then we could imagine, and fulfill several-real world human needs, in many positive ways. We all have psychological needs, and these needs operate all the time - when people are at work, school, or when we play videogames. These specific needs are always operating. Games perfectly target these needs. These needs classify into three categories . The first need is for competence. Competence is that desire to seek control or to feel mastery over situations. People like to feel successful, and growing in knowledge and accomplishments. This need plays out in various real life situations, for example: when people decide to switch jobs or go back to school, because their career isn't rewarding or challenging enough to suit their needs. It's also easy to see how videogames make us feel more accomplished. Like when we level in any RPG or MMORPG games, or when we spend countless hours beating a game fulfill our desires to feel competent.

Our second psychological need is autonomy. Autonomy is the desire to feel independent or have certain amount of control over our actions. This need permeates nearly every fact of our culture. The drive toward autonomy is why people don't like being manipulated. That's why imprisonment is a punishment, and why we feel an urge to rebel against slavery. This is why game series that offer gamers a variety of free choices - The Elder Scrolls series and Grand Theft Auto - are so popular. "Terrible Two's" are a great example of a need for autonomy. It's not terrible for the kid, it's terrible for the parent(s) to hear their kid say 'no' all the time.

The final psychological need is relatedness. We like to feel like we matter, or have an important role in life, like we are making a significant contribution to society. It's easy to see how games can fulfill, playing games with friends online, but oddly enough you can still meet this need even when playing by yourself. The way that gamers are written, or their style of gameplay, this can generally be met when players are talking to an in-game character, or NPC (N on Playable Character). NPCs are often structured around helping them, find or collect treasures and or kill people.

Over many years we gravitated towards experiences that make us feel more competent, more autonomous, and more related to these experiences make us feel good, and mentally healthy. These needs however, can also be met at school, at work, or playing sports. But psychologists have just discovered video games are the most seductive and efficient method of meeting all these needs.

Go Hard Or Go Home

Rivalry games. These are the things that us so called athletes live for. That one moment to show everything you have and give everything you’ve got, show that one team, who has the upper hand this year. And it’s only the first game of a long and tiring season. But the intensity is just a little bit higher for this game, because for some odd reason, these two teams have an underlying reason to beat the other team. It’s almost hard to describe, you almost have to be a part of it to know actually what is going on for sure.

As most of you know, as the HOLBROOK ROADRUNNERS!!!!!! We have a few rivals, but the biggest two are Snowflake and Winslow. When Holbrook and Snowflake get together, it is pretty much the Mormons against the mixed races and religions that all reside in Holbrook.  Those games can get pretty intense, and the outcome doesn’t matter how good one team is compared to the other. What happens happens.

But against Winslow, everything is a little different for me. Off the field I can walk by the guys on their team, say what’s up give a high five, but on the field, I have one goal and one goal only, show them who is the better player, and which team is better as well. Winslow missed me in basketball, but they sure as hell won’t miss me in baseball.  And I am going to do my best to back up those words this Thursday, I just hope my team takes the same mentality into the game that I am going too.

Finally Back

Well, after almost three quarters of the school year has passed, and I finally got to play in a game against another school. Granted it was just a scrimmage for baseball, but after almost five months of rehab. Just being able to step on the field gave me goose bumps. It was also the first time that I have had to play with my knee brace on in a game, but that didn’t bother me too much. I played shortstop for the first two innings, but they didn’t ever hi8t me the ball I just had to cut throws from balls that were hit to the outfielders, just a routine and normal day at the office for me there.

In my first at bat, one of the umpires that I hate was behind the plate, and he knows I don’t like him, because I always talk crap to him when he calls a bad strike on me. and first thing, what do you know, calls a way high strike on me, so I turned to him and said, “Really? Already calling B.S. strikes on me and it’s the first pitch?” He just smiled at me and looked away. So, the next pitch, I hit a rocket at the second baseman and I bounced over his head. Now you can argue hit or error but he didn’t touch the ball and it went over him, so I am going to go ahead and say I got a hit.

The next time I came up to bat I hit the ball off of my handle and still one hopped the fence down the line in left field. Just think what would have happened if I had hit it on the barrel, I got and easy double, probably could have been a triple but Jacob was on first and he had to wait to see if the ball was going to drop or not.

The next inning I got to pitch, and it was against the bottom of the order so it wasn’t that much of a challenge. The first batter, I threw three pitches to, he swung at one, but was way late, and he struck out. The second guy, I threw three pitches to, he fouled one off, but still, I struck him out too. And the third guy I threw two strikes to him, and the third pitch should have been strike three, but the ump called it a ball. So I just struck him out with a fourth pitch.

After that, Pond took me out because we needed to get all the other guys in the game, so I chased foul balls the rest of the game, because I don’t get to do that very often.

While I was on the bench, I realized that we have some good players on our team that have different talents, and if we can get those talents out of each guy, I believe that we can go a long ways this year, maybe even get that ring I’ve been chasing with that one last chance I have.

My Bomb Ass Day

Tuesday, February 5^th, 2013, has to have been one of the best days of my life thus far. It all started out at 5:30 A.M. in the morning, when my mom woke me up. I got out of bed, got ready for the day, and then we took off to get some breakfast. After we got some food, we hit the road, and we were on our way to Flagstaff.  

When we got to Flagstaff, we went to my mom’s doctor first, so she could pick up her prescription from her doctor. Then we went to my doctor. I was shaking because I was so nervous; I wanted to get released from the doctor so much. His assistant came in and looked at my leg and did a couple tests on it, and then she went and got the doctor that had performed the surgery on my leg. He came in and looked at my leg and did the same tests. Then he told me that my hard work had payed off, and that my muscles were big enough for me to get a knee brace. Then he gave me a few directions on how to be safe for the first month or so.

After that, my mom and I went down to the place in the doctor’s office where I could get fitted for a knee brace. They measured my leg in six or seven different places. I got to choose a color, so I chose red, now we are just waiting for them to call us and tell us that the brace is ready for me to use.

Next, we went to Sam’s Club, my mom told me she would buy me a block rocker, and she didn’t lie. We bought the block rocker, which is like a portable speaker with a rechargeable battery that literally “rocks the block.”

Then we went to eat at Panda Express, which is one of my all time favorite places to eat at. Orange chicken and Kung Pow chicken are my favorites there. Bath and body works was next so I could get some cologne so I can smell fresh while I look fresh at the same time. Ayye.

Then we went back to Holbrook. I got back in time to go to school for seventh hour and I was able to go to baseball practice, the first practice I had been able to participate in after almost five months of rehab and hard work. I was so happy just to be able to be on the field doing what I love.

On top of all this greatness of a day, when I got home, there was a little puppy that came running to meet me when I walked in the door.

So, whatever happens to you, be it good or bad, just keep pushing towards your goal, and it all might come together at one time like it did for me. And you too, my friends, will have a bomb ass day.  

Youth Basketball

For the last two years, my friend Gabriel and I have coached our own youth basket ball team here in Holbrook’s youth league. And since we have had many of the same kids on our team this year from last year, we have been able to see big improvements in our players.

One player, his name is Israel but we call him Izzy, was one of our top players last year. He listens well and can steal the ball and score just about whenever he wants too. Last season, our team only lost one game, and that was the game that Izzy could not make it because of family obligations.

The biggest improvement that Gabe and I have seen has to be from Andre. Andre came into the league last year only in pre-school. At the beginning of the season he was not even strong enough to hit the rim with a shot. This being probably because he was so small and so young, but we told him to do twenty five pushups every night if he wanted to get stronger and make a shot. I don’t know if he did them at home but he would do them at every practice, and by the end of the year he made a shot in practice. And in the last game we had him cherry pick, so when one of the other players stole the ball they would pass to a wide open Andre under the basket. Andre missed his first two chances and the other team got the ball. But the third time, he got the ball and shot it; it rolled around the top of the rim, stopped, and then fell in the basket. Everyone in the gym went crazy, because after the whole season, Andre had finally scored in the last game with under a minute left. That was one of the best moments I have had coaching or playing basketball.

This season, Andre came back a lot stronger and he can make shots all the time now. We still have Izzy too, plus a bunch of new kids that can play good. So Gabe and I are looking forward to a successful season. Yesterday was our first game and our players did everything we said and went on to win twenty eight to six. They scored so many points that the score keepers couldn’t even put the score on the scoreboard.

High School Baseball

By the time I got to high school I had already had some experience against other high school players. Over the summer before I came to high school, Mr. Layden, the coach for the team, said I could come play summer ball with the team. I played about ten games with the team. The whole time I played I never got a hit, I put the ball in play almost every at bat but I could never get an actual hit. That just gave me more motivation once the actual season came around.

                My freshman year was a great year, I don’t know all my statistics for that year because I played junior varsity most of the season. The might be one reason why it was good. One game, against Winslow, I pitched the whole game. I gave up seventeen runs and three home runs, but that didn’t matter because my team had my back. We took the lead in the bottom of the sixth when I hit a triple with the bases loaded and all three guys on base scored. We ended up winning the game by one, 18-17.

                My sophomore year I had to earn a spot on varsity or play JV again, and I didn’t want to play JV again. So I worked my butt off during tryouts and got the starting shortstop position. I didn’t have the best start to the season hitting, but finally, against St. Johns, I got my first hit. That wasn’t enough though, because at the very end of the game we were losing 7-1 with only one at bat left. We got two quick outs, but then the three guys in front of me got on base. I got a hit up the middle and two guys scored. We went on to tie the game, and in the bottom of the eight, Austin hit a walk off home run and we won the game. That game turned our season around, and soon we were Region Champions. The last region champs too, because now there’s not regional’s anymore. After that was the state tournament. We won our first two games and earned ourselves a trip back the next weekend to play in the final four. We played in the Kansas City Royals and Texas Rangers spring training stadium. The field was so big, but that didn’t matter we still played as hard as we could, but it was all for not, as we ended up losing 3-2. A heart breaker.  

                Junior year was really fun, I had gotten stronger in the offseason and I was hitting the ball a lot harder. But I didn’t get to start playing until the third game of the season because I broke my foot in basketball. But that didn’t slow me down one bit, in my first at bat I hit the first pitch off the fence in right center for a double. I was off on the right foot and I wasn’t about to slow down.

                The highlight of the season was beating Chino Valley, the #3 ranked team in the second round of the state tournament. One of the greatest games I have ever been a part of.  

Baseball Before High School

The first time I ever played baseball that I remember, was when I was four. It was in tee ball. We played every team twice, and even though we weren’t supposed to we always kept score. There was one team that we always had tough competition with them. It was pretty much a rivalry game between the two best teams. The games were close but my team always on each year because we had the best coach. Of course my coach was my dad. He is the one that taught me pretty much everything I know about baseball.

            In coach pitch, my team was really good; there was only one kid that challenged us. He always would hit home runs. One time I robbed one of his home runs and his mom came on the field yelling at the coaches because they said he was out, and then she came and started yelling at me because I caught the ball. So I just walked away.

            Then we went on to the minor league, we only played for one year there. My team was undefeated for the whole season. Then we got to our last game. It was real close the whole time, then in the last inning we were up by two. I was pitching, and a bigger kid came up to bat. He hit the first pitch I threw to the fence in right center. He ran all the way around the bases for an inside the park home run. There were two kids on the bases too, so we lost by one run. Our undefeated season was gone.

            After the minor league we went up to Little League, I played for three years there. When I was ten, I thought it was the coolest thing, when I was playing center field when Ilacian came up to bat. He hit a ball so high in the air and I ran right up close to the fence and caught it. I felt like I was so awesome because I caught his ball. The highlight of my career was when I was on the all-star team for Holbrook. We were losing by two runs in the top of the sixth and I came up to bat with two guys on base. Then, I hit the first home run I had ever hit. RJ, my teammate, smacked me on the head so hard my ears were ringing, but it was all worth it in the end.

            Next, was Junior League. The field was so much bigger and I was still just a small kid, so I could barely hit the ball out of the infield. But, I had a bunch of good player on my team so all I did was walk when I came up to bat, then they would hit me around to score. My favorite play form Junior League was in all stars against Show Low. Ryan hit the go ahead home run in the top of the seventh. He was only fourteen years old and he hit a home run at Blue Ridge’s field. That field is not small at all.

           After Junior League came high school ball. I think I was prepared well for that.