My Last Blog Post

This indeed will be my last blog post for Non-Fiction writing. I chose to write another blog post because being honest, keeping up with my journal was not something that I had been doing all too well. With this last blog post also comes the end of English class this semester, and also marks the almost end of another school year. To be honest, Junior year feels like it just flew by. It wouldn't be right to say that some of my memories from this year "feel like they were just yesterday", but it would be more accurate to say that looking back on my junior year is like a blur. I have changed in so many different ways that three paragraphs couldn't even begin to express.

Seeing all of my friends in the class above me graduate is somewhat surreal. I remember going to graduation last year and it seemed so far away that I didn't give it much thought. But it dawned on me that exactly one year from now, I will be completely done with high school. This is very exciting but also one of the scariest things ever. It may be that I'm just not good with change but I am already nervous for the end. It is so strange to me that in exactly 5 days, I will be considered a senior. Forgive my rambling, for I do have a point.

What junior year has taught me is that you really have to cherish all of the moments in your life. Apart from the few bad things that happened this year, I had a pretty great year! My grades were pretty solid (hopefully finals week won't make me retract that statement) and I'm done with the ACT. Junior year was also my best year to date in terms of sports. Being on the varsity soccer team and running some of my PR's. On top of sports, I also made some new friends in the senior class, and became closer with some old friends.

Along with cherishing moments, I have learned that optimism is a very important trait to have. Pessimism is a plague that I feel many people I know suffer from. My best analogy for it is how many people feel during summer break. Almost half way through, we start to complain about how quickly the summer is going. Then it's time for school again and the countdown until next summer starts back up. Hopefully this summer I can avoid this phenomenon. What's the point of even having a summer if you are going to spend all of your time worrying about when it's going to be over? I plan on spending my senior year living in the moment. I want to acknowledge that it is my last year in high school but at the same time I don't want to let that ruin my last year.

A third thing that I finally learned in Junior year is that you shouldn't spend time dwelling on your, and other peoples mistakes. I probably should have figured this out a while ago, but it is a serious point. When you make a mistake, its over and done for. That's all there is to it. I saw a graph of how to deal with problems that really changed the way I look at life. You can't control how other people treat you, only how you treat others and how you react to certain things. This goes along with the earlier summer analogy; there is no use in worrying about things that other people have done to you because it just fogs your vision of things you can actually change. Instead of being mad or even hating someone for something, in the future I plan on taking everything in stride and learning from my mistakes. Maybe instead of dwelling on a problem I'll just remember to not trust that person in the future. And next time I have an issue in my life that I spend a lot of time worrying about, I'll just look at that graph (which is my desktop background).

Hopefully this rambling mess of a blog post will help some of you guys. At the very least, take a look at that graph. It really changed the way I view a lot of things and hopefully it will help you calm at some point in the future. Anyways, thanks for reading my blog posts (even if you only did to get your comments done) and stay happy. :)

College...........

There was a challenge to write this blog post completely in one syllable words but I don't believe I could properly express myself in with such a restriction. I promise that is the only reason this post isn't all one syllable words.

ANYWAY! This wonderful blog post is about college! Or at least the perspective of a high schooler who is only just beginning the process of applying to higher education. Since recently, I had given college minimal amount of thought other that one thing. I was certain that I did not want to go to the U of I. After all, I have lived in Chambana my entire life! If you were to ask a young me, I would tell you that college is the time to move to far away places and rarely have to see my parents! These views have changed *slightly* since then. As of now, the U of I is number one on my list of possible colleges. But lets start at the beginning of the beginning of my college process.

At the start of this school year, I signed up for ACT prep classes over winter break. This was the first time that it actually started to sink in that I was at the verge of college. My parents found a great ACT prep teacher who came with very great recommendations and the stage was set for me to have no free time over winter break. The class wasn't actually that bad. It was pretty boring but I got through it anyways. What I didn't realize at the time was that Jason Franklin (the teacher) is amazing. The first time I took the ACT in february, I got a score I was extremely happy with and I think I owe some of that credit to Mr. Franklin.

After I got the scores of my ACT back, I cancelled the next ACT I was signed up for because I felt no need to take it again. And since that day I haven't done much else in terms of college preparation. I guess I'm really lucky in that sense. Now back to why I want to go to the U of I. Over the summer, I interned in the Mechanical Engineering building on campus and I loved the work they were doing and the types of classes students take in that field. So as of now, it looks like Mech Engineering will be my major (something that the U of I is known for). I also have found that I prefer large schools to small ones. On top of that, I started playing cricket on campus which is something I would love to continue when college comes around.

Though there aren't that many reasons I can list as to why I want to go to the U of I, it would be hard to make a case to go anywhere else when the cheapest school for me to go to also happens to be one of the best in my field. As of now all I am is excited for college. From talking to my friends that are in college now, it seems like a great time. Now all I have left is to write my essays which shouldn't be too much trouble.

Being a Die Hard Sports fan.

If you were to ask anybody who knows me the question: "What is Sid's favorite football team?" The answer would be automatic: The Patriots. I have an obsession with the patriots and their lead QB Tom Brady. Football season is one of the things I live for. Being a supporter of the Pats has a lot of upsides. They are a very successful team and have won 3 superbowls in my lifetime. Not many people have the fortune of seeing their favorite team win it all. Over the course of me supporting them, there have been 3 time periods where I was most emotionally involved. The first being when They won the superbowl 3 years out of 4.

Before 2001, I watched football without any specific support. I was happy to be watching the sport just because it was fun as any 7 year old would. This all changed during the playoffs. I'll be honest, I started supporting the Patriots as a bandwagon fan. But can you really blame a 7 year old for supporting a team that is successful? The Patriots made it to the Superbowl and were set to face the heavily favored Rams. After a late 4 quarter drive engineered by a young Tom Brady, they won. From this point onward, the Pats were my team. Over the next 3 seasons, they would win 2 superbowls. I had absolutely nothing to complain about.

After this, the Pats went through a relative rough patch. This patch all ended in the 2007 season. The patriots acquired Randy Moss making one of the best duo's Football has ever seen. That season, Brady threw a record setting 50 touchdown passes, with Moss catching a record setting 23 of them. On top of these records, the Pats went undefeated. Something that had never happened before in 16 game season history. Needless to say, they were the clear favorites to win the superbowl. They made it to the superbowl and the stage was set to have the greatest season in football history. One more game. I happened to have a fever of 104 at the time so I was ready for the win. What came was one of the greatest upsets in sports history. The Giants played a masterful game stumping Bill Belichick and the Pats Offense.

The final big memory I have with the Patriots is the most recent season. Brady put together what I believe was an even better regular season than in 2007. The supporting cast to his offense was as deep as Wes Welker. Other than him, Brady had nobody. But he made no-named people into stars. Brady again set NFL records. He went on the longest streak without throwing a pick, and had a better touchdown to pick ratio than anyone before him. It is safe to say that I didn't miss a single snap of that season. The way my week went was basically based on whether the Pats won or not. Unfortunately, the season ended in disappointment.  The Pats lost to the Jets in a beautifully coached game by Rex Ryan.

Being a die hard fan is awesome and terrible. If your team happens to do well, it's great. But if not, it is truly awful. I wish I was capable of detaching myself from the sport but it doesn't seem possible. I am forever cursed to have my emotional state controlled by Football.

Spring Break

What comes to mind when the words spring break are said? For me the immediate image is a bunch of crazy kids drinking and having a great time in Cancun. Sadly, I am more than a few years away from this disgustingly stereotypical vacation. I spent my spring break visiting colleges. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against what I spent my spring break doing. It's just always nice to have a contrast. Going into break I had a few goals. The first and foremost was to catch up on my sleep. The second goal was to keep and open mind to the colleges I was going to. I would say that I accomplished about .5 out of 2 of those things.

So lets start with my first visit. The first college me and my family went to was the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Ann Arbor was a gorgeous town and My first impression of it was absolutely great. When we got on the actual college tour my impression only got better. The Michigan campus was bustling with life and the buildings were especially beautiful. I'm not sure what exactly made me love Michigan so much; maybe it was the fact that Tom Brady went there, but whatever it was, I loved it. 

The next college we went to was Northwestern. This is where my whole open mind thing got thrown a bit to the side. First of all, someone told me that Northwestern is the most depressing place ever and that it has the highest suicide rate of any college. Not exactly the best thing to hear when you are wanting to have a great visit. The weather was rainy and almost freezing which didn't help either. Northwestern was a very beautiful place but I was weirded out by how small it was. I felt like I was in high school for that entire tour and I felt claustrophobic In Evanston. Northwestern was a bit too eerily similar to Uni for me to apply.

The final place that we visited was the University of Illinois. My backyard. Basically, I knew everything they said in the presentation and I knew every place they took us on the tour. However, I did get to sit next to someone I knew during the intro presentation and make snarky comments throughout. Illinois was exactly what I expected it to be; exactly like Michigan except not as beautiful.

Overall I had a pretty good spring break. I liked 2 out of 3 of the colleges I visited and it was nice to see what other universities are like. If I were to complain about my break it would be about my sleep or should I say lack thereof. I didn't get much sleep at all because cricket matches started at around 4 a.m. central time. On nights where I didn't watch cricket I couldn't fall sleep until around 2. All I can say on this subject is that coming out of a week off of school feeling even more tired than before is not a good feeling.

Cricket

I love Cricket. Not the gross insects. The sport. Cricket has to be one of my favorite sports. It is fun to play, and now that the World Cup has started, watching matches gives me pure joy. Unfortunately, many people in the U.S. don't know much or anything about cricket. The relationship I have with cricket is much different than the average American. This stems from the fact that my parents are Indian, and ever since I was born we have been visiting India almost every year. In India, people live and breath cricket. Even though it isn't the national sport, it is by far the most popular sport there. A general overview of the rules of cricket can be found here.

It is needless to say that my favorite International cricket team is the Indian team. I grew up supporting them because it was always on T.V. whenever I was in India.  The Indian cricket team is actually surprisingly good. I say surprisingly because I can't name a single other popular sport that Indians are known to excel in. India is ranked number 1 in test cricket, and number 2 in one day international cricket. Test cricket is played over the course of 5 days, and goes at a much slower pace than one day cricket. One day cricket (or ODI's) last about one day. Each batting side gets 50 overs to bat (each over being 6 balls in length). I prefer watching ODI's because they are quicker paced, and can be extremely exciting.

I love cricket because of how amazing a game can be. A team can look like there is no way that they can lose, then lose two wickets in rapid succession and get thrown onto the back foot. The games can be completely dominated by the bowling side, or dominated by the batting side. Either way it is a great game to watch.

My dad bought a package where we get to watch every single world cup match on T.V.. Currently, India is leading their group in points, and have clinched a spot in the quarter finals. If you want to keep up with the cricket world cup, this is a good website. Cricket will always be one of my favorite sports, and I hope that one day, it will become popular in the U.S.

Energy Drinks

By this point in time, I am confident that most everyone has tasted an energy drink, if not heard of them. If you aren't aware of what an energy drink is, it is a magical beverage filled to the brim with caffeine and vitamins that are supposed to give you an extra punch of energy. Unfortunately, in excess, this mix of chemicals is likely to give you a stroke and/or a multitude of heart conditions. With this in mind, I have a confession to make: I am addicted to energy drinks. If you hand me one, there is no chance that I wont drink it. Every day there seems to be a new study coming out about how energy drinks are seriously detrimental to your health but nothing seems to stop me. Now, its no like I drink multiple  drinks per day, and not even one a day. Its more around 1 or 2 a week, which actually isn't a lot compared to what others may drink. The problem is, whenever (and I mean whenever) I am faced with an opportunity to consume one, the outcome is me drinking up.

So what is it that makes me like energy drinks so much? At this point I believe it is slowly becoming a physiological addiction, but what draws me even more is the taste. Most people, when asked to taste an energy drink, say the taste is just awful and accuse me of only drinking it because it makes me feel cool. But I legitimately love the taste of most any energy drink. Some of my favorites include Red Bull (however overly priced it is), Monster, and Amp. They have a sour taste unlike any other soda, and when served cold go down very smooth.

Now that we have gotten over the embarrassingly short list of good things about energy drinks, we can talk about the bad. The first thing that would seem to belong on the good list is the energy these drinks supposedly give you. In my experience, the drinks either have absolutely no energy effect on me (caffeine resistance?), or they make me feel nervous and jittery. Another huge downside to drinking energy drinks is that simple fact that they are so expensive. If you want a large Red Bull, you will be down around 5 dollars. Though Red Bull is the most expensive one, an average drink is around 3 dollars,  which is way to much money to be paying when all you get is a tiny can. The final downside is that energy drinks are simply bad for you. Multiple studies have shown the adverse affects that these drinks cause, the worst being serious heart problems.

Energy drinks have become a burden on me, and my wallet, but for some reason I refuse to stop drinking them. So this time, my message is don't try energy drinks; it may turn out that you like them.

Oh Sheesh Y'all!

One of my favorite things to do when I'm next to a computer is waste time. Regardless of what homework assignment I need to be doing, if it’s online, there is a more than likely chance I will get distracted. The internet is a dangerous place because it is so vast and the possibilities of pointless things to do and watch are endless. It always begins with the checking of my Facebook page. From there, it progresses to a state of idiocy, clicking link after link, meandering my time away. The worst part about all of this is that at night, my sleep cycle is thrown off completely by my computer, I try to turn my lights off my 10:30, and hope that is the end of it. But I seem to always end up getting back on to my computer and checking just one more thing. Eventually I'll promise myself to go to bed at 10:45. Then it becomes 11. Then 12. Then 12:30. And hopefully by then, out of sheer exhaustion, I turn my computer off.

But what could possibly so interesting that I need to stay up for an extra 3 hours? Many things. The first and foremost culprit that causes my sleep depravation is Reddit. Reddit is a site where a bunch of people post random links to pictures, videos, and opinions. The most popular things get voted to the front page. Unfortunately for me, these links are very entertaining and I usually spend about and hour daily clicking through them mindlessly. I was debating on whether or not to link you to this dreadfully addicting site out of fear of spreading my addiction. But hey, clicking it is totally up to you, right?

Another site that has me hooked is YouTube. I am assuming every one of you has heard of this video-sharing site, but I will tell you why it is truly evil. Two simple words: Related Video's. I couldn't even imagine the amount of extra sleep I would have on my belt if not for this feature. When get on to the site, it is usually from a link that a friends sends to me, or from Reddit. It could easily stop there. But unfortunately, YouTube has a feature where they suggest other videos that they think you would like. For a tired and weak mind (how my mind usually is at 11 o-clock) it is absolutely irresistible. "Hmmm, that looks interesting, oh look at that! I have to see that next video!" And the cycle repeats itself over and over and over.

The third means of time wasting (and the inspiration for the title of this post) is Jake and Amir. Jake and Amir are two guys that work at collegehumor.com. They make short sketch videos that are each about 2 minutes long, and also happen to be insanely addicting. I've spent hours upon hours on their site, watching all of their videos. I am confident that I have seen all of them, and could probably quote most of them. If you want to know about some of my favorites, just ask me. But I think it is preferable that you discover them for yourself.

Writing about all of these things makes me realize how easily addicted I am. Having a computer is the sole reason you will see me tired at school. So don't feel bad for me when I say that I'm tired, I'm doing it to myself.

distractions

In the modern world, there are many things that someone from the past would find unfathomable: Computers, HD TV’s, and cell-phones to name a few. Of course this is a great thing; from being able to be connected with people around the world, to talking to someone within 10 seconds of having an idea you wanted to share, to even looking something up on the internet that you want to know in an instant. However, I feel as though all of these technologies and advancements have serious downsides.

I was watching a comedy special online of a comic named Louis C.K.. He was talking about how people nowadays have absolutely no patience when it comes to technology. A story he told was about a flight he was on, where they introduced a new technology allowing travelers to be on the internet while flying. Unfortunately for them, the service stopped working and the crew announced it to the passengers. The person next too Louis C.K. apparently started complaining about how terrible it was that they couldn't have the internet anymore. His response was to say "How can you be mad about something you didn't even know existed 2 hours ago?!".

You can see this part of his routine here.

All of this technology and high speed internet is creating a serious problem of expecting to be instantly gratified. In our culture, if something isn't almost instant, it is considered slow and people will complain about it. Seeing that comedy routine really made me realize how unreasonable it is too be expecting things to be so fast, when in most cases we cant even start to explain how they work. I wouldn't be able to tell you about how a cell phone sends my voice through thin air into space and back to someone else's phone, however I expect it too work, and to work fast. Unfortunately this phenomenon is something that I often take part in. I often find my self getting easily frustrated when my internet connection gets to be a bit slow, or even when a video I'm watching on YouTube begins a buffer. From now on I hope to change that. If I ever find myself getting frustrated by something like this, I just need to remember that it needs to go to space and back, and that’s a long ways away.

P.S. You should definitely watch the rest of that comedy routine. Louis C.K. is hilarious.