There are probably a hundred different types of different martial arts, without even going into the different styles within each martial art. Actually, if you go into all the different kinds of chinese kung-fu, you'd probably be far beyond the hundred mark. Let's discuss a few of these martial arts. We start out with Karate and Tae Kwon Do. Karate is Japanese and Tae Kwon Do is Korean, but I start with the two of them grouped together because they are very similar. They are two of the most commercialized martial arts that exist today, and they are both very stiff and rigid if you ask me. They are very basic, with your "knife hand"s and your "low block"s and such. Tae Kwon Do just has a few more kicks. Aikido. This is a much different martial art, all based on center of balance. This martial art takes longer than most to be able to use effectively in combat. It's all about very subtle movements and trying to softly and swiftly take away your opponent's center of balance and easily making him succumb to where your body is moving. This martial art was original created for the samurai - it was what he resorted to if he somehow lost his sword, so many of the movements resemble what it might look like if there was a sword in his hand. Ninjutsu. This is a very sneaky and deceptive form of martial art. The ninjas were all about defeating their opponents mentally and then physically, so you will never be able to predict how a ninja will attack. They are true masters of the art of mental warfare, so they will mislead you with their physical actions. Kung Fu.

Yeeeeaaaaaah BUDDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!

I'm fresh out of things to write about. I was watching videos of Ronnie Coleman this morning on Youtube. He always cracks me up, 'cause he's such a huge guy and I think he won the title of Mr. Olympic eight years in a row or something. But he has such a great attitude. He's not one of those big stiff dopey guys with a grimace on their face, or at least he doesn't seem to be in the videos that I've seen of him. Whenever he works out, he's absolutely obnoxious, and he yells stuff like "LIGHTWEIGHT!" and "Yeeeeaaaaah BUDDYYYYYYYY!" Those are just a few of his Ronnie-isms, others including: "Just like Brutis, didn't know you could do this," "Ain't nothin' but a peanut," "Ain't nothin' to it but to do it," and so on. I would be completely distracted just working out in the same gym as him, but honestly, looking at the weights he lifts, I think he's earned the right to yell just about whatever he wants. It's good to know that you don't have to be a complete goon just to be muscular. And though I'll never be big enough to be a body builder (and I'll never want to be), Ronnie is an inspiration to me just in terms of getting myself to the gym 3 days a week to build the little bit of muscle that I do have.

Christmas

I went home this weekend and spent my one day (plus the weekend) of Fall Break with my family. It was nice, but it really made me wish Thanksgiving Break were here, and then Christmas Break. Today, I can't wait for Christmas. I can't wait to buy a small Christmas Tree for my dorm room, and some egg nog, and to be able to enjoy a small taste of the Christmas spirit before I get home and experience the real thing. The nativity scene, the lawn ornaments, the big Christmas tree, the little light-up house collection my dad has, the train, all the Christmas movies on T.V., the food - everything. I will have to buy a rug though to go under the tree in my dorm room, because freshman year when I had a ground tree, it was difficult getting all the little green pieces of plastic off of the floor. Sophomore year I just used a tiny tree on top of the refrigerator, because I had a different roommate (whom I did not know pre-college, like I had known my roommate freshman year) and our room setup didn't allow for a larger one. The tree sophomore year was one of those little fiber-optic spinning trees, and it was fun, but the damn thing always leaned to one side, and eventually started falling off of the fridge daily. And that meant picking it up, spending 5 minutes repositioning it, picking up all the little spongebob and coca cola ornaments I'd bought for it, sometimes replacing the light bulb in the base, etc. Not this year - this year, I've got a single, and I'm gonna get a rug and like a 4-5 foot tree that doesn't spin or lean! And lots of egg nog.

A Rose by Any Other Plastic

My palms were sweaty. I licked my lips nervously as I tried to slow my heart down, which was beating against my chest like a jackhammer. I was certain someone would hear it and it would give me away. Just one look over in my direction was all that it would take to spell ruin for me. This was it. I was throwing everything on the line. But there was no other way. And even though I was 99% sure that I would be unsuccessful – that 1% far outweighed the “what if’s” that would have tormented me for the rest of my middle school career if I hadn’t gone through with it.

Adults often underestimate adolescence and write them off as “too young to understand.” But I believe that by the time you get out of your teenage years, you have already experienced the entire range of human emotion, whether you know it or not. Because as trivial as adolescents can sometimes be, you can be sure that whatever endeavor they may undertake will be treated as a life or death experience – whether it’s trying to get a job, staying at the top of their class in school, or, in my case, attempting to get the attention of a particular girl. She had a glow about her, along with the dangerous power of instantly paralyzing me with a glance. She had olive skin, dark eyes, dark hair, and her name was Amanda Mervine. She was the most beautiful and, consequently, the most popular girl in middle school. I wore sweater vests.

I knew that I was a nerd, but I also knew that Amanda Mervine was my soulmate. I too had olive skin, dark eyes, and dark hair! And if that wasn’t a match made in heaven, I didn’t know what was. So I set into action the brilliant plan that was bound to prove to her that I was worthy. As I was leaving the house to go to school one morning, I sneaked a plastic rose from the centerpiece in the middle of the dining room table. It would not be missed, and what I had planned for it was much more important.

In middle school, everyone has a “home room” in which they meet for the first and last classes of the day. My home room class was science, and Amanda was in it as well. I had never waited such a long 45 minutes in my life. Finally the bell rang and we all packed our stuff up and got ready to leave. I had to be swift and I had to be sneaky. As the last few students piled out of the room, I opened the desk I knew to be Amanda’s and quickly threw the plastic rose inside. The hardest part was over! Now all I had to do was wait. What I didn’t know was that the hardest part was far from over.

About halfway through the day, a boy that I recognized from the popular crowd came up to me with a worried expression on his face. “I don’t think she wants the flower.” A thousand questions ran through my head in a matter of seconds. “How did he find out about this?” “How did she find out already?” “Who is he to judge whether or not she wants the flower?” Before I could make sense of anything, he asked me with a sympathetic tone, “Do you want me to try and take it out?” I had gone this far, but I began to realize just what I had done and he was offering me a chance to save what was left of my dignity. I looked at his Abercrombie shirt and then at my sweater vest. “Ok,” I replied.

I walked into seventh period, the second to last period of the day. I sat down, weary from the events of the day. All I wanted was to get through this period, get my rose back, and get out of the school. And then the worst possible thing that could have happened…happened. Amanda Mervine walked in. She had a plastic rose in her hand and an amused look on her face. I had completely forgotten that Amanda Mervine was in my seventh period class. And apparently my ally had been unsuccessful in retrieving the evidence from her desk. She sat down next to me and I stared at her. And I kept staring at her. I couldn’t move or speak, and I think she knew this, as she decided to say the first word. “I got your flower.” In the next aisle over, a couple of kids laughed. It seemed that this had gone from a private matter to a public matter very quickly. I continued to stare at Amanda, dumbfounded, as she threw them a severe look and told them to be quiet. I had expected her to start laughing with them, and I tilted my head a little bit when I realized what she had said. Was it possible that she actually cared about me? Could she even have possibly shared the same feelings for me as I had for her? It was while these hopeful thoughts ran through my head that she spoke the words that crushed me. “I think we should just be friends.”

I knew full well that we would never be friends. Middle School works exactly the same way as the rest of the natural world – nerds don’t hang out with popular kids any more than a gazelle would chill with a lion. This was especially true once the rumors began that she and I were dating. See, I found out shortly after that she was actually “going out” with someone else, which made me all the more embarrassed about the rumors. If she didn’t already hate me, she certainly would now. I spent the next few days ducking into bathrooms and hiding behind doors to avoid her. Fortunately at the time I had a good group of friends who decided to start another, bigger rumor about one of themselves in hopes that people would forget about me, which they did.

We all know what it is like to desire the unattainable, to reach for the unreachable. Most of us, once matured, learn from our mistakes and figure out newer and better ways to go about achieving what we want. We stop using bows and we start using guns. We throw away our sharp sticks and develop blades. We leave behind the primitive and opt for the advanced. But if I could go back to that fateful day in middle school when that fleeting impulsive thought entered my head and change what I did, I would not touch it. Well, maybe I would have tried to get a hold of a real flower, but that’s beside the point. The fact is I went for it the only way that I knew how – with a sweater vest and a plastic rose.

Road Trips

My family used to go on a lot of road trips. We'd usually go either to St. Louis or Ohio - close states that we have relatives in. They were only on average about four hours, but they were still fun. But occasionally we would take the 6-10 hour road trip. My favorite was when we didn't get started until the evening, and then we ended up travelling through the night and into the next day. My dad has a huge GM van that the four of us would pile into (me, my parents, and my sister). We always got to pack our choice of drink (diet coke for my mom, diet rite for my dad, grape soda for me, and orange soda for my sister) and my dad would make us all bologna sandwiches (I wanted mine with mayo, my sister's was always mustard.) We would stay up late watching movies or playing video games on the t.v. in the van. Eventually we would fall asleep. I always loved waking up in the middle of the night at a gas station or rest stop and going in to get snacks, then staying up for another half our or so (maybe reading), and then conking out again.

Can't Take Dat Heat

It has been freezing cold in my room for the past two weeks or so. And I love it. I don't know why, but I need the cold. It's gotta be very cold for me to sleep well, so that I can bundle up in my comforter. At home it is always a war, for several reasons. For one, I am always warmer than everyone else. That stands on its own. But the other problem is that I spend most of my time upstairs, while my dad (he is always complaining about being cold) spends all his time downstairs. For whatever reason, the upstairs is noticeably warmer than the downstairs - and my room is the hottest by far. He spends most of his time in the kitchen, cooking and watching T.V. When he isn't cooking, he's sitting in a computer chair in the kitchen watching T.V. Is it too much to ask that he goes upstairs to his comfortable bed where it is warmer to watch T.V.?! Is it too much to ask that he put on a long sleeve shirt and some pants? Once I'm naked, I can't take any more layers off!! No, instead he turns the heat up. If it is any higher than 74 degrees, I cannot survive (again, it is hotter upstairs). I need it at about 71 to be bearable, and 65 would be ideal. Especially at night - I can't stand having to sleep in my underwear with the fan on high because 1) I can't bundle up in my comforter, it's way too hot for that and 2) I can't sleep with that stupid fan on. I can sleep at school with the AC on high because it's loud, but it makes one constant hum. My fan at home on the other hand makes random non-rythmic quiet subtle clicking noises. So I have to sleep with the covers off and the fan off. That just ain't gonna work.

I O U

I had a dream last night that I can't remember with great detail. I do remember that it was late, late evening with a very small bit of blue still in the sky and I walked into a house, and there was a group of organized burglars there, holding people hostage and robbing the house. They didn't see me, so I exited back out the door and walked into the house through a different door - the front door. As I was walking through the living room, some cops burst through the front door where I had just entered. They immediately pointed their guns at me and told me to get on the ground, which I did. They had confused me for one of the burglars. As they were patting me down and cuffing me, my face smashed against the carpet, I heard the sounds of more cops breaking into the other part of the house, and dealing with the real criminals. I tried as hard as I could to convince them that I was not a burglar. Suddenly, gunshots were coming from the other room and I could tell (as could the cops that were holding me) that the burglars were slaughtering the cops. One of the cops holding me down (the female one) pulled me up and started to take off my handcuffs. She got them off and helped me to my feet, opened the door, and told me to run and save myself. I could hear the burglars in the other room starting to break the door down and I knew it was a matter of seconds before they broke through and killed these last few cops that had been dealing with me. In that moment I felt an inexplicable sense of love toward the female cop that had freed me. I ran out the door and cleared the yard, but then I knew I had to go back and help her - I owed her something. I started running toward the cracked front door with yellow light pouring out onto the front porch, and then I woke up. I'll always owe that woman - in the last few seconds of her life, she chose to help me instead of saving herself.

Da Maker of GREAT Mistakes

Uh oh, I can't think of a thing to write about, so I will have to talk about collectin' da dues! Dat's what I do, I collect dues. Because everyone owes dues. Yeah, even you! Whoever you are readin' dis, you owe dues. And you better pay. Right now! And de maker of great mistakes sittin' next to me - he owes more dues dan anyone! Runnin' around, usin' black terms, I'm 'bout to snatch him BALD-HEADED. He tinks he is street, but he's just a POSER!!! And I don't deal with posers on my streetz! He owes such major dues dat I ain't even gonna worry about collectin' your dues right now, butchoo better not forget 'em. Yeah, dat poser grew up with rednecks in the bumpkin town of la grange, and can't no redneck belong on da streets! I ain't tryin'a hear that, and I can safely say that no one else on my street is neither! I happen to know he likes to sit around watching "Naruto" all day, and I'm pretty sure - wait, let me check..... - oh yeah, I am 100% sure dat no white anime-loving cook like himself could possibly survive on the streets for one minute!! Ooooh it's a good ting for him dat he's got Malt-o-Meal over at his house, 'cause I woulda kilt him for sure if he didn't keep havin' me over to eat dat stuff, so that he could have less dues on his tab. Uh oh! Yeah! It's just really funny to me how he keeps making mistake after mistake after mistake over dere! I am gonna quit typin' now, and go see if I can correct some of dose mistakes, and get da dues that are owed me.