The Boys of Summer

Can't figure if I like this summer or hate it. Well, On the good side, I've been together with my girlfriend for about a month now (which is pretty good, seeing as most kids break up after a week). She's been gone twice though- one time for a missionary trip, and now for the beach. But there is still half of the summer to go (and I HATE going back to school in August- ugh!). 4th of July (Independence Day) is coming up- you know what that means: Americans get drunk, are in the possession of firework, and end up burning a lot of stuff. And seeing that we live about 30 minutes from the Tennessee border, which has kinds of fireworks illegal to sell (though not to use) in almost every other state, it gets pretty...eventful. Going to a party with a couple of my friends after seeing the 4th of July Parade with Andrea in the afternoon- should be an eventful day.

Then again, Eventful pretty much describes almost every day in my summer. Going to the movies, bowling, heading uptown, swimming, work for 10 dollars and hour (which inevitably spend the next day), running to get in shape for Cross Country, or just hanging out with a good book- great, great summer. Nothing much to add, there has been a number of eventful incidents in the last month for example:

-Doing a competition with my friend to see who could text 100 words while swinging (harder than you think!)
-First date with a girl, ever...went pretty well
-Laughing at my friend when his cell phone went off in the middle of a movie
-Playing Cops and Robbers across the entire town
-Staying up until 1 or 2 each night to text my girlfriend or talk to her over facebook
-Singing at the top of my Lungs to the Entire Journey album with my friends
-Taking Hikes in the breathtaking beauty of the Appalachian Mountains
-Sitting on the back deck watching the sun set than staring up at the stars
-Going Mini-Golfing and failing miserably (56 on 18 holes!)
The list goes on and on.

But, with all the good things, you'd be surprised with all the drama I'm dealing with. Long story short, it seems like a lot of people are worried about a lot of things, and they go to me to talk about it. Not that I mind, but its so hard to when you don't know what to do or say. Ugh :/

Well, thats my update. I'll get another one out after the 4th!

Edit: sorry about not being able to get anything of Ascension up- I'm stuck on a part I'm writing at the moment and what I have written isn't all that good. Why does writing have to be so hard?

The Endless Weekend

Thats Summer for you: One, big, long, and seemingly endless weekend. A time to practice the few luxuries of freedom in life before the weekdays of school inevitably return.

Yeah, sorry about that, I'm still in writing mode. Believe it or not, I'm actually making progress with Ascension. Here's part of the opening that I've been working on all day: (constructive criticism is appreciated)

The sky was a burning red- a twisted testimony to the destruction that had plagued the very land under his feet in an age long past. Sila’threan it was called by his people: The Nightmare Land. It was a realm that was void of any form of Fae or Kai, an ashen waste where the tainting presence of the Void still lingered, enough to drive a being mad and into a feral state of existence. It was these lands that served as the forbidden grounds of his people, the one place where his nomadic race dared not tread. It was these lands that he called his home, and it was these lands that he had survived in a tortured existence for decades in hope of escaping the horrors of his past: horrors that he wanted to forget, but was forced to remember.
Scourge they called him; Bane, Destroyer, Exile. He had many names from all corners of the realm of Intai’sei, enough so that he had long forgotten his birth name. To the few that remembered his existence, he was known as Vaec, “The Forsaken One.” He had ceased to care: he was stripped, an empty, soulless husk, a Void. Yet it was this emptiness that gave him strength, allowing him to survive where all others could not. The only thing that kept him going was a simple, driving hatred against those who had wronged him all that time ago. It was this rage that kept him moving through every agonizing step in this hellish wasteland, every footfall shooting tendrils of pain through his very being. Rage was all he was now, Rage and Hatred, and one day, yes, one day, he would have retribution.
With agonizing effort he raised himself to his feet, the pain of the simple movement nearly forcing him back to his knees once more. Even in his empty state, the Void’s lingering presence still pained him, yet he had come to live with it: they were one and the same after all, and it was his emptiness that kept him alive where all other should fall. He raised his eyes to the sunrise that lay on the horizon, painting the overhanging clouds a blood-red hue. East was his goal, as it had been for year upon year. He knew not what drove him, yet some supernatural force kept moving his feet towards the blood-red sunrise that brought every agonizing day. And he obeyed, his rage, his hatred, and his pain driving him ever forward.

If you remember the background to Ascension (the fae and kai thing?) you will know that every lifeform on the plane of existence that is known as Intai'sei is made of either the life energy of Fae or Kai (with the Insetti being sentient beings of Fae and the Kantras, Vaec's species, of Kai.) Vaec, or "him", was stripped of that energy years ago, yet didn't have the good fortune to die. For some reason, he survived, and became a barren husk of a being who's sole purpose lay in revenge on those who had wronged him in such a way. He was exiled to the Nightmare Lands, a wasteland that in tainted by a Void that was caused in a great clash between Fae and Kai ages past. This Void that is present in the Nightmare Lands feeds on Fae and Kai energy, which would lead to the death of any lifeform that stepped foot onto the realm's barren ground, but Vaec is spared from death due to having no life energy to be consumed. The Void still causes him unbearable pain as it attempts to feed on him, but as Vaec's life does not rely on Fae or Kai energy, it cannot kill him. So, how does it sound?

On to life. Lets see... girls (or, in this case, one girl), hanging uptown or at the movies with my friends every other day, running, or summer work (mowing the lawn, stacking wood, etc) is dominating every waking hour of my day, so I'm pretty dang busy. Since the Bonfire Saturday, I've had friends hang out at my house on Sunday, hanged out uptown on Tuesday, went to see a movie on Wednesday, experienced my first kinda-date on Friday, and went uptown on Saturday. So yeah, busy week, and my nights are no better, being wasted on Xbox, facebook, and texting (often at the same time). Haven't had much time to write, or update my blog, but I'll try to do my best this summer.

That's about it for this week. Haven't been arrested by the police or anything, so thats a plus, considering that it's summer. Oh, and as a last note, sweet child of mine by Guns and Roses, but this time in orchestra version, and without words. Its actually very pretty, believe it or not.

Its My Life

Music Video sucks, but the lyrics show exactly how my life is going right now- EPIC. This summer, only 2 days old, is already the best summer of my life.

Its my life- It's now or never.
I ain't gonna live forever,
I just wanna live while I'm alive

Friday was the first day of summer...got a call from one of my friends, Kim, telling to move my butt over to the pool ASAP. managed to get there with another one of my Friends, Logan, and after spending an hour hanging out at the pool (and yes, Logan and I were the only guys hanging out there- we are such players haha) 4 of the six of us decided to go grab some lunch as some tiny cook-out shack in the market courtyard. We later met back up with Andrea and Amelia, the other two girls who decided to stay at the pool a bit longer, and spent the rest of the day at the park. Played Tennis, Basketball, Volleyball, went to the Market, and generally just hanged out for 6 hours straight. Best Friday in recent memory.

Saturday night was equally as epic. 10 of my friends, along with my sister and two of her friends, had been planning a summer party at my house for a week or so. And dang, it didn't disappoint. Everyone got there at around 7 or so, and the party itself lasted until 11:30 or so. Highlights of the day include burning old homework in the firepit that I had been building for around a week, having Tyler catch a firework in the air while it was going off, tossing pop-its and soda bombs in some kind of free-for-all war, trying to snatch the beer cans while the parents weren't looking (and failing), playing rock band with 10 or so people switching off, getting high of helium balloons, playing capture the flag in the dark (with one of my friends and I using our shirts as flags), hiding under an old canoe during said capture the flag match, laughing our butts off as one of the guys and one of the girls went into the dark without a flashlight to "hide the flag" and laughing even harder when they started to stutter when denying that they did anything, playing truth-or-dare at around 10:30 or 11, and roasting marshmallows over an open fire.

Great, great day, especially seeing as (personal thing that my parents can skip if their reading as I've already told them to, no offense, really, not get too involve with my personal life) I was hanging out with the girl that I really, really like most of the day (which is more of a friends-with-benefits thing seeing as she's already dating some other guy, although I told her that I liked her a while back and she assumed as much a bit before that) and a bunch of my very best friends all at once.

So, in short, a great, great start to one of the best summers of my life.

Bittersweet Ending

This has been the first time that I've ever cried about leaving school. Never, not even in Kindergarten, did I ever cry. But, well...I don't know. The best word to describe it is bittersweet. But I'll go with the good stuff fist.

Today was the last day of school for the 8th grade (everyone else gets out tomorrow). The school day was just us hanging out, going tot he park, eating ice cream, and preparing for the graduation that would take place later on that day. Got back home, worked for around 2 hours with clearing out the fire pit for the bonfire I'm going to have Saturday as a kind of summer celebration, than had a shower and dressed up in some snazzy dress clothes before going to the graduation at our school at 6:00. After chatting up with some friends and girls (who looked amazing in their graduation dresses), I was required to lead the line of 8th graders to the auditorium stage (which I guess is a big honor- I dunno). After we got seated, all the teachers made these big long speeches about how great of a class we were (and I have to admit, we are an awesome class) before handing out medals to all of us for "such a great year". Then they started with the awards: you know, highest academic achiever, best singer, etc etc. I ended up with some long service award for both band a strings (a shiny nice medal to boot) and, most surprisingly of all, the athletic award. I mean, I'm pretty athletic, but no where near what some of the other people in the grade are. Moment of shock there...the rest were pretty predictable, with the exception of a few here and there (one of my friends got the geography award while the other got the...friendliest person award? best student? something like that. Proud of them both) The teachers started actually crying when they gave an award to honor a teacher who died a while back (the one which my second friend, Kimmy, got), which made me feel really, really bad. Then a couple of chorus kids started singing In My Life by the Beatles, and I almost choked up right then and there. two or three started crying in fact. it was really, really well done.

After that was the graduation party. They started playing the hour-long 8th grade video while we were eating on the projection board, which had video clips and pictures from kindergarten up to 8th grade. that was about it...my friend Andrea started crying, so did Kodie and Kylie. After given pretty long hugs to every girl in the 8th grade to say goodbye- another time when I almost chocked up when giving a few hugs with some girls that I knew that I would never see again (and I gave a few bro hugs here and there, I'll admit it).

After saying final farewells, 8 of my friends and I headed to the local pizza place, Mellow Mushroom, and pretty much just hanged for an hour or so. It was a really, really fun time...going to miss a lot of these people, even If I'm going to be hanging out with a most of them this summer anyhow. Thinking about asking one of the girls out this summer...not going to say her name as my parents sometimes read this, but I'm going to go for it later on.

So, yes. Bittersweet is the best word to describe the day. probably one of the best days I've had in a long, long time, but Its been really sad leaving all these good memories behind. After 9 or so years with most of these people (and a class of only 35 at the highest) we've grown into more of a family than a class...we were all friends there, and it is always hard to leave your friends behind. But anyhow, it was a very, very good way to kick off the summer. Going to the pool and heading uptown tomorrow to hang with a lot of my friends that I'm not yet ready to "let go of" yet. Also, I'm inviting 12 or so of my closest friends to a bon fire Saturday too...this is going to be a very, very good summer.



found this when i got home. that was it, I cried. The most un-manly thing that i could do, but it couldn't be helped. This is the song sung by the chorus at grad- to everyone in the 8th grade, I'm going to miss you all!