Cell Monster

One thing that most people learn pretty quickly when they hang out with me, is that I'm a cell phone monster. I go through cell phones so fast that I'm like a monster consuming them. Most of the cell phones that I lose, are lost due to water damage. Most of the time they get damaged when I do my laundry. There was one time that I was thrown into a pool with my cell phone. So the moral of the story is. “Don't let me baby sit your cell phone.” Something will happen to it.

To be or not to be?

In the fall semester of 2005, I joined the Sigma Chi fraternity. A decision that I will never regret. As with all things, there are both positive and negative things that come with being a member of a fraternity. When it comes to being a member of Sigma Chi, I feel that the positives out weigh the negatives.
Some of the negatives that come along with being in a fraternity include: being stereotyped along with the idiots of the greek system, spending countless hours doing house activities, as well as the financial drain of being in the fraternity. I feel that it is unfair for fraternity men to be stereotyped the way that they are. Off course you are going to have idiots anytime that you have a large group of 18-24 year-old males assembled together. It just that ours stand out in a crowd due to their letters. This is not easily solved, because there is no system wide check on who is and who is not allowed into the greek system. Another negative aspect of being in a fraternity, is the amount time that it takes to be greek. To keep this short, there are a lot of obligatory events and meeting associated with being greek. So much time is taken out of your week that time spent with family and school inevitably declines as well. Another negative thing about being in a fraternity is the financial drain of it all. Despite what most people think, fraternities spend their money on more than just alcohol and girls.
At the end of the day, it is easy to see how people can get frustrated with being greek. The most redeeming aspect of being greek is the friendships that are formed. I have been a social person my whole life; making friends has never really been a problem for me. I have had close friends from primary school. I have had close friends from all the sports that I played in growing up. Yet the friends and connections that I have made over these past four years are unlike any that I have experience before. I can honestly say that there are lots of people that I want to know the rest of my life. Being greek has given me more life stories, than most people get in a life time. Although my grades are not nearly what they would have been had I not joined, and I live the life of a poor man. I still choose my fraternity. I do not think that I would have made it through to the end of my college career had it not been for my fraternity brothers. There have been many times when pressure from school or work have really troubled me, and whenever the pressures became too much, they where always there by my side to see me through. In the next five to ten years we will all see if my investment in social capital over grades will pay off.

LeBron

Yesterday with the final score being 84 to 74, the Cleavland Cavaliers finished a series sweep of the Atlanta Hawks. Every year there are sweeps in the playoffs, yet it was how the Cavaliers won that made this series memorable. In the series we saw LaBron James take the series over. It seemed that it did not matter what the Hawks tried on defense, they just could not stop him. It seemed as if LeBron could do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted.

In the series against the Hawks Lebron averaged just over 28 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists a game. These numbers in of themselves does not even begin to show just how dominant he really was. In watching the game you could clearly see that Lebron was just faster than the Hawks. So whenever he drove into the paint, any defender in the area was forced to foul him in order to stop a guaranteed dunk. Yet sometimes LeBron did not even have score to make his impact felt. Whenever the defense focused too much on LeBron, he was able to flip a pass out to one of his teammates for an open shot. So now matter what the Hawks did, they could not stop LeBron james and his Cleavland Cavaliers.

Death of a Dynasty

Sad news came to me today. My high school has just cut the funding for its football team; this includes the varsity, junior varsity, and the junior high school teams. This was a long and storied program. In my time on the team alone the team experience much success including: two undefeated junior high seasons, one undefeated jv season, a one loss jv season, a state championship at the varsity level. All of that, and I only was around for the tail end of the success. Before I had arrived my school had won 4 divisions championships in ten years. Two of which were also state championships.

What finally undid all of the success that my school had enjoyed was a new principle. When he came in he felt that two much of the schools resources were being focused on the football team. So he cut the funding in half the first couple of years. Because of this, most of the coaching staff that had been there for years had to be let go. The team was also forced to do maintenance on their own field. That alone was enough to deter most of this kids away from the team. That left only the hard core football lovers to make up the entire roster. When you have a school of only 500 trying to compete with schools that had more than 3000, you need every able body. Those last couple of years the team struggled on the field because most of the team had to go both ways. Which meant that the team was competitive in every game until the fourth quarter when the players all got too exhausted. The did not win a game their last two years in existence.

One side effect from the football teams down fall was declining enrollment rates at the school. My school is a private institution. So none of their enrollment was guaranteed. The only reason that most people had even heard about my school was from all the publicity the local news papers writing about the football team. There are many private schools in the area that are similar in every way, except none of them had a successful sports teams. The attention that the news papers brought not only brought in athletes, but many other students as well. The name recognition of the school made it attractive to all.

I hope that one day I will be able to resurrect the team. Even if I have to fund and coach the team myself.

there for my father

This weekend was the first time that I have been home since January 17^th . The reason for this, is that I am from Southern California and attend San Jose State University. In a car that is about a 6-hour drive. Another reason that I do not go home that often is because I leave my car at home. So even when I have the time to make the drive; I usually don't have a car to ride in.

I went home this weekend to be with my father in particular. Since my sister and I have moved out, my parents are left to the house by themselves. So when my mother leaves town, my father is left alone. Sometimes he will be left alone for a week or two. I came home this weekend to keep him company. This was not a good weekend to go home, since I have most of my term papers due this week. I'm a family first type of guy.