What Is Broken Can Mend

Have you ever felt as if everything wasn't working right, like it was all broken? Well I had that experience last night and it was not a good one. My evening didn't go very well, I had a track meet that I was hoping would go well and that I would get a good throw in. Well I didn't do to hot, I ended up only throwing 46' 3" and got third place in the meet. It wasn't the fact that I got third that had me so upset, it was the fact that I performed so poorly. My goal is not to beat the competition, my goal is to beat myself and get a PR every time. I am very upset with how I have done so far this year I ended last season throwing almost 50 feet and expected this year to be well on my way to 55 feet. So far that has not happened. I am doing something to change that I have recommitted myself to eating right and doing anything I can such as push ups & sit ups to keep myself in the best condition for competing.

It wasn't only my throwing that was broken last night but also a couple of other things. When I got home I was trying to hook up my iPod to the computer but for some reason the computer couldn't recognize the USB device. I then went down to play some wii and the wi-fi connection wasn't working right. Well i found a solution for my iPod, I got new one at Best Buy. I still haven't fixed the wi-fi. It seems to me that there should be one more thing that wasn't working for me last night, but I can't put a finger on it. Anyway I just thought it was odd that it seemed like nothing was working for me last night.

Today was a little better the only thing that almost broke was my patience, as I was watching I Am Legend, which by the way is a great movie. There were a few people who weren't happy with the ending but I for one thought the ending was beautifully written. Anyway there were more than a few rude people in the theatre with me. There was almost always someone talking, many people were laughing at inappropriate times and a lot of people had to get up and leave. I am not sure which one I am more upset about, the talking or laughing, both were very annoying and made it hard to watch the movie. I didn't appreciate the laughing because they were laughing at a man who was having a breakdown after being alone for so long (kinda like "Wilson" in Castaway). The talking was almost unbearable a few times I wanted to get up and leave because I really couldn't concentrate on the movie.

I will end with some thoughts on a discussion that took place at the movies, before it started. The discussion was about being a gentleman and being ladylike, we were discussing the criteria for each. The basis for either is manners in order to be either a gentleman or act lady like you must have manners. I don't mean you have to be formal in everything you do but just have common courtesy towards other people. This is something any one should know how to do and everyone should strive to do. If someone doesn't consider you to be a gentleman or act lady like you should do your best to become one. I am amazed by how many people don't care or just automatically say that they are not either a gentleman or lady. If you have respect for yourself and respect for other than you should always strive to act like a gentleman or a lady. I can't really remember the message but this reminds me of Impact last March, I know it had something to do with what a gentleman was.

If I don't end up getting a chance to blog before christmas I would like everyone to know that I am wishing you all a Very Very Merry Christmas!!

Nothing Inpaticular

As I sit down to write this blog I have no real goal or purpose of writting, I just feel I am past due for a new blog entry. I am going to start just writting about what I've been up to lately and see where that takes us.

Christmas is fast approaching I beleive last time I wrote I had just bought presents for my family, (man that seems like ages ago). I currently have two more days left of school before the winter (christmas) break. I am very excited about having some time to sleep. I also feel like I have been very busy and it will be nice to get a chance to relax for a while. However this will probably not work, I usually find something to keep me busy if there is nothing scheduled.

In other news; I am broke, and no it isn't from buying all of the christmas presents. I shelled out $400.00 to replace an iPod that I had sold to my sister, which she broke within 4 hours). You may be thinking what type of iPod cost that much, the answer is the 16 GB iPod Touch. For those that do not know the Touch is like an iPhone except without the phone feature. That is the best way I can explain it. I would have to say that I am impressed with my purchase. If you are considering buy an iPod look at the touch.

Track......, well I am currently undefeated in the shot put, but I have not performed as well as I wanted. I have only hit 46' 8'' so far and that is about 3 feet less than my PR (personal record). I have a meet on Friday so hopefully I will have a big performance.

I felt like ending with something that allows me to work my mind muscle, as I was sifting through a few possible topics, I came across a few similar ones, but here is what I decided on.

We fall down so we can learn to pick ourselves up.
-Batman Begins

Yes this quote is from Batman Begins, it doesn't matter if you aren't familar with the movie you should be able to follow me. I believe this quote is about failure and experience. This quote is saying we fail so we can learn how to keep going. It is only through experiencing failure that we know how to overcome it.
I am going to expand a little beyond the meaning of this quote, I am going to say it is only through experience that we truly learn. When you first read this you may think that I'm crazy there are plenty of ways to learn like by hearing or seeing or reading. My answer to this is sure you can learn about something that way. The key word is "learn about", what does this actually mean. Untill you have your own experiences to go off of what you know about the subject or topic is just someone elses perspective on it. You could sit in a class for weeks about building a car, but do you think the first time you get out there on your own to build it that it will work. I don't think so, but maybe building a car is a bad example. What about playing football, if somone tells you how to play are you instantly going to understand all of the terminology and know how to fake people out or whatever. No you are not, for you to truly learn you have to experience it. I am not saying that people shoul ignore trying to gain an understanding or knowledge of things through reading, but what I am saying is don't underestimate experience. The way one individual comprehends something may be completely different for another, the only way to find out is to experience it. An example of this relating to football is Todd Collins, he may not have all the tools that Cambell has but he has led the Redskins to two Victories, because he understands the game and he understands the offense, those things can only be attained through experience.

I sure got a lot out of not having a direction, I hope that as you read the quote above you take the time to challenge the meaning of it. Take the quote and make it mean something to you, only then will you be able to appreciate it.

(Sorry for any spelling mistakes, I could not get the spell check to work)

Enjoy!

I know I already talked about the new look but I want to make sure everyone knows about the new features as well. Feel Free to answer my new poll question or to view some of the video reels I have displayed, I put it there for whoever views my blog.

Today has been relaxing, I had a whole day off of school because of yesterdays snow. I spent today working on my record book for 4-H, it isn't my favorite thing to do by a long shot but it is necessary for raising 4-H market hogs. After that I took Emma and Katie to FSK mall so we could do a little christmas shopping. I feel like I was able to find a good gift for everyone in my family this year. Especially my Mom and Dad I am certain they will love their gifts.

Thats all for now, and remember to check out the videos and vote on my polls.

How Do You Like It?

At first glance you may not notice anything different, look again. While I was over at John Yoho's house the other night working on my graduation project, I asked if he could show me how to set up a list of links, like I see on everyones blog. So he did and I really didn't do much that night, but today (I had a little extra time because of the snow) I spent about 2 hours making my blog the best it could be. There are a lot of cool features that you can add to your blog and I am trying to take advantage of all of them. Let me know what you think about the updated blog.

This coming Saturday is a bid day for me. The first track meet of my Senior year is taking place, I am excited and nervous at the same time. Excited because it is the first track meet and nervous because I don't know how well I am going to do. I have high expectations for this season, and this first meet will be a small indication as to how I am going to do this season. I say small because I shouldn't judge to much from the first meet, I am not trying to peek at this meet as my main goal is The Outdoor State Championships. It is hard to tell but I don't think I am going to have any personal record breaking throws. While it would be great to start the season off that way it is unlikely, but I plan to be up to A PR by Christmas.

Also this Saturday is the Second annual 10 Buck Ball, this combines two of my favorite things into one, dressing up, and wearing crazy things. Believe me when I say that my Outfit is crazy and looks good, Emma told me it looks too good for the 10 Buck Ball, but I'll wait and see. I like my outfit more than last years in some ways, but in other ways not so much.

The other at SMYDEK, we watched a video about great people who many look up to. This video wasn't about thier accomplishments it was about thier failure. Failure is as much a part of life as success. Success is made in between your failures, Fear of Failure IS the fear to LIVE. Don't forget that.

To end I want to touch on a statement made by Clinton Portis at the Funeral of Sean Taylor. As Portis was talking about how Taylor was always smiling and making people laugh he ended by saying "Whatever you do, do it with all the heart you have." This is a statment I think we all need to take to heart. I personally believe in this and I think the only one you are hurting by not giving it your all is yourself, and if you make the choice to always give it your all remember Sean Taylor, who was more than a Redskin

Rebounding

Rebounding is a term most commonly used in basketball, a rebounding is essential to being successful in basket ball, there may be some games where the team that won got out rebounded by a large margin, but more than likely the team that won either dominated the boards or it was about even. The idea of rebounding is to catch or grab a missed shot, this either gives your team a second chance to score or it means you stopped the other team from scoring (depending on whether you are on offense or defense). For the duration of my basketball career rebounding has been my life, over half the points I scored in a season have been because of offensive rebounds. I knew that more than likely my team was not going to be looking for me in the post, so I had to put myself in the best position, when they took a jumper or drove, to get a rebound.

There are times in life when we need to rebound, and I'm not talking about basketball. Rebounding is essential in life, as I just described rebounding is done when someone misses a shot, we all miss in life. No one not even Micheal Jordan, Lebron James, or Kobe Bryant, take your pick, makes every shot. No one will make every shot they take in life either, and just like I learned in basketball when you miss you have to grab the ball and either take another shot or pass it back out to set up the offense again. If you don't rebound someone else takes the ball and you will have to wait to get it back again.

From what I have learned to be a good rebounder you can't be afraid of your opponent, no matter how big they may be. I know for me I grew at an early age so up until 9th grade I was pretty much as big or bigger than all of my opponents, as I got older I stopped growing but everyone else didn't so I was going up against people who were now bigger (taller that is) than me. If you go out from the beginning of the game thinking that your opponent is going to dominate you and you play timid because of it, then you beat yourself not your opponent. Fear can make you lose before you even tried, it is about heart and how much you really want the ball, not size. In life if you make a mistake you have to seize the opportunities to rebound from them. If you are afraid of messing up again then you won't even try and someone once told me this quote, "You Miss 100% of the shots you never take." don't let fear be your master.

When I started this blog I never thought it would lead here it was just on my mind as I thought of how I have to rebound from a mistake that I made, I never looked at rebounding this way before, but I'm glad I did. Rebounding is now officially one of the Keys to Life, I am still compiling a group that will make up the big Key.

Hope everyone had an awesome thanksgiving and didn't eat to much. Track is in progress and I will continue filling you in on how I do during my senior year. Thanks to those who read my blog, who knows what I will write about next?

Josh In Real Life

Does this title sound familiar, many of you may have heard of the movie that was recently released Dan In Real Life. I was fortunate enough to see this movie last night and it was amazing, that is one of the reasons I say that I was fortunate to see it. It is instantly one of my favorite movies and I can't wait for it to come out on DVD.

I'm not going to give anything away but I will touch on one aspect of the movie I thought was important. In the movie Dan had a column in his local newspaper where he answered questions on parenting. Dan also had a book in which there was more advice. This is just the basics but I hope you get the point. By the end of the movie Dan admits that he hasn't been reading his own column. By this he meant he wasn't using the advice that he had given to people through his column. I thought that this was very meaningful to the title of the movie. I'll let you decide for yourself.

Dan realized that the advice he gave other didn't reflect his life, I believe that often I do the same thing. I often write about topics that are about a new perspective or viewing things from a new way. When I get away from the computer and from my blog I often forget what I wrote about and the "advice" that I gave. This was just on my mind, this movie sure makes your think, but it also makes you laugh, and Cry............

Anyway sorry about the long break I have been very bust these last couple of weeks trying to get my grades up and doing college stuff. The hunt continues and as each day passes the pressure builds. I visited Bucknell this past Friday and I loved it, the campus, the students, the track program, and the coaches, all of these things were great. The only draw back is there are no athletic scholarships at the school and the tuition is $46,000 a year. Also it is a very prestigious school, and while I could probably get in the coaches told me point blank that with the SAT scores I have right now I wouldn't be able to get the major of my choice.

Time for lunch, it feels good to blog once again. Latter

For Real

Wow today has been crazy, well maybe not the whole day but the pigs sure were. Any way more on that later this will be my first real blog as a member of the high speed Internet community. For any that don't know on Wednesday of this week I we got dish network installed (BAM!) So far it has been a lot faster and a lot more convenient than dial up. I have spent a lot of time online and haven't had to worry about the speed or how much time I was spending. It has been cool to finally use many of the features that were unacessable before. One I have spent some time on is Battle.net where I have played Warcraft III, while I enjoy the game against the computer, it is a lot harder when your playing against someone else. My record after 10 games was 2-8 and the only 2 games I won were because my oponent quit right away. I am still having and enjoying everything. I can't wait to set up the Wii with the Wi-Fi connection so I can download some older nintendo games and play against other. Also today I used itunes for the first time ever, I bought the new David Crowder Band CD Remedy, it is awesome, I plan on using itunes a lot in the future the cost is less than at the stores. However I am a little disapointed in how long it took, about 45 minutes to download the entire CD. It took awhile but higher speeds are finally here, and it was worth the wait, "Better Late Than Never".

I thought I was back into a normal lifting schedule, I lifted last saturday and then on Monday with coach Shive. However he didn't tell me what time to come on wednesday so the schedule got a little out of whack. I am going to have to call him monday when I get back from Lehigh

Now let me tell you about the pigs, for some reason they didn't want to be weight today, today we had a harder tim weighing 4 pigs than we did weighing 14 pigs AND giving them shots. It might have been because they are going to slaughter soon.

I know my blog is all about perspective but I would like to talk about something that may be even more important, motivation. Motivation has dual meaning one is the level of enthusiasm you have to carry out an action the other is the reason why did something. They are both important and there can even be motivaiton behind why you were not motivated. One of the hardest things to do is to figure out you motivations, it is very easy to trick yourself by masking your motivations. You are only hurting yourself when you do this. Being able to identify motivation is good but knowing if your motivation is for the right reason is another, even doing something good for the wrong reason is bad, not only that but it is falsely representing who you are. The other aspect of motivation is important to you need to be motivated if you are going to do your best, motivation can determine how well you do in everything.

Writting this has reminded me about a conversation I had with Paul Mercer about the idea that perspective is the key to life. He thought that perspective was important but it was only one of the things necessary in life. He described it as a bunch of keys coming together to form one big key to life, with perspective being one of them. I like this analogy and would like to determine what I think are all of the keys to life, this is a good start.

Thats all for now; more sooner rather than later.