Sophomore Year?!

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

It's been far too long since my last blog post.

I know!

But I'm back now, so let's get to it!

The year was 2001.

My Sophomore year of high school was about to begin.

But less than two weeks into the school year, something terrible happened.

The terrorist attacks of September 11th.

Everyone remembers where they were that day.

For me, I had just walked into school that morning.

Every room had a television, and all of them were on various news channels.

No one was teaching anything that day in my school.

People were trying to make sense of what they were seeing.

There were people who were crying, and others who were shocked into silence.

Everyone else was somewhere in between.

People lost their lives. 

People lost their family members, their friends, and loved ones.

It's been over 16 years since that horrific tragedy happened.

Never forget.

It took a few weeks for things to at least seem to be getting back to normal at my school.

Once Thanksgiving and Christmas came around, I started to see smiles on faces that had not smiled in months.

That was a good thing to see.

Now that I had one of of high school under my belt, I knew the lay of the land.

The new Freshman class also had some of my best friends in it, so it was nice to be able to see them on a daily basis again!

I also now had Gym class three times a week.

That's a win folks.

I also had something else from the end of my Freshman year to expand upon...

My lollipop side business!

It started small the year before, with classmates trying to out bid each other for blow pops.

I knew I had to expand on that!

My inventory increased dramatically.

Now I had blow pops, paintbrush pops, starburst pops, dum dums, banana pops, caramel apple pops, crush soda pops, and hot chocolate pops!

My book bag was now filled with lollipops, and I would keep all of my school books in my locker!

Word of mouth quickly spread around the entire school.

I was now "The Candy Man".

It was INSANE!

My friends wanted them.

Other students that I never even talked to, FROM ALL GRADES wanted them.

MY TEACHERS WANTED THEM!

Every time I would walk into a class, I would always go to the teacher first, so they could have first dibs.

Once I had the teacher in my pocket, I mean uhh, once the teacher was given the proper respect for being my elder, I would then take my seat.

Then the hustle began.

People would pass quarters to me like they used to pass notes back in the day.

I know who liked what flavor.

All it took was eye contact. 

I was dishing out lollipops with one hand, and collecting quarters with the other hand.

People would stop me in the hallway between classes.

Lunch time?

Forget about it.

It was madness.

I would sell out of everything every single day.

I'd take the revenue from Day 1, buy my new inventory for Day 2, and still have a nice big chunk of pocket change that was straight profit.

For a 15 year old with no job, no car, and most importantly, NO BILLS, any profit was good profit!

But to be totally honest, I got most of my revenue from people that I didn't know, who just ASSUMED that the lollipops were 25 cents each, and I never exactly confirmed OR denied that.

My friends always got them for free.

So did the girls, you know, because chivalry isn't dead!

I was providing a service!

Those were fun times!

Speaking of fun times, another new sensation was just starting to make it's way to the U.S. from Japan.

Three letters.

DDR.

Also known as "Dance Dance Revolution".

It's a music video game series.

Basically, you stand on a raised metal platform that has four colored arrows at your feet, and the video monitor is in front of you.

The arrows are Up, Down, Left, and Right.

You then pick one of the many songs in the game, (many of which are mainstream songs, or covers of mainstream songs) and the song starts, and a bunch of those arrows start appearing at the bottom of the scree, scrolling upwards.

The goal is to step on the correct arrow when that arrow reaches the top of the screen.

The concept seems simple enough, but that couldn't be any farther from the truth!

I remember the first time I saw someone play it at the Holyoke Mall.

I was already hooked.

Songs are given a rating of 1-10, with 1 being the easiest difficulty, and 10 being the hardest.

The harder the song, the more arrows (or "steps') it contains, along with the song usually being at a faster tempo, along with a much more complex pattern of steps that need to be hit in a very rapid succession!

Miss enough steps, and you fail!

When I first saw it being played in person, I thought to myself "I'd love to be able to do that, but there's no way!"

Then I found out that some of my very best friends had already been playing at a high level!

I knew I had to catch up!

I started off small, playing the home version of the game at my friends house, (which comes with flimsy plastic mats that slip all over the place unless you can secure them down properly) which allowed me to make a fool out of myself OUTSIDE of public view.

That went on for a few months.

I practiced as often as I could.

When me and my friends would go to the arcade at the mall, I would watch them play, because I was too nervous to try it in public!

Then one day, I went to the mall with my cousin, who was also getting into it, and he said "you're playing today".

I figured he was just joking.

He wasn't.

So, I played.

And I passed all of the songs!

I was out of breath, and sweating everywhere, but I did it.

At that point, I wasn't nervous anymore.

It was time to attempt even harder songs.

To build up my stamina.

I'll tell you right now.

I don't care WHAT shape you're in.

If you play the wrong song to start off your set, (usually 3 or 4 songs, depending on what your local arcade has set as the standard limit on your machine) you will be completely out of breath, your legs will be shaking, and your throat will be ON FIRE!

But I must admit, for me, it's one of the best feeling in the world!

Full disclosure?

I still play it to this day!

Between running my lollipop business five days a week, also called "school" I guess, and DDR, that pretty much took up all of my time during my Sophomore Year!

My Junior Year on the other hand, well, we will get to that next time!!

David Woodman

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

This blog entry is going to be a departure from my "school chronicles".

That's because this post is all going to be about one man.

David Woodman.

On this day, 9 years ago, David Woodman passed away.

He was just 22 years old.

I couldn't believe it.

I didn't want to.

I kept telling myself "This can't be real".

But unfortunately, it was.

I still remember the first day I met Dave.

Freshman Year, September, 2000.

I was still getting used to seeing faces from my own grade that I had been basically separated from for the last two years, since my grade was split into three "teams" for both 7th and 8th Grade.

Also, the nearby town of Granville also went to my high school, since Granville only had a school for up to 8th Grade.

There were a lot of new faces to get used to.

And that's when Dave Woodman first arrived.

He was someone I had not seen before, so I initially thought he must have been from Granville.

But he wasn't.

His family had moved to my town from San Jose, California.

I still remember the shirt he was wearing the first time i saw him in the hallway.

A blue and white polo shirt, and the collar was popped.

In all honesty, just by the way he carried himself, I thought he was conceited.

He had this smile on his face that just SCREAMED "arrogance" to me.

It was the first day of school, and he's already holding hands with one of the "popular girls", walking around like he owns the place.

I said to myself "Oh look at this kid, who does he think he is?!"

I was 100% ready to not like him.

But as you'll hear in life over and over again, that's why you NEVER judge a book by its cover!

Needless to say, I was wrong about him.

So very wrong!

The first week of school comes and goes.

I'm starting to get used to how everything works, where my classes are, and all of that fun stuff.

Then one fateful day in Health class, everything changed.

My Health class had seating arranged by last name.

Because of that, Dave sat right in front of me.

I tried to pay him no attention, due to being "100% ready to not like him".

But then he said something that got my attention.

He talked about professional wrestling.

All of my friends know that I LOVE professional wrestling.

I always have.

I had to do a "double take" when Dave talked about it with that same passion as I did.

I asked myself "Wait a minute, HE likes wrestling too?! This can't be!"

And then I took the leap of faith and I engaged him in conversation about wrestling.

It quickly became clear that he was a fan.

Just like me.

We had something in common.

Then we started having in depth conversations about wrestling outside of Health class.

We would talk wrestling at lunch in the cafeteria.

We would talk about wrestling passing each other in the hallway between classes.

One thing lead to another, and one day he was like "You should come hang at my house and we can play SmackDown on my PS2."

That was it.

That was the turning point.

That's when I realized I was wrong about this kid from California who was just being himself.

I went to his house for the first time a few days later, and the rest is history.

I think we played video games for like 8 hours in a row that first day.

It was magical.

I don't even know if we stopped to eat.

I don't even think we stopped to blink.

We were in the zone.

I met the rest of his family that day too.

Including his older sister, who I had actually met in one of my other classes first, before I knew who Dave was.

I didn't realize he had two younger brothers too.

I started to see a different picture.

I started to see the real picture.

Here's this kid who I had initially written off as someone who was "Arrogant", "Conceited", and "Probably an only child", who was actually the second of four kids, who had just moved here from the other side of the country, and was just doing his best to fit in.

I couldn't have BEEN any more wrong than I was with my initial assumption about him.

His family is one of the best families I have ever met.

It's because of him that I was able to meet them, and remain close with them to this day, and that will never change.

It all started with him.

He opened that door.

After our initial video game binge, we would hang out probably like 2-3 times a week.

We would go to Blockbuster and rent obscure PS2 games, along with the movie "Ready To Rumble", which we must have watched at least 1,000 times.

We used to go workout at the YMCA before school.

I still have no idea how I was even able to get out of bed at 6 a.m. to do that.

We would go to the movies, and he would sneak in an ENTIRE grande meal from Taco Bell.

Don't ask me how he did it, I still wonder how he did it myself sometimes!

He always ordered the same thing.

"6 Soft Tacos, 4 Bean Burritos".

Every time I go to Taco Bell, I can still hear his voice making the order in my head.

On Thanksgiving, I would go to his house to play football in the morning.

At halftime, we would all go inside to gorge ourselves on cinnamon rolls.

And star bread.

I. Love. Star. Bread.

I could eat it forever.

I looked forward to Thanksgiving every year.

It was a tradition.

Dave and I always made sure we were on the same team in gym class.

Dodgeball is a lot more fun when you're calling random audibles and "fake plays" that you've just made up 5 minutes earlier.

English 11 is one of my favorite classes that I've ever had in school.

That's 100% because of Dave.

He turned every class into a debate.

First with the teacher, then the teacher would split up the room.

Everyone on Dave's side of the argument, THAT HE MADE UP, on the left, and everyone on the teachers side of the debate on the right.

EVERY. SINGLE. CLASS.

We would come up with the most BS stuff we could think of, just to drag out the debates until class was over.

The next day, we did it all over again.

Some of the most fun I've ever had in an "academic class".

All thanks to Dave.

It was also during the "boom period" of my lollipop business, and it quickly became clear that no one took you seriously in the debate if you didn't have a lollipop, so business for me was VERY good in that class!

That was the thing about Dave.

He could play the "Devil's Advocate" about ANYTHING.

Just to get people talking.

He also had a VERY quick wit and sense of humor.

Just like me.

That's why we got along so well.

He's the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off of his back without thinking twice.

He's the kind of guy you would want right next to you in the trenches.

He loved his family.

He loved his friends.

And he would have done ANYTHING for either of them.

That's the kind of stand up guy he was.

After High School, he went off to college, so we didn't see each other nearly as much anymore, and I started hanging out with his younger brothers.

Whenever he did come back home, we would always pick up right where we left off.

It was like we never missed a beat.

In early 2008, I decided to set a goal for myself.

At first, my goal was to be able to take a picture of every contact that I had in my cell phone.

I figured if I knew someone well enough to have their phone number, I might as well have a picture of them too!

But as I started doing that, my goal had evolved into something MUCH bigger.

Facebook was still in its "early years" back then, but whenever you would go to a persons page that you were friends with, it would say "Pictures of you and (insert friends name here)" followed by the number of pictures you had together.

So then I started using the same mentality that I had with the phone contact pictures.

And one day I thought to myself "You know what? I'm going to make it a mission to try to take individual pictures with as many people that I know as possible!"

I decided that I would call it "The Ultimate Photo Album"

I started telling some of my friends about it.

We all agreed on one thing, that's a pretty big task.

In fact, it's the kind of goal that I was almost to afraid to even set for myself.

By my mind was made up, I was set on doing this!

I just kept telling myself "I'll start tomorrow!"

That turned into a week.

Then a month.

Then three months.

Then I finally got started.

I was asking everyone I knew.

Family.

Friends. 

Friends Of Friends that became my friends.

Co-Workers.

Former Co-Workers.

You name it.

I had a camera, a tripod, and I told all of them the same thing.

"Whatever works for you, you name the time, you name the place, and I'll come to you!"

The response was overwhelming.

I even asked people that I told myself would be "beyond a longshot", just so I could tell myself that I at least TRIED, instead of wondering "What if" for the rest of my life.

They all said yes!

I couldn't believe it!

It meant so much more to me than just trying to complete this seemingly impossible task.

I would sit back and tell myself "These people are taking the time out of their day, no, the time out of their LIFE, just to take a picture with me, a memory that will be frozen in time, just to help me reach this goal"

Not because any of them HAD to.

But because they WANTED to.

Then on June 29th, 2008 David Woodman passed away.

It was devastating.

One of my best friends was gone.

It left a huge void.

Then I started beating myself up.

I told myself "If I didn't drag my feet on starting this project, I would have been able to take a picture with him for this album"

Now that can't happen.

Then I started questioning my motives.

I started wondering if every new picture that I took was just a vain, selfish attempt to replace the picture with Dave that I never took.

I had to take some time to really think about it.

I considered just giving up right there.

But then I came to my senses.

I know Dave wouldn't want me to quit on this.

I've dedicated my Ultimate Photo Album to him.

His passing has really hammered the point home that you just don't know what tomorrow can bring.

When we lose the people that we care about, we look to memories, stories, and pictures to remember them.

That's how they stay with us.

That's why my photo album is so important to me.

Two people can get together, take a picture, and they've just made a memory that can last forever.

And now here we are, 9 years since Dave passed away, and my Ultimate Photo Album is still in full swing.

I still have many people that I would love to take a picture with, and hopefully they can all happen someday.

Sometimes I'll look at the pictures that I've collected over all of these years, and I still find myself at a loss for words.

You may have left us 9 years ago.

But one thing is for certain David Woodman.

I'll never give up.

You can count on that.

High School?!

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

High School.

My Freshman Year.

Was I prepared for this?

Absolutely.

I had always envisioned High School as this larger than life place that would swallow you whole if it had the chance.

In reality?

It was just like 5th Grade all over again.

Well, except everyone was older now.

And we no longer had to walk in single file.

After spending the past two years with only 1/3 of my entire grade, it was weird seeing people that I forgot were even IN my grade to begin with.

Not only that, but my High School also takes students from both Granville and Tolland, so there was an influx of new faces that were all in my grade now.

It was a lot to take in.

The first week was nothing short of a whirlwind.

I was assigned my locker, which would be my locker for all four years of High School.

I was also assigned to my homeroom, which would also remain the same for all four years of High School.

It was nice to have constants like that.

This also began my love/hate relationship with "Block Scheduling".

You see, my High School had 4 classes a day.

That's right, four.

I knew many people who went to High School's in other towns.

They all had like 7-8 classes a day, that were roughly 45 minutes each.

Not in my school.

Each class I had was 84 minutes long.

Which was both good and bad.

If I was a class that I liked, I had it for 84 minutes!

If it was a class that I hated, I had it for 84 minutes.

As a Freshman, I had English and three other classes the first half of the year, then I had History and three different classes the second half of the year.

So my day consisted of English, Algebra 1 Volume 1, Health (Mon, Wed, Fri)/Gym (Tue, Thu) and Spanish 1.

English was bearable.

Algebra 1 was bearable (only because of the students I had the class with).

Health was BEYOND boring.

Although I did end up meeting someone who became one of my best friends in that class, but that will be an entire blog post all by itself, and even that still won't be enough. 

Gym was the one bright spot that first half of the year.

Spanish 1 was alright, because I was genuinely interested in learning a new language, even though I needed to take at least two years of it (or French) whether I wanted to or not, it was still "something new", so it had my attention.

Lunch on that first day was also a different experience from any school lunch that I had experience before.

There were so many..........options!

I mean sure, we had that "lunch calendar" that said what was going to be the "lunch of the day", but unlike Elementary and Middle School, that wasn't the only option!

The cafeteria had THREE SEPARATE LINES.

On top of whatever was the "lunch of the day", there were other items that were ALWAYS AVAILABLE!

It was magical.

You could get a cheeseburger, hot dog, chicken patty, pizza, grilled cheese, and countless other things. 

EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.

I had to ask some of the older students if this was a "one time thing" since it was the first day of school, and they said "Nope, it's like this everyday".

It was truly music to my ears.

There was one thing that I did need to get used to, and that was not having recess anymore.

I must admit, not having recess sucked.

Recess was the best way to unwind after lunch.

That took some getting used to.

When the second half of the year came around, English was replaced with History, and Health/Gym, Spanish 1, and Algebra 1 were replaced.

Now I had History, Health/Gym, Algebra 1 Volume 2, and Integrated Science. 

When it comes to Science, I like doing the "hands on" stuff.

You know, pouring random liquids into beakers, waiting for a reaction of some sort.

Using liquid nitrogen to freeze random objects.

Stuff like that.

But this Science class was just reading from a gigantic textbook every day.

That was it.

I learned nothing from that class, and it was awful.

Science class would get MUCH BETTER the next year, but we'll get to that when the time comes!

Algebra 1 Volume 2 would change the course of my High School career for the next TWO YEARS.

And it all started with a fundraiser in the cafeteria.

There was a fundraiser (I can't even remember for what) in the cafeteria that was selling bubble gum for 10 cents each, so I bought ten of them for a dollar.

Someone in my Algebra class saw me pull out a piece of the gum, and they asked if I had another piece.

I did, and I threw it to them.

Then someone else asked me the same thing.

I threw that person a piece too.

Before you know it, I'm down to my last piece, and there is a BIDDING WAR going back and forth for the last piece.

One dollar later, and my final piece was gone.

That's when the light bulb went off.

The next day I brought in Blow Pops.

As soon as I pulled that first one out, someone immediately offered me 50 cents for one.

I would have let it go for 25 cents.

This was turning out even better than I had expected.

I knew Blow Pops were going to get old fast.

I needed to expand my inventory if this new side business was going to last.

And heading into my Sophomore Year, that's exactly what I did, but we'll get to that next time!

Two Thirds!

Just as a disclaimer, please don't expect proper grammar and punctuation in this blog post, or any other future blog posts. I'll do my best with the spelling, but everything else is up in the air. Run-on sentences, incomplete sentences, numbered lists, and bullet points are all very good friends of mine, you will meet all of them very soon.

Grade. Number. 8.

I was now an 8th Grader.

In my school system, that made me the "King Of The Hill" once again.

This would be my last year as a "middle schooler".

Two thirds of my school career would officially be in the books by year's end.

In all honesty, I was excited about the end of the year more than anything else.

Not because I wanted 8th Grade to be over so badly or anything, but we'll get to that.

This was my second year on the Garnet Team.

Two thirds of my grade were on different teams.

I mean sure, we were all still in the same SCHOOL, but still, we were separated.

I only saw them in passing.

They were basically becoming strangers.

But then again, Garnet Team was the best team.

So the rest of my grade on the other two teams were basically the opposition.

At least that's how I viewed them in my mind.

We were all still learning the same thing.

But as I said before, since I was on the Garnet Team, then that makes my team more better.

As far as the academic year went, Algebra was being slowly introduced in Math Class.

I was excited, for about a whole minute.

It's not that I don't like Math.

Actually, that's exactly it.

I hated Math.

I mean, I like numbers just fine.

I like letters too.

But they don't need to be mixed with each other.

2y + 5x = 4z

No.

I'm all set.

I'm sure they serve a purpose for someone who has a job that actually needs that.

But that's not me.

I would have rather had a class that taught about how taxes work.

You know, something that actually applies to EVERYONE.

What a crazy concept!

A little later on in the year, The Geography Bee came around once again.....

I couldn't bring myself to be a part of it.

I was still reeling over the question that got me eliminated the year before.

It still haunts me to this day, so it was better to just sit that one out this time around.

Outside of school, I was playing floor hockey in my Recreation Center League.

This was my second year on the Avalanche.

But the year didn't really start off very well for me.

We had a practice before the season started, and one of our Assistant Coaches must have had a bad bowl of Wheaties or something, because he was being an absolute, well, let's just say "not a very nice person" to everyone.

It was totally out of character for him, he was usually a nice guy.

He was flipping out over every single thing.

It was starting to piss everyone off, including me.

After the practice was over, I told myself "I don't need to deal with this, I don't need to deal with him this season, I'm done."

And I quit the team.

My Head Coach wasn't at that practice.

I told him over the phone that I just didn't want to play anymore, but I didn't tell him why.

He told me "Well if you change your mind, we'll still have your spot open for you."

I kept that in mind.

I went to the first two games of the season, as a spectator.

The team won both games.

We also had one of the key players that I thought wasn't even on the team anymore.

So, in what could have only been perceived as the biggest cherry picking move ever, I called my coach and said that I had changed my mind.

Did the team getting off to a 2-0 have something to do with it?

Of course it did!

Then in my first game back, we lost.

It felt like everyone was looking at me afterward.

But then I realized it was because it was my turn to buy the team soda's after the game.

So I wasn't paranoid after all!

In my league, the Top 4 teams make the playoffs.

We had missed the playoffs buy one game the previous year, ending in 5th Place.

This year, it just so happened that our final game of the regular season would determine which team would make the playoffs in 4th Place, and which team would be watching from the sidelines.

My team, The Avalanche, was 8-5.

Our opponents, The Devils, were also 8-5.

For us, we had to win.

If the game ended in a tie, The Devils would get in, because the first tiebreaker for our league would be which team had scored more goals in the regular season, and The Devils had us beaten there.

We had to win, there was no other way.

The game stayed at a 0-0 tie going into the 3rd Period.

Then, we scored.

The adrenaline was at an all time high.

Could we hold on?

Then we got a golden opportunity to double our lead.

We had a Face Off in their zone, and I was right in the middle, ready and waiting for the pass if we win that Face Off.....

We did.

The pass came straight to me.

I shot it as quickly as I could.

Top left corner.

I SCORED!

All of a sudden, we were up 2-0, with two minutes left!

We ended up holding on, and we headed into the playoffs to face the 1st Place team.

The Mighty Ducks.

No, not the ones from the movie.

We would have had a better chance against that team.

The Mighty Ducks in my league were a "Super Team".

They went undefeated for the entire Regular Season.

And.....

Well.....

We didn't beat them.

I'm not even sure if we scored on them.

They beat us rather swiftly.

But they did that to every team, so I didn't feel as bad.

I still got a trophy for 4th Place.

At the time, I didn't realize that 4th Place got a trophy.

I thought that only went to 1st and 2nd Place.

I was wrong.

It wasn't until the first game of the next season, where I was too old to play in the league anymore, that my coach gave me the 4th Place trophy for the year before.

Apparently there was an awards banquet that I missed too!

Oh well, I loved the two years that I played.

My only regret was not playing sooner, as I started when I was 13, and the league was for anyone ages 11-14, so I could have played for four years, but instead I only played for two.

Either way, it was an awesome two years.

Now going back to the academic side of things, as the year was coming to a close, I started to fixate on the one thing I had been waiting for all year.....

What I was talking about at the beginning of this post.....

It was almost time for HIGH MEADOWS AGAIN!!!

That's right, the year end field trip was back to that magical place for the second year in a row!

This time I was determined to EXPLORE this place a little more than the "pool, food, pool, food, pool, food" routine that I had done the year before.

And I did.

I added Basketball to the rotation.

So I would swim, eat, play basketball, and then start the cycle all over again.

It was more better than the year before!

I still wish I could back to that place to this day.

Then I started to hear rumblings that I would get to go back as a Senior for the High School class trip!

Now all I had to do was make it through the next four years, but we'll get to that soon, one year at a time!