On being passionate

So...the silence was deliberate. All of my friends who are not Cavs fans are secretly laughing behind my back. I will finally say it: the Cavs lost. How could a season so perfect end in such a devastating manner? My pain resulting from the loss inspired me to think about a few things.

I am a black-or-white sort of person. There is no middle ground for me. I either LOVE or HATE something. For example, my friends who knew me during junior high will recall that I was really into the Newsboys, a Christian band. Everything that I bought or planned for fun involved the Newsboys in some way. During the past two years, my new obsession was the Cavaliers. I can rattle off loads of stats- height, rebounds per game, position, points per game, years in the NBA, etc. about each and every Cavalier. My mom jokes that I know what each player is doing every minute of the day. I would say that I invested quite a bit of time in the Cavaliers this year.

After the Cavs lost Game 6 to the Orlando Magic, I began to wonder about my commitment level. I honestly thought to myself, "I will never follow a sports team so closely again." But I found that I couldn't really just forget about something that I love so much. I went shopping at the Beachwood mall the other day, and of course saw all sorts of Cavs merchandise marked down throughout the mall. Naturally, I went over to the kiosk to look. I realized that I was cured when I started talking to the man working there. I said that I just couldn't believe how the season ended, and he just retorted [insert major sarcastic tone] , "Well, it's CLEVELAND." I was morally outraged, but I didn't say anything. I bought a few things (how could I resist 40% off?) and left, brooding during the rest of the trip. My definition of a fan certainly includes loyalty, a quality I rarely come across.

Now we come to the point of this whole post. I might be a little crazy with my Cavaliers fandom. But my experience has taught me an important life lesson. It is better to be a passionate, all-in fan and suffer heartache because of failure or betrayal than to be a mediocre fan who cannot find joy in victories. (even the small ones) I mentioned my carefully-drawn conclusion to my mom. She compared my passion about my interests to a marriage relationship. You cannot just give up when something goes wrong or when you feel betrayed. The real reward is when you stick with something and refuse to throw in the towel. I know that when the Cavs win the championship, I will be one of the happiest fans because I saw the importance of...faith, I guess you could say.

That's all I have...for now. For all you NBA fans, see you in October.

Keep the faith Cleveland.

King James Rules the Palace (of Auburn Hills Michigan)

So, the mighty mighty Pistons have met their downfall. After 6 straight years of Eastern Conference Finals, Detroit has been eliminated in the first round. A new Beast of the East has emerged and promises to create dynasty not unlike that of the Motor City ballclub. So let's have some fun with the 4-0 first round series between Cleveland and Detroit.

Good luck to De-troit as they rebuild a team for the future. Stuckey, Afflalo, and Bynum all look to be promising players.

HCA! HCA!

The 2008-2009 Cavaliers have now clinched homecourt advantage for the 2009 NBA playoffs! I can't even tell you how excited I am! What's even better: my mom got me playoff tickets for every home game!

The Cavs are 39-1 at home, and have broken almost every record imaginable. I don't want to claim any undue praise for the Cavs quite yet, but man am I excited.

Let's roll Cavs, all the way through June!

Bored...

I haven't posted in a really long time. I decided to catch up today since I am completely bored right now.

First off, congrats to the Steelers! I didn't really think that the Steelers would make it to the Superbowl this year. As the season went on, I saw how the sports writers were all dead wrong. I laughed the other day as I was reading through old Plain Dealer sports pages and saw that the Browns were projected to clinch the AFC East division over the Steelers. I would say that based off of the preseason predictions, the Browns were the most underwhelming team during the regular season. Anyway, I got to watch the Superbowl while I was on vacation in Tennessee. It was weird, because we were the only Steelers fans in the restaurant, but we were most definitely the loudest. It was fun. I have to admit, I was a little nervous when Larry Fitzgerald scored that last touchdown. I even told my mom that I was going to go back up to the hotel room to watch the rest of the game. (I know, I am a bad fan...I was just too nervous to be down there with all of those Cards fans!) But then, Santonio Holmes and Ben Roethlisberger fulfilled the first half of my perfect year...that touchdown drive was one of the best I have ever seen. Now, the Cavs just have to win the NBA Championship, and I will have had the most amazing year of my life!

Speaking of the Cavs, the team is 47-12, first in the Eastern Conference, about to clinch the Central Division, and has the same amount of losses as the Lakers. WOW! I know everyone else is saying wow because they can't believe that I haven't blogged about this yet. Word just came in that Joe Smith is re-signing with the Cavs tomorrow. Hopefully Joe can help fill Ben Wallace's spot while he heals from a broken leg. I don't want to get my hopes up too high, but I really think that this team can win in the playoffs bigtime. We are all set for the number one seed in the East, and I think that whoever we play in the East, we can beat...soundly. Not only do I love this team because they win ;), I love the team chemistry and how all the players seem to be really decent guys. Even if they weren't "my" team, I think that I would still cheer for them.

I will be sending in my application to the Honors Program at Liberty by Thursday. Hopefully, I get in. I already applied to Grove City, but don't hear back from them until the 15th. (of March, that is.)

And now, there are only 8 days until my 18th birthday! How crazy is that? It's really surreal. I guess I always expect to feel older or different on my birthday, but I never do. The thing about turning 18 is that I think I should be acting more like an adult, which probably won't happen. My parents probably wish that I would.

I think that is it for now. I just wanted to update when I saw that I hadn't blogged for 6 months! Next time, I will update with a post about ideas, not events. But I can't count out my sports segment. Too many good things are happening! (never thought I would say that!)

I am bad at keeping promises...

So, I promised to blog weeks ago. I guess today is really the first day I have had any free time AND thought about blogging in the least bit. I am sitting in the lobby of Lakeland Community College. I have Spanish I in about an hour, so I thought that I would sit down and blog on my new laptop with wireless. It is really cool to have wireless, by the way.

So first, I should go over my school schedule for this year. On Mondays and Wednesdays, I take Spanish I and Trig here at Lakeland. I have Latin II online on Tuesdays, and Church History online on Wednesdays. I am also continuing with Worldview- finishing Calvin's Institutes within the next week. I dropped Great Books IV this year, since it was practically identical to my Worldview course. I am taking a C.S. Lewis class, Accounting, Music, and Anatomy at co-op. And my fun course is the Lord of the Rings Lit. Analysis. For now, I think that's it. I am most likely not debating this year, but I will do at least two speech events.

Secondly, my soccer team is doing really well this year. We won our first two games, and since there are only four teams in our division, it's safe to say that we are easily the best team. I like my teammates a lot more after playing with them. It seems I always have bad first impressions of people, and then end up liking them a lot. I started reffing again, which is good because I had no way of making money for awhile.

Thirdly, The Dark Knight was amazing! I saw it opening night, and again about two weeks ago. This movie combines all the essential qualities of character development, mind blowing action scenes, and emotional triggers. The Joker was seriously the best villain I have ever seen! It is kind of easy to see how Heath Ledger died, now that I have seen the movie. To be immersed in the character of the Joker for a year or so would be very depressing. No wonder he couldn't sleep at night. What makes the Joker interesting is that he isn't the typical villain. He has no motivation for the things he does, except that he wants to "watch the world burn." (in the words of Alfred) He would be content fighting Batman for eternity, just to watch the chaos that arises from the struggle. Christian Bale was once again amazing as Batman. He really should get more praise for the work that he does. Now he is in Heath Ledger's shadow, so he doesn't get much recognition for his performance. The one thing that I would change about the movie is the girl they chose for Rachel. (The girl was not a great actress, and was not very pretty either- which doesn't usually matter to me, except that this is Bruce Wayne's love interest we are talking about! She has to be beautiful!) I loved the moral dillemas presented in this film, and can't wait for the next movie!

This blog is getting kind of long, so I will save Mission Trip and Spring Hill comments for another day.

But I do have to mention the Cavs/LeBron/The Olympics. The Cavs traded Joe Smith and Damon Jones for Mo Williams from the Milwaukee Bucks. This was a good trade and finally gets Cleveland a decent point guard. Also, the U.S. Men's Basketball team won the Gold thanks to LeBron, Dwayne Wade, and Kobe Bryant. I was really excited to see LeBron get his first Gold medal. Also, Michael Phelps and the U.S. swim team were amazing! It was so cool to watch Phelps win race after race, and finally get 8 Gold medals!

That is all for now, and I promise that will get to my other summer exploits in the near future.

The Dark Knight!

I am so excited for the Dark Knight! I have been waiting so long that I can't really remember when I started counting down days. Will blog tomorrow about the amazing-ness of this movie.

This is embarassing...

I haven't blogged since May! Oh well. I can only catch up now.

I just got back from a trip to Gettysburg. My whole family went with my brother's boyscout troop. It was very interesting, since I didn't get to see much last time due to the torrent of rain. This trip kind of awakened me to the horrific reality of war- especially Napoleonic warfare. Which is-for those who don't know the term- walking in straight lines, shoulder to shoulder, and shooting at eachother. It's a shame that a sense of honor back then convinced these men that any other type of fighting was cowardly. So many deaths could have been prevented if they had thought of a different strategy. Anyway, I still can't justify the reasoning behind Pickett's Charge, which was a charge across an open field straight into enemy fire/artillery. But, I guess I am glad that armies don't do the same thing today.

I also went to a mock legislative camp at Patrick Henry College about two weeks ago. I learned Parliamentary Procedure (how to speak or make a motion in Congress) and a lot of other things. In a week, we experienced a microcosm of the House of Representatives, national disaster, and a Presidential campaign. Also, we went to Washington D.C. to watch the Fireworks on the Fourth of July. That was truly amazing.

Other events of note...The new Relient K cd came out. I haven't listened to the whole thing, but there are some great songs so far.

I got House M.D. season one from the library. My mom, Cassidy, and I are really enjoying it.

My blog is due for a redesign...I will think of something.

The Dark Knight is out in 3 days! Wahoo for midnight showings!

I am off to Cincinnatti next week for a mission trip. I might be able to squeeze in a blog before I leave for SpringHill- which is the week after that.