Looking Back

These 4 years went by incredibly quickly and I’m happy that I’m at this point but I also wish it went by slower. One thing that I know I wish I could have changed throughout all 4 years is certain habits like studying, which would have helped me immensely. If I took school more seriously I wouldn’t have gone to summer school for trigonometry. Even though I did have those occasional bad times, I had good lessons in each time. Summer school sucked but I still had fun and realized that no matter how bad things may seem I could find good in it.

I wish I had played lacrosse since freshmen year and not start it in junior year, but me being 14 year old me, I listened to my ex-girlfriend and didn’t play because she wasn’t able to see me often when I played football that year. Coincidentally, when we took that 3 month for the break I felt like I was on top of the world with my team. I wish I did play football on varsity but I knew I had more important things to focus on which I’m still looking forward to.

I don’t regret anything I’ve done in these past 4 years because it has helped me grow as a person and will hopefully last me a lifetime. Nothing is as valuable as real life experience, even including the most little events and times. I can’t wait to graduate from high school and move on to the next big challenge in life.

Spring Break

My spring break was simple and mostly stress free which was good. I needed this break from the month of March and early April, since I received the most work in that time. The beginning of my break was primarily me playing games and doing nothing much besides that. My brother’s 12th birthday came on the 23rd and so we went to Dave and Buster’s with our mom and dad to play some games and eat. Their pretzel dogs were pretty good. After that, we went to Spencer’s and I got a Dunder Mifflin Paper Company from “The Office” shirt, a Wu Tang Clan shirt, and two album cover shirts for two of Metallica’s best albums, “Ride The Lightning” from 1984 and “Master of Puppets” from 1986.

Yesterday on the 26th, I was able to go to the New York International Auto Show. I’ve been there before with my dad to look around and see the cars but this time I went there with my recruiter and a fellow poolee to maintain the US Marines booth and give out prizes for our pull-up challenge. We gave out lanyards for 8 pull ups, a beanie or water bottle for 18 pull ups, and a shirt for the max score of 23 pull ups. Me and my buddy got with a poolee from another recruiting sub-station and got to tour the floors and it was nice to see the newest cars coming out.

This took place from 1000 hours to 1600 hours (10:00 am-4:00 pm), which gave me enough time to see Avengers: Endgame at 11:00 and as such, I went with my mom and brother. It was honestly one of the best movies I’ve ever seen and easily the best Marvel movie to ever be released. It tops “The Dark Knight” for me, which is regarded as the best superhero movie ever but that’s BS. It’s a good movie, but terrible comic book movie. Endgame was a great movie and comic book movie. The acting was great and there were things I never expected to happen that did. The time travel sequences were cool and all the easter eggs to prior MCU movies were great. The times I nearly cried were when Tony died and Cap danced with Peggy. I cannot wait for what the MCU has to show after this movie but if all movies were to just stop, Endgame would be the perfect finale. Hopefully, because of the Infinity Saga ending, we get to see an X-Men saga appear.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral

The trip to St. Patrick’s Cathedral was an interesting one and it was actually alright. I expected it to be boring as most masses are, but it was cool to see the Archbishop there talking to us. I personally hate Manhattan but the cathedral was almost like an escape from the sound and stupid tourists who can’t walk right. Some stimuli are almost inescapable, like the sound of an ambulance or the smell of the “NUTS4NUTS” stands. Seeing the other schools there was crazy, because I didn’t even know the church was that big. I’ve walked past it before when I walked in Veteran’s Day parades with my dad but it wasn’t until yesterday that I walked in.

Inside, the church was massive and nicely decorated. I was able to see some of my friends, one from my old school who is now in Sacred Heart, and Jaden Torres who left Spellman after sophomore year and is now in Cardinal Hayes. We got there before the mass started which was good, and once we started the mass I couldn’t stop laughing. There was a position above us where the sound systems were and I thought about somebody jumping which was funny for some reason. The one priest singing had me laughing. The big sharp hat on Archbishop Dolan’s head was hilarious to me. Another funny thing to me was hearing Joy saying the most idiotic things I ever heard. She actually called herself a “Christian Atheist” which I thought was crazy, and everybody around her was laughing. After the mass, me and my girlfriend went to Central Park just so I could take a leak, then ate a pretzel, and eventually went home.

My Life So Far

As I’m typing this, I am reveling in the news that I’m nominated for 1st Squad Leader at my recruiting sub-station here in the West Bronx. My recruiter, Staff Sergeant Nakaa’hiki (or Naka, a Hawaiian Marine), came up to me and told me about the surprising news that hit me like a wave. Because of this, I now have to come in to the twice-a-week physical training sessions that the recruiters have which I honestly never go to. I was nominated because my recruiter thought I had a good amount of physical fitness and because of my knowledge about the Marine Corps, which I do have a good amount of compared to my other poolees.

In school, I’ve been doing constant presentations which I hate. I had 2 presentations last week, one on Tom Cruise for Media, and another for my Bio and Society class. Both went well surprisingly since I was pretty sick for them. This week I had one for Media with Kyle and Adetayo and that was honestly one of the funniest moments I have had in Spellman so far. All of us couldn’t stop laughing at my made up quote from Bill Gates, “I ain’t microsoft h**, let’s get this s*** on.” It wasn’t until that class that I knew that Bill Gates had actual rape allegations against him thanks to Mr. Drew.

The fact that we have 23 days left is very surreal. Getting closer to May 17 and eventually that June 1st graduation date is making me excited just thinking about it. Finally we’re all getting closer to our goals in life and it’s a great time for all of us. It’s noticeable that we are starting to have senioritis kick in though, as we get closer to the end, but hopefully seeing the number of days decrease gives us extra motivation.

My Winter Break

My winter break was boring and I was very lazy the entire time. I don’t remember too much of what I did because I was mostly laying in bed doing nothing and I probably slept a lot. One thing I did do that I remember vividly was playing these two games I had bought over the weekend from the last day of school before the break. It was an HD collection of two Metal Gear Solid games, Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. I finished Metal Gear Solid 3 first since it comes first in the chronological order of all twenty one Metal Gear games.

Metal Gear Solid 3 was a pretty good game, originally released in 2004, and the story was very good. I was so captivated by the game that I finished another MGS game I had gotten around 2 years ago but never got into, but this game’s protagonist was Venom Snake, the body double of Naked Snake, so knowing that had a cool twist on the story. I was also interested in watching the movie Escape from New York which had Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken, because that movie in fact influenced the Metal Gear series.

Despite my lack of memory from the break, another thing I do remember is watching episodes of The Office which has become the only other show I’ve consistently watched besides That 70’s Show. It is my favorite show ever right now, and it has provided a sort of stress relief from daily life. It’s also very funny. So my break was filled with Bad Japanese lip sync and Michael Scott, pretty much.

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My Day Off

On my day off, I stayed home and enjoyed the relaxation available in my home. I woke up and saw that my mother and my brother were gone on their way to school. I then went to eat some fruity cheerios which taste similar to another cereal I’ve eaten but I totally forgot the name of it. It was probably Fruit Loops or some other fruity cereal, maybe even Trix. After that I do my usual hygiene routine of relieving myself to lose some weight, showering, brushing my teeth, and shaving if I care enough, even if I despise it.

I had to do a peer review for one of my classmates’ 2-page essays for our biology and society class. The topic has to be something that isn’t proven and my topic is about how the Warrior Gene isn’t responsible for the actions of serial killers or habitual violence, but their psychological state is. Mine was reviewed by the person who’s paper I had. Her topic was how global warming will cause another stage in human evolution and we will eventually be more amphibious. I finished grading her paper and I actually thought it was very interesting.

After that, I read a book named Delta Force by Col. Charles Beckwith who was the founder of the titular unit, which became America’s first dedicated counter-terrorism unit as well. I went to my dad’s apartment and we started watching a show named Generation Kill which is about Recon Marines during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. We almost finished all 7 episodes in two days but we only got to 6 episodes and then later on Saturday after I finish my poolee function, I’ll be watching the last episode with him

What I want for Christmas

For the Christmas break, I just want to relax and not have to worry about work. Knowing Spellman, that won’t be the case unfortunately. I haven’t really been scouting gifts for myself, maybe a new tub of Beta-Alanine (a dietary supplement for exercise) will be enough for me. Recently I went to my recruiter’s office to hand in some paper work regarding my grades and I ended up staying there for 3 hours, hanging out with the Marines, eating pizza and drinking coquito (a Puerto Rican drink for the holidays). During that time, my recruiter and another Marine actually gave me advice on what to get my girlfriend for Christmas and it was honestly hilarious hearing them give suggestions. Both men suggested I get a teddy bear and continually one-up the gifts for Valentine’s Day, her birthday, etc. I might get her a teddy bear that is wearing some Marine Dress Blues.

Christmas used to be very exciting for me but now I see it as another time to be with family and not necessarily just gifts. Of course the gifts are there but I guess maturity shifted my focus from gifts to other stuff. During the break, I just look forward to doing work and exercising. I took my recruiting station’s IST (Initial Strength Test) on December 8 and my pull ups went down to 14 which was disappointing, so I’ll be working on that during the break. My crunches went up to 95 from 79 (within 2 minutes), which was great and i still have 20 more crunches to go to get a perfect score. My 1.5 mile run time decreased by 30 seconds to 12 minutes 28 seconds, which is also good, but I must be at least 9 minutes per 1.5 miles to get a perfect score of 3 miles in 18 minutes. I’ll definitely use this free time wisely to better myself physically.

I’m sure this Christmas will make my parents sad since it is my last one here in NY for now. I can’t wait until I get to come back and surprise my family during my vacation after boot camp in the future

Thanksgiving

My Thanksgiving day was good. I went to my grandmother’s home first and got to meet one of my cousins who I hadn’t seen since my aunt’s wedding, which was 12 years ago. I ate some turkey and rice and got to talk with my family. After that, I went to my cousin’s place but I didn’t eat there. Me and my brother played with our little cousins. My cousin, Rosaly, told me she wants to join the Army and I decided to give her some advice on the different routes she could take. After that, I went home and then on Black Friday, went to Macy’s and bought two sets of pajamas.

My Thoughts

First of all, I’m very glad I was able to heal up from my strep throat and “coxsackie” virus, it sucked to have that stuff for a week already. I had to miss 4 days of school and some PT (physical training) sessions by my recruiting office. One of my friends is also going to boot camp in a week, so that will be exciting and I hope he does great and earns the title.

For my media presentation, I’m looking forward to doing something related to action movies and the music used for action scenes. Mainly, I’ll be doing a presentation on how music for action scenes changes the whole tone and adds a level of excitement to what is going on, but it will mostly be about action scenes in general. So far, I intend to add at least two scenes, one from Top Gun and the other from Jack Reacher. The dogfight between Maverick (Tom Cruise) and Viper (Tom Skerritt), Maverick’s instructor is one of the best scenes in the movie. The cinematography is very good in my opinion, especially for a movie with no CGI and actual jets. I will probably bring my own personal laptop for the presentation because these chromebooks are worthless. My second scene will be Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) chasing after a killer in his 1970 Chevelle SS, with no CGI yet again. I honestly think its one of the best car chases in a movie ever. While no music accompanies the scene, the Chevelle makes up for it.

My Future

In my first entry, I talked a little bit about my experience in enlisting in the Marine Corps but didn’t really explain why I did or what I want to do. I enlisted because I see serving your country as something very honorable, and especially now in a time when many people are anti-military and very hostile towards them. I chose the Marines specifically because I saw myself more with that branch than any other one and also because my dad was a Marine, so he was able to share his experiences with me and it intrigued me. ]

After I had finished my ASVAB (Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery) at my recruiting office, I had seen my test scores and after doing research at home, I saw that I could’ve gotten nearly any job in any branch (besides the Navy’s SEALs, which is weird since I qualified for the Army’s Special Forces and they’re more complex and technical than SEALs). I could’ve even went into the Air Force which is seen as impressive because of their higher academic standards. I still chose the Marines of course, and out of any job, I picked infantry. Many would see this as a death sentence but personally, I’d rather do something physical than work behind a desk. The risk is worth it if I defended my country from anybody wanting to hurt us. Though I chose this life, I don’t consider myself above anyone because simply, everyone has a job to fulfill in society to make their country or community better.