Profanity

So I was looking more into the usage of profanity in Alexie's writing and cam across this article about a school in Chicago trying to ban his books.

http://www.chicagonow.com/chicago-subtext/2009/06/proposed-sherman-alexie-book-ban-in-chicago-suburban-high-school-updated/

This caused me to look more into the banning of books in high schools. The list that I found of books that have been challenged have a decent chunk of books that we have read here.

http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/censorship/bannedbooksthatshapedamerica

Religious References

I found it very interesting that amount of religious symbolism used by Alexie. For someone who seems to make fun of religion a lot, why continuously incorporate it your stories/poems? I feel that Alexie makes religion a focus because he wants his characters (along with the reader) to be transported to a heavenly beyond. For his characters, a world that is better than the reservations. My essay focuses on the comparison between life on earth and how Alexie uses religious symolbism to create a bond between God and a place (heaven) beyond us. Alexie uses imagination/modern references to allow this transport to seem less religious and more exciting.
Thanks
Matt :)

his writing resonates

As we read Alexie's literature I begin to like his writing more an more. What I find interesting about Alexie's literary works is that fact that he uses crude language and themes paired with more sophisticated concepts like history. The combination of the two provide for a more relatable type of writing. His writing resonates with people as he writes in a way that you can easily understand and he touches upon themes that are relatable for large groups of people. Alexie's writing overall is like talking to one of your peers, it doesn't feel like he is better than you.

Alexie's Common Themes

Father/Son Relationships

One of the many common themes Alexie uses is the relationship between his paternal figures.  The relationship varies throughout the pieces- sometimes they're bad, sometimes distant and sometimes relaxed.  I found a connection with a poem and a short story I found interesting.  Reading the "Father and Son Road Show", we see the son struggling to convince his father to stay on dialysis.  The son doesn't care if "he's planned to die or not" (16), he still wants to save him.  In a short story we read, "Witnesses, Secret and Not", the son says, "my father was forty-one and that's about the age that I figure a man starts to think about dying...or starts to accept it as inevitable" (213).  I thought this connects back to "Father and Son Road Show" in that maybe the father in that poem has already accepted dying, but the son hasn't accepted the fact his father is dying.

Alexie's Darkness

After reading "Ten Thousand Feathers" I am thrown off by Alexie's dark side that he puts into this poem. Previously in his poetry Alexie talks about his view of nature as godly and his idea that no one should be put on a pedestal as his main idea's. In "Ten Thousand Feathers" however Alexie begins to talk about how everyone dies and the circle of life, but he does so in a very negative connotation. This was the first time that I noticed Alexie's dark side of his poetry, but now I am beginning to see it in a different light and am beginning to think that Alexie is pessimistic through his poetry. I am curious to find out what he will be like when he comes to KO now.

Connections

As we read Alexie's poetry, I find some similarities between his poetry and that of Frost. THe structure of their story poems are remarkably similar and many of their thematic concepts are connected weirdly enough. I often find myself connecting the two even if they may seem unconnected at first.

Connecting A Road Not Taken to Modern Day Problems

This just kind of came up in my search bar and it is surprisingly interesting and pretty deep.  It is pretty interesting how they connect A Road Not Taken to unwanted pregnancy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZtmNefMLzM

Orange is the New Black, Road not taken

This clip is from the show Orange is the New Black

Frosty Form

As I write this I am wearing glasses, so expect studious and astute comments with a dollop of slurred phrases for I cannot see. I digress, we know from our previous knowledge of Robert Frost that he realates form to content; but how, we ask. He enjoys putting rhyme scheme on portions of his poems to give them order where there is no order and/or panache. Order being an attempt at man made control within the natural world; ie, Storm Fear, and Mending Wall!! Anyways, in our first example of Sherman Alexie he gives a rhyme scheme to a stanza wherein man is attempting to control nature by killing birds and actually making a business of it as if there is no emotion involved. Alexie goes on to say that the birds didnt need to be killed, they just needed to be moved.

Frost Rhyme Scheme

While we were reading Frost's poems, I found it interesting that he used a lot of rhyme, but often in an unusual pattern. For example, in Storm Fear, there are a lot of lines that rhyme, but there is no real regular pattern to the rhyme. Also, we looked at a couple of sonnets, but none of them had the traditional ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme. Instead, "Into My Own" had the pattern AABB CCDD EEFF GG, and we talked about the correlation between content and form.

Frost's Development

Frost's Development 

     Frosts ability to switch from a very traditional kind of poem such as those in his earlier books of poetry to a more story like and untraditional poetry in North of Boston shows exactly how versatile frost is not only in content but in form as well. An example of a poem that has a classical structure and poetic flow is gross first poem published in his first collection A Boy's Will. The poem, Into my Own, is a Shakespearean Sonnet with many examples of couplets and quatrains. The content of this poem shows the stray development of a character heading toward the woods which we said was a symbol of the uncertainty of the afterlife as the character approaches the woods. This poem is short and has the ability to portray numerous meanings and symbols through out the poem. 

     However in his second collection frosts way of writing significantly shifts to a less traditional poetic looking pieces to a more short story. He opens the collection with the poem Mending Wall, which is not divided into individually sonnets but instead flows more like a short story. This poem is filled with numerous symbols and connections throughout like that of a story with a central theme of a wall.

     Both of these poems show Frosts diversity in his writing abilities as he is able to do both traditional poems as well as some that are somewhat unorthodox and appear to be more of a story.

Frost

So I did some addition research about frost and I found this quote that I think describes Frosts poetry, “In a 1970 review of The Poetry of Robert Frost, the poet Daniel Hoffman describes Frost's early work as "the Puritan ethic turned astonishingly lyrical and enabled to say out loud the sources of its own delight in the world…He became a national celebrity, our nearly official Poet Laureate, and a great performer in the tradition of that earlier master of the literary vernacular, Mark Twain." http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/192#sthash.7Ul2uV4r.dpuf. Frost wrote from his own experiences, and brings his emotions into his poetry.  

Personal ties into Frost's Poetry

I find it very interesting how Frost's poems connect to his personal life.  Like many of his poems, Frost had a very depressing adult life. In 1885 (he was only 11), his father died of tuberculosis. They only had $8 to survive off of. Then, his mom died of cancer in 1900. THEN, in 1920, he had to put his sister into a wacky house, where she was for nine years before she died. He and his mother experienced from chronic depression.  No make matters worse,  his daughter Irma was sent to a mental hospital in 1947. Many of his poems have to do with being alone and dealing with sorrow, like in "Home Burial".  So I found this interesting.

-Call me English J.

Frost Relationships

Form: Robert Frost tends to use a certain rhyme scheme throughout his various poems, but each poem are all differently arranged. Frost likes to be highly structured, and out of the poems we've he only wrote one poem without using a rhyme scheme (Storm Fear). This poem does have rhyming at the end of lines, but they are very irregular. He also likes to use a regular meter and dosen't like to stray from this. Thsi varitey in rhyme usually depends on the theme of the poem. Frost always relates his poems structures to the main themes of his poems.

Content:  Frost seems to use a lot of nature in his poetry and see sees nature as a metaphor for growing up, passing of time, or new stages of life. Nature is usually portayed using a pathetic fallacy, which is personification specifically for nature. Based on the poems that we've read Frost writes in the first person, creating a feel of actually being apart of the poem. "To the Thawing Wind" is a great example of a very differnet poem, becuase Frost uses apostrophe, which is a poetric device that we've haven't seen a lot in some of his other poems. 

From/Content Comparison: Since Frost likes to use nature throughout his poems, this idea is usally portrayed in his structural writing. If he wrote a poem based aroud the theme of stormy weather ("To the Thawing Wind" "Storm Fear") He would use a very scattered rhyming scheme to portray that sense of stormy weather. If an animal was being used as the main theme he would use various different meters to show different elements of that animal. In "The Oven Bird" he uses different meters to represent the unregural bird calls. This use of form and content relationship really brings the reader into the story. 

Frost's Poetry Themes

Although all of Frost's poems have common themes, the poems he sections together are connected in a greater way.  For example, using the poems we've read:

NORTH OF BOSTON

In this section, Frost focuses on relationships and different "walls" that are created.  He uses different walls such as physical walls, found in Mending Wall, and emotional walls, found in Home Burial.

MOUNTAIN INTERVAL

I can connect "The Road not Taken" and "Oven Bird" in that they are both about making decisions.  The Road not Taken ends with the narrator choosing the road less traveled by.  The Oven Bird, on the other hand, needs to make his own decisions instead of waiting for something to happen.

A WITNESS TREE

Written for his secret love, this section has an upbeat, lovestruck feel as we saw in the Silken Tent.

Controversy over Joyce Carol Oates' new story about Frost (published in Harper's Magazine)

In the November issue of Harper's Magazine, author Joyce Carol Oates (a former Symposium author) published a fictional story about Robert Frost that's received some media coverage. Here's a pretty detailed article from The New Republic in which Alice Robb tries to get to the bottom of it through talking with contemporary Frost scholars and biographers.

Joyce Carol Oates Has Written Something Outrageous About Robert Frost

I haven't been able to access the whole story--full access requires a Harper's subscription--but if I can get access to the entire story by Oates, I'll post it.

What are your thoughts on the article? On Oates' intentions?

Kathleen Morrison

When we read Robert Frost's The Silken Tent, we discussed his affair with a married woman named Kathleen Morrison. The poem was written for her. I decided to do some more research on this situation. Kathleen and Frost met in 1918 at Bryn- Mawr where she was editor and chief of the student paper and invited him to lecture there in 1920 when she was a senior. After college Kathleen married a man by the name of Theodore Morrison, an English and Creative Writing professor at Harvard from 1931- 1963. They met again when a colleague of Theodore brought him in the Harvard circle. Frost and the Morrison's became close friends claiming they were like family. When Frost lost his wife, he and Kathleen became very close and as it turns out Frost was very strongly attracted to her.  Around 1938, Frost employed Kathleen as his secretary and advisor. This was also about the time they became lovers. Frost wrote both The Witness Tree and The Silken Tent for Kathleen.

Frost

After reading the poems that Frost has written I wonder if that poems he writes connect with his life? I question this because some of the poems are really depressive and seem to resemble death, so I was wondering if his life and his poems connect to each other.

Frost Style and Contenent

Frost

Through the reading of Frosts poetry, the style and the content of his poems have become more easily identifiable. One major stylistic thing that Frost likes to do with his meter is have it be consistent, but have some exceptions in some lines. Another thing that Frost likes to do with meter and rhyme is have his content affect the pattern. For example if frost is writing about a storm as in "Storm Fear" he has a consistent rhyme and meter at the beginning of the poem when it is peaceful, but a messed up rhyme and meter during while he is describing the storm. Frosts rhyme usually has a rough, not very strict pattern to it. Usually Frost writes in stanza's, and he occasionally has poems with lots of dialog that are written as if they are a story in a book. Frost also likes to make use of poetry devices such as enjambment, personification, and pathetic fallacy. The content of Frost's poems usually center around the relationship between man and nature, the passing of time, and the impact of making choices.

Kendrick Lamar

Personal Response: A Link with Great Expectations

            When I first heard the Kendrick Lamar EP by Kendrick Lamar my life was changed forever. It was one of the most influential albums that I have ever listened to. It was released December 31, 2009. I first heard it when I was in 8^th grade and I was moved back and really amazed at what a young artist could do. It influenced me to start writing and making my own music along with several other things. The album portrayed a series of events from Kendrick Lamar’s life and he is reflecting on them and talking about how he grew and what lessons he has learned. He has admitted to mistakes he has made in the past in effort to become a better person. He talks about his family and his childhood a lot, describing how his childhood makes him the man he is today.

            When I first heard the album fully and thoroughly I was really moved and felt like it turned me into a different approach of life. It lead me to want to reflect on my past even though I was young I had intentions of bettering myself. I used to lessons that Kendrick Lamar learned about himself the long way to help my own problems. I spent months reflecting and relisting to the album and I remember the feeling I used to get when I made a mistake once and said to myself it was okay. I said it was okay because I would then reflect and gain a lesson to every mistake I made so I wouldn’t make it again.

NWTS

After listening to Drake’s junior album Nothing was the Same, it automatically changed me into a different person.  Though some people may ask, “how can one stupid album possibly affect you in any way, shape, or form”?  I don’t know, but it did.  The due date was set for September 17, 2013, but was eventually pushed back to October 24, 2013, only to leak 9 days before on October 15, 2013. 

As I listened to the album, I was shell shocked.  I told myself that I would not just listen and take the words and the sounds for what they are, but to interpret and listen to them in a deeper and more contextual way, starting with the title Nothing was the Same.  Nothing was the Same, to me, is a story about how Aubrey Graham (Drake) started as a young, immature teenager growing up with his father who lived in the poor parts of Memphis, Tennessee and also with this his mother in the rich parts of Toronto.  The album explains how Drake managed to live two lifestyles while his parents went through a tough situation, and even at times had to live with his Uncle. One side of the physical album shows Drake as a young boy, maybe about two years old.  The other, shows a picture of him now and the Drake the world is used to seeing. 

The first song on the album was Tuscan Leather featuring a sample from his father.  Some people may see Tuscan Leather and think it’s just some ridiculously expensive cologne by Tom Ford.  But, the song was much, much more than that.  Drake uses three different beat changes to tell a story about how fame has changed his relationships with women, friends, family, and himself. He recognizes how big his is in the music industry and asks people to respect what he has become over the past four years; and tells the listener that negativity doesn’t faze him like it used to.  He says:

“Strep throat flows can stop all of the talking, got one reply for all of your negative comments, forget what you think, my life is a completed checklist”.

From beginning to end, the album paints an even bigger picture of Drake’s fame, relationships with people and how what he went through since he began rapping on the once popular teen show Degrassi changed him into the international icon that he was become. 

When I was finished listening to the album, it made me think about life, and how things changed from when I can remember to now. Even though I’m only fifteen, I can still relate to how Drake has conflicts with his family over things that aren’t always in his control. When a conflict arose between a friend and I that used to go to the same school arose, I thought of this album.  My friend, who claims that I have drastically changed for the worst after coming to KO, says that I wasn’t the same when we were cool.   Instead of neglecting his allegations and accusations, I understood his side of the story and put myself in his position; by doing this, I could sort of see where he was coming from.  To make a long story short, using Drake’s experiences that he wrote about Nothing Was The Same as a reference when dealing with certain relationships, it makes things much easier to comprehend.

Role Model

I met my best friend Lauren Batton when I tried out for the Farmington travel soccer team in fourth grade this was the first link. We had lived in the same town almost all of our lives and even went to the same Elementary school for a year before she moved to Unionville and was nearer to a different one, and still we had never met.

I don’t remember that exact moment of even the exact day, but I do remember that at first we were both shy and weren’t very good friends. She was just another teammate. Between 4^th and 5^th grade we became closer and closer with a few sleepovers here and there and when I moved to Unionville and was just a few minutes away from where she lived we would carpool a lot, and our families were just beginning to become really good friends which was my next link.

However we didn’t become really close until the summer before 6^th grade when her mom died which was the next link. Her mom was one of the nicest people that I knew. I remember I was at my family’s lake house standing in the living room when my mom came in from the porch. She was standing in the doorway, and telling me with such a straight face. After that we all just went quite. I didn’t understand it and I didn’t really want, so I didn’t think about. I didn’t cry and we didn’t talk about it at all.

           The day of the funeral was a really nice sunny day, which I think is actually perfect because they weren’t calling it a funeral; they were calling it a celebration of her life. I can still picture the church where it was held, which was almost all white which probably stood out even more to me in contrast with everyone’s black attire. Laurens dad and father spoke and I remember admiring how brave Lauren and her family was.

That summer after it happened my family spent at least one night a week over at her house, and would stay until late. My sister, Lauren, and I would sit up stairs in her dad’s room watching cartoons and other shows like the Nanny and George Lopez until it was time for us to leave. Once school started we saw each other less and less because I was starting at a private school and she still went to Farmington Public School. Our families didn’t spend as much time together but we still did, we would hangout at least once a month, playing soccer, lacrosse, talking, making plans for the future, staying up late watching TV. Her house became my home away from home. This was the next link.

Lauren always made me want to be better at soccer and lacrosse driving me with friendly competitions. She is the reason I love lacrosse, want to be alway get better, and want to play in college, without her I am not ever sure I would be playing to this day. We went to countless college games and bonded over out mutual goal of wanting to play as good as them one day. I owe where I am today with lacrosse to her.

            Our next link was the summer before freshmen year when she asked me to go on vacation with her family to Georgia, and Michigan for four weeks, which made us even better friends. 

I was jealous of how brave she was after her mom died, and never broke down, or complained about anything. She has great views of right and wrong that I always try to live up to. Honestly when ever someone asks me for advice I tell them what I think that Lauren would do.

            Today I still consider her my best friend even though we don’t hangout or talk as often as we used to, I know that she will always be there for me, and know exactly what to say. She is my mole model, and I am so thankful to have her in my life because without her I probably wouldn’t be the person that I am today.

First Pitch

I stepped through the gate into the concourse and smelled the smoke from the grills and beer. People wearing red and navy blue surrounded me. I had never been to Fenway before and had always wondered what it would be like. To see the green monster, the team, the players; I really couldn’t tell what I was looking forward to most. In fact I had never been to Boston at all, but I knew I would like it. The game itself was probably not as exciting as I thought it was, but I was hooked nonetheless. My love, more an obsession actually, began that day.

            “Don’t get too attached,” my dad said. “They always find a way to break your heart”However, luckily for me they wouldn’t break my heart as they did my father’s when they won the World Series in 2004.

Kingswood Oxford

In life there are many coincidences that occur. However sometimes things feel so right and natural that it seems as if it was fate instead of a coincidence. This is exactly my feelings towards Kingswood Oxford. Since day one there has been something bout this school that has enticed me and made it almost as easy as breathing to continue my education here at Kingswood. The person I am today and am becoming is all stemmed from my very first day at Kingswood that is now blooming into a 5 year relationship with this school.

 

I remember picking out a special outfit that day. Something that would make me stand out but also be apart of the group. I gathered all of my things, put it all into my backpack, and walked out the front door of my house shy, nervous, yet excited. The ride to the school seemed as if it lasted an hour instead of the 15 minute drive it really is. When we finally arrived I stepped out of the car, went around to the trunk, put my wheelie back pack on the ground and walked toward the doors of the middle school. The butterflies inside my stomach seemed to flap their wings harder and faster because at that moment I felt almost nauseous. Unknown to me at the time this day would become one of my fondest memories because in this one day I would form friendships that have yet to fail me. As I walked in through the doors I remember the few moments I took to take in everything around me. The different people that surrounded me, the personalities each different made me feel like an empowered individual among equals. Finally when everything began to set in I looked around for people who had the same look of confusion on where to go as I had. Soon I noticed a group of girls introducing themselves not knowing that they would either hate or love each person they were encountering. I decided to join and automatically I found a common interest with almost every person; some of whom I am still extremely close with today. Their personalities ranged from sporty, to extremely intelligent, to just laid back go with the flow kind of people. I began to socialize with them and soon were already considering them to be my friends. As the day continued I was also introduced to my teachers as well as the subjects I would be taking that would allow me to be in the educational position I am today. These classes, each differing from one another, would prove to be some of the most thought provoking and on some days sleep preventing subjects that made the school as educationally advanced as it is. Soon my academic day had ended along with a portion of athletics and I found myself giving and receiving hugs to people I had just met a few hours previous. I realized here I was already accepted and this feeling gained me the amount of confidence I have today. The last thing I recall from this experience was the smile on my face as I entered the car willing to tell my mom every little detail I had experienced in my new school.

 

It has been 5 years since that day and it is still a clear and vivid picture in my mind. All of the people I met on that day have proven to be some of my closest friends to this day. I am now a junior in high school and have gone from a timid upper prepper to now, in my opinion, a confident and self insured individual. I have kept many of the friendships I have started in the middle school and they continue to grow every day. Through Kingswood I have become the person I am today and continue to grow with the remaining two years I have left out of this school. Kingswood is my home away from home and without it I would feel lost.

Dance: My Passion

Dance has always been a major part of my life and something that I have been doing since I was very little. I remeemeber I use to sit outside of my sisters dance classes and I would tap my foot along to the music or stand up and try to do the steps along with her. She was one of the major reasons I started dance and without her I don't know what I would be doing today. I started dance classes at the age of six and this coming year will be my eleven year as a dancer. 

I rememeber my first dance class perfectly and is a day I will always treasure. Obivously, I was very young and this being my first dance class I was extremly nervous. I started my dance career at a very small, two room studio, in Elmood called Alyce Carella's Dance Center. I was one of 5 boys who started in this class. At the time, I was the smallest kid in the class, which was very intimidating to me. At the time, my teachers name was Kim. Kim was my very first tap teacher ever and she was the nicest person. She was so welcoming and made me feel so comfortable from the start. She began with the basics of tap and worked on each step indvidually and perfected our steps to make sure we had a strong base line for tap. The class felt like the shortest 45 minutes of my life and when it was over I didn't want to leave. Kim excitedly told us that she couldn't wait to see us all next week and how impressed she was with us. I proudly walked out of the studio with the biggest grin on my face. That day was the first step in my long career as a dancer.

Tap continues to be my favorite form of dance, but certainly not the only type. Shortly after tap, my mother thought it might be a good idea to start ballet. At first, I was very hestiant, but after a couple of classes I felt like I should have started ballet sooner. Next, I added jazz to my repertoire, and finally added Broadway dance, which basically consists of a mix of jazz, ballet, and street tap. After experimenting with so many different forms of dance and after many years of training and perfecting each and every step, I realized that dance was something that I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I always thought that since I was a boy doing dance I would feel out of place or unwanted, but dance proved to be just the opposite. Dance gave me a place to escape, be free, and simply have fun. Today I attend dance classes 3-4 times a week, which certinaly isn't easy with the amount of school work, but it dosen't stress me out because dance is my passion. After years of training I began recieivng dancing roles, dancing solos, and I even became the choreography this summer for an elite arts camp. Choreography is a career path that I would love to persue and something that do everyday. I am constantly up in my room choreographing mulitple different numbers each day, dancing through the kitchen, and tapping my foot through hours of homework. I have created so many storng relationships through dance and I persoanlly have become both stronger physically and emotionally because of it. Dancing is simply not a hobby or an acivitiy that I like to do. Dancing is my life and something that I would love to pursue.

Everyone has those pivotal moments in their life, big or small to the world, they change a person. Freshman year we all walked around during the club fair and I saw a big poster. It had some pictures of a globe on it. I didn't really notice that much, I saw that one of the only seniors I knew was heading the club, so I thought I would sign up. After all, what was the harm? I got an email later in the day saying that I had joined the club and that was it. A few weeks later I got another email, asking if I wanted to go to a conference in Philadelphia. It was called SDLC and I didn't really know what it was, I had mentioned it to my parents and they had said maybe and I never gave it a second thought. Around a week after that I was walking to lunch and I got a call from my dad. He said the deadline to apply was today and that if I wanted to apply I had to write my paper by the end of the day. I freaked out and ran to the library and frantically typed out the paper. I sent it to the head of the club and then that was it. The next day I was asked to go. I couldn't believe it, but never the less, the time came to go to the trip and I did. And to be completely blunt. It was life changing. I changed the way I looked at the world and started to see problems with the standards around me. From then on I looked at things differently. That club was united students and that conference was a pivotal point in my life. When I look back at that moment now I'm so thankful that I applied, I almost didn't. If I hadn't, I would never be a club leader, I never would question the way I looked at the world, and honestly I wouldn't be me.

The Fire Rises

“Don’t worry Nick, you’ll be okay!”  My dad looked at me with great excitement and encouragement.  “You will be fine.  I will be with you the whole time.”  He reached out and grabbed my hand and I reached out with a small sign of trust.  He grabbed my hand and we started down a dark path.  We both stumbled as we walked towards the rink.  The briskness of bit both our noses as we slowly made our way into the brightness of the rink.  I looked up at my dad and continued forward while balancing on tiny slabs of steel hoping not to fall.  The rink was in sight and he stepped on.  The crunch of the blades hitting the ice echoed around the arena.  I looked forward in amazement of the pure size and brightness of the rink sharply contrasted to the claustrophobic and dark hallway we recently traveled through.  “Come on Nick, you can do it!” encouraged my dad.  I hesitantly stepped onto the freshly frozen bed of water.  My skate hit and wobbled.  It felt as if I was going to fall.  My dad grabbed me while I reached forward with my other skate.  My legs were trembling with nervousness.  I didn’t want to fall.  We pushed forward and slowly migrated across the rink.  While passing over the red line, I looked up at my dad.  Towering at least 4 feet over me, I saw a huge smile as we continued down the ice.  I knew we were both having a great time.  I looked down ice and saw a large blue half circle.  Blue more vivid than the Mediterranean filled the semi-circle as a ring of warm red outlined it.  Just beyond it towered a large net with bright red posts and white netting.  We traveled closer and closer and the more excited I became.  “That’s the goal crease for ice hockey,” he explained.  “The goalie protects the net from the other team from scoring on it.”  I pushed forward and fell.  He helped me up and we both glided to the lake of blue.  I stumbled inside of the crease and I knew I would never turn back.  This was my new home.

That was my first time ever skating.  I remember that day so vividly because it is so important to me and how I became who I am.  From there I started to play hockey for Westfield Youth Hockey, I was always a left wing and I hated it.  I always asked my coach to be a goalie but I never got the chance until several years later.  Those years of struggle were completely worth it when I finally got the chance to be a goalie.  After strapping on the pads, I never looked back.  I always pushed myself to get better and better.  Soon after I moved to a new organization called the New England Junior Falcons.  This organization was the best around us and my parents and I both knew this was the right choice.  I played there for a total of seven years until I went to the Chiefs.  From the Chiefs, I decided prep school.  Prep school hockey is the best hockey one can play in New England.  I am now Kingswood Oxford and so far have been the best experience of my life.  It has been difficult to leave such a great life at Southwick High School, but it is worth it on many levels.

Without many people helping get to where I am now, I would never be here.  Hockey is such a major aspect in my life.  That first day on the ice with my dad sparked my interest and my parents both started the fire.  Countless coaches and others acted as an inspiration and an object to help me push myself to be the best I can be.  Bane from the Dark Knight Rises said, “Awh yes! The fire rises brother” My parents started the fire, many helped it burn, and I hope to always keep the fire burning. 

Softball

For as long as I could remember, I had always played two sports- soccer and softball. I knew that I would want to play one of these sports in college, however I was unsure of which one. Heading into high school, I really had to make a decision. After the summer was over my decision was quite clear. I wanted to play softball.

My freshman year, I still continued to play soccer for the school team but it was just for fun. The spring came and I played softball and that was that. Over the summer I played in multiple tournaments with my travel team and even went to three individual college showcases. 

Sophomore year came quick and knowing that I wanted to play softball in college, I had to try out for a college showcase team- the one I play on now. Unfortunately, I had to quit soccer in order to fully commit myself to doing this. All of a sudden I was practicing at least three times a week with the team, trying to complete individual strength training three times a week, and go to four tournaments throughout the course fall. Luckily they were only two day tournaments. My schedule was constantly full and getting homework done was always a struggle. But, I had to find a way to balance it all because as my coaches always say, “If you can’t find a balance, you can’t play in college.” 

Over the winter, I had to come up with a list of ten to twelve colleges I wanted to be recruited by and send an introduction email. As a sophomore I had no idea where to even start, but things seemed to work itself out. After the introduction email, responses about coming to that schools camp flew back almost instantly. Of course, in order to get recruited, you had to go to camps, so I went. 

School finished at the beginning of June and a week or two later, I was back at it again-practice three times and a three-day tournament on the weekend. It was exhausting. I emailed coaches and played all summer. 

Today, I still have practice two to three times a week with four tournaments in the fall. I still have to do individual strength training three times a week and I have to email coaches every week. As annoying as it is, it pays off in the end and I love to spend time with my team who is like a second family.