Look at me, look at me!

I have to have both hands on my bike to ride it.

Why do I need so much attention? If you know me, you’ve probably gotten annoyed at least once because of me wanting to be the center of attention. Don’t deny it. You know how I know? Because I get annoyed, too! I hate it! The only thing worse than being that annoying guy that won’t stop talking about himself is knowing that you do it! Well, I guess it’s worse to not know, but you don’t get mad at yourself. Ignorance is bliss, you know. Until you get smoked for it… I hate smokings. They say it’s all mental, but, last time I checked, my mind isn’t in my muscles, cuz that’s where it hurts. Sure, it takes a strong mind to get through it, but it still doesn’t take away the hurt, and it doesn’t help you do more push-ups. I need a break. Spring Break needs to hurry up! I guess I could think optimistically, and just think about how I’ve got no more than one and a half training times until then. That’s not including the two morning ones. But one is an outfit run for sure, so I’ll be doing gimp pt. I actually look forward to that, cuz it’s gonna be productive. Kinda like whatever pt I do tonight. I’m gonna do something. Maybe a couple class sets. Ugh, I hate those. We’re gonna be doing a lot, too. They told us that when they tell us to go outside for pt, we just immediately drop and do a class set of push-ups. A class set. Right off the bat, whether we’ve done good or bad (probably bad). A class set is, for our class (class of 2013), 113. 113 push-ups. And that’s just to get started. I’m gonna hate the next couple of weeks. Except for Spring Break.

Anyway, back to me… I hate when I try to grab everyone’s attention, but I don’t even notice sometimes. I guess it’s just a habit, and a bad one at that. When I do notice while I’m doing it, I hate it, and I get so mad at myself. I don’t know what to do, though. I can’t just be like “and then I – oh, wait, never mind..” I mean, I guess I could, but it probably wouldn’t work too well in most conversations. What would you do if someone said that? I would want to know what they were gonna say. Actually, I would probably change the subject to how I did that one time, or something like that.

You know, hate is a really strong word. Abby, I don’t hate you for posting that video on facebook.

I hate the fact that you did it, though…

Anyway, sorry for the little detour, I just thought of that real quick. I’m kinda just venting right now. Don’t take everything that I’m writing down as my real feelings. I don’t know how to adequately describe my feelings right now. I just feel like I need to write. I don’t know what I would do without this blog… Probably not write as much.

So I really enjoyed the gospel sing I got to go to last night. Everything overall went pretty well. For one, I got to go, which was great. My grandparents were also there, which was a huge surprise for me, until I realized that they live really close now. I only found out that day or the day before that they were gonna be there. I say gonna a lot, don’t I? Oh well. I got to see everyone on the cast, and I love all of them. I always forget how much I miss them all until I get to go to one of the sings. And oh, how I miss playing with my band! They didn’t have a bassist at all last night, so I just sang my part along with them, to myself of course, while they played. Melodee said I could play with them next time if I can just practice a little. I really don’t need a whole lot of practice for the songs they were playing, so I’m really hopeful and excited. I also met this guy named John, who goes to church with the Seales. He was pretty cool, but I didn’t get to talk to him much. Hopefully I’ll see him again sometime. I gave Hannah her Baby Ruth bar, too. I wasn’t exactly “saving” it for her, I just forgot about it for long enough that I figured I might as well give it to her. I guess that is saving it for her, though. She deserved it anyway. My grandparents gave me these “kolaches,” which were actually more like danishes, but I ate them for breakfast anyway. I also had kolache later. And a bite of meatloaf for supper. I’m glad we stock snacks in our hole. I hope I get my Scout running this summer.

Before camp would be nice. I would love to take it to camp, just cuz I would love to drive it, but I also wouldn’t have to deal with trading cars, or with my car messing up. Except, the Scout is even more likely to mess up. Oh well. It’s lasted this long, I’m sure it could take a couple more years. I’m really excited about finally getting it running. My dad said that they got it home, and in the garage. That’s pretty awesome. If you haven’t seen our garage, that’s quite a feat, getting a car in there. You know, I don’t think most Americans can fit the right number of cars in their garage. You know, two in a two-car, one in a one-car, etc. I don’t think we ever have… No, wait, yeah, we have. Last summer, when the house was messier than the garage… Wow, it’s kinda crazy, thinking about how we’ve been in that house for more than a year now. It doesn’t seem like that long ago, we were in the “Saddleblanket” house (that’s the street name, and our nickname for that house). That house really wasn’t that great, it just looked cool, and anything was a step up from where we had been.

You know, I don’t think I really get that much stronger from going through hard things. Like, I don’t go “Oh, I’ve done something harder than this before. I’ll be fine.” I’m like “Oh man, this reminds me of [insert bad memory here],” and it makes me hate it even more. I might gain certain skills from it, but overall, I don’t view it as any easier. It’s not like I have a bad attitude on it – do I? – I just don’t enjoy it any more. Or not enjoy it any less.

I really don’t know what I’m getting at with all this. I have so many blog posts, but nothing makes sense. I guess I just need a break. I don’t know. I want to quit, but I can’t. Too many people are looking at me, supporting me, standing behind me. Too many people are proud of me. But I don’t know what I’m doing here. I don’t even know how to do this.

When I signed up for this guidon thing, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Literally, I had absolutely no idea. The only thing I was right about was that it meant I would be trying out for guidon. I wasn’t even right about the pt. It’s going to be so much harder than I thought. And there are so many assignments! It’s like being a bass fish again! I guess I still am, though. But that doesn’t make it any easier. It makes it like a bad memory, like I was talking about before. I still can’t believe last semester was only a few months ago. It seems like it’s been forever since then. Now it’s like a bad dream. I guess everything bad that you go through in the Corps just turns into a bad dream, and then even that fades away. I guess that’s what’s gonna happen with this, too. That doesn’t make it any easier right now, though…

I hope my ankle gets better by next week. I’m going skiing, no matter how much it hurts. Mater is apparently a real word. I messed up matter, but Microsoft Word didn’t correct me. I have an almost full bottle of Vicodin, so I should be good for skiing. Well, I may not even be able to keep my balance then… I can’t wait till Spring Break. It’s so much fun every year. And I didn’t even get to go to Colorado last year, because I was in Florida with the band instead. That was actually good, though, because I sprained my ankle then, too. It was worse than this time, though, and it was the night before we left. I have a week to kinda recover now, and it’s not as bad of a sprain. It’s bad, though, because it’s the same ankle as before. I think it was just coincidence, but it is very possible that it’ll weaken my ankle, and make it more likely to get sprained again in the future. That’s the main reason I’m not gonna run at all this week. My ankle really is hurt, and I don’t think I can run, but the main reason is because, even if it gets to where it doesn’t hurt to run, which is unlikely anyway, my ankle will be weak, and I’m not gonna ruin my spring break by spraining it again even worse right before I go skiing (or don’t go, if it gets hurt like that). I would hate the Corps so much if that happened. I would probably drop out of gc, actually. I don’t want it that much. I already hate it. I don’t need it. Sure, I’m one of only twenty people in the outfit, one of only a hundred in the past twenty years. But I don’t need this. I don’t know if I even want it, either. Everyone I asked about it before I signed up either said “yeah, do it!” or “I can’t answer that for you.” No one said no, or even hinted at it not being a good idea. It seems like everyone wanted me to do it, and the only person who didn’t was me…

Ok, next chapter. Yeah, I think this is my longest blog post so far. I’m writing it in Word, and I’m almost to four pages now. 1,766 words. That’s a lot. That’s like, 7 times the length allowed for a story submission to Matthew West’s thing for that one thing… I just commented on his blog. I’m so cool! Anyway, I submitted a story to Matthew West. It had to do with the Corps. That’s the only thing I talk about anymore. It would be bad if he chose that story, and then went to interview me, and I had punched. I guess that’s motivation for me to stay in. It’s not likely he’ll pick my story, though. I guess I can still hope. Man, what am I doing up at 5 til midnight, when I have to wake up at 6:30 and face a full day of classes? At least I don’t have to wear a uniform this week. I hate having a sprained ankle, I really do, but it’s nice wearing non-regs to class. It’s bad, though, cuz it makes me want to punch… Everything makes me want to punch. Except good bull, I guess. We get to have good bull with all of the gc upperclassmen, including the sophomores. And we get to take details from them. It’s weird, cuz they’re all bad bull during training time and chow and stuff, and then afterwards, it’s all laughing and joking and stuff. Worse than with the basses. We never had good bull in the bass section, except for kind of at midnight yell, and with Mr Thompson. He’s so cool. He’s so much more laid back this semester, too. As if he wasn’t last semester. I think he’s always been really laid back. I just can’t wait until junior year, when I can finally be nice to the fish. I’m gonna disappear during junior week, and just be super nice to them all the time except for then. I’ve already decided that. I’m not even gonna be mean next year. I’ll only be mean when I have to. I hate being mean to people, especially if it’s something I’ve done before. Most people take revenge on people who have been mean to them by passing it on to other people, but I don’t like doing that. It’s stupid. Being mean is stupid. Sure, it motivates people, but it’s stupid. I hate being mean. Hate is a strong word. So is Brussels sprouts. I hate Brussels sprouts. Ok, I’ve gotten 3 ½ pages, over 2 thousand words, and it’s past 12. I really should go. I have to poop. I want to keep writing, though. Something’s wrong, and I don’t know what it is. I want to talk to someone. Just, sit and talk for a while. About anything, just not the Corps. I hate the Corps, and I’m tired of talking about it, thinking about it, living it. It’s only a little more than 3 years till I’m out, though. Only 2 years till I own the place as a senior. Only a year till I’m a whitebelt, and can be nice to the fish. And only a week until Spring Break. I’ll be home less than 96 hours from now. I need a countdown or something. And a counselor. Please pray for me. Seriously.