Why You Should Never Follow me on Twitter

I've loved sports all my life; I started playing soccer at age 3, and was a three sport athlete all the way through high school. My love for athletics includes not only playing, but also watching. I've grown up with SportsCenter on the TV, and spent an inordinate and possibly unhealthy amount of time watching sports, and sports discussion, and sports analysis, and so on. I've always been quick to defend athletics against those who disparage athletes as "dumb jocks" or meatheads, and I still take offense to those stereotypes.

Now I'm not going to lie and say that I've never overreacted to a loss by one of my favorite teams, because anybody who sees my twitter feed knows that would make me possibly the biggest hypocrite in the world, and definitely somewhere in the top 5. I love sports for the emotion, for the passion, and for the sheer incredulity I feel when I watch. The hard thing about being a fan is caring so deeply for something and wanting something to happen so badly, and not being able to do a single thing about it.

I'm a fan of the Washington Redskins. I grew up about 15 minutes from FedEx Field, and have been watching the Redskins my whole life. As you can tell from my twitter feed, I'm pretty emotionally invested in the Redskins. HOWEVER, I don't work for them. I have absolutely nothing to do with if the Redskins win, if the Redskins lose, or if the Redskins decided that they want Pizza Hut instead of Papa Johns postgame. None of those things have anything to do with me. So why do I let them effect me? Why do I place emotion in something that I can't control? Why do I celebrate victories like I had a part, and mourn losses the same way? Why do I use the "we" when discussing the Redskins?

To answer that, I'll look at another football team I'm a fan of: The University of Alabama Crimson Tide. Now to understand why I love Alabama football, you have to look a little deeper. When I was applying to colleges my senior year, Alabama wasn't really on my radar, and it definitely wasn't on my friends'. "Why would you want to go to school in Alabama, they're all racist down there" said friends and classmates, using the same generalizations that they accuse Alabamians of using. So when I decided to come to Alabama, I needed something that I could point to, and tell my friends, classmates, teachers, and even parents "Here. Here's something at Alabama that you can't get anywhere else." That something is football, and not just the team, but the culture. Football really does pervade every aspect of life down here, especially in the fall. As a life-long sports fan, I was thrilled as could be. However, I've realized there's a downside to excessive fandom.

It's frustrating watching the games, since it’s something you care deeply about, and at the same time something you can do nothing about. While I love watching Alabama football games, I know that my watching on TV has absolutely no effect on the outcome. And while I've rarely felt more excited than while in Bryant-Denny Stadium, I know that individually, I don't matter.

"Yes Daniel, we get it, now what does that have to do with anything? Like, do you even have a point?"

Yes I do! My point is that y'all gotta chill. Now this post is clearly inspired by last week's Iron Bowl, in which we saw a familiar cycle:

Step 1: Player (usually a kicker, or a goalkeeper, or a pitcher, or some other individualistic position) messes up, usually in a big game.

Step 2: People who have no affiliation with the team, or school, or whatever blast him

Step 3: People get more and more worked up, until some dumbass threatens to life, family, etc... of the player

Step 4: rational people gather around the person, rarely older than 21 or 22, and support him.

Step 5: ESPN or Yahoo Sports runs an article about death threats to this guy

Step 6: #wesupport____ hashtag trends on twitter

Step 7: fanbase congratulates themselves on being such an amazing and supportive group of people

Step 8: everyone forgets about it.

This is a pretty common cycle. Athletes in every professional sport, and sometimes not even professional, recieve death threats. I challenge you to come up with one that hasn't. Eli Manning, a two-time super bowl winning quarterback received death threats after a single bad performance. Cade Foster, a key part of two national championship teams, got death threats after a single bad game. In the 30 for 30 special on Miami football, athletes recall being threatened over the result of a high school game.

Wait.

Hold up.

This is really a thing?

What the fuck?

I love sports. I think they're amazing, and I think that everyone should play a sport at some point in their life. However, I think there's a point where you have to step back, and realize that at their core, sports are just games. Games that we've attached meaning to, sure. Games that people care about, absolutely. But you have to have that moment where you consider that maybe, just maybe, somebody's life is more important than a game.

"But Daniel, if sports are just a game, why do so many people care?"

I'm not really sure. It might be because people love to watch sports, and putting an emotional investment into something makes it more interesting to watch. It might be because they're a source of pride, a way to get bragging rights over a rival college or city. It could be because people love watching others work their hearts out and try their hardest. It's probably a combination of all of that, and even more.

So don't stop cheering for your favorite team. Don't stop wearing your favorite player's jersey. Hell, don't even stop screaming at your TV. But do stop when you get to the point where your actions have an effect on other people. Stop when you think about threatening someone, behind the tough-guy veil of a twitter account. Stop before you break things, stop before you insult people. Take a second and think. 

Holy shit I still have a blog

So my sister's been doing this thing she calls "#bedn" which as far as I can tell is one of those twitter hashytaggy things for Blog Every Day November. Which reminded me of my creative writing class from senior year, which reminded me I still have a blog. So here we are.

And despite the intervening time since I last blogged, I still procrastinate better than anyone I know. So I decided that I'm gonna join the party a little late, and NOT do my homework that I really really really should be doing. And because I didn't think of a topic, I'm gonna get all obnoxiously existential and self-referential and self-deprecating and in general annoying. I'm gonna talk about myself! surprise!

Mrs. Mattingly, my 11th grade English/History (it was a small school) teacher told me that I have a good voice. Now as anybody who's heard me sing can attest, she wasn't talking about my vocal ability. She thinks I write goodly. I think she's wrong. I think I write informally,which, when I'm forced to reign it in in the form of a paper for school, somehow is watered down enough that it comes off as a positive trait and not really really really annoying. 

I have what's been referred to (by me) as an "endearing" level of informality. I do it with everyone. It's like everyone in my life is one shade less formal than they should be. I joke with teachers, make fun of (IN A GOOD WAY) people I just met, and in general don't take things as seriously as I should. This is not always a good thing. It can be, like when I told my english teacher to make me a sandwich senior year (heyyyyy crossman) or it can go very, very, wrong, like when I made the mistake of joke fighting with a new acquaintance down the hall. He missed the whole joke part of the memo and proceeded to punch me in the face. That was not very enjoyable. 

What I'm trying to get at is that even though you make think I'm perfect (and let's be real, I'm pretty close) is that under the wit and parentheses-related humor, I struggle at writing. And I love this blog because I have a longstanding habit of not hitting backspace. This means I get a real stream-of-consciousness thing going on, and all my faults come to the forefront. Goodie!

Bittersweet

I've said time and time again that Jazz Band is my favorite class. It's the class where I walk in and know I'm gonna laugh. I know I'm gonna get a chunk of time where I don't have to worry about derivatives (calculus) the 5 billion types of dirt (AP environmental) or the difference between a spondee and a troche (ap lit). I can just play my saxophone. I love jazz band and think it's been pretty much the only constant in my time at indian creek. I even wrote one of my college essays about it. University of Michigan asked me to write about a community that I'm a part of, and Jazz Band was definitely the first thing that came to mind. I looked at it again, and I agree 100% with everything I wrote. In case you care, It was about how scared and uncomfortable I was with my saxophone ability as a freshman, and how even though I was the only freshman, nobody made fun of me or anything. It was awesome, and now I try to do the same thing for those younger/less experienced than me now.

We had our winter concert last night, and there's a song I'm "featured"on. This basically means that almost the entire song is a solo part for me. When recognizing that before the song, Mrs. Woodward said something about me being a senior. That's insane! I have one concert left before I go to college. That's only 3, maybe 4 songs that I get to learn with everyone else in the band. While playing that song, I was super into it. It was a difficult song, with a style that I often have trouble with. I think I did really well though. The song after was way easier, and I played it almost automatically. I didn't have to think about it. What I did think about was how much I'm going to miss jazz band. I'm almost certainly headed to a huge college  (the smallest I applied too was about 14000 students, with most being more than 30000) and I really hope I can find my own niche there like I have here.

As much as it seems kinda dickheadish, I like Jazz Band because I'm good at it. I'm a part of the basketball and lacrosse teams, for example, but I'm not particularly good at either. I feel like there's not much I'm the "best" at. It seems sometimes like I'm the stereotypical jack of all trades, master of none. Except in Jazz Band. It might sound a little egotistical, but I think I'm the best player in Jazz Band. It's great to be the one who everyone knows they can count on, who people go to for help.

It's been a great 3.5 years of jazz band, and honestly some of the jokes and memories I've made are the best things about high school. I don't know what I'm gonna do next year without it.

Discovery

Ok, the title's a lie. This is more of a post of rediscovery. I went down to the basement last night to find a specific book. It was actually an old biography of my hero, Shaquille O'Neal. But that's not important, what's important are the other books I found. I found "The View From Saturday." I found "From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler." I found my 4th grade self.

I'd always read a lot, but I credit Mr. Watson in 4th grade for really giving me my love of reading, and those are the two first books he told me to read. He gave me a week to read the first one. I thought he was crazy! I was in 4th grade! What he knew, and I didn't, is that I would become so engrossed in that book that I would sneak a flashlight into my room to read after my mom made me turn off the lights. So engrossed that I read it in other classes, so engrossed I took a history test a week early so I could read it in class, so engrossed I intentionally got kicked out of math (back when it was only math, and not calculus) so I could sit on the bench in front of the principal's office and read. Those are the two books that made me realize how incredible reading could be. It made me realize how books can be an escape into a different life. A world of it's own. I have that habit with books to that day. When I find a good book, I literally can't put it down. My dad told me I "devour" books, and that seems pretty accurate to me. I read books in big chunks. I hate lit classes where the teachers tell me to read a chapter a night. I can't do it if it's any good, because I want to know what happens next!

It's been a while since I did any serious reading. I've been crazy with homework, and basketball, and college stuff, so I just haven't found the time. So last night after I found those two books, I sat down and read "The View From Saturday" from cover to cover, just like I used too. I ignored all my pressing responsibilities. I ignored the stress from Ms. Woodward not emailing me back, I ignored the stress from college, I even ignored the email from Wisconsin that told me whether or not I got in. I just read.

I miss it.

Community service

Few things piss me off more than college applications. I don't think a standardized test score is a good indicator of what kind of person you are, and I definitely don't think the fact that your parents forced you to play piano means you deserve to go to Yale. The insane emphasis on test scores infuriates me, but nowhere near the level of community service in regards to college applications.

There's this awful, awful website about college, called collegeconfidential.com. It's where thousands of so-called "high-acheiving" students gather to fret about if they've kissed enough ass to get into one of the 20 or so colleges in the entire country they deem "good enough." A typical post is something like "I have a 4.0 GPA, 2340 SAT, and 200 hours of community service, will I get in to Brown?"

Ignoring the GPA and test score, what a stupid way to measure community service! Hours? Really? Couldn't you measure community service in the number of people you helped, or the good you did? I overheard (eavesdropped on) a kid in the mall talking about community service the other day, and how he need more hours. Why? Why is he not talking about needing to do more good? Help more people, make more of a difference!

So who gets community service hours? The kid who chases soccer balls down during games? Or the girl who organizes a clothing drive in the middle of winter? The sad answer is that often, it's the first. You can quantify the amount of time spent on a soccer field, but not so much in "organizing." It's, for lack of a better word, bullshit.

Back to our Brown hopeful on collegeconfidential. I guarantee this hypothetical person that I totally made up worked hard for those 200 hours of community service, and made a positive difference in their community. She might have worked at a battered women's shelter, or maybe spent time working with the big brother/ big sister program. Maybe she stayed up until 2 A.M. working the graveyard shift on a suicide hotline, or maybe she delivered meals on thanksgiving. Aren't saying all those things a better way of measuring her impact? Wouldn't it be SO much more meaningful to mention the families who got to enjoy thanksgiving because of her, or the ONE person she got to maybe rethink killing themselves.

It's even kinda insulting to think that that kind of impact can be boiled down to a certain number of hours, a specific amount of time in which you decided to be helpful. It doesn't count the effects of your service, which is really the important part. I feel like when deciding how worthwhile or meaningful community service is, the results are way more important than the amount of time put in. Time doesn't even always equal effort.

But I'm getting myself worked up and it's 3:29 in the morning. I gotta get to bed earlier...

The Washington Wizards

The Washington Wizards are not a very good basketball team. They have the fewest wins in the NBA, and in general are a laughingstock. The NBA is a league driven by stars. Teams with the Lebrons and the Kobes and the Durants are the teams that win championships. The Wizards don't have anything close to a star. We have John Wall, who's regarded as a "pretty good" point guard, and even then he's hurt all the time anyway.

The Wizards had the 3rd pick in last year's draft, and they picked Bradley Beal out of Florida. I was joking with my father about how pissed Beal must have been. He's on of the top basketball players in the world, and he's going to lose. A lot.

I don't think Bradley Beal is used to losing. To get to the point where he's a top 3 pick, he had to be one of the top 3 players in the country. He was "The man" in college. To get recruited to play division 1 basketball, especially at a school like Florida, he had to have been a very, very good player in high school. He probably carried his high school basketball team. Before that, he probably lead his middle school team to championship after championship, by far the best player on the court. He was most likely the star of his elementary school rec league team, the kid who got first pick of the oranges at halftime.

Now he's a loser. His team is 4-27, and he's not a star. He's a good player, but not a star. It must be frustrating to be that good and yet not good enough. He's always had enough to be the best at whatever level he plays at. But not this one. It must be so frustrating.
 

Hypotheticals

I'm freaking out about this interview tomorrow, and I just KNOW he's gonna ask me what my favorite book is. That might just be the worst question in the world for me to answer. You see, I read everything. I read my calculus textbook on bus rides to basketball games. I read the shampoo ads on the metro into D.C. I read the fine print on the box of crayons, and the entire instruction manual for my playstation. I have a gigantic pile of books on the corner of my desk, stretching almost to the ceiling, and that doesn't even come close to the amount stuffed in the cabinets under my bed or in the corner of my rooms. Then there's the huge amounts of books on the bookshelves in the basement, torn up from years and years of heavy reading. When I went backpacking this summer, it was suggested that everyone should bring a book, for possible downtime. I read my book, my tentmate's books, and everyone else's books. I read every single piece of literature there was to read.

The point is, I've always loved reading. As much as I love playing FIFA all day, I'd often rather be reading. My mom hates snow, but I love snow days because they're reading days. I wake up at the same time I normally would so I don't waste it, and go sledding early in the morning. Then I come inside, shower, and spend all day on the couch reading. I love my little reading marathons.

Because of how much I read, I can do it pretty quickly at this point. I might not be the best mathematician out there, but I can read pretty quickly, and understand pretty quickly. It definitely helps with taking literature classes. I think I might be the only person in the world who doesn't think "Sweet, no homework!" when the teacher says to read in the textbook.

Very few books manage to make their way out of the jumble of text that is my brain. There are a couple that definitely have, but I'm afraid they don't make good answers. Is a book about tiny goblins that put poop under mean adults shoes really the best choice? What about the book that details two 4th graders living in a museum? Can I really not come up with something better than a mixed-up, convoluted story about the holy grail that's filled with ridiculous historical inaccuracies? It's clear that I can't decide what book to call my favorite, but I definitely know some of the worst. Without further ado: THE TOP SEVEN WORST RESPONSES TO "WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE BOOK?"



7. Your Colon: An Illustrated Guide
6. The Beginners Guide to Sex in the Afterlife
5.  The Communist Manifesto
4. The State History of South Dakota
3. Zombie Butts from Uranus
2. Miles to Go- A Biography of Miley Cyrus
1. Mein Kampf