Retrospective Blogging: Part II

Since I have the possibility to be a leader for a team bigger than the '08 Summit team, I am looking back at what I did right and what I did wrong when I was captain.  Obviously, the biggest problem was the one with Andy and tug.  Since this was the biggest issue I had to deal with, it is the one that is most clear in my mind.  It is also clear because I have run the scenario through my head a thousand times if I have thought about it once.  I have read and reread the comments of my teammates about what they saw in my attitude.  That being said, I believe that the only fault I have in this whole debate was poor word choice.  Here is why (please note that I no longer dislike Andy, nor did I dislike him then.  I have a much more objective view and am literally trying to find fault in myself in this.)

When Andy started having poor technique during tug, I went to him about it multiple times in private during pratice.  He never listened to me.  I went to Everett and asked him to talk to Andy.  Andy didn't listen to Everett.  I gave Andy the benefit of the doubt and assumed he was doing it just to be beligerent and would stop once we actually competed.  He did not.  I was going to go to him that Thursday night and tell him that he needed to do do tug the right way (the right way being the way that would give us the highest chance of winning) or I would pull him out of tug and put someone else in (that someone else would have had to be me because Jeff and Brian were already in seven events each and couldn't possibly do anymore, leaving me as the only person who could legally take his place.)  This is when Andy decided to take it upon himself to call ME out publicly.  I did nothing to provoke this.  I merely made a statement of fact when I wrote.

"Andy and Rebecca scare the crap out of me when the reach. If either of them try to do at Summit what they did at locals, they are going to get destroyed."

Contrary to what I have been accused of, this was not me publicly chastising Andy.  This was a completely innocent comment about the way he and his sister were using improper form.  I didn't "chastise" either one of them.  I simply commented that "It scared the crap out of me" and also stated the fact that "when we play a good tug team and they do that, they are going to get destroyed", which ended up being true.

So as for the first accusation that I "publicly chastised Andy", the documented fact remains that I did no such thing.

The second thing that I was accused of was "mildly cussing him out", which I will admit, I should not have done.  I should have picked my words much more carefully.  However, I will not apologize for saying nothing at all.  Andy called me out in public.  Because he called me out in public, I felt the issue needed to be resolved in public.  The second reason that I attempted to resolve the issue right then and there is because I was basing my actions on Matthew 18:15-17.  For those who don't know it off the top of their heads (I'm included in that category)

¹⁵ "If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. ¹⁶But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. ¹⁷If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector.

Though the sin was not solely against me, it was against the team, I still feel the principle applied.  I went to Andy, as the captain, and asked him to stop, then told him to stop.  When he didn't, I went to Everett.  That makes two people who had told him to stop.  I was willing to give Andy another chance before I subtly removed him from the game to avoid his own embarrassment in front of the team, but when he made it public, I decided that going to the entire "church", or team, would be a better option.  I chose the wrong words to speak, which alienated my teammates from actually supporting the decision.  However, I have Biblical backing for what I chose to do.  I just chose the wrong words (or really the wrong word) to do it.

Another accusation that was brought against me was that I was being biased, which I repeatedly said I was not.  I was told that I had been biased on more than one occasion, which no one ever showed me proof of.  The only thing that even remotely resembled proof was Brian's statement when he said

"I could cite names and give examples of different times with different people in events that you changed, if you were to be truly unbiased you would go by times and consistency, not just who you think is more athletic."

Unfortunately, this has absolutely no merit seeing as Brian never saw the times.  The only thing that Brian ever saw was my decision on who to run in which event, after I had already hammered out who was on the team.  Obviously, I changed the events multiple times due to injuries, missed practices, and so on and so forth, but Brian never saw a thing beyond the finished products, including the times.  The only people who saw the times during tryouts were Everett, Arielle, and I.  Obviously, everyone heard the times during the times we ran balloon and basketball.  Whoever had consistently better times during practice was allowed to run the event, regardless of their athletic ability or their years in AWANA or any other outside factor.

And all subsequent accusations about my attitude were based on these things.  Since I have just shown that I did nothing wrong in any of these instances, my poor attitude was only due to being accused of doing things wrong that were, in all actuality, not wrong.  I did not err in any of the things I did except word choice.  And as far as word choice, I did not think that it would be that big a deal since Andy himself advocated the use of the word, but others got offended and in that I was wrong.

I am perhaps the only person who still thinks about this, though I am surely not the only one who remembers it.  I have thought about it more times than I can tell and have run as many scenarios through my head as I possibly could.  I believe that my poor choice of words was to blame.  Had I used better words, my team might have been more inclined to support the way I decided to handle the situation.  But, that is the only thing I would change if I were to go back now and change it.  I think I have sufficiently shown that my decisions were not only the right ones, but were actually Biblically based.

In hindsight, I believe I handled it in the way it needed to be handled (minus my poor word choice).  As far as being self-righteous, I did far more right in this situation than I did wrong.  My "self-righteousness" was not without warrant.  I did what I needed to do, when I needed to do it and, again, minues the word choice, how I needed to do it.

I hope this clears up a few things about why I did what I did and, if anyone still reads this, helps you to realize that I was not at fault in many of the things that I was accused of doing wrongly.

Retrospective Blogging

After reading blogs from Stephen Christian (lyricist/singer for Anberlin), I decided to make my own really amazing blog. But as I logged in to go create it, I found this and I started reading all of my posts. I feel like I need to talk about it a little. I had actually planned to do this before, but I think that I was going to try to have that "I learned a lot because of Summit and it made me a better person..." sort of a speech. Now that I can look back at what I wrote and be a little bit more objective since it has been a year and it is almost like someone else wrote it, I think I will comment on my Summit experience from 07-08, even if it's only for me.

I see some recurring themes in these blogs. The first is girls. There were a lot of girls at Summit and I hung out with a lot of them. Megan, Julia, Allison, Brittney, girl in the red dress (I later found out that her name is Lauren), Alex, Tana, Jocelyn, Allee, girl in the red top (not to be confused with the girl in the red dress because they are two different people), and, of course, my sophomore year love, Jodi, who is Tana's sister. It would happen to me. I'm really not sure what to think about this. To be honest, I really didn't hang out with a lot of them that much. The two girls in red clothing I never hung out with. I saw Megan and Julia 3 or 4 times, but never really got quality time with them. I hung out with Jocelyn and Allee for only a half an hour at best. I only met Allison and Brittney on the last night, so I really didn't hang out with them that much. I met Tana the day of games and we were playing so the majority of my interaction with her was me going up to her and telling her "That was for you" and blowing her a kiss while I was running sprint relay. The only person I really enjoyed the company of for any length of time was Alex, who I ran off to see a great number of times (as you can see from my blog). To me, I think this shows that my mind was in a completely different place. I was not at all interested in team unity. I felt that the last 7 months gave us that and that this was my week. In my defense, I will never see these girls again, and I wanted to be with the friends I'd made over the last two years and meet some new ones. But I probably shouldn't have run off while my team was competing, as boring as it was for me, and I should have considered eating dinner with them the final night, instead of immediately making up my mind that Brian and I were going to meet girls and spend the night with them.

The second thing I noticed when rereading this was my inability to take any sort of blame. I can't even count the number of times I claimed that I was going to throw up. I know at least one of those is true, but as for the rest, I honestly don't remember. I'm pretty sure I made that up as an excuse for playing poorly and to make myself look better. Sort of a Kirk Gibson "Look at me! I'm playing through the pain," sort of thing. I will put blame on anyone and anything if it is within reason because I can't handle it when I screw up. I expect myself to be perfect and, when I'm not, it drives me insane. The only way I get relief is by putting the blame on anything that isn't me. I still do this a great deal of the time and I have literally convinced myself that things are not my fault, even though I knew in the beginning they are. I am so bad, that I have literally rewritten history so that I could get relief about my short comings.

The third thing I noticed was that I am an arrogant SOB. I already knew this of course, but I was never doign any of this "for the fame of His name". I was doing this "for the fame of my name". There were times when things got so bad that I had to go back and reevaluate everything and see that I was messing up and that I needed God to help me get back on track, but that never lasted. I am just like Israel. I'm just like Nebuchadnezzar. I never learn the message the first time. I have to hear it again and again.

Now that I have addressed the fact that I am arrogant and prideful and realize it, I want to say this. A lot of things transpired between Andy and I and I was definitely wrong in a few places. However, me threatening to pull him out of tug was not because I was prejudiced. I would have done it if Brian decided to tell Everett and me "no" and I would have done it if Arielle had said "no". The captain, with the backing of the coach, told him to change the way he was doing something and he flat out said "I'm not doing it your way." Fact is, the first two or three times I asked him, I was polite about it. And when he continually said "no", that is when I got offended and unleashed all hell on him. In this instance, I was not wrong. It's that simple.

After the initial rage of him slapping me in the middle of a club one night, I let it go. I still comment on it from time to time, but not because I dislike him. Simply because I was, and still am, shocked that he would actually get up and do that. I have long since forgiven him for it and I don't have anything against him anymore. I should not have harbored contempt for him as long as I did and I'm sorry that I did that.

I really didn't learn anything about me beyond the fact that 1) I care about me a lot, 2) I care about girls, 3) I'm arrogant and prideful off the wazoo, 4) I do things for me and not for God, and 5) I'll do anything to not be wrong.

Summit Day 5

And finally, it was games. The whole reason for my coming to Summit... except for Megan and Alex... and whatever other girls I would meet this year. Blah, blah, blah happened and then games started.

First round, we were up against TNE (Team New England #2) and Grace Bible. We lost to team New England by one event. Had we not disqualified ourselves multiple times, we could have easily beat them since we finished before them pretty much every time.

More importantly, there was the blazingly fast girl who played for the other team on our line, Gold Country Baptist. She was also pretty so I asked the kids on her line who she was and they told me her name was Tana. So I cheered for her in every event she was in. She reset two records: sprint race and agility race, but her agility race time was bested in the next heat so she only kept it for a few moments. When my agility race came, I ran it so fast that people started asking me if I had just reset the record, I assured them that I had not since I missed it by .2 seconds, a lifetime in agility race. The best part is, I smoked the other two teams and immediately got up and went over to Tana and told her "That was for you". Now let's take a break and flash back to Summit 2006 in Chicago, Illinois.

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I was about to run the marathon race, which we found out I could set the record in, when Brian and I saw this really cute girl named Jodi sitting on the line with us. She was in a different heat, so I didn't have to play against her. When I got up to run marathon, I DQ'd on the first on the first pin so I didn't get to do it. I told her later on what I was planning on doing and she thought it was funny, but it would have been better if I had done it when I had run it.

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Back to 2008.

Second round, we went up against a couple of nobodies and man handled them, only losing 2 out of 9 heats.

Lunch came and we went out to eat sandwiches. Tana walked by and then, guess who I saw. Jodi. My words to Brian were "Oh my gosh! They're from the same church!" Brian goes over, then comes back and starts dragging me over. Then, announces to me in front of them "Their sisters you idiot." That's right, out of every girl at Summit for the last 3 years and I picked sisters. You know it would be my luck. However, that made an avenue and we all kept on talking. Until the next round.

Third round, we went up against BGBC (whatever that stands for) and another one of my favorite churches. Now a flash back to Summit 2007 in Denver, Colorado.

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I went to watch a fine arts competition and came out friends with an attractive girl named Megan and, consequently, her entire church. Their church was Olympic Bible Fellowship. Megan's best friend, Julia, was actually already friends with Jonathan, who is on my team, so that was another tie to their team. However, we had to face them in the third round of games and they knocked us out. Our team complained that their team had cheated, which I didn't argue against because neither team was in the definite right. Our team argued that the way OBF played tug "wasn't in the spirit of the game", which is grounds for disqualification. Had they not done that, we would have moved on. I argued that our captains made stupid choices, like putting in an injured person, which ended up costing us 9 points, which would have given us the victory. So I stayed friends with them because I didn't accuse them of cheating. Megan and I talked for the next 3 months until I lost internet access to my room and I couldn't stay up until 5 in the morning talking to her anymore.

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Back to Jacksonville.

Third round still. We went up against BGBC, a Hispanic church, and, who else but, Olympic Bible Fellowship. Brian freaked me out a little when he said BGBC was good. Then we promptly went out and stomped on their faces, absolutely obliterating them and knocking Olympic Bible into the third place bracket, where no one ever comes back from. They got knocked out in the next round and they wouldn't talk to me. I was pretty pissed at them because I didn't do that to them when they knocked us out. And we didn't even knock them out. We just knocked them into a lower bracket.

Fourth round we went up against God only knows what teams and we blew them away. It was like the rounds were getting easier and easier. Gold Country was on our circle again. After my basketball relay, I went up to Tana and said "That was for your sister." After her basketball relay, and came up to me and told me "That was for you." So then I ran my marathon medley. Dueing my second lap, I blew her a kiss after completely owning the other two teams runners.

Fifth round, we played versus a team from Cali that wore pink shirts and Arapaho Road, from Texas. Whoever won this round would go to gold and would get to play for the championship. Unfortunately, we messed up a few times and got some really bad calls from the officials. We lost to the pink team by only a few points, but laid the smack down on Arapaho Road which officially makes us the best AWANA games team in Texas! In addition, we fell a close second to the second best team in the nation, which puts us in the top 5 in the nation. This is the best that our church has ever done in the Summit era.*

We went outside and Gold Country was still around. They said they weren't going to watch the final round but they did anyway. They were taking pictures by the fountain so Brian and I went over to the fountain outside the gym and took our shirts off and ran around in it. After they got done with their pictures, Gold Country threw some of their team into the fountain, including Jodi, which Brian and I agree was the hottest thing we've ever seen.

We go back to the hotel, clean up, and go watch platinum round of quiz. Guess who was up there. Tana and two Gold Country teams. Guess who got 1st and 2nd. The two Gold Country teams. Tana's got second though, which was slightly sad, but she only got beat by her church's other team so it wasn't that big a deal to her. She didn't even care about quiz so she just blew it off.

There was a break between platinum round of quiz and closing ceremonies so Brian and I just stood around and talked to girls. Then we went back and sat with our team. Then closing ceremonies happened, and then there was a team meeting outside the door. I wanted to be back inside the door where Tana was, except for the fact that no one would let me. Alex showed up and I snuck back in to talk to Tana. Frank looked in and Everett came in so Brian and I dropped to the floor behind the chairs. Everett found me so I had to go back. Then Alex said she was leaving and got permission to go see her since I missed her the first time in an attempt to see Tana. I managed to get her as she was leaving (quite literally). Then I went back in and saw Tana as she was leaving, so I got a really bad picture of us together. Then she left. So I went up stairs and finished the meeting with my team. the meeting finished and everyone from our team, minus Brian and me, went out to eat somewhere. Brian and I went and hung out with people from Olympic Bible.

They were going up to the roof so Brian and I went to, then Brian stopped by some girls and started talking to them, then I went over and talked with them too. I was hungry so I asked if they wanted to come out to eat with us. Then Julia, from Olympic Bible, told me she was walking down to her room and asked if I would walk her down so I told her yes. So we went, and then came back to the roof. Julia went and hung out with her team and I went and hung out with the girls from the roof, who were Allison, Jill, Jill's twin (the name of whom I do not remember), and Brittany. We went to their room and ate food with them and their mothers/grandmothers, plus another girl named Kristen. We ended up playing "Settlers of Canaan" which is a take on the game "Settlers of Cataan", which is the best board game ever made. After the game, we listened to Brian Regan and listened until one of the mothers told Brian to turn it off because Brian Regan said "hell" too many times (5). So it was at this time that we took our leave and went back to our room.

This post should probably be called "Days 5 and 6" because we didn't leave their room until 2:30 am.

Summit Day 4

We woke up at around 8:30 so that we could watch out team do fine arts. I won’t list everybody because that will take too long, but the main point is that I watched a lot of fine arts. I watched a couple and then ran off to watch Alex and Katie sing. They were really good. Then I took off and tried to make it to Ben’s but just missed it so I had to stand outside the door and listen. He was phenomenal. Seriously, Ben was so good on his violin, my jaw was hanging on the floor.

So we finished watching fine arts and then we took off to the beach. I won’t go into that because it was normal beach stuff that happened so you can figure that one out on your own. Then off to Joe’s crab shack, then back to the hotel. Then it got interesting. We had another team meeting and talked about our highs and lows of Summit. There were way too many highs and not enough lows. I failed to tell any of the girls that I had been sneaking around all day to see Alex because I knew it would make them mad. Apparently, someone was pretty po’d at me and decided to run away for a little while. But before this, Brian, Jeff, Everett, and I had gotten locked out of our room, so we needed a knew key. My shoes were in the room so we went to get a new one and the security of the guard was making no sense as he told me to put shoes on even after I told him that they were locked in the room. So we got our key and we went back in the room.

Then we had sleep time.

Except two minutes later, Brian gets a call from Allee telling him to get up to the roof pool. Everett says “go with someone else” so he said “Marcelo, let’s go” and we were gone. We got to the roof and talked to Jocelyn, Allee, and Libby for a while. Then I realized Alex was sitting right behind me. Then a realllly attractive girl said “Bye Marcelo” and I didn’t know who she was and I was surprised she knew who I was. But I didn’t go after her because that would have been rude to Jocelyn, Allee, and Libby. Then, back to the hotel room and sleep.

And I dreamed about that really attractive girl at the pool.

Summit Day 3

Forced to wake up at the ungodly hour of 7:00am, I had to get up and ready for quiz (bleh). Grace Covenant had two teams and I was on neither of them, so, to be honest, I couldn’t have cared less. I showed up for Grace Covenant 1’s participation round. We did so bad that we were out after the first round… but wait! Apparently, we were in a tie for the last team that would get to move on to the next round. So three tie breakers later, we were in the bronze round. So was our other Grace team. Both teams moved on easily from there and then lost in Gold round by 5 and 10 points respectively.

I actually didn’t see all of our quizzing, I only saw three speed rounds and two paddle round out of four of each, so I actually made it to the majority of quiz, but some people, Who I honestly do not know the name(s) of, didn’t like the fact that I was rarely (in their opinion) there. Here is what I was doing. Watched participation round of quiz

• Watched paddle for bronze round of quiz
• Watched a girl playing piano while I waited for the below event
• Watched Olympic Bible Fellowship’s fine arts drama
• Watched speed for silver round of quiz
• Found out how all the writing fine arts works in case I do come back next year
• Watched the beginning of Heather’s speech, which I left in the middle of so I could do the below
• Waited for Josh Kirsch (who didn’t come this year) to do his fine arts
• Watched the speed round of gold round for quiz
• Went up and swam with Alex

I had an hour and a half to do nothing. It was awesome, I messed around with all the music I got off of Brian’s iPod and then got ready for Citation ceremony. I was supposed to be down there at 6:00 sharp! BUT I wasn’t and I had an excuse: I was waiting for “Boondock Saints” to download on my iPod so I could watch it during the citation ceremony. :) I’m that cool.

So I show up and I’m sitting by two guys, which is the last thing I wanted. A really, really attractive girl was sitting behind me and two seats to the left but I couldn’t turn around and talk to her so that made me mad. What did I do? I WATCHED BOONDOCK SAINTS! It was quite awesome. So my parents couldn’t be there so my mom asked me to call her when I was going up so she could here. Well, there was a long line of AWANA missionaries waiting to shake my hand and tell me “Congratulations”, so I called her before I got to them. So she was sitting on the line for three minutes of nothing. When I was two people behind the guy who was currently getting his citation, I took the phone out of my pocket and said “alright mom, I’m up next so pay attention.” At this time, I was actually standing on the stage waiting for the person in front of me to get done taking pictures with Art Rorheim and whoever the other guy was. So then I stuck it upside down in my pocket and got my citation, then I shook MORE missionaries hands and I lost signal when I got back to my chair so I called my mom back and she told me that she heard me and she was proud of me. Then I had to go.

I spent the rest of the night wondering how I could talk to the girl in the red dress behind me. I couldn’t come up with anything (I’m surprise too) so I settled on “I like your dress”. That was the extent of it and I was a little upset.

We go out to eat and eat a $25 meal that I didn’t want. Then we get back and Frank calls a meeting. Apparently, people on the team have problems with other people and, instead of bringing it to the person who they had a problem with, they took it to other people, including Frank. So at the meeting, the people who were talking about “team unity” were the same ones who were having underlying problems with other people. It made me upset, but I got over it. The thing that really bugged me was that people had been complaining about how much time I was spending with Alex. It was more than a little annoying to me since I only see Alex for a week a year and I see them all the time. So that was another problem that I had to deal with. So I did.

Summit Day 1 and 2

I completed a week's worth of homework in one day so that I could go to Summit. And we left on a bus at 3:30 in the afternoon. I sat by Adriane and across the isle from Brian, so it was good times. Then the bus got really cold and Adriane pulled out a massive blanket that could have doubled as a teepee, so I was really warm. 22 hours later, we arrived at the Hyatt in Jacksonville, Florida. I'm really not all that hyped up to be here. I don't have the nerves I've had for the two years prior to this. I don't know why. I've already seen Alex three times and Megan twice. Megan actually found me, which was cool because after her failure to come see me when she came to Austin, I was thinking she wouldn't want to talk to me while I was here.

Grace Covenant is quizzing tomorrow, so is Alex's team. However, Olympic Bible isn't. They have fine arts, so I want to go see them instead of Grace's second round of quizzing. We'll see if I can convince my friends to let me do that. Other than that, we're slightly uneventful. I do have one story though.

The group is at "Vito's Italian Cafe", where everything is about $20, so Brian and I don't order anything. Then, Alex texts me and asks me to save her. Her mom was keeping her hostage in a room with a bunch of weirdo guys. So she sent me the room number and Brian and I went to rescue her. Her mom opens the door and I start talking. Her mom starts "sshhing" me and I stop and then she starts talking in something lower than a whisper. She's freaking out because she doesn't want the "head honcho" to get mad at her again for letting them be loud. So first, Alex came out and her mom pushed her back in, after which Alex shut the door and locked her out of the hotel room. Then I yelled "Alex is running away!" and Brian and I ran down the hall. So apparently, she chased after us but we were gone and her mom caught up to her, so she had to go back.

That's about it for now.

<3

What the Hell Is Going On?

Apparently, we had games practice at 5 o'clock yesterday as opposed to our normal 5:30. I was under the impression that I was the games captain and that I would actually be in the know. Guess I was overshooting with that supposition. I officially have NO idea what is going on or why I am the last to know about anything, if I ever get to know at all.

Regardless, I practiced for 30 minutes straight without a single break. I threw well over 200, if not 300, passes in the space of 30 minutes. I was exhausted and kept going until I threw up. (or would have thrown up since, by the grace of God, I hadn't eaten anything all day and I had nothing to spew. Guys continue to break the record, though Ben needs to work on accuracy a bit, Brian needs to make sure his first pass is good and not off to the side, Andy needs to work on getting the ball higher and not at my feet when we're making the transition, and I need to concentrate on getting the ball closer to me when I pass to Jonathan. Other than that, we're golden.

The team is getting much better. Rose got kicked by a horse so she wasn't playing and Rebecca was so that slowed us down a little since Rebecca isn't as good at basketball as Rose (or as Rose can be when she's hot.) We broke the record once or twice on Thursday and that was it but I'm not worried about it.

I'm starting to feel like people are trying to create drama just for the sake of having drama. Apparently, they have gotten so used to the drama we always have that once it is gone, they feel the need to try to create some so that it feels like Summit. Out team is much more unified than it has been the last two years. To the best of my knowledge, which, as I already mentioned, is limited, no one has any problems with anyone else. A couple of people are having problems with things being a little weird around other people, but that's the extent of it. I'm not sure where people are seeing all this drama. The only thing I see is that I don't know anything about anything, so maybe that is why I don't see it.