For the Fame of His Name

Retrospective Blogging: Part II

2009-11-23T12:23:00.000-08:00

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

2009-03-04T18:44:00.000-08:00

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

2008-04-29T09:40:00.002-07:00

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

2008-04-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

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

2008-04-29T08:08:00.001-07:00

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

2008-04-24T19:23:00.001-07:00

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?

2008-04-18T11:53:00.001-07:00

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.

Best Practice Ever

2008-04-14T22:00:00.000-07:00

Today was "Senior Skip Day" at my school. The best part is that there are only two seniors: me and my friend Jordan. So we went to a coffee shop on the lake, then drove downtown, then to the mall, then to Panda Express to eat Chinese food for lunch, then back to school because we had to be in class for a participation grade (but we danced so it's all good), then to the Arboretum, then to my house to watch a movie (which we didn't do), then to La Morada to eat Mexican food, then to my house AGAIN to watch "Sleeping Beauty".
Then I got a call from Arielle asking where I was and I realized that I was having so much fun with Jojo that I completely forgot about games practice. So she left, and I went, though I wasn't happy because I would have rather been with Joj since I don't ever get to do things with her (not true, but...)

So I got there and we practiced team basketball relay, then balloon, then agility, then tug, then boys basketball relay.
Balloon isn't fabulous, but it's decent. We need to get it consistent. Tug it depends on the other team. Agility is good. Basketball kicks arse. Our best times for practice:

Boys basketball: 8.07 ( .5 seconds better than the national record)
Team basketball: 19.00 ( .18 seconds better than the national record)

Boys basketball was consistently better than the national record, so I'm happy we have the ability to beat the record.

It was a good practice.

30th Post is the Magic

2008-04-06T13:22:00.000-07:00

I can't wait for Summit so this can be over.
I've been the best leader I know how to be. I've even written apology letters to several people. Some how, I am still never right. I'm at the point where I'm about to just say "I quit. Get a new captain" because this has gotten way out of hand. No one listens to a word I say. I've had to tell one person more than once to change and they wouldn't so I figured "Maybe if I try to humble myself they'll be more respectful." So I wrote an apology letter. The response I received back was not what I expected at all and things are probably worse now than they ever were before.
There are other people who apparently think that they are the captain and not me. Apparently, I can be criticized even when it's not my fault, but if I try to give it, I am wrong.

So that's about it. Something needs to change. I've done my part and nothing is changing. So I think you can see where my frustration is coming from.

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Now playing: August Burns Red - Speech Impediment

Practice for Yesterday

2008-03-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

Didn't happen. No one was there.

I've come to the conclusion that the team lineup needs to change for basketball because there are a few people who are not doing so hot. Funny stuff, it's the people who have the nerve to say that I am the one messing up, despite the fact that I'm putting it where there hands are. And then others are really slow. We'll see how I can make this work.

Post-SB Practice

2008-03-22T14:16:00.001-07:00

Thursday practice sucked. I'm sure it was because we took a week off... which I didn't want to do.
We won't go into it.
Hopefully practice will be better next week.
That's all...

2008-03-18T14:56:00.000-07:00

This needs to stop. I have not changed. I have been as unbiased as I can possibly be this entire year. I'm not biased this time either. I made a request to someone to change the way they are doing things and they did not listen to me or to our coach. If they aren't going to listen, I'm not going to let them keep playing that way. I will put in someone who is going to do it correctly. I didn't like Daniel being my captain last year either. I hated some of the decisions he and Michael made at Summit but I still listened to him and didn't argue after I put my two cents in. People have a problem with me running with the baton in my right hand so I stopped. I prefer it in my right because it takes away the possibility of my knocking over the pins with it but I changed because other people had a problem with it. I expect the same courtesy from everyone else.

Now I'll deal with the individual comments I remember:

"Mildly cussing him out" - Let me remind you that he approved of the word as well (as cited from the AWANA Forums when people became offended at it's use).

"Take his athletic ability for granted", I hardly think so. He's in the games he deserves to play, the same way everyone else is. That isn't taking it for granted, is it? Taking someone out of a game because of attitude is not the same thing as taking them out because they are unathletic. That isn't taking it for granted either so I'm not sure where this argument even finds its roots.

Feel free to comment on this post. I won't delete a single thing anyone says.

We Will Be Legends

2008-02-24T11:26:00.000-08:00

Just so everyone knows: AWANA Class of 2008 is now the most decorated class in Grace Covenant history.

Journey's Local Competition was today. I was not as nervous as I have been in previous years because I've been here before and I know what we have to go in and do.

I didn't go to quiz because I wasn't doing it. I saw our A team get first place though so I'll Whoop to that! If you want to know the story, go to Shaney's blog. But quiz wasn't really my concern, even though I am excited for them. I'm all about games. So here is what happened.

This year, we had 3 out of the 6 teams that were there. The other three were Skyline Baptist, First Baptist New Braunfels (I think), and, of course, our bitter rivals, Manchaca. Usually, there are a couple of flights (each with three different teams) and the first place teams automatically move on, while the second place teams duke it out to get into the next round with them. This year, the changed it up. We played on round of ten events, then another round of five events. The three teams with the highest cumulative score at the end of the two rounds would move on to the finals.

So we went into the first round as the green team. The blue team was Manchaca Bible and the red team was Skyline Baptist. The first event was basketball relay. Our girls won, the guys got DQ'd because apparently my foot was outside the triangle, and we won team basketball.

Next was sprint relay and we owned it.

Our girls tug team won, and the guys won too. 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. I don't actually remember the order from here, but here is what happened in the rest of the events. Sprint race Rose and Jeff both got second place. In Agility, Rachel Wohl got first Arielle DQ'd, Brian got first, and I DQ'd. In Beanbag Bonanza, the girls won and the guys DQ'd when Brian's foot turned and he knocked the center pin over. Marathon Race came and Arielle DQ'd, but Ben actually won. Three Legged Race, Rose and Shaney got second, but Brian and Jeff fell on the slick floor and DQ'd. Marathon Medley, we whooped butt. Balloon Relay, the girls let the balloon go "out of the play area" whatever the hell that is because it's not in the rule book. I'm pretty sure they made it up. Balloon Relay, we're still not sure who it was, but someone let their foot go over a line as they were passing so we got DQ'd again. This ended the first round and we had 8 points less than Manchaca. If we had won either of those Balloon Relays, we would have had +6 points, Manchaca would have had -3 (they would have gotten second which is still 3 points), and we would have gotten first place on the circle. But we didn't. So we went into the second round.

Guess who the two teams we went up against in the second round? Grace Covenant B and Grace Covenant C. We won every game, except girls basketball, in which we tied for first. The boys balloon was probably the only interesting event we had. We won by two people, but Grace Covenant B got stopped for resetting, which is legal, and Grace Covenant C was third. They decided to rerun the event, including us, which meant that we had to go back and try to win again, which wasn't even close to fair for us because it was blatant that we had won that round, even if they had not been stopped. But we ran it again and I ran in and hit the pin pretty hard. Hard enough for my pin to go screaming into the green team pin and still continue on until it was all the way to the bleachers. Then I had to jump over Josiah who dove into the center. I thought we might have tied that round, but they gave us first anyway, probably because we had won the first round.

So the officials added up all the points and, wouldn't you know it, it was a four way tie between Grace Covenant 1, Grace Covenant 3, First Baptist New Braunfels, and Manchaca Bible. Only three teams could go on so they decided to have each team play the other three teams three times in team basketball. It was insane. This was the best part of all of games.

The first round, we went in and, didn't DQ, but I had a bad pass to Rose and her pass back to me fell in no man's land between us. Jonathan's long arms managed to get a finger on it and give it enough momentum that I could just barely reach it and we kept going. We got third, which is equal to no points.

The second round, I had some awful passes and we got second.

We sat out the third round while the other three teams played each other and I noticed, brilliant observant that I am, that Rose was crying. I kept telling her that it was my fault, I had a bad pass, which was entirely my fault and not her's. She was crying too much to play so Rachel Wohl went in and we managed to pull it out and win.

Everyone was freaking out because we had done horrible the first round, amazing the second round, and horrible in playoffs. We didn't even know if we were going to move on or not. Turns out, we did. by the skin of our teeth.

We went into the finals and there was nothing interesting to report. We completely destroyed Manchaca, only losing one game.

So there you have it friends. Grace Covenant has won locals three years running.

NOTE: I have the videos from the three basketball relays in the four way tie, but I need time to upload them.

Scratching Vinyl

2008-02-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

Tonight was beautiful. It was perfect and, therefore, exactly what we needed. I was completely exhausted (I have no idea why), but I fought back the urge to hurl (probably nervousness) and pressed on at the beginning. After we started playing the games in the order of Summit, I felt much better because I wasn't standing in a perpetual lunge with my left leg.

Starting out in basketball relay, we didn't do horrible. We had a couple mistakes, but we got rid of them like Soulja Boy got rid of the need for English and purpose in rap songs. My bounce passes felt a lot faster. On Monday someone had said "If we had Marcelo's chest passes with Brian's bounce passes, it would be perfect." Tonight, the same person said, "We're getting these times because Marcelo's passes are so quick. It's us on the line who aren't doing so well." That made me laugh a little bit, partly because it's not true, and partly because I thought it was funny that in the space of 4 days I had sway the person's mind.

We went through all the games and we did well in most of them. There were a couple of mistakes and we can improve our times for sure, but it wasn't awful. However, we also broke two records. I don't even remember the events. I think one was team basketball relay and the other was boy's balloon. So now we have momentum going into Saturday. I can't stand it! I'm excited, despite the fact that this is my last locals competition.

Ice Age: The Meltdown

2008-02-06T10:21:00.001-08:00

We've had a relatively undramatic year thanks to no Amber and no Daniel. This also means we've all become complacent and apathetic. I had a fit the other day because we were doing terrible. Today, it was the girl's captains turn to breakdown. Apparently, the girls aren't improving. Arielle was already in a pissy mood so that essentially broke her and she ran away and hid in the girls bathroom. The guys are improving a little, but we need to run through every game about 100 more times with the entire team. People can only go as far as their potential allows them. That very well may be the case here, but I seriously doubt it. We need to pinpoint exactly why they aren't improving as they expected they would so we can fix it. Easier said than done.

Your Lack of Presence

2008-02-01T12:12:00.000-08:00

For the love of God people... SHOW UP FOR PRACTICE!

We had three of six summit guys again. This is starting to aggravate me because we are NO where close to where we need to be. We need to practice and we can't do it if half the frickin team is missing!

If you DO decide that this is a worth cause, I ask that you actually give it a little effort. The next person I see lying on the floor instead of doing push ups will get a kick in the side. If you are a girl, I will have Arielle do it. If I see you lying down DURING TUG, I will do the same. I am sick of this half hearted "go through it once and take a break" crap. I'll be damned before I allow someone who gave no effort play on this team, that is unfair to the rest of us who actually want to play and want to be better.

If athletics aren't really your thing and you keep messing up, but are actually trying, that's one thing. But if you are giving it very little effort because you think you are good enough as you are, you need to wake up. None of us are as good as we are. I need to work on my agility, Ben needs to work on his strength, Andy needs to work on endurance, Jeff needs to work on technique... EVERYONE NEEDS TO IMPROVE! Myself included! If people don't actually roll up their sleeves and start putting some effort into their workouts and getting better at these games, then why the hell are we even competing? It's a frickin disgrace! Do everything as if to the LORD and not to men. Is this how you would practice if you were doing it for God? I hope not! If He told you to go out and do your best in the competition, would you practice like this? NO!!!! There is a reason practice is harder than the game. When we get to the game, it will be a no brainer! For those of you who won the last two local competitions let me remind you that you had people like Michael and Daniel to fall back on both years. This year, you don't. YOU actually need to step up and be a player and start practicing like you WANT to win.

If we don't win, it's fine, at least we tried hard. If we don't win because half of my team gave a little half-crap effort in practice, THAT is a problem and you will be hearing about it.

I'm dead serious... One more person decides that he/she doesn't need to practice, and he/she will find my/arielle's foot in their ribcage.

It's whatev

2008-01-29T12:26:00.001-08:00

So we practiced last night. Not much to comment on. We're getting slightly better at our bounce passes on basketball, the guys are getting consistently decent marks on balloon. We need to work with Jeff on it because he hasn't done it nearly as much as everyone else on our team.
Tug sucks... Some people get pulled over onto the ground and then stay down. It's annoying as hell. Other's let go of the rope, but that happens sometimes so I'm not all that mad about it. Although, when I weigh c. fifty pounds less than two of them and I still pull as hard as them, that is a little pathetic.
I don't even remember what else we did, if anything. We worked on bean bag bonanza and that didn't go all that well. We can do better, I know. Especially when we get Jeff in there for Ben because he is like lightning.

That's all. Just starting to fine tune stuff.

Love. Peace. Clam Chowder.

More (maybe?) on Thursday

Bringing Down Babylon

2008-01-24T11:14:00.000-08:00

PREFACE: This note ACTUALLY makes sense. However, it might be a little hard to understand because I am rushing through it. I have a lot to say and very little time to say it. If you have any questions, leave them as comments and I'll explain it.
_____________________________________________________________

"Humility is to make a right estimate of oneself." - Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I read this quote and it made me feel really good. I'm not going to lower myself: I am really good at a lot of stuff. So when I read this, I thought "This is great! I'm not the best at some stuff, but I'm awesome at some other things. So long as I don't puff myself up and act like I am better than I really am (like some other people I know), then I will be good to go."

I must be mentally handicapped.

I've been given a big helping of humble pie (we say that like it is a bad thing) this week. I won't go into any details but everything I had pride in (not necessarily in excess, but things I liked about myself) got taken away or destroyed. I stumbled upon another quote, similar to the first. When I first read it I though "That is awful, this guy is taking credit for what Spurgeon said." As it turn out, Tryon Edwards is older than Spurgeon and said it first. But this is neither here nor there (ever wonder where those two places are?)

"True humility is not an abject, groveling, self-despising spirit; it is but a right estimate of ourselves as God sees us." - Tryon Edwards

So I looked at this and though "Wow... I'm an idiot. Why did I not realize this before?" So I thought about how God feels. This is when the thought "Oh crap..." came to mind.

One of the things that makes me most upset (as you can plainly see from my narrative on Tryon Edwards and Charles Spurgeon) is when someone takes credit for something that isn't their own. I think that what we hate about others is what we really hate about ourselves. Well, I have been taking credit for my accomplishments. That is the equivalent of a pen taking credit for writing the Declaration of Independence or a paintbrush for creating the Mona Lisa. Neither did anything with out the author and the artist. So then why am I so hasty for taking credit for the castle of accomplishments I've built. God built that castle using a tool: me. Not only was He the one who built it, He is the one who made the tool and the one who made the stuff that the tool was made out of. So then why am I, the paintbrush, taking credit for creating the painting. Why am I saying "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for a royal dwelling by my mighty power and for the honor of my majesty?

2,500 years ago, a ruler said these words. He took credit for the majesty of Babylon. They guy who actually built up Babylon was a little hacked at Nebuchadnezzar for stealing His thunder so everything was taken from Nebuchadnezzar and the king was completely humiliated. For seven years, he acted like an animal, running around the palace lawns eating grass. The only time this king understood was when everything was taken away from him and God took his glorious Babylon away from the arrogant king.

Last night, I went to sleep thinking "I am Job. I'm being tested to see if I'll stay true to God." There's another arrogant mistake on the part of Marcelo: you have to actually be somewhere to stay there.

After thinking about this, it makes me a little upset at preachers. They should know this stuff right? They don't preach Nebuchadnezzar, they preach Job. "If you're going through hardships, God will bring you through it. You just need to stay true to him." I'm not saying this isn't true in some cases, but I am willing to bet that in the majority of hardships, that isn't God's thought process.

Show me how many times in the Old Testament the Israelites decided to turn away from God and how many times He punished them, then brought them back to Him. Tell me how many times God took things away from Israel and said "I'm testing you. Beloved Israel, you just need to stay true to me on this and well all be happy." I can't think of one time that happened. Granted, I'm not a Biblical Scholar, but the closest thing I can come up with is that God was testing them as they walked out into the wilderness. But, seriously, I don't think it is much of a test of faith to follow a floating pillar of fire in the sky after someone tells you its God. Israel wasn't Job and neither are we. Every person on the face of this earth is Nebuchadnezzar. We are all building up our castles in the name of ourselves and when they come tumbling down, we say "It's okay. It's a test. I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing (following God) and I'll get through it." That may be true, but I suggest that you take an honest look in the mirror and tell yourself that because you are probably doing something wrong.

We need to stop taking credit for things that are not our own to take credit for, and when things get tough, we need to quit being pious little pharisees who say "I'm being tempted" and start examining ourselves in the mirror and decide if we're doing something wrong and that someone is trying to get our attention.

If You Were Wondering

2008-01-17T13:03:00.000-08:00

I didn't forget to post stuff about our Thursday practice. I just haven't been on the internet since then. So here is what happened.

...NOTHING...

Now you are informed. I never pay attention to the girls. In hindsight, this week would have been a good week to do that. Usually, Everett helps the girls (since Arielle isn't there) so I can stay with the guys. I'm still not sure how the girls are doing. I guess I should pay attention to them on Monday. As far as the guys go, I did really well. No one else did really well because no one else cared to show up for practice. Brian had debate stuff, Jonathan had to teach piano lessons, Benjamin had to study for a math test, Andrew had God only knows what to do, and Jeff had an awards banquet to go to. So I ended up practicing with the locals game team, which was awful. I tried to help the two guys who didn't know what they were doing but they refused to look me in the eyes and wouldn't do anything I said. These kids really need help because I watched one of them run into a wall last week. We're not talking about bumped his shoulder on the corner of of a hallway. We're talking about running start, straight into the wall. I'm not sure what he was doing or where he thought he was going. But I digress...

Point is, people need to start showing up.

Restoration of What Little Hope I Had

2008-01-15T07:33:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure what everyone has been doing since Thursday, but they all took "don't suck" pills or something because they were on fire (almost) all night long.

We exercised at the very beginning for a long while. By the time summit comes, we are going to be in SUCH good shape. Last night, I thought "Man, I am realllly out of shape". As it turns out, I'm not that out of shape. It was all do to the fact that I hadn't had anything to eat all day and all I had to drink was a bottle of water and a sonic slush. I felt like throwing up, only there wasn't anything in there so my body went for the next best thing. I could have sworn that my stomach was going to come out my throat. But I exercised on after a brief trip to the bathroom in case said event did happen, just so it wouldn't get on the carpet.

We moved on to basketball relay. At the beginning, we weren't doing so hot. People were dropping passes, throwing bad throws, not putting power behind it, not moving when they were supposed to be, it was really bad. Midway through, everyone started to hit his/ her stride, except for, of course, me, who was completely worn out. I didn't know it was possible, butI was sweating harder than I've sweated in a LONG time, and all I was doing was standing there throwing a ball. But, after over 200 reps,you would get tired too, I'm sure. Brian took over in the center and his best time was 21.1. I got back in and got somewhere along the line of 23 or 24 seconds Some other people got in the center so they could get more practice. No one else broke 24. I took over again for one last run through. By this time, I'd actually had time to rest, so I was better. I got 20.4. I was pretty stinkin' excited.

Dropping the ball and leaving we were hot, we went to balloon and, from what I saw, the girls did really well. When we had one or two miscues, they actually beat us. They guys were doing REALLY well. We were relatively close to the record for our first couple runs, then Everett saw where our time was coming from. One person was taking forever to get to the front. Everett said the person had the balloon in his hands before the girl did, and the girl still beat him to the front. So we put this person in the back where he couldconcentrate on nothing but grabbing the balloon and running. I am in the front and I am grabbing the person running up at the very beginning. I am used to it being a small guy because that is how we had been running it. Along comes this guy and he is two or three times as big and I was completely off. The next couple of times, I new what was coming so I was ready for it, only "it" never came because the next four tries, he dropped the second pass of the event. I hated it. We were doing REALLY well with what we had, but when Brian and Everett thought it would be better if we switched, I went with that. I'm captain, so ultimately, its my choice, but if the coach thinks it will work better like that, I'm not going to argue. My first option would be to take that person out and put in our sixth player (who wasn't there that night). He needs to work on his running up to the front too, but at least he can hold on to the ball.

We stopped there. I was REALLY frustrated at this point. We exercised again, then stretched. Then I wanted to practice agility because I've been DQing a lot lately. I ran it by myself three times: I was good on the first one, and DQ'd on the next two. The I actually ran against someone. I ran against Brian and Jeff. Brian dove out and won, but I didn't dive and was still only a split second behind him, not to mention that Brian DQ'd twice. Jeff DQ'd once but he wasn't all that close, which surprised me a lot. No one wanted to keep running it so I ran it on my own. I DQ'd the next time, and I was only running it by myself. I ran if four more times and never DQ'd. I think it was because I was tired and going slower, but we'll see. I'm going to keep running it until I have it perfect. Just like I am going to do with EVERY game.

I've also decided that I am going to run the marathon race every time I see an AWANA games circle. I'm just going to run around the circle 8 times, go in, and then continue what I was doing. I haven't practiced it a whole lot, which I should because for some reason, I can't not DQ on THAT game either. But I'll be good.

Hate 08

2008-01-11T07:45:00.000-08:00

The first games practice of the year was bad. I'm not sure that it is really bad, something that barely exists can't exactly be bad right? Out of the six guys on the Summit team, three showed up. Out of the three that showed up, two actually practiced. Out of the two that practiced, one was on time. It wasn't even me.

Jonathan, Benjamin, and Jeff didn't even show up. Andy, Brian, and I were there. Sitting there doing nothing was Andy, while Brian and I actually tried to practice. Have you ever had a practice for games that require five people using only two people? As incredibly AMAZING as Brian and I are, we aren't THAT good.

Apparently, NO one has been exercising like they are supposed to be, except me (and I have witnesses so no one can say otherwise), because everyone was huffing and puffing by the end of it.

Enough about everyone else... on to me.

I realized JUST how bad my allergies have become. I can't run because I can't breathe. Breathing is actually important in running. For some reason, every time I run, my allergies kick in and I can't breathe. I am constantly holding my breathe as we sprint because inhaling makes it worse. I have no idea how I am going to fix this problem.

In addition, I was informed that I need to stop DQing in agility, which is absolutely true. I'm actually doing much better than before. Last night, I was going to try planting my hand, but I think that actually slows me down.

That's about it... Nothing else to say right now...

Apology

2007-12-23T12:32:00.000-08:00

This is an apology for treating my elders with no respect. I am sorry that I back talked some people on here because I did not appreciate what they said and did even after I had already fixed the problem. I shouldn't have done anything and should have just let it go.

Oh my...

2007-12-11T14:10:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was probably the worst games practice we have ever had, at least on the guys side.

We practice basketball and we actually did well on that. I am getting slightly better on my bounce passes, but I really need to practice them. Then we switched to balloon and.... I can't tell you how large a disaster it was. We were AWFUL. A couple of people were pretty much perfect, with one, maybe two mistakes. But some people were ramming balloons into the ground, throwing them up in the air, not getting them far enough back, not in position, dropping the balloon when it was passed to them. It was just embarrassing. I think at one point, we were at 18 seconds. Our best time was 11.02 and even that is not good... it is better than I had hoped for, but not nearly good enough. After we couldn't get it perfect three times in a row, I said "We have to stop, this is going no where fast." So we did tug. I actually did pretty well. Ben and I won the first round against Andy and Brian and Jonathan and Jeff. Then I lost the second time because someone slid half way to the other person's side and gave them an easy win. After this, we did bean bag and I couldn't do what I had been hoping despite doing it perfectly the first time. I was really disappointed in myself.

When I got there, I was expecting to get mad easily because I was having a really bad day. Then I decided to hope that practice would help block it out, which it did somewhat, but it was still affecting my play a little.

I don't know... things, from my perspective, don't look so good

Tryout day!

2007-12-07T07:23:00.001-08:00

It took long enough, but the day finally came and we had tryouts.
So we only have six guys, but we had nine girls, so the girls were really the ones trying out. Everyone was completely nervous, and the only ones who did well were the ones who knew they were on the team, whether by default or by the fact that they know they are better athletes.
Because you have all been faithful reader (more or less?), I have decided to post the names of the people who made it onto the Summit team. I'm not going to post who didn't make it to save them from any embarrassment they might feel.

Girls
Arielle
Rose
Shannon
Shaney
Rachel W
Rachel B
Rebecca

So there is your 2008 Grace Covenant Summit Games Team.

In other news, last night was the worst I have ever played. I'm not discounting the fact that I was having and off night in general, but if you were watching me, it is safe to blame the majority of my failures on my footwear. I was on tug. I was on the outside of the circle, I sit down. I SLIDE forward like I was wearing rollerblades on asphalt, as opposed to rubber on carpet. I looked like I was watersking the second time in tug. My feet started slipping out from under me and I reached my hand back to get my balance and the rope left my hand. In agility, I keep slipping around the corners. I really want some running shoes.

That's all I've got fro now

Catching Up To Where We Are

2007-11-30T08:01:00.000-08:00

I have not had extended internet access since Sunday, so I am going to catch the few people who read this blog up on what has happened this week.

MONDAY: NOVEMBER 26, 2007
Mondays at 5:30, we have Summit Games Practice. Some people decided to eat Tacos, literally, five minutes before we started running, so they spent half the night in the bathroom. The girls didn't practice a whole lot. Seeing as there were only five or six of them anyway and two of them spent half the night ready to throw up, they didn't get a whole lot done. Even if they had, I wouldn't be reporting it because I wasn't really watching what they were doing. I can, however, tell you how the guys did.
We started out with a game that improves agility, speed, and endurance. It would have gone well except for people started walking instead of running.
Then we started playing balloon relay. Brian (best friend for those who don't remember) and I were wondering who was faster at the beginning so we tested it. Brian had told me Shaney thought that he was much faster than me. We lined up on the line and Everett judged. He said that we were the same and that there was no difference. We had already determined that I am faster off the back line so I am going to end up being 1st in balloon relay and Brian is going to be 5th.
We moved on to basketball relay and I threw a lot of passes. I don't even remember what happened next (If anything.)
The night ended.

THURSDAY: NOVEMBER 29, 2007
I got there and there was barely anyone there. When people started showing up, we worked on handoffs. After that, we did warmups and stretches. We moved on to tug.
We did two on two on two and I got paired with a guy who had never tugged and frequently let go of the rope. So I was basically pulling by myself. I surprised myself and did really well. I came with in about three inches of getting my beanbag. When I reached back, we lost it and got pulled forward. I planted and we held for about 30 seconds until another team got it. Everyone was shocked because two of the people who are doing tug at Summit got beat by people who aren't going. I didn't believe it and I measured it. Sure enough. Their beanbag was two feet closer than ours. When tugging, the back person is usually right on the white circle line. From that spot, the bean bag is ten feet back. So ours being 10 feet and the other team being 8 feet is a BIG difference. There beanbag was only 4/5 of the way to where it was supposed to be. But no matter, I shocked myself when I found out I could be really good at tug when I wanted to be.
We played some basketball relay and my arms hurt really badly from tug so I was in center one round, the Brian, then we just kept passing it off and everyone took a turn or two in the center. We worked on this and my bounce passes weren't very good.
We played bean bag bonanza after this. I had a pretty good idea and it worked. It apparently looked pretty amazing. The second time I tried it, I tripped and it didn't work like it did the first time. But I'm going to keep practicing and work on it for locals and if it works well there, I am going to do it at Summit.
That is really all I have to report as far as practices.

My co-captain and I got in a fight about her being biased and how I apparently do everything Brian tells me to do. I don't do what Brian tells me to do but, because we are best friends, we almost always have the same ideas and opinions. That being said, I take into account what he thinks and he is usually happy with what I decide to do. So ya, Arielle (co-captain) and I aren't too happy with each other at this point.

National Fatness Day

2007-11-22T12:42:00.000-08:00

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I have come to a harsh conclusion

2007-11-20T10:51:00.000-08:00

I am not doing so hot as a leader. I realized that last night. I need to work on not letting my personal feelings influence the way I handle the responsibilities I have been given. I also want to work on not being a hypocrite like other people.

Matthew 7:2
For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.

Last night, someone said something to me about how I was acting. I knew that what they were saying wasn't true, and then I started thinking about that person and how they were throwing rocks in a glass house. I ended up thinking "You're one to talk, look at what you have done thus far." This led me to remember this verse and it got me thinking. As a leader, part of my job is to tell people if they are not doing something correctly. According to this verse, the only time I should do this is after I am sure I am not doing the thing that I am telling someone else to fix. If I am doing what I tell someone else not to do, I am putting ammunition in the empty guns pointed at me.

That is my super serious thought for the day. On to happier news! Last night we had our first "Summit Conditioning" meeting. I had eaten an entire jalapeño pizza two hours before I went because I forgot that we were having it. Needless to say, I was dying on the sprints. I was completely fine with everything else though. The lunges hurt, but the running while pushing a car wasn't too bad. There is always room for improvement though. I watched people practice and thought about which events they would be best in.

For the Fame of His Name

The Goings On of the Above Date

2007-11-15T20:46:00.000-08:00

For the last three days, I have had a sore throat, multiple headaches, and a cough as a result of the sore throat. I wasn't planning on going to Games Practice tonight, but my mother came home and got me at 5 so I ended up going. On the way there, I was completely sick. The smell of my sister's barbecue sauce for her Wendy's french fries made me want to hurl. The pain reliever hadn't kicked in yet, so I my head was pounding. I had green tea for my throat, but it was hot so I couldn't drink it. By the time I got to AWANA, the pain reliever was working, my green tea was cooled down a little so I was perfectly fine 5 minutes after I arrived at Grace Covenant (amazing as it is).

All we worked on was basketball relay, which was sorely needed. I'm games captain so I pick who does what event. Somehow, I ended up in the middle for basketball relay? Not one time did I say that I was going to be in the center. I'm not sure how I ended up there, but apparently it was understood. Is it because people think I am that good at basketball relay, or because people think I am unfair, arrogant, and want to do everything myself? I don't know, nor do I care. Doesn't matter in this story. What matters is the fact that I threw over 200 passes in an hour, and that I am getting better.

We had a summit meeting tonight at Joe's Crab Shack (nay!) It was sort of a waste because we didn't do anything. But, apparently, I am supposed to be making summit games shirts. "uuummmmmmmm.... okay?"

Also, I was completely caught off guard tonight. I said something about someone breaking the rules during games and the person came over and SLAPPED me across the face! I got up and rushed said person, but I backed off. I am still livid, but I am sure that it will wear off. I am going to let God deal with it. And when he does, I am going to laugh my butt off twice over.

Games Practice 4

2007-11-08T19:47:00.000-08:00

Today, we didn't practice any AWANA games during practice. Instead, Everett Timmons ran us through every exercise of which he thought. Lunges, shuffles, crunches, push ups, and everything else under the sun. This happened 4 1/2 hours ago and I am still sore. I took account of those who were not there without a reason. (For the record, if anyone was there who was wondering why Shaney, Arielle, and Brian weren't there: Shaney was flying to a funeral in California, Arielle had soccer practice and then drove all the way from San Marcos, and Brian was at a debate meeting which he was obligated to go to because he missed the last two meetings due to coming to AWANA.) If anyone else had a good reason NOT to be there, I suggest you tell me because it might end up costing you.

It was good though. I saw a lot of people just get up and quit. I was also very impressed with one girl (unfortunately, I don't know her name to give her full credit). She put a lot of effort into everything and she isn't even going to Summit. Too bad.

This was a much needed reality check for everyone, including myself. We have a long way to go before we are getting anywhere at Summit.

I am still upset with the hand that I have been dealt for the third straight year, but I am coming to grips with the fact that this is what I have and I need to make the best of it. I am also upset that I have to rework the entire strategy in the matter of a few weeks. I had worked on the old one for months.

And now I am upset with several leaders and their judgments of what I have to say (see below post), but they are entitled to their opinions.

That's all I have to say for for now.

Hopes Through a Paper Shredder

2007-11-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

My mind is troubled and I don't even know where to begin.
I had high hopes for this year. I thought that we might actually have a chance to win the whole thing in games. All of this has changed since the knowledge that five people who I had been planning on for my "good" games team came to my attention. Not to mention that unless a miracle happens, I am not going to be picking anything more than who runs what events. At the beginning of the year, Brian and I had been trying to decided between the best of the best for out good games team. Now, we don't even get to pick the best of the worst. I am going to be stuck with the people I was not even going to consider putting on the games team.

I have been completely blown over two years in a row. First, we had enough people for two games team but they split up the talent and neither team got past the second round (not to mention, the other team was carried by two people and people who did not deserve to win ended up getting first place in locals.) Second year, we didn't have enough people for two teams and because it was based on seniority, my best friend didn't get to go, despite the fact that he was probably the fourth best athlete on the team. I am not at all fired up about being screwed all over again.

I am making some completely radical decisions at the moment (I don't mean radical in the sense that they are amazing, I mean to say that they are aggressive.) Quite frankly, I hate to go through with some of them, but at this point, it is nothing but eliminating the worst possible outcome and taking the one that is merely bad.

God, you never seem to listen to a word I have to say. Maybe it is because I have no faith, but put yourself in my shoes. How would you feel about asking the supreme ruler of the universe to orchestrate events so that you can have what you have wanted for the last three years? Wouldn't you feel small, not to mention arrogant, prideful, and selfish?

NOTE: I know that I am extremely frank in this post. I know that some people, if they read this, will get offended, but I think that everyone should know exactly where I stand and why I am where I am. If you are offended, you can quit reading.

Before My Eyes

2007-10-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

My plan is falling apart. I have been planning this summit since May, and now I am watching it fall apart before my eyes. We had the guys almost completely planned out: Me, Brian, David, Ryan, Brennan, and Tres. The girls I had no idea about, but we were counting on a girl named Alex from Wisconsin to play with us.

Brennan will not be able to even go to AWANA anymore, let alone Summit. And in the space of 19 hours, I leanred that David, Ryan, and Alex are not going to be coming with us either.

What THIS means is that I have to go through and replan the entire scheme. I am not looking forward to this. I have a lot of work to do.

Games Practice 3 (My First)

2007-10-26T07:06:00.001-07:00

Due to circumstances out of my control, I was unable to attend the first two practices. Last night was the first practice to which I have gone. I threw basketball relay for 30 minutes straight last night and my arms are now paying the price. It hurts to extend them.
I have a lot of areas that need work. Apparently, I slap the ball, my bounce passes aren't as accurate as I would like them to be, I need to get the ball out of my hands faster, and get a better jump out of the triangle.
I was not to impressed with the people there. There were some I thought were awful that surprised me by being adequate and some I assumed were good at basketball that were not quite there.
I am having a hard time with this thing. I know I am significantly better than just about everyone at AWANA when it comes to athletics and games and that sort of thing. Its not that I try to brag about it, I am sincerely trying not to do so. However, I am easily frustrated at the incompetencies of others and I often times let it show. I have two options, quit trying or start screaming. If I quit trying, it helps me to relax a little bit more, I don't feel angry at people because I am doing my part and they are messing it up, and I am able to shrug it off when somebody messes up. But when I do this I come across as a jerk who doesn't care. If I start to get angry, obvious what happens there, everyone and their moms (QUITE LITERALLY) get angry at me.

I'm not sure if I need patience because I sincerely doubt that waiting for people to stop messing up is going to help me. I guess I need peace to just deal with it without getting upset.

I have nothing to say so I am writing

2007-10-19T08:38:00.000-07:00

I have nothing to say about AWANA last night because I was not impressed and I was not really let down. Although someone did say something that was pretty discouraging because I had them pegged for someone who actually cared about games and Summit and then they said it and it changed my view.

I tried to get this guy name Rae Toussaint to come play with us at Summit, but I found out yesterday that he lives in a dorm at St. Stephen's and can't. I was only slightly let down because I wasn't planning on him being able to come but it would have been a nice surprise.

Further news: I am still waiting to have tryouts. I wanted to start practicing as soon as possible, but that is definitely not happening :\ For now, we have to stick with informal practices. I don't like them, but at the moment, that is all we have so I have to live with it.

I wonder what it is like to be one of the people having to wonder and wait to see about making the A team vs making the B team. All I have to worry about is making people upset by not picking them over someone else, as bad as that is going to make me feel. At this point though, it is about the team and not about them or me. The best people will play, hopefully those people will be the ones that really care about Summit because if they aren't, I lose too. I don't get a second chance. This is it for me. Hourglass still running.

For the Fame of His Name...

Site Title and Signature

2007-10-15T14:21:00.000-07:00

I am sure that everyone who reads this will be familiar with the term "Scholarship Camp" so I will not bother defining it.

My first year at camp I was 13 years old and going into my 8th grade year. My friend Michael and I were completely obsessed with ultimate frisbee and wanted to play badly. I know we were not the best out there at the time, but give us a break. We were 13 and 14 and we were playing with college freshmen. NO one would throw us the frisbee so we basically played defense the entire time. The people I looked up to were Ned AKA Superman, and Nathan. I wanted to be just like them. Ned was amazing and no one could touch him. Nathan Didlake actually let us play though. He would throw us the frisbee every chance he got. That made a big impression on me because he didn't have to do any such thing. I decided on the second to last day of camp that I was going to be like both of them when I was a senior in high school.

I am looking back at the moment and I have only done half of this. I have been picked first for ultimate frisbee in every game I have played since Junior year. No one I have met can defend me and no one can catch like me, or so I am told. I am every bit as good, if not better, than "Superman" ever was. This is only half of what I told myself I was going to be. I had said that I was going to be like Nathan and give the kids younger than me a chance. I am only remembering all this as I read it. Everett Timmons, on of our Summit leaders, gave the seniors a book called "Next Generation Leader" It is REALLLY good. But in the book, Andy Stanley says that a good leader is marked by the legacy he leaves behind and the people he helped to train to replace him. Well, I haven't been too good about that. I have been so busy for the last 5 years trying to get myself to the position that I am now in that I have completely blown off bringing anyone up with me. If Nathan had been like me, I would have become discouraged and, in all likely hood, would not have fallen in love with Ultimate and would not have the goal of scoring two hundred goals in my senior year alone. Nathan left a legacy AND had people he was helping to become like him. Ned, a year younger than Nathan, got up and joked one night about being the treasurer for the Nathan Didlake fan club because of what Nathan had told him one night in cabin devotionals. Basically, Nathan did everything right.

I have only talked to Nathan ONE time since then, and the other day I accidentally found my way onto his blog and I read it and he is having a tough time with some things. I don't know him hardly at all so all that I know is that he is not content with where he is at. That is all I know and I am not here to talk about him, I am talking about me. Nathan deleted his facebook and his blog two days ago for this reason. Because he wanted to be alone. So I basically have no way to talk to him or find out how he is doing. But I am praying for him just the same.

On his blog, Nathan always signed it off by saying "for the fame of His Name". This is extremely true and what I want to live by for the rest of my life, especially during Summit when it will be so easy for me to take credit for everything we do. That is the end of yet another very long post.

For the fame of His Name...

Introduction

2007-10-13T14:30:00.000-07:00

I reside in Austin Texas and, for AWANA, I go to Grace Covenant Church. My name is Marcelo Gonzalez and, somehow, I ended up being the games team captain for our team. Two years ago I would have never thought that I would be in the position I am in now. But through different circumstances, change in leadership and rising interest in Summit, I ended up having a lot of responsibilities.

I don’t know how any of your churches have run things but this is the first time Grace Covenant has done this. We are taking a 25 passenger bus. One seat is for the driver, two for our leaders, and twenty two for participants. We are going to be taking two games team, eleven people on each team. The only time we ever took two teams, we split the talent up onto the two teams so that they were “evenly” matched. Since then, we have undergone a mass change in leadership. The new leadership is concerned about two things: doing well and enhancing the students’ abilities in life. They know that we aren’t going to do well if we split up the talent so this year, we are going to have one team that is full of the people who are best at games, and then another team for those who did not make it but still want to compete.

I, the youngest senior in our club, was chosen by the two leaders going to Summit, Frank and Everett, to be the games captain for the “stacked” team. When they told me this, I was excited and forgot to ask what exactly that entailed. I was assuming it would be to make sure everyone’s feet were behind the color line and that we were cheering our team on. I asked Frank what being “captain” meant. He told me that I would be in charge of the tryouts for which people made it on the good team and which ones did not. In addition, I am in charge of picking what people who make the team end up in what event.

At this point in time, it appears that I have unbridled reign over the good games team. It is exciting, terrifying, and upsetting all at the same time. Exciting because I will have the things I have wanted since I started Summit, terrifying because I want to do well and now that so much rests on me, if we don’t a lot of it is my responsibility, and upsetting because, from the looks of things, there won’t be a whole lot of seniors on the good team. I feel sorry for them because I know they want to do well, but they way I am going to end up setting up the team, they won’t fit in that plan. This is long enough for my first post. That gives you the basics of what my year of Summit will be about and where I am coming from.

…131 days until the first test…
…191 days until Summit…
…194 days until the finale…

My hourglass is running down…