Happy April Fool's Day!

Hope everyone had a fun April Fool's Day! I managed to mess with a few peoples' heads and maybe you did too!

So today and tomorrow is AIMS testing and as a junior who already passes the tests, I had the privilege to sit in an auditorium for 3 hours and learn about the effects of drinking and driving. It was a good assembly but there was really no need for it to be 3 hours long. And also, there was no need for any juniors to be at school today! Pretty much every school, except for ours and most likely Higley High, had a half day and juniors and seniors were exempt from coming to school if they passed the AIMS already. Several of my cousins from other schools were able to stay home all day, which got me a bit upset that we couldn't have the same deal. Many of my friends at school ditched school because they passed the AIMS and saw no point coming for school. They're pretty smart and it's interesting that our district fails to see that. Whatever.

Tennis is going well. We're 5-2 now and doing great! I'm enjoying the season a lot and can't believe the season finishes in 3 weeks. Hopefully we do well the rest of the season and dominate in Regionals!

On a side note, I've got some songs planned out to play that I will post up on Youtube once I find the time to do so. I've gotten many requests that I should try singing as well.....

Well that's everything for now. Talk to you guys later!

Spring Break and the Times Before...

As titled, this entry is about my current spring break and the few weeks that led to it. It's been a lot to deal with!

So the tennis season so far is going smoothly. Our first home match vs. Tempe was postponed due to our coach having a sudden migrain (sp?), so the game is now set for the beginning of April. Instead, our first game was an away game against Seton Catholic, one of the best teams in our district. Being the first game and everything, many of us, especially the newcomers to the sport, were really nervous, so playing against one of the top schools probably wasn't the best thing. We then had an away game at Queen Creek where, as coach said, Cameron, Hayden, and myself played one of our best matches. For me the score was pretty much tied the whole way through til the very end where I lost by only 2 points! The game went on for an hour and a half! Then we had a doubles game with my partner Thomas directly afterwards. I could tell there were some good blisters starting to form =P

It was a very exhausting match of tennis, followed by church basketball vs. our ward's big time sports rival, Fairview Ward. After losing the game by 4 points, it turned out that while playing, I stretched a muscle or two near my Achilles Tendon and it was hard and painful for me to walk around the next two to three days. Because of this, I was unable to participate in tennis practice and instead, I spent my time sitting on the courts with an ice pack strapped to my leg. I was bummed out that I couldn't practice but luckily everything is good now and I'm able to walk around with no pain. Now my tennis team and I can look forward to no practice this week, but once school starts up again, we have 4 straight games in a row, Tuesday through Friday! Monday will be a brutal practice...

It's hard to express how great not having school right now is other than =D. With all of the projects that were assigned during the 3rd quarter, it's so great to just sit back and rest. The quarter-long, 12-paged college paper that I blogged about a few posts back received a 94%! I'm happy to see that all my hard work payed off in the end and I'm so relieved that the assignment is no longer hanging over me anymore! 3 quarters down, 1 more to go, and then it's senior year! I'm so excited for that time of my life!

So now with spring break finally here, I can finally take a much needed chill pill and just relax. This week my folks, along with my dad's parents, are touring the sites of New Zealand! I'm so excited for them to go to pretty much the other side of the world and see what's all there. A little back story on that.... my grandad went on his mission to New Zealand and has wanted to go back and visit the sites as soon as he could. Now being at retirement, he's able to! He and my grandma were excited to go but were more delighted when my parents offered to come along. But how were my parents able to afford this experience??? Turns out they had so many flight reward points saved up that they were able to go to New Zealand without paying anything! I should start saving up those points so I can go places! So with them gone, it's me, Zach, and Emily at home, with the homes of various uncles and aunts we're spending the nights at. I can't wait for my parents to come home next Sunday and tell us of their high-caliber adventures!

This week also, Zach is going with his Teacher's Quorum on a 3-day camping trip to Aravaipa, a switch-back canyon trail! He's not able to tell me much of the details right now but once he gets back I'll have him spill the beans.

So that's about it for now. Hope everyone that is on spring break has a great one! I'll be in touch later!

Update Coming Soon

Refer to title....

I'm Back

Sorry it's been like a month since I've done a post. I've been doing so much for school and have been busy with all these little things. I think it's time for a nice long spring break!

Starting with some newer topics, I've been messing around with my blog page. I put down some info about me and some of my favorite stuff. I'm also trying to figure out how to show your friends list and such. I'll figure that out eventually. Also, if you haven't noticed by now, I've got my own little playlist playing a few of my current favorite songs. It seems that most of them all start with piano or a calm guitar piece; I think it's kind of cool.

Speaking of piano and guitar, for those who watch my cover videos on Youtube, sorry I haven't been posting anything recently. Again, busy with school and life; I'll get back to learning more music very soon. I'm thinking of trying out some Disney Classics music on piano....

Lets see.... oh, I made the Varsity tennis team! Number 2 position on Varsity. I can tell already that this will be a much better season than last year. We have a coach who knows what he's doing and we have lots of new tennis players that are getting better everyday. Out of the 8-man team we had last year, only Cameron, Thomas, RJ, and myself are on the team this year. Sad that the others lost interest, but I'm excited for the new players we have on our team. We have a full 12-man team this year and we're all anxious to play our first match against Tempe next Tuesday.

In other news, my loving and trustworthy Xbox 360 has recently decided to go rogue and not provide me with entertainment! Sorry Brendon and Connor! There's some hardware problem with it and it won't play any games or anything. So this past Monday I shipped it back to the headquarters in Texas, where it will be either fixed or replaced. I'm hoping they fix the problem and send me another Xbox. It's strange, this will be my 4th Xbox I will have owned! The past consoles have also had some hardware problems. It has been during this week that I realized how much of a video gamer I really am. This week has gone pretty slow because of its absence. I mean I still have the Wii to keep me sane, but it doesn't fill my desire to shoot aliens or play guitar and drums. So sad, but I hope that it gets back soon.

Well that's pretty much it for now. I'll be posting more often now that I have more time. Thanks for reading.

The New 17 Year Old

Woo-hoo! I'm finally 17! No big huge updates today, just wanted to say I'm another year older =)

College Paper and Senior Year Courses

Sorry it's been a while since I've posted anything. I've been focused on college searching and scholarship finding, much thanks to my English class. My teacher has assigned her Junior classes a college research paper that is due at the end of the quarter. We are supposed to find 3 colleges we want to attend once we leave high school, 4 scholarships we can apply for, 3 organizations that help us become more well rounded students - no, not all-you-can-eat buffets - and 3 companies we want to work at after we receive whichever degree and major we have been working for.

So far it's a work in progress; I have found everything I am looking for, now I just need to do more exhaustive research on it all. Arizona State, Northern Arizona, and BYU - Provo are my college choices, though I will be applying to a few others.

So today the Junior class has signed up for Senior courses for next school year. I was surprised to see all of the brand new classes Williams Field and Higley are offering next year. To name a few new courses, there was Criminal Investigation, Engineering, Personal Finance & Banking, Psychology, Sociology, AP Physics, Anatomy, Government and Economics. These classes plus more can make our school a lot better and more fun for the students.

My class choices included English 101/102, Pre-Calculus, Government/Economics, Seminary, TV Broadcasting, and Literature and Film/Screenwriting. Being a senior, it'll be great to get out of school earlier. Most of my friends have to take a full day but some others will be taking the half day at school and then use the rest of the time to either go to community college classes or get a job or just relax at home. My two video classes, TV Broadcasting and Literature and Film/Screenwriting, I don't have to take but it'll be a fun experience for me for my last high school year.

So that's all that mattered to me on this Thursday, January the 29th. See you guys around!

10 Things That Grind My Gears

- Chemistry class

- No cereal in the pantry

- Waking up 5 minutes before the alarm goes off

- Not having enough time to sleep due to homework

- Ms. Sahba, Persian substitute teacher

- At times, procrastination

- Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus/Jonas Brothers

- Not being able to freeze time and move through space like Hiro Nakamura (character from TV show "Heroes")

- Being low on dinero

- Obnoxious players on Xbox Live

10 Addictive Things in My Life

- Cheeze-Its

- Rock Band

- Lost

- Halo Series

- Facebook

- The Office!

- Cracking neck, fingers, toes, kneecaps and shoulders

- Using the word "dude"

- Krispie Kreme donuts

- Falling asleep late, waking up early

- Quoting movies and SNL clips

Seinfeld - The Show About Nothing

To be honest, Seinfeld may be one of the best sitcoms in he world! My family owns the all but the last season on DVD. Zach and I used to watch them constantly during my 8th and 9th grade years. It was always a blast to just sit down with family and watch a show about nothing!

Over Christmas I got my mom the Scene It - Seinfeld edition DVD game. We brought it up to California to our cousins place where we spent the extended Christmas weekend and we got many adults and teens to play. After several minutes of playing the game and laughing with relatives, memories flooded back of the more simple times when Seinfeld was a great part of my life! I'm sure my Seinfeld-addicted cousins Brendon and Connor would agree with me that it still is a great show to watch!

I think they might have gotten myself and my brother hooked on that show. Come to think of it they got us hooked on a lot of shows! Lost, The Office, Family Guy, Seinfeld....... well thank you guys so much for doing that to us!

I wonder what my life without Seinfeld would have been like............................................... probably not that different actually, i'd just be missing out on Seinfeld jokes (puffy shirt, Seven, "NO SOUP FOR YOU!, etc.). Come to think of it, that would be sad not to be in on those jokes. So either way, I would have gotten around to becoming a fan.

Anyways, I'm glad Seinfeld is part of my life. And I'm glad that, because of my Christmas experience, I'm watching the show more often now. 

A New Eagle Scout

Hello everybody who stumbled upon this blog. I decided to make a blog of my own now, as there is a growing popularity in both blogs and Facebook. I think my purpose for this blog might be to either rant, speak about what's on my mind, tell about my day, updates, etc. etc. I'll most likely just chime in whenever something in those categories pop up.

Today would be one of those days. Update for those haven't heard: I received my Eagle Scout certificate in the mail the day before New Years Eve!!!! It's most definitely on the top of my greatest accomplishments list!
---Flashback to June 2007.... I chose to my Eagle Project by serving the Andre House, a soup kitchen and transition home site in Phoenix, AZ. The Andre House is where many of the homeless men, women, and children around the area go to so they can get a hot meal, use showers, rent out lockers, attend Mass, etc. In the past, I've done service with my own family and my mom's side of the family with the Andre House by donating socks to the less fortunate on Christmas Day. I chose to partake in serving the Andre House again, but instead of socks, I wanted to collect 10,000 bottles of water for the kitchen so that they could distribute them to the homeless. I met with the volunteer supervisor, Teresa, and she approved of my project idea! Between then and mid-September, I worked on filling out paperwork, passing out flyers to neighborhoods, receiving donations from grocery stores, and getting the proper signatures on my Eagle Worksheet. September 22, 2007, with the help of my fellow Scout brethren, Church leaders, and some family, we went around the neighborhoods and collected over 6,000 bottles of water! Between then and mid-December, I continued to call stores and neighbors, asking them to help donate. My mom and I, along with different Scouts (who needed service hours anyways) made multiple drop offs at the kitchen during that time. December 22 rolls along and after many, many hours of hard work, we passed our goal, hitting a grand total of 10,054 bottles! We made our final visit to the Andre House and felt relieved that the project itself was complete!
---Flashfoward to November 2008.... both procrastination and paperwork were completed and on November 13, I was interviewed by the Eagle Board and they approved of my rewarding project and sent my application to the Scouting HQ in Texas, I believe. Because of the holiday season, the package with the certificate came after Christmas but I think it was a perfect way to end of 2008 with its arrival in the mail! Now on to planning the Eagle Court of Honor.....

So yeah that's my update for the day. Hope your day is going exuberant! I'll catch you next time!
-Nick