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My Senior Year

My weekend was exciting...

On Friday, I helped my friend build a bench for his Eagle Scout project in 35 degree weather until it started snowing.

Later that night, my dad and I were invited to the Pistons game. It was an offer we couldn't turn down. We were third row, right behind the scorer's table. The game was pretty good, but I can see why the Pistons are as bad as they are. They won, but at one point, they gave up a 20 point lead.

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Saturday was another robotics competition. It was a special competition where girls get to do all the work for half the competition and guys the other half. They also had a mentor match. Overall, we did pretty well again. Not much more to say.

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On Tuesday, I leave for a retreat for three days. I'll post pictures when I come back.
 
As I stated earlier, I was on a retreat for the last three days. The retreat is called Kairos, or 'God's time' in Latin. One of the main ideas of the retreat is to get us away from the real world, slow down, and allow us to not worry about school, friends, society, etc. During the retreat, we didn't know what time it was, and we weren't allowed to have cell phones or anything that could tell us the time. At first, we were all taken aback by the idea of not knowing the time, yet looking back, it was very relaxing and stress free.

Before the retreat started, I really had no idea what I was in for. The whole event was a big secret at school, but everybody said that if you go to Brother Rice, go on Kairos.

What happened over the last four days was absolutely incredible. We were all broken down and opened up, and finally put back together as one. I had so many misconceptions about a lot of my classmates, and they are now completely obliterated. I've learned that even if I am close to somebody, there are probably things that I still don't know. We're not all perfect, and we all make mistakes - it's a fact of life that not many people realize. Nobody lives a perfect life. Yet the mistakes we have made don't matter. There are still people who love us no matter what we have done in our past.

We all opened ourselves up and let everybody know what was going on inside us. We all cried together and we all comforted eachother. We were all moved in some way, and we had no problem giving somebody a hug or a pat on the back. It was amazing that in less than three days, I went from not being fond of certain people to being full of love for them, and the same of them for me. In less than three days, I gained 33 new brothers, and we share an unbreakable bond.

Everybody found God in some way during Kairos. Even the athiests and agnostics found him in some way. Personally, I found God in the relationships and the bonds that we built over the three days. On Tuesday, I was only willing to hug a few guys that I called my best friends, yet earlier today, I was willing to hug everybody(and I still am). As my relationship with all my brothers grew, I could feel my relationship with God grow as well.

I wouldn't be surprised if somebody tried to make fun of me for feeling how I do on these subjects, but there is a reason if they do. If they are insecure or were abused when they were younger, then I understand why they would call me 'Jesus lover' or 'gay' or anything else they could think of. I'm not going to hold a grudge or think badly of them because they're trying to put me down. There's a reason behind it. I also know that a lot of people probably don't understand just exactly how I feel because they haven't had the opportunity to experience something as powerful as this. All I can say is open up to others. Don't keep things bottled inside and wear a mask to hide the pain. Let it out so others know just what is going on, and they will be there for you. It's amazing what the human spirit can do and how great it is.

"Live the fourth, and the best is yet to come"
 
Wow, that seems pretty intense, and kind of cool. I'm not big on the whole religious thing but having a big group of people to open up to is pretty great.

Sounds like you had a lot of fun, too bad you couldn't get any pics.
 
My school did that as well, and they do it every single year, being a Christian school and all.

I was NOT for the whole no cell phone, ipod, ect. ect. thing, and always brought mine along, even though they threatened to confiscate my phone, ipod, and a camera. They backed off after a bit, but left me alone my senior year.

I find retreats highly annoying. I don't know why, but it's nice to know someone enjoyed a school retreat for once :)
 
The most burning question I have is....how did you survive with out CF for 3 days?
 
Honestly, after a couple hours, we kind of forgot about what happened outside. I didn't care that I couldn't come on here or go on other websites, text people, play video games, etc. To be completely honest, I would love to go back and do it again.
 
Some of us could infact survive without CF for a few days, you know Jer ;)

Damn, now that I think about it, I have had some damn good times at camps like these.. :?
 
Haven't posted in here for quite a while, but I'll be honest, not much has happened. We had two "ice" days right before break, so in the last month I have had only 9 days of school. The next two weeks are going to be pretty hectic. We're quickly coming up to the end of the semester, and all of our teachers will be scrambling to get in last minute tests, papers, and other assignments to make our lives misery while we study for finals. This Saturday, January 8th is the 2011 FRC Kickoff, which means I will find out exactly what my life will be for the next four months. Lastly, all next week is finals. I'll have two finals a day:

1/10/11: Honors Physics/Advanced Engineering(turn in a CAD file)
1/11/11: AP US History/English IV
1/12/11: Social Justice/Free(due to lunch period)
1/13/11: Honors Pre-Calc/ AP Spanish

Each final is an hour and a half long, so pretty much we go to school, take two tests, and then go home to 'study'. For me, it pretty much means that I get to take a nap, or hang out with friends, or play video games, and then study(I don't need all day to study, plus I space my studying out over the previous week).

So yeah. That's about it.
 
Well not much has happened besides robotics.

Speaking of that...the game is called LogoMotion. We're hanging different shaped inner-tubes on different height pegs. During the last 10 seconds, we can deploy a minibot and have it climb to the top of one of four poles in the center of the field for bonus points. Basically, all I have to say about it is that it's very stressful and exhausting. I'm putting in a lot of effort to have the team succeed and I don't think it's paying off.

I did go to a hockey game the other day though. We were versing our rivals in hockey, St. Mary's(the team we beat in football). We won 6-4.
 
Haven't posted here in a while. Build season for robotics is over, and we still have a lot of work to do on the robot. We should be alright once we get to competition though. Here's two pictures:

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In other news, I'm starting to get sick of school...
 
My Senior Year is shaping up quite nicely. Got accepted to Longwood University and I've been sitting pretty for summer to roll around cool)
 
take everything in and dont let anything slide by these last couple of months of senior year. i slacked off and didnt do things that now i wish i would have and i regret it. i quit band to get more hours at work and i never should have done that :-/
 
We attended our first robotics competition of the year over the last two days. We were pleasantly surprised by our performance. Our robot performed almost flawlessly. Our team worked extremely well as well. The drive team(myself included) did a fantastic job, the scouters did their job without problems, the pit crew fixed everything when fixing was needed (even when we had to turn the robot around for our next match in 20 minutes), and everybody in our stands were loud. We started off with a bang by winning our first two matches, shooting us straight to 1st place. After that, we never left 1st place and we ended the qualifying matches as the number 1 seeded team. Unfortunately, we were eliminated by the winning alliance in the semifinals. One of their teams managed to fix all their problems right before elimination matches, and unfortunately, there's no way that scouts would be able to see that. It was a bummer that they didn't get fixed sooner so we could have picked them. We did end up winning the Industrial Design award though. I also was nominated for the Dean's List, an award that states that FIRST will write a letter of recommendation to whatever college you decide to attend. My dad was also nominated for the Woodie Flowers award(basically the best mentor award). Here's some photos:


Here's our robot. We call it Velociraptor:

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The point of the game is to hang different shaped tubes on a rack and try and create the FIRST logo:

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We could hang on all three rows of pegs, each row worth different points:

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During the final 10 seconds, teams can deploy minibots to poles in the center of the field. They race to the top and the first one up receives the most bonus points:

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Our minibot was the most consistent and won us matches. We had 14 successful deployments in our 16 matches. We also went 4/4 on the practice field the night before competition:

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We had an awesome time and we can't wait til the next competition. The past two days really brought us closer together as a family and we're all extremely proud of our accomplishments:

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Also, our hockey team lost in the state championship finals with a score of 4-1. Too bad we couldn't make it up for them...


Enjoy!
 
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