Wednesday night was my last evening of my fencing lessons. Thus, a major aspect of my journal would seem to be truncated; however, mock trial will be starting soon and besides, I will attempt to continue fencing through some sort of club. I really don’t want to drop this now that the class is over. That would be so like me. I really want to pursue it, which is peculiar, considering that, in the two matches I fought last night, I lost both times 5-1. Normally, being my determined and perfectionist self, I would try to stray from things I don’t do well initially, scoffing at those who claim to get joy from things they don’t excel at. I am a fool in that regard and a hypocrite. I, at one point, loved academic bowl, and frankly, I wasn’t the best all of the time. I worked hard nonetheless and soon excelled at it, which was fine by me, and Dan and I, with the freshmen, won State in our final year. It was hard earned, struggled for and that much more glorious. In fact, at that State tournament, we were so tired that we didn’t even care about winning. We’d worked hard all year and didn’t have to prove anything, but we built up momentum playing hard, beat all of our archrivals and won the championship. It was one of the most satisfying victories of my life, and I imagine Dan would agree. It was a day of perfect victory.

So therefore, fencing feels like it will be similar. I will work at it. I will practice and strive to improve. I want to step out onto the strip and forget the world and think only of catching my opponent off guard and attacking. I want victory, but I want knowledge to attain it with, to earn the victory. I really hope I can give actions to these words and truly follow through with this new path. It will be fun if anything.

So anyhow, tonight I went to see Bad Habits starring Dan and Sterling, who both gave incredible performances. Dan’s still is being typecast as an arrogant prick, but this time it’s more of a hyperbole. Thus, we see that Dan’s occasional ego is nothing compared to what it could be and frankly, I think he’s earned it anyway. It really isn't an ego. In fact, for some reason, people don't recognize how humble Dan is. Everone makes him out to be this smart, funny guy, who will let you know that he's smart and funny. That's not really true at all, in my mind. Dan is, as Friedman would say, a helluva guy.

Sterling’s performance was admirable. He was a brilliant eccentric guy and delivered his lines with proper preposterousness. I didn’t REALLY need to see him in a Speedo, but physical comedy in physical comedy and that is that. His lines were well delivered and his stage presence was great. Face it, he stole the first act.

I felt like a nostalgic Boys State blog, for the two of you that may or may not care enough to read it. here are my fond memories of those 7 long ass days in Statesboro, GA.

My favorite quotes

>>Stephen: "Oh, it's that song, gosh, what's it called?" (starts hopping up and down)

Drew: "I don't know! Let's all do the Remember Dance and figure it out!"

>>"I swear, if there was another week of this, I would abandon heterosexuality by Tuesday"

>>Ashley Leen (said after days of no contact with ANY guys): "Hey (enter name of Milton Boys Stater that isn't Stephen Clawson) Where's Stephen?"

>>"Harvey, stand up!"

>>"Boo that man"

>>"Take that, you GHP bastards" (Amen to that)

>>Topher (to me after his supreme court murder case): "By the way, I'm not out of my medication, don't worry"

>>"We're annexing your city hall!"

>>"Chad Hayes is a menace to society"

>>Anything said at devotionals

>>Stephen: "People have to vote for me. In my name, Stephen Vincent Clawson, each name has 7 letters. It's just pleasing to the eye!"

>>(After Topher, the psycho, comes bursting out of the county trial)
Erik(now sheriff of Washington county): "GET HIM!!!"
(Erik takes Topher down with 4 deputies and cuffs him)

>>"Ian, you're sweating like a bastard! We're gonna call you Schweaty Nuts"

>>"Ok guys, how many of you are still not shaving as a sign of Milton solidarity?"
"Not me. I shaved."
"Not me"
"Not me"
"Baby face" Stephen: "I am" (no hair on his face)

>>Every single one of the Milton guys speaking like a redneck. "I can't help it. You just start doing it"

>>Numerous Boys Staters from elsewhere (to the Girls Staters): "Hey baby, c'mon ov'r herr."

>>Patrick Morales (laying down a roll of quarters in protest to my city's 25 cent swearing tax): "There's my money, now f*ck you f*cking assholes and your f*cking swearing tax. You can all eat sh*t and go to hell." (swearing censored for effect. I'm not really that prudent)

>>Stephen: "You know how some things are solar powered?" (resumes eating)

*silence*

Someone: "Yeah?"

Stephen: "Well, I'm woman-powered"

>>Stephen: "I wish I had a vagina. I mean, not one of me, but one for me"

>>Stephen: "If I was a woman, I'd be a lesbian slut!"

>>And of course, Stephen's moment of absolute brilliance (once already blogged by Drew, as a few of these things were):

Dan: "That's not the kind of cake I wanted"
Me(?): "Beggars can't be choosers"
Stephen: "You know, you never hear the word "chooser" anywhere besides that phrase. I don't think it's a real word"

*a minute of silence passes*

Stephen: "You know what's an awesome part of Star Wars? When Darth Vader is fighting Obi-Wan and says 'Now I am the master.' That part's really cool."

*stunned and amused silence*

Stephen: "Ok, here's the situation. Luke Skywalker is at a Wendy's drive-thru and can't decide if he wants a regular fry or a Biggie fry. Meanwhile, Darth Vader comes up behind him, slices him in half and says 'Now I am the chooser!"


So yes, I know, guys, we remember those moments all the time. I just was thinking on it as I saw my city's picture in a drawer and had to get it out of my system once again. And besides, we got a chance to see the Best All-Around at his best, did we not? And by the way, as my own personal rant. Aaron Brown did not get elected for anything all week and only went to Boys' Nation because they wanted the country to believe that Georgian young males are good-looking, smart, and athletic. Those of you who went, I think that our company whilst there would prove that to be LYING HORRIBLY!

Friday night, I went to see My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which was, admittedly, a chick flick, but of course, I was there with 4 girls and Jamie, my only other representative of testosterone. It was cool when the main male character was named Ian. It was really cool when that character named Ian was a teacher. It was UNBELIEVABLY cool when that teacher named Ian mentioned giving his students a test on Hamlet. We all could not help but laugh at the joke this was for our row. We roably sounded insane. All in all, the movie was funny because of the incredibly traditional Greek family, yet it was a bit oriented towards the ladies. I sat through it and I don’t wish I hadn’t gone. I would’ve been fine either way.

I’ve realized that there are moments in life, for all of us, in which we’re served up with an oversized portion of reality. If this sounds a bit wordy, let me explain. It’s relatable to that saying, “You always think that the worst things happen to someone else until the moment you realize that you are ‘someone else’ to someone else.” This involves such “real” events such as rape, death, drugs, violence, massive tragedy, and even something as human as sex. We all live in these little bubble of comfort, content with living our lives out day to day, thinking we’re invincible to those things and happy as long as they stay in headlines and out of our lives. Then, without warning (because life rarely calls ahead of time), life takes a baseball bat of reality to the back of your head. Take me, for example. I thought I led a fairly easy life. Granted, my parents were divorced, but they had been since before I was old enough to remember, so that was no drastic situation. Then, just as everything was running along smoothly, my father had an aortic aneurysm and passed away. Of course I didn’t expect it. No one really would. In that moment, hearing my mom’s voice over the phone in the hotel room while I was on vacation, reality struck hard and I recoiled as if there was some palpable aspect of its ferocity. You don’t think about those things happening in or around your life. It’s easier to accept something as a part of life when the smallest part it plays is in an article or through the grapevine at school. When it hits you suddenly, it’s like a train suddenly barreling into you while you’re crossing the tracks. You saw the crossbars up. You felt safe. Life has no warning lights or alarms. There are no road signs. So there we are, broken at the hands of reality, our fragile bubbles popped, and life becomes real. It’s very humbling. It ties you to humanity as a whole. For physics types, it’s an inelastic collision. It hits and sticks and remains a part of you forever. It can even just be death, in the loss of a relative, but each of us has had one of those moments in which reality seems way too real.

Just to add some stuff that Friedman wouldn't care about and that I guess you frankly might not either, except that lists are always fun.

>I hate all of the dumber techies. Call me arrogant. Call me a prick. Some are just outright waste of vital resources and some of you know what I mean.

>Euro can be funny with skits, but only in moderation ("It's a piece of Westphalia!").

>Vasily sounded badass as Peter the Great screaming in Russian.

>Don't get pissed about Garrett's blog forever, guys. Just for a little while, hehe. Vent in my comments, but don't make things worse like me.

>I'm really slow at burning CDs for people. I'm really sorry.

>Rugrats is fun to watch, especially when you're lying down and the remote's on the other sofa.

>We can't keep this house clean to save our lives, but then again, what sort of situation could that be?

>I like techno. So do you. Don't deny it. Download "Terminal Velocity" from the Boondock Saints soundtrack. For those of you that have seen it, it's the song from the toilet scene. It rocks

Well, the week has been exciting already. Let’s catch up, shall we? We read our “Ol’ Place o’ Mine” stories in Mr. Friedman’s class. They’ve all been pretty cool. Everyone seemed to have really great memories of their special places. I guess it’s a bit hard to listen to all of those stories because they’re not your memories. Obviously they mean a lot to each person, and I respect that endlessly due to my own feelings for my green box, but I guess it’s just hard to completely experience those places, even in the hands of a writer like Dan. And Dan, you know I mean that truthfully, not because everybody says so, hehe.

Now, however, we’re in Othello!! Shakespeare again! Woohoo!!!! I am already enjoying being enveloped in the language again. I love this stuff so much, and it’s already a great story with a lot more humor and slightly more general issues of humanity. I like Iago’s character, even if he’s supposed to be a jerk. Othello is actually kind of striking me as the way Iago describes him, but perhaps that will fade. Either way, I’m excited!

Fencing was very cool in this our second to last week of the class. We learned some more techniques for situations like parries that aren’t followed by an attack. We also learned this thing called a fleche, which is basically running full speed at your opponent and scoring a point going by them. It makes me look like a rhino charging. It’s so much fun. I’m really enjoying the sport. Whenever we spar, it’s just incredible thinking quickly and shifting from defense to offense and scoring the touch. I think I’ve finally found the sport I love. I probably need to hone it, but I still enjoy it to an extent that no sport has provided in the past. Next week we’ll be using the electric equipment to actually spar and score points, so I’m inviting my friends to come if they want to see the talent I’m supposed to have now. I can’t wait!

Ok, something that has bugged me lately, or at least did at first, was Garrett Cox’s blog (reasonswhyyousuck.blogspot.com). He wrote a big entry called “Reasons Why You Suck” and addressed every person in our crowd and why we don’t live up to his expectations. It was really cold of him to do and kind of immature. He basically is saying, “You guys don’t make me happy. You should do this to make my life better.” Sterling cooled me down as I was quite upset by it at first. Unfortunately I sent a scathing e-mail before I thought it through and I basically sank to his level, which bothers me as failing to meet my own expectations of myself always does. It was just stupid of me and it’s not going to solve anything. It’s incredible what one can do when the blood boils, eh?

Disorder | Rating
Paranoid: Low
Schizoid: Low
Schizotypal: Low
Antisocial: Low
Borderline: Low
Histrionic: Moderate
Narcissistic: Low
Avoidant: Low
Dependent: Low
Obsessive-Compulsive: Low

URL of the test: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personality_disorder_test.mv

So I'm not THAT crazy, but Histrionic means that I want attention and praise from my relationships with people. Now that made me suffer from low self esteem. What an assholish test.

Ok, in case you haven't noticed, my blog is fed mainly by my Friedman journals, so that's why you may get lambasted all at once by material when I feel like copying it over. That being said, away we go!

11/7- It’s amazing the memories you can cast aside as you create new ones. I suppose my lack of thinking upon my past indicates the sort of pleasure I get from the present. Considering the fact that I gained most of my current friends during high school, it is often difficult to journey back to my youth, as it is such a different stage of my life. Today, however, I was given the chance to pull up memories that had apparently been sitting in a box in the dusty attic of my mind. In Lit today, Mr. Friedman shared with us a story about his special place when his was a kid, the basement of his old house. It was really cool to hear our wise teacher relating anecdotes of childhood games and yet fitting, as Mr. Friedman seems to greet almost everything with a childlike interest, while maintaining his wisdom. He then passed out some candles to each of us, made us close our eyes and told us to think about our special place as a kid. After a few minutes of cycling through images of my playroom and my grandmother’s house, I suddenly realized that only one place could truly be considered the center of my life as a kid.

I live on a cul-de-sac called Mossy Place. Once a brand new street in a budding neighborhood called “Windward,” my street is now showing signs of aging, both in physical characteristics and the dead silence that haunts the circle around which sit houses filled with children that have all grown up. Once upon a time, there was laughter on my street. Once there were games. Once we were kids.

Now some streets have a clubhouse and some streets have a shady tree. Our street had a large, forest green, cube-shaped electrical box at the bottom of the cul-de-sac, and this was our place. Some may laugh at the implications of a bunch of kids playing around an electrical box, but they didn’t grow up on my street. The position of the electrical box is decidedly central. From it, you can see either the garage or the front door of every single house on the street. The importance of this lies in the fact that, when we were children, you needed only go outside and sit down on top of the green box after school and within a few minutes, someone would come out and join you. Through this process, we would eventually have our full crew. There were the Browns, my best friend Sam and his big brother Jon, both undoubtedly the athletic superiors of the street and the people you wanted on your team for any game that required…well, really for any game period. Then came the Pontrellis, Katie, Nic and Max, the first of which was my age and the last two being younger by a couple of years. Then there were the Bonds, Matt and Jake. This was our crowd, which could also occasionally include anyone that was sleeping over at one of our houses. Once our ceremonial gathering was complete, it was time for the games.

Oh, the games. We had a million of them. Some staple children’s activities and some that you could only find on Mossy Place. Either way, everything started on that electrical box. If we played Tag, the box was undeniably “base” and whoever was “it” usually ended up circling around the box like a vulture, waiting to pick off whichever person’s thirty-second limit was up first. If you were smart, you could use the green box as a tool in the game. Nothing aggravated the “it” person more then when another person ran top speed at the box while someone was on “base,” temporarily gaining the attention of the predator. As they gave chase, the one on base would suddenly bolt and the “it” person shifted their attention back again, and ended up losing both quarries. It could be an aggravating game if you were “it,” however, and the game always ended when someone became it and said they didn’t want to play anymore.

Contrasting the universally accepted rules of Tag were the games of our own creation. One of these was quite simple really. The nature of our hilly neighborhood made it a stunt biker’s dream. However, as we weren’t often in possession of a dirt bike, we made use of the other vehicles we had, namely skateboards, wagons, big-wheels, and the occasional Tonka dump truck that someone had squeezed their rear end into. As you may have noticed, most of these items have not passed the numerous safety tests that deem vehicles safe for use. However, as a child, how could you miss the chance to go street luging lying on a skateboard from the starting point at the top of the cul-de-sac to the inevitable ending, or rather crashing, point at the drain immediately in front of the green box? I mean, honestly, my mom specifically told me I would knock my teeth out, which she should have known was more incentive than deterrent. In fact, in most cases, whoever could come up with a new way to cheat death was the genius of that particular day. One of our greatest feats was propping some plywood over the ever-gaping drain, which was, by the way, the devourer of every type of ball you could imagine. This makeshift ramp was used only once. I can still remember seeing one of us (I believe it was probably Jake) hit that ramp, fly past the green box, and then rocket into the open air. You see, immediately behind the box, the landscape slopes dramatically down a hill between two houses. The ground seemed to curve away from Jake as he lost control of the skateboard midair and his temporary conquering of gravity came to a crashing conclusion on the grass below the hill. We all rushed to his side and he simply sat up, smiled, and said “You HAVE to try that.” We probably would have too, if his mom hadn’t come out and given us all a firm lecture. I couldn’t tell you who won the most races around that cul-de-sac. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was the mass of jumbled bodies and broken toys sitting in front of the electrical box at the end of every race, and the permeating peals of ringing laughter.

The green box was more than our plaything, however. When the block parties rolled around, the electrical box was our kids’ table, another display of prudence on the part of our parents, but that was fine with us. It was our stage when we felt like imitating TV shows and movies. It was a perfect source of protection during a heated water gun or Nerf gun battle. It was a platform for our board games, that is, when the wind didn’t carry all of the play money away. It was headquarters for the spy games I would partake in with my friend Sam, which usually involved creeping through the backyards of the neighborhood with no apparent purpose other than being as quiet as possible and trying not to be seen. The box was our forum for discussing the latest video games, comic books, and eventually, how school was going for each of us. It was sort of a home away from home for each of us, linking all of the kids together. The green box made it so we were “the neighborhood kids,” a family of our own and it managed to permeate through our actual families, too. On some days, one parent might bring out lunch for all of us to sit around the box eating. If someone was seriously hurt, which happened often due to our experimental games, one person would take them to the green box, while someone else would run for the nearest adult that was home. Thus our electrical box was the symbol of how close our neighborhood was. It was our haven, our spot, our home, in a way.

As the years wore on, people started moving. Sam and Jon moved to Florida, leaving us short two good athletes and leaving me without my best friend. Two families suffered divorces, making our cul-de-sac almost cursed, as 4 out of the six families had been divorced at some point. As kids, we were growing up, with school expanding our boundaries with friends from class, while simultaneously barring us indoors with homework. The green box was visited more and more seldom, and more then once a week I would get a knock on the door from one of the younger kids asking if I could come out. Sometimes I could and did so happily, but more often I had to shake my head, mumble something about homework and give a half-smile as some sort of consolation for breaking the tradition.

Now I’m a senior. The close-knit community of our street has dissolved between kids and adults alike. Most of our new neighbors stick to themselves and we have followed suit. Sometimes I can catch a glimpse of a few of the kids playing basketball at the Horns’ or riding bikes down the Pontrellis’ hill. However, our green electrical box stands alone at the end of the street. The once vibrant natural green is now the faded color of lima beans and rust is eating at the very edges. Most importantly, it now lies on the property of neighbors that we older families don’t know. Therefore, the box that provided us with near-perfect childhoods is more or less unreachable. I don’t regret that I can’t go back. The friends I have now mean more to me than anything in the world and had I met them when I was younger, I’d rather spend lunch around the box with Kate, Meghan, Katie, Dan, Joe, Chase and Starla and I would have much rather gone speeding dangerously across the asphalt in a race against someone like Sterling than my neighbors. Heck, that’d probably be funny even now. However, if that had been the case, it would not be the same, because my friendships now are more about the people then wherever we happen to be hanging out. I guess that’s how friends work. When you’re young, you make friends with the people closest to you out of necessity and find fun where you can, even if that means a green electrical box. When you get older, horizons expand, doors open, and suddenly you’re not so bound to your position in the world. That’s probably the way it should be, I suppose, but sometimes I just want to come home from school, shuffle down to the green electrical box, sit down and wait for someone to join me.


11/9- Well, today was in infamous Princeton interview that “ruined” my weekend. For the record, and for mom’s sake, it was worthwhile, as now Princeton has beat out Harvard for the second place position amongst my college choices. Georgetown still reigns, however. The interview went really well and my interviewer made a good case for Princeton by what he said and just the kind of cool guy that he was. I suppose, therefore, I am glad that I went, but I still wish I had been smart enough to reschedule back when I could so that I could have gone to State with the drama kids.

Back to today, the coolest thing about the interview was that it was held at 191 Peachtree Tower, which, for those of you who don’t know the address, is that building you see off of 400 that towers in the sky and has the two Notre Dame bell tower looking things on top of it. My interview was on the 50th floor, which I believe makes it one of the highest buildings I’ve ever been in, not counting the CN Tower in Toronto, although that is amazing as well. I guess I felt a special connection with Ayn Rand’s vision of humanity staring from a window on the 50th floor at the long shadow the building was casting over the ground below. When you travel any distance, even from coast to coast, there is still that earthly nature about everything that makes you feel like you’re almost in the same place. Being in a skyscraper, however, drastically changes your viewpoint and suddenly you are confronted with what mankind has done. It is an amazing thing to think that God may have created living space on the ground for us, but here we’ve gone and created living space in the sky. It’s just amazing to me.

After my interview, I was once again confronted with my humanity, or perhaps more accurately, my physical sense of being. As Mom and I drove down North Point Parkway towards Joe’s Crab Shack, my car got a flat tire, and I, Ian Fahey, AP student in the top 5% of his class, got down and dirty in my nice interview clothes and changed that damn tire. Something about muscling that tire iron and pulling off bolts that a machine put on made me feeling superhuman. Stripping down to my white t-shirt underneath my polo, I used all the force I could muster to tighten the bolts back again after installing the new tire. Yeah, it pumped my physical ego, a welcome change from my own daily inflation of my mental ego (as evidenced by that whole AP student comment) and I drove on feeling a sense of power. I know, I know. “Way to go, Ian. You bested a machine.” It is a small victory, but it still gave me a certain sense of the power of mankind, you know. Maybe I need to stop thinking so deep.

I gave a lot of thought to my future today whilst I read over 140 pages of Wayne Dyer. I for some reason thought about being a father. Perhaps this is because I never want to leave my children or alienate them or desert them in any way. I love my Dad and I wish he was still here today, but the fact is, he left me. He wasn’t there for me and I didn’t even have contact with him for a good part of my life. I’m not saying I look at life now and wish it was all different. Life is beautiful now. I just want to be the father that I didn’t really have. I want to tuck my kids in and kiss them goodnight. I just want to be there. I don’t need to be the perfect father. All I ask of myself is that I am a father, that I am there when my kids need me. I want to have a family, to sit around the living room, playing games, celebrating holidays. All of that. I’m looking forward to it with a piece of my mind. The rest is trained on the present.

I had an interesting thought while reading Wayne Dyer’s painful book of self help (Sorry, I mean some things I agree with and it is a great collection of thought. I just wish Dyer would butt out of it, as ironic as that is). Anyway, I imagined a great image of an afterlife, one I could live with. I want to die and spend eternity in a wood-paneled study. In that study would be the great book of which John Donne spoke, the story of mankind. I specifically want to see a leather-bound edition of The Life of Ian Fahey. Being a book of the spiritual world, it would be of infinite capacity as long as my life had allowed, and in this book would be every single moment of my life. That’s all I want to have. I plan to lead a happy and fulfilling life and so far, it has not disappointed. Therefore, all I want to do in my afterlife is to read my book and relive my life. Perhaps the nature of this spiritual book would have the ability to carry across every emotion associated with the moments of my life. I’d probably also enjoy reading the books of my friends, specifically the passages of which I played even the smallest role, to see how greatly or minutely I affected the lives of others, if at all. I like the idea of the big book. I guess the passion for reading and my never-ending self-absorption would both be fulfilled by this idea. I think I am leaning so much to this idea because I could read endlessly about the stuff that has happened in senior year alone. I have enjoyed the time spent with my friends this year more than I could possibly manage to describe. Perhaps that’s why I’d prefer to leave it to the unknown. This isn’t saying I believe in an afterlife, but wouldn’t that be a cool one? Perhaps I shall go curl up in a comfy chair in my house somewhere and think about those things and try to capture a bit of that perfect idea.