Siblings

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to not have a brother or sister? maybe you don't and simply don't know what its like to have one. Well personally I think that life would be better if I didn't have any siblings. I myself have both a brother and a sister, and I am not withing that they were dead, i just think that I would enjoy not having a brother and a sister. I know how it can be possibly be good to have them around, and how irritating it is most of the time. I see siblings that have great relationships, mostly twins here at Kennedy that get along well and even share the same friends. I wish I had that relationship with my brother, but we are literally opposites, and get along terribly. He is short, stocky, and i am tall and skinny, he has brown hair and eyes, I have blond hair and blue eyes, he has a fat face, and I have a narrow one. Besides these physical differences, we have differences, and tons of different lifestyles and habits, and his really get on my nerves.

The worst thing he does is eat all of the food, the second there is good food in the house, such as chips, ice cream, you name it, name any food a normal human being would like it, its gone in minutes. His personal record is two bags of lays potato chips in 15 minutes. And now that I work, I have even less of an opportunity to eat any food that I like, I have evolved into a monster that now actually enjoys health food primarily because I never have a chance to eat junk food. 

Another thing is bathroom time, I am a normal guy, so I don't need much time in the bathroom to prep for school, I just need to take a shower and be on my way, but my sister, well.... is a girl. so naturally she spends up to an hour a day prepping for class, and my brother is almost worst, caking his face with pounds of chemicals, and coating his hair with what seems like chicken fat, to try (and fail) to look good for the ladies. 

Now again, I am not wishing that my siblings dropped dead, they bug me, but I still love them. And I am probably selfish for saying I would rather have no siblings, because some people don't have siblings, they they would say "I have always wished to have a little baby brother to play with", to you I would say, a baby brother is only fun to play with until it hits kindergarten, then you life will be a living hell. And I'm also not just pointlessly ranting, I have many friends with little siblings, and they can relate to me with my struggles, I just want to write something that people can look at and think "Yeah! mine do that to" and tell them that they aren't alone, and that my siblings are just as bad as they are.

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Goodies

Cooking is not something I do constantly, and i don't find the actual process of cooking extremely exiting, but it is very rewarding once you are done. I am young, still in high school, and have a family that will gobble up all the goodies I make as soon as they come out of the oven, if i make brownies, I have to cut myself a few pieces before they are set up, because my brother and dad will devour them like crack. I end up hiding with a heap of randomness downstairs, but that is still okay with me. It tastes so good who cares if they are perfect. Honestly the best feeling I have is sitting down with some great food, a good show of Netflix or Hulu, and knowing that you don't have any work to do for a while, no worries in the world, it is just a tranquility that I enjoy massively.

This is even better when I am home alone, my little brother is a great basketball player, so during winter and summer he and my parents will leave me home alone for a whole weekend, and I have the freedom to do whatever I want. Some might invite tons of people over and have a party, I prefer to stay alone, isolated, and "nerd out" on my favorite shows, but even better than those, all of the food that I cook will last throughout the weekend, I will go out and buy some candy, drinks, and it will all last for more than a couple of hours. It actually concerns me a little bit because I'm exited to be all alone and single in  my own house. 

Cooking is not the most exiting thing to me, its not extremely entertaining. Its what you do when you are eating the food that entertains you, the rewards of cooking are delicious.

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Random phone games

What do you do when you are bored? When you have nothing to do, when youre in between assignments. Most would check social media like twitter, instagram, reddit, etc. But there is a limited amount to see on these. one you have seen everything new since the last time you checked, there is not much to do. So what do you do once you have seen all of the content on social media? You look for fun and random phone games to play.

It is suprising looking back on my two years of high school how simple, stupid, and silly the games I have played on my phone are. But it's just not me being an oddball of society, being an introverted freak staring into my phone screen throughout the day, It's everyone. Some games are understandable, like angry birds, a game that tests your knowledge of phisics. But some are just plain stupid, like cookie clickers, and angry bird and crossy road.
I look back and wonder, how in the heck was everyone so intreagued by this simplistic, elementary game. For example, in cookie clicker all you do is endlessly tap a screen, just so that you can get enough upgrades to tap the screen for more imaginary currency. And once you reach the highest level of the game. It taps the screen for you just so you can get the imaginary currency to upgrade further and have it tap the screen for you for even more! And you repeat this process until the game dies out of popularity, and another game like flappy bird becomes the most popular game in the school.

I wonder what makes us want to play these games. Weather we just have to get to the top of the mountain because we have nothing better to do. Or if we just want to be able to show it to people to show them how great you are. Or if we are actually entertained by staring at a screen and doing nothing. But more than all I wonder if I will look back at the games I play right now and call them stupid and pointless.

The Great Outdoors, Why?

Camping, backpacking, canoeing, kayaking. Hard work, long days, sore muscles, pointless roaming. If those are the words that you associate with camping, backpacking, and others, then you have never done them. When you try and look at it from a logical standpoint its pointless, we can just look at google images if we want to see beautiful views. Why go outside if you can simply stay inside with air conditioning, be entertained, and be productive. Why go miles away to go and walk in a big loop, when you could be at home living in luxury. But camping isn't about any of those, its about enjoying nature, actually seeing it with your own eyes, its about the time your are spending with the other person or persons, and even a little bit a feeling of simplicity, and leaving behind all modern anxieties, and just worry about the basic essentials, like food and water.

When you are in nature it's not like a picture on google images, you can actually feel the wind , and temperature, and humidity, and the sounds around you. When you are at an overlook it is like looking at a beautiful picture, but it is a whole new scenario, you are at the edge of a cliff, you can look over the edge, see the steep drop. you can use more senses than you can on google images, instead of only seeing with your eyes, you are seeing with your ears, eyes, nose, and the feeling. You have that feeling of fresh air, and the sense of accomplishment after hiking miles or paddling for miles to get to that one beautiful view that will be the highlight of your trip.

Its also about the interactions you are having with the people you are traveling with. Throughout a backpacking or canoeing trip you will get much closer with the person of persons you are going with. When you set down for camp you do everything together, go get water, eat, entertain yourselves with cards, and other simple games. Throughout the trip, as you get closer, working together may even be second nature, you will have great coordination with them, if there is a strong current one way in a river you are canoeing in, no words even will have to be exchanges, you will both just do your job, knowing what the other will do, because you have spent so much time with each other.

Lastly, the most important and overlooked, doing these things are massive stress relievers, you don't have to worry about that massive packet you have to do in math, or the 3 blogs you still haven't started this week, or any other work you may have. Its just you and the world, and it gives you this pure, simplistic feeling that is second to none.

With your friends: Prank Wars

Entertainment has progressed a lot over the years, more video related entertainment, using your gadgets. But I think that the best entertainment is still most definitely with your friends, in real life, and not over some screen. And I think that the most fun, and the most memorable thing to do with your friends, is to go and mess with them. Go prank them, stay to see their reactions, and the adrenaline rush you get from not getting caught, or getting caught.

Prank wars are fun to do with your friends, but should not be taken too far, doing anything that would cause actual damage to property should never be attempted, only harmless, and maybe annoying things, such as tee-peeing, saran wrapping your friends car, and forking their yard.

For those of you who don't know a whole lot about pranking, tee-peeing is when you get a whole bunch of toilet paper, and throw it all over their yard, and maybe house, get it tangled in their tree, this is probably the most severe prank you can do without damaging physical property, saran wrapping somebody's car is simple, you get a couple hundred feet of saran wrap, wrap it around their car, over the windshield, door handle, side mirrors, all over the place so it is just really hard, and annoying to take off, and if you friend is silly enough to leave their car doors unlocked, take a bottle of perfume or axe deodorant with you, and spray it all over the inside of their car, to make it smell terrible. Saran wrapping is my personal favorite prank. The third, and least common is forking, It has to be around this time of year (10/4/2015) because the forks that you stick into the ground have to get stuck. What you do for forking is get a whole bunch of plastic party forks, and simply stick them all over in the ground, when they wake up in the morning, then will not be able to pull them up, and there will be a bunch of forks, and broken forks sticking out of their lawn.

All three of these are very fun to do. Although they may seem mean, you are supposed to do them to you friends, with your Friends, you should not do this to random people, and especially not to teachers. and also remember that all of these are harmless, no physical damage should be done, and it should only be done if you do something wrong. Having a prank war with your friends is so fun because you get to see the reaction of your friends, and you will always have to keep on your toes because you could be next. It is most definitely the most fun thing you can do, and it leaves you with amazing memories, that will last a long time.
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Tick Tock

In my last blog I talked about a strategy to pass the time while you are doing something that has no entertainment, and that is extremely boring, such as work, and especially school. I still believe that not looking at the clock is a very... VERY good way of passing the time. But it can be extremely punishing if done incorrectly, if you don't trust yourself, or if you tried the other method, and it failed, and you never want to try it again because yesterday just felt like a month. Then try these two new methods.

The first is intervals, you take your shift, or school day, and split it into time segments. Say you are working a 5 hour shift later today, you will split it into segments between 30 minutes, and an hour. Say we choose 30 minutes for this shift. It is split into 10 different segments. Just in case you have to work late, or just for a extra bonus to feel good at the end of the shift, add another hour, or segment onto yours. So for my example I am working a 5 hour shift, that is split into 12 thirty minute segments. At the start of your shift you can look at your watch. But it works best if you try and predict what time it is. So whenever you feel like it has been 30 minutes, look down, and check your watch. If you are doing something boring, it may feel slow at times, but if you feel bored, a lot of the times (at least for me) I look down after what has seemed like a long 30 minutes, and it has turned out to be 45 minutes. When you are at your half way mark, you are actually past the half way mark in your shift, that is if you can trick yourself into thinking that your shift is longer than it actually is.

I really think this can genuinely help you get through the day quicker, with less boredom, and you will feel better afterwards, I still don't think that it is as good as the other method. But if you have the self discipline to look down at your watch whenever it feels like its been 30 minutes instead of every 5 minutes, it is a very effective strategy that I would recommend to anyone.
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How to make the time go by

As your life goes on, and as the world progresses, you find better entertainment more suited to what you like. And I think that that can increase your boredom when you are not doing those things that you love to do. When you are at work, at school, or simply can do what you really love doing, you get bored, more bored than you could possibly get when you were little, and more bored than people could have gotten thirty years ago. When i get bored, I really get desperate, and I try and find ways to pass the time. And using just my watch, or purposely not using my watch, I have found some helpful ways to pass the time.

The first way to try and pass time, may be the hardest, it requires a lot of discipline, but it is probably the most effective way. Simply do everything in your power to not look at the clock, or at your watch. At first when you do this 10 minutes pass, and it feels like an hour, but that is because you are doing it wrong. The point of not looking at the clock is that you will forget about the time. If you are constantly thinking about the time, or if you even look once every fifteen minutes, you will just make it even worse. When this does work, you completely forget to care about what time it is, and a class that is an hour long, will feel like a breeze. This is a very effective strategy to pass the time, but if not done correctly it can also be punishing, because if you are mentally making an effort to do this you will be thinking about the time for at least a couple of minutes, and those couple of minutes feel like longer than it actually is, and if you give into the pressure, you will have to start over, and after you do that a couple of times, it has only been ten minutes, when it felt like it was thirty minutes.

So if you are willing to try, enter at your own risk, if you fail this, it will be terrible for you, an hour will feel like days, and you will never, ever want to try this again. But you just have to give it a try, it is the very best way in my opinion of entertaining yourself, when you have no entertainment available, and if it works for you, you will absolutely love it and try it every single, school, or work day.
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