Why we play football...

Set in the backfield, soaked in rain drops, goosebumps engulfing my body. The scoreboard reads four seconds, down by three. Tunnel hearing, comes into play as I begin to focus, "You got this...run hard, give them hell." Adrenalin rages through my veins, as the count begins; "Red-set-go!" Everything explodes to life in a frenzy of contact and unforgiving collisions. I take my steps, large step backwards and slightly right, full speed through backfield, take the handoff, run...silence. As I manuever through insuing tacklers and teamates all is hushed. I can see the goalpost getting larger in the distance. An unseen threat slams into my right side, "keep going". Then I hear a whistle, a look around; I'm in the endzone. Just another 'W' on the record.

"To Build a Fire"

Trekking through the snow covered Alaskan wilderness, at seventy-five below zero, nothing more than a few matches, an insufficient amount of food, a dog, and thirty-two miles of frozen wilderness between you and safety. No room for error or foolishness; any slip up could mean your life, as the man in “To Build a Fire” by Jack London, would soon find out.

As many may think, the harsh cold was the solo reason for the man’s passing, but it’s not; he had performed many foolish mistakes along the way, as they slowly mounted on his shoulders, till his body could no longer handle it. The first, and possibly most crucial, mistake the man could have made was walking outside in close to seventy-five degrees below zero. To most Wisconsinites, including myself, four or five degrees is considered to be, very cold; avoiding the outdoors is inarguable. Yet, this man is trekking through the snow, in the unbearable clinch of seventy five degrees below zero. We cannot forget the break in the ice, the waste of the fire and loss of responsive hands and feet. I think it’s safe to say this man had frozen himself to death.

Yet, the ironic part of all this chaos is the dog, who, remember, never wanted to go out in the cold, is doing just fine and dandy simply sitting there as the man is slowly killing himself. As you may have noticed from this scenario the dog, unlike the man, is smart, and has much better judgment skills. There is more than just judgment skills in the dogs favor though, “This was a matter of instinct” as the text recognized, and the text is correct. The dog knew the danger of the cold because of its natural instincts. In fact the man’s dog is so well built for the cold that even when forced into the dangerous cold, it is still safe, "warm and secure in its natural covering." These traits the dog possesses saved its life, allowing it to reach the man’s destination alive.

The man may have also reached his destination alongside his dog, if he had made some brighter decision. The consequence of death is always a horrid penalty, but the man could have easily avoided it without his foolishness; his story goes to show that being careful can pay off, and being clumsy can have major consequences.

Snow Day...

Wake up today, the clock reads 11:00 a.m. somehow in the basement, I can't see a thing. A discusting taste of early morning saliva fills my mouth. I notice it's rather cold, the heat isn't running, and most likely hasn't been for at least two hours. As I struggle to find the stairs, I find myself running into objects that, from my memory, shouldn't be there. As I continue to struggle, I run into a wall, the impact rattles my brain, my head begins to throb. But my hand had bumped into a light switch on the wall, I flipped the switch; at first the light was blinding, forcing my eyelids closed. I open them a squint a few moments later, reveling that I was not in the basement, but instead in my room. Curious as to the darkness in my room I open the blinds, a huge drift of snow had built up covering the window and letting in no light. I run to show my family; as I open my door and trvel to living room I notice all of our windows are covered. As I reach the living room I find no one, same with the kitchen and basement. I check the clock, 6:45 a.m. My dad has most likely gone off to work, but my mom and sister should still be here. After checking the rest of the house I look outside, there they were, my dad shoveling, mom breaking ice and sister wrestling my dog in the larger than life snowbank. The cold is intense on my unprotected skin. As I turn to begin getting ready for school my mom calls my name. I turn back, "Go back to bed.", my mom says, as confused as I was, I wasn't about to argue about my mom telling me to go to sleep. When I reach my room I fall asleep in less than five minutes. Waking once again at eleven, I open my door, welcomed by the sound of spongebob on t.v. My sister sitting on the couch, and my dad at the stove making lunch; why we were all still there is confusing. Then it hit me...snow day!

Cole: Real World

Children learn what they live. In Cole's case, he learned about violence, abuse, carelessness, irresponsibility and lack of trust. He really never had a chance at a "normal" life like I have. If nothing else, I find myself the complete opposite of Cole in our upbringing.

After some long thoughts, I began to wonder why some children are fortunate enough to be born into a caring, loving family; then others are born into a family who could care less, very much like Cole's. In fact Cole has fallen victim to two of the most common cases of abuse, neglect and physical abuse. Yet, this statistic was not the most interesting to me; children who are neglected and physically abused are 59% more likely to be arrested as a juvenile, 28% more likely to be arrested as an adult and 30% more likely to commit a violent crime; all because they had an abusive parent, I find that rather disturbing.

But there's one more aspect to Cole's situation that I think should be recognized; Cole's parents were more than likely abused themselves. They probably grew up knowing nothing but pain, either physical, mental or both. The only way they know how to raise a child is the same way they were raised themselves. This viscous cycle has, most likely, been handed down from generation to generation, and it will continue until someone is able to help. Hopefully, through Cole's rehabilitation the abuse cycle can be broken, relieving his children of abuse and neglect.

After Cole is finished at Healing Circle he is hoped to be renewed and live the life he deserves to live, far from abuse. Hopefully he will never become another victim, or statistic, of abuse and he will break the abuse cycle his family has endured for the past generations.

Patriotism Responce

Patriotism is still very important to American Tradition, that's why we say the pledge every morning. We need to do so to remember the struggles and patriots we've lost, and that we are still strong. The heroes and heroins serving in Afganistan deserve respect. As if Being away from your families for months at a time wasn't enough they have to live in one of the most dangerous places on earth, knowing that at anytime they could lose their lives, trying to keep us safe; that's a true patriot.

Depression

Depression is something that many people suffer. Tiredness, sleepless nights, and in severe cases thoughts of suicide are very common symptoms. In fact over 20 million Americans are suffering from depression right now. Ernist Hemmingway's "A well lighted place", reminds us to live every day like our last and forget the past.

One very common reason of depression is having no wife, girlfriend, or fiancé in your life. Hence, the old man in the Hemmingway story. He had no wife or girlfriend, and had nothing to do with his life but get drunk drinking Brandy every night. Imagine having to live like that man, alone and drunk. A sad life indeed, which is most likely the reason for suicidal actions, like the man attempting to hang himself, another great example from Hemmingway.

Although, one of the biggest causes of depression is caused by something that may be very surprising to us, money. People say "Money makes the world go round.", which might make it a seeming innocent suspect when it comes to depression. But for some unknown reason people become depressed because of their wealthy style of life. The most likely cause that I found was that, usually when your wealthy you tend to become more famous, right? Then when you become more and more famous people tend to look at you with a different perspective. A great example of this kind of situation is Kate Gosslin's life; she became wealthy and people started to treat her differently. Like the man in our the Hemmingway story.

So maybe money cant buy happiness, maybe the source of happiness is our loved ones. The man in the Hemmingway story definitely didn't have very many loved ones, and he tried to hang himself! This is a great reminder to keep your loved ones close, and live every day like it's last.

A Tiring Day

I don't really know what to write. So used to being told what I have to respond or write about. I guess I'll just start writing and see how it goes. Um, today is Thursday the 15th I am currently sitting in my spot trying to think of something to write about. Oh, I know, tonight I have a football practice last of the week before we play Mukwonago, our home opener. To tell the truth we don't really have a great chance of beating them,but we'll definently try. Last week's game was away all the way in Burlington, we had to get up at like 5:00 a.m. to make the bus at 6:15. We drove over an hour to get there because traffic was bad. When we arrived there wasn't much time for warm ups. The first half was brutal, I guess we were still tired from waking up so early. Although when the second half came around we scored two touchdowns although it wasn't enough to win. After that my day still wasn't over yet. I had to drive another hour back while all my equipment was soaking wet, and once the drive was over we had to go to my sisters' soccer game. which conssumed another hour of the day. Then I finally got home to watch the Packers at 3:00 p.m. I fell asleep after the first quarter and woke up that night at one in the morning wide awake. So I made some food and headed downstairs to play PS3 so I didn't wake up anyone else.