"They Say Quitters Never Win"

"But we walk the plank on a sinking ship. There's a world outside of my front door, the gets off on being down." - Fall Out Boy

I love music. A lot of people say, "Oh music is awesome, I seriously love it!" or "I CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT MUSIC!" And as true as that may be or sound, I don't think they know the magnitude of how music affects our lives. We just think, "Okay, I'm going to listen to some awesome beats." Okay, we get the earphones and we plug them into our ears. We nod our heads as the beats take over our mind and slowly, our souls. *Click. Okay, songs over. Move on to the next portion of our lives.

But you see, to me, music is so much more. On different days, I'll listen to music because I need something to relax me. I've had a stressful day at school and I just need something melodic and sweet to the ear. I put my earphones in to my ears and relax to the soothing sounds of Jack Johnson or Colbie Callait. But oh no, I don't stop there. I reel in the lyrics of the songs and I let the words take control of me. They wrap themselves around my brain and squeeze the stress out of it. This is what music is to me. The beat is what makes sweet-loving to my ears, but the lyrics are what really control my brain and take me away.  

Greed

I have to admit, today's Pre-Calculus class was epic... wait no, it was BEYOND epic.

Our AMAZING teacher, Mr. Lee (who hopefully, will give me an A for this AWESOMETASTIC blog), introduced us to this game we like to call "Greed." The name itself implies that the game involves self-control and reasoning.

The objective of the game is to have the most points in the end. After several rounds, you rally all the points up and that is what decides the winner.

How do you get points? It's actually quite simple. To start off, you have to have a 6-sided die. The number you roll, is the number of points you get. Simple right? To start off the game, everyone who is playing has to stand up. Every time a die is rolled, the person standing gets the number of points that is shown on the die. However, when a player feels that it's appropriate to stop gaining points, they sit down. Sounds awesome and all right? But of course, there has to be a catch... there's always a catch in a gambling game! The catch is that if you happen to roll a two after the first roll, you receive zero points for the entire round and you have to sit down.

Would you play? Probably not, but I guarantee you, it's a pretty fun 'gambling' game for those who don't want to confuse themselves with Poker, Texas Hold'em, etc. I think one of the qualities that makes this game so fun and understandable, is that almost everyone with an average-statistic background knows the chances of rolling every number. Unlike Blackjack or Poker, in which the player knows the statistics somewhat but everything is mostly based on luck, Greed gives every player the chance to understand their probabilities.

Every player has a 1/6 chance of getting two, which means they have a 5/6 chance in getting any number but it. So, hello, the odds are in your favor right? :) LETS DO ITTTTT!

I'm Awesome... No You're Not Dude, Don't Lie.

Today, I'm going to expand on one of my bestest buds in the whole wide world:

Chris Barry.

Chris Barry has been my friend for the past 4-5 years. We went to school together for 2 of those years, and I swear, he never failed to make my day. Here on the island, we don't see too many Caucasians around, and you know Chris? He was one of the few who lived here. He was the one kid that stood out whenever we'd go anywhere (mostly because of his looks, but his personality stood out as well). He's really tall and wears glasses. He's dorky, but so are half of my other friends and myself... which is why we always got along so well. In 8th grade, he never failed to make my class and I smile every day at school. In 9th grade, he sat in front of me in Sex-Ed, World Geography, and Civics. I always would see him sneak a look at the ESPN website during class when we were supposed to be "working on our research papers." I wouldn't say anything... well most of the time I wouldn't. I swear, if it wasn't for Chris, I probably wouldn't know that much about basketball, baseball, or football; he's the only one who ever exposed me to the teams and team players of these different sports. Every day, there was something to be said about Clemson's basketball team or an insult to a rival team of his favorite football team.

I remember having PE with Chris; I think it was my favorite class besides Algebra and Art. PE in itself wasn't that great of a class. Our teacher made us run and the only sport I really enjoyed playing was kickball, teamball, and the numbers game in basketball (and now, we don't even play teamball anymore). However, Chris was always there to make PE class entertaining. . . Especially when we played kickball. He would be that one person who would call our PE teacher, Mr. L, out on whatever he does wrong. If he rolls it wrong, Chris would be all up on his butt for it. If he makes an unfair call (or even a fair call), Chris would be up and yelling at our PE teacher, calling it unfair. He made everyone laugh at this and it made me enjoy PE class.

When Chris left my school last year, to go to a public school just a couple miles away (literally, like 2-3 miles away), I was devastated. What could I do without my tall, amazingly dorky, dorkasarus rex? I would see him maybe, twice a month, or maybe a bit more, depending on the amount of homework I had. Even after leaving my school, he was still the same Chris. He was still a dork. He still would call out our PE teacher if he ever had the chance. He still played basketball (by the way, 80% of his three-point shots went in). He was still talking about his favorite sport teams. He was stil Chris.

You know, Chris has this one unique characteristic that everyone knows him for:
Mouth-rapping (or rapping a song). He was amazingly good at reciting raps, but it was just so funny to see, because he really made it a point to open his mouth and wave his hands in certain motions. He listened to rap, reggae, hip-hop, and Ke$ha... random combination, no? I remember for his birthday party this year, he rapped to T-Pain and Flo Rida. He was so into it, it was entertaining to watch. And because it was Chris, he got everyone to follow him and we all started rapping and singing in a party bus for like, half-n-hour. Ai, that dork, how I love him to bits! :)

This dork, however, just recently left me. He left to Viriginia with his family, beacuse his father got a new awesometastic job. I miss him so much, and I hate him for leaving... well not really. I actually love that dork to pieces, so I'm just mad that he left me. I'm actually planning on seeing him this summer, if I get enough money to go to Georgetown for JSA. I'm more excited to see him and brother than I am to go to Georgetown... which is a ton.

And Chris Barry, if you ever read this:
I told you so.