Matt’s (e)Beli(ng) of Thoughts.

Finally! Just kidding M.C.! Well I am going to choose the first topic, which was: How have your opinions about yourself as a journalist or the profession of journalism changed over the course of the semester?

Honestly my views really haven’t changed about myself as a journalist. I don’t think about it any less, but it does want me to continue the subject in college. And becoming a journalist won’t give me any set place that I am going to be. Journalists are needed everywhere, reporting on the latest and newest news. I hope that I am able to find work with my education and travel to the far reaches of the world. The most amazing people are in the most extraordinary places and they have a story to tell. That’s what I would like to do anyways, to tell other people’s story.

I just want to write about my journalism teacher, McCallum (or M.C. Tick Tock, M.C., or M.C. Hammer, or what ever you can think of). He has been my mentor for the past two years and I don’t know where I would be without him if I hadn’t taken Yearbook in my Junior year. His room is home, and like what Miranda said, “We are the only group that can say that they have a classroom that we can go to, kick people out of, and jsut be ourselves.” McCallum has done so much for me in the past two years. I came to him for advice whether is was a yearbook question or if I was having problems with something at home. It’s sad that I won’t be having him next year, but I will no longer be considered his student but a former student and friend. So McCallum there is so much I can say to you, but it would be a never-ending story. So thanks!

Ms. Lilly! Hello there! I really like your style of writing, it’s straight forward and easy to understand. But I really can’t say a whole lot about your blog because there isn’t enough there. My advice to you would be to find something that you have so much belief, passion, or you just absolutely love and just write (in this case type), that way you can not only have some really good blogs, but also some long ones as well.

It’s 2002, before Christmas, I think.  He’s been talking about joining the army for years.  We all had the same reaction, “It’s your head.”  But he did it.  He left in 2002 for his first tour.  We’ve heard stories, unbelievable ones, from his mom hoping that he will survive.  He did.  He came back after 7 months of hell and back 10 times over again.  Today is his last day of freedom, he goes back tomorrow, back to Iraq.

Before I saw him, I expected the worse.  Hearing other stories from other people and how there love ones were changed, never going to be the same again.  I remember my dad telling me a story about my uncle…when my dad was still in high school, during the Vietnam war, he went to go wake up his brother for breakfast.  This was his first day back.  My dad entered his room and shook him awake.  Before he even knew what hit him, he was down on the floor being yelled at.  “Don’t you EVER do that again!”  My uncle woke and threw my dad at the ground, he was never really the same after that.  Well he did get an obsession with guns and enjoys shooting them at his shooting range and at the local gun club.

With hearing stories from my dad, I expected the worst from my cousin.  Surprisingly, he’s normal.  A bit less baby faced and more macho, but still the same Michael.  Same jokes, lies, laugh.  But with stories.  Stories of hell, prisoners, raids, ambushes, stuff that’s more than enough to see in a lifetime.  He was comfortable about talking about stuff.  I never egged him on, I was going to just keep quiet about the subject, but I later realized that that would be stupid because he can’t just ignore it.  Killing people isn’t anything that can be forgotten soon.

He had some pretty funny stories too.  Some about his sargent, and the other guys in his platoon, or whatever you call it.  The stories were a little bit too graphic for me to explain without others being disgusted.  Maybe some other time.

But then I think about what he has actually done…and seen.  What could he have possibly witnessed over there?  The worst of the worst no doubt.  He leaves tomorrow and will be returing in a short 4 months.  He said that that amount of time is just a “walk in the park.”

When it was time for my step-dad and I to leave, he told Mike, “Don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do.”  And the truth is, is that he’s done that and more than he’s done.  How can he trust every kid that passes through?  A 10 year old could look happy then another second be blown to pieces because they had a bomb strapped to them.  What do you thin happens to the surrounding people?  I hope and pray that that story isn’t true. 

At least I know that he still has a heart.  He was talking about this little boy that he sees quite often in the “neighbors” house.  I could tell that he loves that kid.  He couldn’t stop talking about him when he started talking about him.  He even jokingly asked some people if he could adopt the kid.  But was it really a joke?  Or does he just see the cruel life this kid has to live through.  What will he know?  Love or hate? 

But at least he still has a heart.

So here’s the deal, yesterday was a pretty…weird and changing day.  She told me everything.  But I already knew everything, I just never saw it.  Here’s her story.

At the age of 10, 11 or 12, she was raped.  By her brother’s best friend.  It would have never happened if she went back down to Florida to live with her mom.  Her parents are divorced and her dad is happily married by the best mom that she could have for her lifestyle.  She can tell her everything. 

She called me, crying and in a dissaray, stumbling and not able to catch her breath.  I waited and she told me.  The guy that raped her saw her sister for the first time in over a multiple of years.  She was ready right then and there to kick his ass.  Some how he miraculously calmed her and told her his side of the story.  But before that let me explain what her mom is all about.  Drugs.  That’s it.  She does all sorts of drugs, in the morning, afternoon, night, all 24 hours of the day.  I called her one day asking how living with her mom was.  She hated it and loved it at the same time.  She told me that before school everyday she smoked a bowl.  She needed to get out of there.  Her mom was the instagator and she needs help. 

He explained to her sister that, since he’s clean, he knows he did wrong and he regrets every…minute…of…it.  He was her mom’s way to get drugs, and at the time, she was the only way to get them.  She “sold” her for that time, just so she could get high a few times.  We all should have expected that she would stoop that low.  Sell her fucking daughter just for drugs.  He still has physical and emotional scars fromwhat her brother did to him.  Serves him right.

She came back.  Finally, she’s safe.  Her brother now lives up here with his new wife and their baby.  They are the coolest.  The best thing for her.  A family that cares.  Her dad kicked her out for good and she’s living with her brother.  Her step-mom is the best female figure in her life, but the penis always rules the house and there is no stopping that.  She talkes to her everyday, sometimes even stops by to visit.  She’s great.

I was hanging out with them yesterday, just chillin’.  Sitting on the couch playing with the baby and talking.  We are like a little family, we laugh argue stupid stuff, laugh and do all the other stuff too.  Just yesterday was different.  I knew that they smoked pot but never while I was there.  We went in and they were packing it.  It smelled good.  I have been around drugs before, but never done any of it.  Mind does rule matter.  They were doing it in the house, just the brother and her sister-in-law.  I wouldn’t have minded, but the baby was right there.  He was going to end up just like them.  He’s been in jail, she’s been in jail, exept the sister-in-law, she has a good influence…I think.  I didn’t care to do it at all, they wanted to give me a shotgun, I refused, there is no way that I could step that low.  I’ve seen their lives, they have gone through the process, I am not about to start ruining mine.  That poor baby.  He will be smoking pot by the time he’s 10.  I love each and everyone of them so much.  I am here for them, and they see that.  But I hope that it’s enough.

Our school has gone under some pretty hefty website blocking and content that “needs” to be filtered.  Even during the summer, when we came into the school to work on our yearbook spreads, we were able to go on a lot of sites that we can’t anymore.  Like, Phonezoo, and other types of “social networking” sites.  Honestly I think that what the school is doing is pointless because with two thousand students in one building, we are more than able to find a way around the schools filtering system.

In my freshman year, we were not blocked from websites such as Facebook or MySpace, but as time went on and schools around the country like this school had some problems, the schools were forced to block them.  But if they block them aren’t we going to be spending more time trying to find proxies to get around the school?

Our school resently got a new content filter and it blocked major sites, even Google!  And we had a YouTube “blackout” were we could go on the site but not view anything because the school was trying to block us from seeing things that are too virgin for our eyes and ears.  Seriously, I’m pretty sure that most teenagers who watch movies have seen a rated R movie were the movie shows explicit scenes were there are girl and boy body parts just…there.  Like last month I went and saw “Watchmen” and it had the most nudity I have ever seen in a action movie.  And we have the poster hanging in the library!  So isn’t the school advertising a movie that has frontal and all around nudity in it?

Basically what I am trying to get across is why would the school block websites? I understand that they do it so we can’t distract ourselves and others around us, but it’s the students choice if they want to learn.  They’re not made to.

Death.  How ironic that not to long ago I was blogging about watching people die.  This time, however, I wasn’t the one to see them die.  It was March 22nd and I was at my aunt and uncle’s house visiting my cousin from California.  My dad was there, but not my step-mom because she was with her dad at the nursing home.  He didn’t have that much time left to live.  After a few hours my dad descided to leave to go visit with my step-mom.  I stayed at my aunt and uncles for a while, but I got a call from my dad a half an hour later telling me that my grandpa died.  I wasn’t sad or anything because he had been suffering for 3 years after his first surgery that made everything worse.

I knew that my step-mom would be devistated because she was the youngest of the kids and she always seemed…closer to her dad than the other kids.  Don’t get me wrong, they all loved him very much, but we seemed to have grandma and grandpa visit a lot more than the others.  After visiting with my cousin I called my dad and he told me that I don’t need to come to the nursing home, but I offered to go because my step-bother and sister were in South Dakota and I felt that my step-mom needed one of her kids there.

I decided to drive slow, for the first time of my life, just so I wouldn’t have to be there while the priest does his “stuff” and when they move the body.  Of course I would be on time.  When I got to the home, I walked right behind the priest, knowing that I would have to just endure it.  As we entered the room, I saw the regular two beds along the wall (one for my grandpa and one for my grandma) and a group of my family members around the bed, with my grandma next to the bed with my grandpa’s body.

In his last year of life, he never looked good.  He started having those bruises all over his body and he lost tons of weight.

The priest was obscuring my view of the bed that the body was on.  I had no ambition to ever see it.  I looked around the room for my step-mom.  I never felt this bad for someone in my life.  She looked horrible.  I realized that this is probably her first “real” loss of someone that she loved so much.  My heart sank.  We said the Lord’s Prayer and thanked Father for coming.  He moved, and I saw him.  He didn’t look peaceful.  Death is supposed to be easy, he looked…His mouth was wide open, almost as if he was asleep.  I started crying, thinking of grandma and herother half no longer exists on this world.  She has nothing except us.  Her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and friends.  But we’re not there all the time, like her husband was.

I left the room to go across the hallway in the family room.  There was no TV, nothing to distract us.  Just a table and faces.  My cousin and I, along with my grandma, were the first ones to enter the room.  Her eyes appeared to be elswhere, not here.  I hugged her and told her I loved her.  That was the first time I had told her.  She’s not my real grandma, but I called her ”grandma.” 

We started talking, trying to make her think of something else, but that’s always impossible to do when someone you love just died.  We sat quietly.  “I wish that I could go with him,” she said.  I started crying again.  “No you don’t grandma,” my cousin said, “what about all of us, your grandchildren?  We need you still.  We love you too much.”  I didn’t say anything because I knew that grandma wanted nothing more than to be with grandpa, holding hands in a memory that none of us know about.

…..

It was the day of the funeral and once again I tryed to avoid his body.  I visited with step-cousins and uncles and other family members, trying to forget the day before.  My step-bother, sister and her boyfriend were with me when we were told to go up to the coffin.  Of course I was the first one in our procession.  I didn’t want to look at his mangled skin full of bruises.  I didn’t want to remember him that way.  I looked up to his face…he finally looked peaceful.  After three long and troubled years, he looked peaceful.  I smiled, knowing that he would tell us all, “Damn, don’t I look good.”  It would be a fact not a question.

Being a family member, I had to stay for a few hours and eat and talk with friends and family.  It started to get boring so we left an hour after the “visiting hours” were over.

…..

Death is so damaging.

So here is my second 30 min design.  It didn’t actually take me 30 min though.  It was more like 2 hours!  But I am really not liking it so much just because the caption is so awkward looking.  Mischke has the best facial expression though! YEAH!

Okay, for the final project, I teamed up with some people, each person was assigned a job(s).  My job, however, was to make a layout for this years graduating seniors and where they are going.

I didn’t really start designing until I found a cool brush.  Which I did! I can’t remember what web site it was on, but it’s sweet, right?  Anyways, I took those two and put them around the edges then continued from there.  Since I was given a short story, I had to incorperate more “design” and tons more room for pictures.

I think that this challenged worked.  But I think if I had some actual pictures for them, it would look a little bit better.

My contribution, I think, helped get more people covered in the newspaper.

When my group first got together, the people who were writing the stories told us what they were writing.  They told us there ideas, and we contributed.  We all had he same type of ideas, so it worked out.

From this project I would like to improve more on secondary coverage and more pictures.

Before I go all sad and mopey, everyone who reads this needs to listen to this song.  Click here. 

McCallum and I were talking about death the other day…and I explained to him that I saw my step-grandpa die, well my whole family did.  It was when I was 7 or 8 or something like that, but it was kind of crazy.  What McCallum really was amazed at was that my grandpa knew that he was going to die in a matter of minutes.  Well here’s what happened.

My grandpa got a rare cancer in his throat which caused him to have to get surgery so the doctors could put a tube in it.  He kind of looked like that one smoker lady who smoked so much that she had the same tube put in.  Anyways, we were all called to the hospital in Buffalo, where he was staying, because he was turing for the worst.  Us kids, 7 of us total, were waiting in the Waiting Room.  Later, we were called into his room for us to say our goodbys.  Upon entering the room, grandpa was in his bed holding my grandma’s hand, and none of were really crying because he had been suffering for so long.  When we all congregated in the room we all said a prayer, grandpa said his wishes for all of us, said his goodbys and he was gone. 

Seeing someone die was pretty breathtaking, in a bad way.  The whole thing about death is, is there really an afterlife? Or is it just a joke?  Personally, I believe in Heaven, but not Hell.  I will tell you my reasons in a later blog.

Another experience of were someone knew when they were going to die was my real grandma, Charolette.  She got a rare cancer in her stomach, had to go through kemo and all that dirty business.  She told my grandpa, Bill, to call the family to the house so she can tell them her last wishes/goodbys.  I was too young to really understand, but at the funeral I completely understood.  I would never see her until my death day.

The last experience that I had with this was my other real grandma, Alice.  She was really old and her age was getting the best of her.  She went to the hospital and became even more sick because of all the drugs they were giving her.  The last time that I saw her she was conscious and actually knew what was going on.  After we all left, the priest came in and prayed with her and “prepared” her for the next step.  She died soon after that.

I think that it is really crazy that people, like my family members, actually WAIT to die when all the family members gone.  Exept my step-grandpa.  He was always a tell-it-how-it-is-person.  Ah everyone was great!