Semester Reflection

So yeah.... the first semester of my Junior year is over. I feel like I've grown more this semester than I did all of last year. I've also had lots of new experiences like visiting colleges and in the musical, I  was able to get a smaller lead with young Clyd. Another thing relating to music is my involvement with Arkhighs, which I have enjoyed a ton. Being able to sing to go to Butler for Show Choir Festival and just being able to learn more about my voice and own taste in music has been great and I can't wait for next semester's BVS. For me, high school sports sucked this semester because of my ankle and not making it to state. I'm super excited for track next semester seeing how I'm running 25 miles a week and I'm getting back down to normal times I feel like it's going to be a good track season for me and the distance team. As a student, I feel like this semester I was the most stressed out I have ever been thanks to AP Language and AP U.S History but I intend to stick both classes out through the second semester. Thanks to both classes I feel like I've improved when it comes to note-taking, annotating and just analyzing what's in front of me. Another thing that this semester has taught me is that I need to just go for things and stop hesitating. For example, I stopped worrying about what people would say about the songs I have been writing and I got great feedback and I know I'll keep writing more music and I would love to perform one of my own songs as soon as I get music to it of course. I think I might have matured this semester too. By which I mean I fill more ready right now than I ever have for next semester and after that. Though there are plenty of self-improvement I need to make. Most of them are small things like keeping a cool head when I get frustrated and not being so nosey. One of the bigger ones being I need to focus on what's right in front of me and what I can control. I look forward to next semester and hope it will improve me as much if not more than this semester. When I started this blog, in my mission statement I said I wanted to "be my best me" and I'm still not there and I doubt all be there at the end of next semester either because all learn about other things I need to improve on. I think we're always improving and I hope everyone has improved in different aspects of their life this semester and that they stick with the blog through the end of the year.

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Truth or Deceit: Which has a Greater Impact on Society?

A question like "Which has a greater impact on society, truth or deceit?" is rather vague but nonetheless easy to answer because obviously, deceit has way more impact than honesty.  I say this because people find it much easier to lie than, to tell the truth. The art of deceit is a powerful tool and if you master it you can fool even the most untrusting person. People are greedy and for many lying and manipulating is an important part of gaining more money, power, respect, etc. This mentality has had huge impacts on society. For example, the Watergate Scandal in 1972 in which some of  President Richard Nixon's Re-election committee members broke into the Democratic National Committee Watergate headquarters and tapped the phones and then stole important documents. After the connection to Nixon was revealed he resigned from office. Read more HERE. Another example of a President lying to the public comes from Ronald Reagan when he stated that "We did not- repeat-  did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages- Nor will we." This statement went against covert operations that had been going on for years prior to. Read more HERE.

Another reason deceit plays such an important role in our society is that it's one of the only things we see. The media controls what the public views as important and relevant, through the attention a topic gets.  The media focus on illegal drug abuse in the late 1900s and early 2000s caused the U.S. to lose billions in a hopeless war on drugs. As I learned in the Culture of Fear the real problem with drug abuse in the U.S is legal prescription drugs. I have learned lots about the media from the book the Culture of Fear. Some of it including their disregard for accurate information. One example from the book is a mass media story about Cindy Gracia a 10-year-old girl that was pregnant. In reality, she was 14 years old and her name was actually Adella Quintana. Like I stated earlier people want money and if a story is good and it will give them ratings they run with it as long as they can for a pretty penny. One thing that all Americans and all people do that makes deceit have more impact on society is the fact that we push our blame from one group to another and fix none of our problems. Liars, the misinformed, and the ignorant all contribute to the lack of truth that is available in our society. When it comes down to it we can't really be sure if lying is more powerful than the truth because it all depends on each person's perspective. We can for sure say that if we continue down a road where we lie to make further progress we will get to a breaking point. This breaking point is a social collapse. Once to this point were finished. The sad thing is we can already see it happening in the world today in both internal and external conflicts. Internal conflicts like the Charlotte Riot on September 20th, 2016 and Anti-Trump riots since his election. External conflicts like the war in Syria and Iraq or the unrest between the U.S and North Korea.

What I'm Thankful For

I hope that everyone's Thanksgiving was amazing and that they enjoyed the time with family. This post will cover only a few of the things I'm thankful for this year.

Family/Friends- 

 I am super thankful for all the family and friends I have for supporting me and just dealing with me on a day to day bases. More specifically I'm thankful for all my younger cousins, my nieces, and my nephews for letting me mess around with you and be a kid again. I love all of you guys and I don't know what I'd do without you. I am thankful that I have friends that worry about me when they don't have to and that they try their best to help me when I struggle with stuff. Thank you so much.

Music- 

 I've always loved music and it's a big part of who I am. I'm grateful that I get to be a part of our choir department and that I get to spend so much time doing what I enjoy with people I get along with. Since I have started writing lyrics I'm thankful for all the music artist have made because it influences me to write and I hope that I will continue to write and get feedback on this blog.

My Life- 

 This one is a really broad category and overlaps the other two but I have to say this in broad that I am grateful and thankful for the way my life is. I get to do things I enjoy and I never feel like I have no one or nothing. I have great friends and family and my life is relatively peaceful with drama here or there. I sometimes take this for granted and this year I really thought about It because my Thanksgiving was one of the best I've had in years.

Thanks for reading and I am now working on a third and the idea for a fourth is floating around in my head. All release the lyrics for the third one by next week. 

Second Song Draft: Killing Me Slowly

Alright. This is my second song and I'm hoping to get feedback like last time. I really appreciated all the comments I got on the last song so I wanted to post my second one the very next week so if this feels rushed that's my excuse but enjoy.

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You knew what would happen didn’t you, you could have stopped it all if you wanted to. (wanted to)

you had to much fun standing in the middle of our war but now it's either side that stands to lose because you couldn't choose.

You're playing with my heart baby can't you see.

Pull a string here, clip a string there, now I'm falling through thin air screaming I love you.

You make me want to stay while you're pushing me away, killing me slowly, killing me slowly.

You make me want to stay while I watch you walk away, killing me slowly, killing me slowly.

And it's not like you don’t want me, It's just that you don’t love me. Because if you did there'd be no need for him. But I’m just here to fill in the hole in your heart that he leaves never to be your one and only.

You’re playing with my heart baby can't you see.

Pull a string here, clip a string there, now I'm falling through thin air screaming I love you. (I love you)

You make me want to stay while you're pushing me away killing me slowly, killing me slowly.

You make me want to stay while I watch you walk away killing me slowly killing me slowly.

You’re killing me slowly killing me slowly and now I see I was never meant to play this game never meant to win the war….. The war called love.

First Song Draft: Shot In the Dark

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          So this is one of the songs I've wanted to write. It's the first draft that I've shown anybody and as of now its just lyrics. I do have an idea of how I want to sing it but no music or anything like that. On that note, if anyone knows a good music maker app that's free please tell me in the comments. Also, I want your feedback so if you think it's bad to tell me why. If you think its good but think it needs something tell me. I welcome all feedback because that's the point of showing people a draft. 

I fell for you the moment I saw your eyes.

I couldn’t breathe I was paralyzed.

I didn’t know what to say but I knew that I couldn’t do nothing.

I wanted to get closer to you, so I decided to take a leap of faith; ask you your name, ask for your number and hope for the best….

I’m begging for things to be all right, I’m hoping to get through the way I’m feeling for you. And I’m praying for a time when you could be mine.

…. I took my shot shot shot in the dark, hoping everything wouldn't break apart. Cause I’m aiming straight for your heart and I hope I don’t miss because I don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t see you.

Baby I know you won’t believe me when I say let me make, a shot in the dark.

Baby I don’t know what I’m feeling when I watch you walk away but if I let you go all regret it every single day... So turn around I’m begging you. Just give me a shot and all come through. I don't know if what I’m feeling is love but it’s not something I’m going to let go of.

I”ll take my shot shot shot in the dark hoping everything doesn’t fall apart. Cause I’m aiming straight for your heart. And I’m praying, and begging that I hit my mark. Cause I don’t know what I'd do if I… I don’t know what you’d do…. I fell for you and I’m still falling …. And I'm gonna take my, take my, gonna take my shot shot shot in the dark. Hope I don’t miss your heart; hope I leave a mark.

Cause I'm afraid of what I'd feel inside if I had to watch you walk away. Now it’s too late, the shots been fired, shots been fired now, shots been fired. Shots been fired away.

A Day In Fall: Morning to Night

All images obtained from either https://pixabay.com/ or https://unsplash.com/

A College Recommendation Letter for Me by Me

So for this blog post, I have to write a 300-word application letter for a scholarship or college admission. I don't know what I'm doing but I'll give it a shot. I do know you have to talk yourself up and I'm bad at that so this is most likely going to be poorly written and not very persuasive.

Corbin Liermann
Address of Applicant
Arkansas, Kansas, 67005

10/22/17

Galle-Johnson Hall
Cowley Community College
125 South 2nd Street
Arkansas, Kansas, 67005

Dear Galle-Johnson Hall:

I am sending this letter in the hopes of being admitted into Cowley Community College. I know that Cowley has a great business program; which will be a great intro into the arts of management and marketing and I wish to stay close to the community after high school. 

Currently, I am just staring my journey into the world of business and marketing and I'm eager to dive into my undergraduate studies. My goal ultimately is to obtain my Associate's degree and then transfer to Wichita State University and get my bachelors in Business Management and possibly a second degree in business marketing or market analyzes. I'm an outstanding student with a 3.9 GPA and I am also a dedicated athlete in both track and cross country. I will admit that business may not be my calling but I am confident in my math skills and have an analytical mind, work well in adverse condition; which is something you must deal with in the business career. 

In my family, college is stressed but only to a point. I want to go beyond that of which my parents have and strive to better myself through adversity. Having brothers that I constantly compete with pushes me to stand out and I want to be a better person and feel that the more work I put in the more I will get out. I do hope that you will consider admitting me in the coming fall.

Sincerely,

Corbin Liermann 
Corbin Liermann
Enclosure: (I don't have this stuff so.... no)

Monster Hunter- Update

A couple of weeks ago I added a post on an up and coming Capcom game; Monster Hunter World.
In the post, I talked about the monsters, armors, and weapons. I also mentioned differences from World and other monster hunter titles. This post is an update on new maps, monsters and general information like character creation, and the hub town.

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I'll start with the hub town and character creation. Every Monster Hunter game has some sort of hub town where you get your quest, make your gear and buy items before the hunt. In Monster Hunter games there is always a Feline dinner that gives you buffs(its run by cat chefs), a farm which lets you grow rare materials of your choice and something new for Monster Hunter is a training room. The hub town is called Astera. As off now there is still a lot of the hub town to be explored; areas like the online hall where you join up with other players and the player house where you store gear. Now, character creation in previous games has been very basic but with the addition of world, that's not the case at all. The character creation is extremely in depth. You can jump in with pre-made characters like most games or you can spend hours going through and making the character you want. I'm not going to spend the whole blog on this but click HERE and it will take you to a link to an in-depth character creation video on Youtube by Arekkz Gaming. Oh, you also have a feline companion called a Palico that accompanies you on solo and story quest. You get to make the Palico how you want also.

In the last post, I talked about the environment but didn't actually give you descriptions of the maps so I guess this will cover all maps. Map #1: The Ancient Forest. The Ancient Forest is a basic forest map that has dense jungles, open plains, mountain ranges and has water areas like rivers and ocean beaches. It's the first map your introduced to in World and is part of the island the hub town is on. Map #2: The Wildspire Waste. This is the iconic Monster Hunter desert map. It is very baren and like a desert, it is a very rocky and sandy map. It also has a swampish area with very murky water. Map #3: The Coral Highlands. This is a new type of map for monster hunter. It is similar to a coral reef but out of the water. It has lots of bright colors and is a place relief from the dull previous maps. There is a map #4 but it is most likely a special map reserved for fighting the Elder Dragon which a will mention in the updated monster list. That concludes the maps as of now but I expect at least 3 more maps, a flooded plains map, a volcano map and a tundra map

Now to update the curent monster list. I'll start with the two unamed monsters from the last post. Pukei Pukei, and Zorah Magdaros which is the Elder Dragon I mentioned early. Along with Zorah Magdaros, this is a new monster who is the poster boy for World, Nergigante. Most fans are assuming he's an Elder Dragon too, and I very much agree with that statement. The rest of the new monsters can all be found in the Coral Highlands. There are Legiana, Paolumu, Tzitzi-Ya-Ku, and Tobi-Kadachi.  Click HERE to go to the link for the images and basic information about the monsters.

This concludes this week's blog post. Like last time I've left a lot of stuff out but hopefully the more you learn the more interested you become in the game. With the emergence of more and more monsters, maps, and just everything the game keeps getting better and better. P.S. the next 9 weeks will be covering the book The Culture of Fear, and I won't have time for blogs like this. Remeber this is a school blog. Till next time, bye and thanks for reading.

Current Inspiration

This blog post is over three things that currently inspire me to be better or to try harder in my everyday life. First, the song Sore Winner by the band There For Tomorrow from the album A Little Faster which is now retitled A F T R H R. Second, is my family and third is up and coming video games.

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So first is the song, Sore Winner. Now the perspective of the song is from someone who is forced to continually compete with someone better than him or herself and this person wins but they can't see that there a "sore winner".  When I listen to the song the impression I get is the loser whos is trying to keep up. The lines "scrap my hands and knees..." refers to the act of trying to push yourself and win against the odds. The song relates to me because I'm in the position of the person trying to win. At the beginning of our Cross Country season, I sprained my ankle and put myself out for 5 weeks of the season. While everyone else was getting better I was stagnant and it infuriated me and still does.  If there is one thing that makes me madder than anything else it's failing my own expectations and my goal for this year was to break an 18:00 5k and as of now my PR or Personal Record is a 19:29, which leaves me 3 races left to knock my time down. The song inspires me to keep pushing and meet my goals even if the chances are low. I don't want to be a sore winner but if things stay the way they are now, all be a sore loser and that's not any better.

Second, is my family and they inspire me in lots of ways, some of which they do by their own mistake and others by the love and support they give me every day. No matter what I know they will be real with me and that is a very reassuring feeling. They keep me on a straight path of forwarding progression. My family supports me and that inspires me to do the best I can so I don't let them down by failing their expectations or my own. Because of my brothers I know I can't slack off or they will leave behind and as competitive as we all are I can't let that happen. My sister inspires me to grab onto every opportunity I can because "If you don't you'll tell yourself no and at that point, it's out of reach." My mom inspires me to be the bigger person and respectful to people; showing them the kindness that I wish to receive. She also has inspired me to be as involved in high school as I can and her support is what allows me to be in sports, choir, and FFA. My dad inspires me with the way he deals with stupid people because let's face it the world's full of stupid and if you know how to deal with it life will be a tad bit easier. My nieces both inspire me. One is eight and she is going through a lot of major changes and even though her life has been short she's been through way more than her fair share of injustices. My other niece is not quite a year old but has struggled to just get through each day. They both inspire me to make the most of the blessings I've been given. When I say, family, I don't just mean my direct or immediate family. My grandparents inspired me to stay strong when things aren't going my way. Now, I could go through a lot of uncles, aunts, and cousins but I'll stop here.

The last this is really just a bonus incentive to getting all make work done in class and doing what I'm supposed to at home and it would be the new video games coming out this year. To be more specific the game would be Star Wars Battlefront 2. The demo came out this weekend and playing it has brought a lot of nostalgia from my PS2 days and the game itself is just awesome. It inspires me to keep the grades up and to get a job because I'm broke and new releases aren't cheap. P.S. Monster Hunter World release date is set for 2018, January 26st!!!!!!!

Whats Wrong With the World?

I can word this a lot of different ways but since this is a school project I'll be PG. The world is realistic and realistically the world is full of problems and has a ton wrong with it most of which we have no power to control.  In this post, I at random picked a news article and have written a response/reflection on it. I know the news is a touchy subject and everyone has their own opinions and just like you I am entitled to mine. So before you read anymore you need to know that in the comments I don't want to hear complaints or other annoying bs. If you want to state your argument or tell me what you agreed or disagreed with that's awesome. If you have more information on the topic and want to add please do but I don't want to see comments that say "this is dumb" or "are you stupid?" Nah, if you're going to comment that don't bother reading this post. Thank You.

Now that that's out of the way let's get back on topic. I picked an article written by Tom Mullen titled "Can the U.S. Survive the Pressures for Secession?" This was at random so I don't really have a reason I picked it. In this article, Mullen talks about the hatred of presidents from both sides, the growing violence in the country over government policies and how the U.S. would be affected by states seceding. Mullen also brings up points on attempted secession around the world. I don't what to do an in-depth summary of the article; I want to tell you my thoughts when reading certain parts and what I agree and disagree with as a whole. The intro talks about the haterade that both sides of the political party had for the last three presidents and in his words "Trump has inspired new levels of hostility- even for politics" he then says that "Americans have been hating the president for this entire century." The presidents he is referring to are president Trump, Bush, and Obama. Both the left and the right sides of the political party have "mobilized armed groups, not just carrying signs but ready for violence" explains Mullen. This line is pretty straightforward and I think it's pretty self-evident that this is true. Mullen believes that " Government makes nice people do terrible things, things that even they themselves would have considered barbarous before taking office." I both agree with and disagree with this statement. I think the government affects what the presidents do but to blame all the terrible things and bad choices that our leaders make on government seems ludicrous. Mullen then moves on and starts talking about secession and how the United States is not a "nation-state". A nation-state is by definition; a sovereign state whose citizens or subjects are relatively homogeneous in factors such as language and common descent.  I agree that the nation can not be a nation-state because we are extremely different and extremely diverse state by state. People living in Kansas City Kansas, for example, will have very different culture compared to Miami Flordia. Mullen continues to bring in examples of attempted secessions around the world from the Catalonia referendum to the Scottish referendum in 2014. Mullen says this line before bringing in examples from other countries " Secession movements are gaining momentum all over the world for precisely the same reason American politics are becoming more vitriolic." This line is telling us what Mullen believes is at the base of secession; a need to break away from an overbearing government that stretches and manipulates your rights. This line brings up lots of questions for me. First does the U.S. government manipulate our rights? Second, do we even have rights or are they just privileges that get given out for a time and then taken away? Third, if we don't have rights or they are being manipulated is secession the best option for the United States to fix the problem? Granted I can't answer these questions but I thought state what ran through my head after reading that line. Moving on, Mullen continues talking about secession but now focuses on what it means for the rest of the U.S. if a state did secede. But I can sum this up pretty fast since he said " Would the lives of Americans in New York, Georgia, or Utah really change substantially if California were no longer being governed by Washington? No." I think Mullen should have been more specific. He should have said, "would the everyday lives of Americans" instead because California leaving the United States would cause changes in politics and government which affects everyone. My everyday lifestyle wouldn't change because of a state leaving the U.S unless it was the state I lived in. The last section in the article is about solutions and the lack of a perfect one. Mullen argues that localities and regions have different wants and secession isn't the answer to all these problems. He states that "while Catalonia, Scotland, Venice, and Tibet have no other choice but secession, the United States of America do." His answer to my third question from earlier is that " getting back to the Constitution" is " a realist outcome of whatever conflagration lies ahead." The Constitution is our source of rights and freedoms that bind us together as a country. I'm in agreement that is a "realistic outcome" but I'm unsure if it"s the best option for us to take. This concludes this weeks post and I hope everyone remembers what I asked in the beginning of the post. Thanks for reading this and I realize I don't know what I'm talking about so if that thought runs through your head I completely understand.

My Defining Quote

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"If you always put limit on everything you do, physical or anything else. It will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." Bruce Lee.  Quote obtained from http://www.authorama.com/essays-of-francis-bacon-50.html

 I actually liked a lot of Bruce Lees quotes after reading them and it was really hard to pick one. But, I said in my mission statement before that I want to be the best me in all aspects of my life. This quote relates to that idea of pushing yourself to be the best you can be. When I say all aspects of my life I literally mean all because if I slack in one then I will begin slacking in others till I just don't care anymore.  For example, I haven't been able to push myself toward the next plateau in Cross Country this year because of an ankle injury. Three days ago on Wednesday, I was finally able to start running after a 4-week break. The day after that Wednesday we had a meet in Goddard on a course called Lake Afton and it's the most difficult course we run all year. I had to run JV which already bothered me but it couldn't be helped. I ended up finishing with a time of 21:47 in 7th place. If you don't know a time of 21:47 is extremely slow. My twin brother is running an 18:24 and that's where I'm supposed to be at time wise. I love competition and being beat by him is the most frustrating thing in the world because last year I would always finish right before him and now I'm not even running at my freshmen year pace. I'm on a plateau and I'm struggling to go beyond it. This quote also relates to an essay written by Sir Francis Bacon by the name of "Of Studies". This essay covers the importance of studying the areas you find yourself lacking in and by doing so you remedy the defects in your mind.  This perfectly relates to me and this quote of wanting to better yourself and go higher and higher in the world. I think everyone should try and improve themselves in as many areas as possible because it will make our society grow in a positive direction. Society is made of individuals and their individual knowledge, ideas, and beliefs. If people try and go beyond their plateaus society will, therefore, be pushed beyond its plateau. This post was supposed to focus on why this quote relates to me but I couldn't help myself and had to bring in some other points that this connected to. Hope you enjoyed the read and please comment any thoughts you had on the post.

Monster Hunter World

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Ok so I'm jumping right into this and all try and make this understandable to people that aren't gamers and people that don't no the series.

Overview-
Monster Hunter is an action role-playing game developed and released by Capcom spanning many sequels and adaptations. Counting the latest game 5 main game titles have been released. When I say main games I mean games released for consoles. The first game was released in 2004 for the PS2 and Capcoms come a long way since then. Monster Hunter games follow a common theme of an up and coming hunter (you) trying to make an honest living hunting giant monsters. In the past, the games have had both offline and online play. Monster Hunter World is a special title in the series because it is the first title to have a simultaneous release date in both Japan and America, and it is also the first the series has united the global player base by incorporating cross-region play with an all-new in-game multiplayer drop-in system. Along with both of these features, Monster Hunter World is the first Monster Hunter game to have an interactable environment and seamless open map. The point of the game put simply is players must kill monsters to both improve their player skill and equip their hunters with gear made from harvested monster parts. Like most RPGs, Monster Hunter is based on a quest system. You get a quest, complete quest, then receive rewards based on that quest.

Monsters/Enviorment-
Monster Hunter games have had a wide variety of different monsters with different attack patterns and behaviors its what makes the game so enjoyable. You must adapt to the monster as you fight and learn from your mistakes. In the game, there are different sizes of monster and what I mean by that is there is the small monster that is either there as an annoyance or for environmental purposes and there are large monsters which are the ones everybody has fun killing. From game trailers and demos there is a hand full of confirmed monsters in World as of now. Each Monster Hunter game includes new monster but then normally bring back a few from other games. So far there are Rathos, Diablos, Barroth, Great Jagras, Anjanath, Kulu-Ya-Ku, Jyuratodus, and two unnamed monsters. If you're interested in images of the beast Click Here and it will take you to a site where you can look at not only the monsters I've mentioned but the smaller monsters too. The environment is pretty easy to explain. Like I said the map is open and monster can move around as they please. This is new to the world and so is the destructible and usable environment. As a hunter there will be times when you can use the area around you to your advantage. It's up to you to see and take these opportunities but just no monsters can use some of them against you.

Armors and Weapons-
In Monster Hunter armor is split up between the hunter's different body parts.(helm, chest, waist, etc.) Armors give hunters well armor and depending on the armor equipped different stat buffs and resistances. For example, an armor made from materials of a fire-breathing dragon will make that hunter take less damage from fire. Armor aesthetics always look similar to that of the monster they are harvested from unless it's a basic starter set. Weapons take a little more breaking down. They're 14 different weapon types and they fit into 3 different categories: light, heavy and technical. light weapons consist of the Long Sword, Dual Blades, Sword and Sheild, and light Bowgun. Heavy weapons are Great Sword, Lance, Gun-lance, Hammer, and heavy Bowgun. Technical weapons which are by far some of the coolest are Charge Blade, Switch Axe, Hunting Horn, Bow, and finally Insect-Glav. For videos on these weapons and more specifics on Monster Hunter World go check out Arekkz Gaming on Youtube, this link takes you to his channel then just find his Monster Hunter World playlist.

So, there's a ton of stuff I have'nt talked about but I'm hopping this has gotten a few of you interested in the game. The links I've put in will take you to the sites and give a more aproerate describtion then mine. Check out Monster Hunter Wiki for more information and if you go to the link for Arekkz Gaming you won't find what you're looking for on the school computer because it's restricted, so make sure you use your phone for that part. I absolutely love this game already and I can't wait for it to come out next year. Thanks for reading!!!!

If You Only Knew

    If you only knew..... well there's not much to say. I'm an identical twin. I love music and I watch anime. I mean this is a hard topic for me. I'm just a boring guy and there's not much going on behind the scenes. But I guess I'll dive right in and give it a shot. I guess all talk about how  I want to be a lyrics writer.

I love music. I listen to all different genres and types of music. I go from Christian rock to country to 90's pop. But I listen to more alternative rock and metal than anything else. This does not mean scream-O because even I have trouble listening to that. I mean Bands like Three Days Grace, Linkin Park, Breaking Benjamin, Yellowcard, etc. Because I listen to theses bands so much I want to write songs similar to theirs. But, I don't know how to play any instruments and I can't really read music. This makes writing music with notes and everything impossible. So instead I just come up with lyrics and sing them how ever I think they sound best. I normally get the lyrics just my singing when I'm bored and coming up with them as I go. I don't have a song that's finished but I've started a few, three to be exact. One's called Shot In The Dark. As of now, it's the one I want to finish the most.  The other two are, Lighter and Middle of the Sea. Shot In The Dark is about how I took a chance asking a girl out. Middle of The Sea is a song about rejection and Lighter is a song about finding someone that brightens your world no matter what. I'm not sure what the music to them would be and I constantly change how I sing them. I would also like to perform theses songs some day. I don't have enough songs thought up to even begin coming up with an album name or band name, though I would probably name the band Hollow Dreams. This is just something I work on from time to time and not something I openly pursue. It's nothing more than a hobby and a fantasy. I know it's not realistic and that's why I don't tell people about it; that and the fact that if I tell people they want to see the lyrics but they're not finished so I won't show them to anyone. I'm always looking for new material so comment your favorite bands and songs. Thanks for reading and I can't wait to hear your thoughts on this post.

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What Makes Me Tick?

To be honest I'm not sure what makes me tick. I've never really thought about it. But it's my prompt for this weeks blog and I intend to answer it to the best of my abilities. I guess I'll start by picking 5 things that describe me or things I enjoy doing.

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1. Honesty
2. Surrounding Myself with Challenges
3. Making the Most of Any Experiences
4. Fear of Failing My Expectations 
5. (this one sounds a little weird) Watching Other People
6. Being Myself 

I know theses sound self-centered but the fact of the matter is, they're what makes me tick so they should be self-centered.

First, honesty. I think honesty is one of the most important parts of any family, friendship, relationship, or partnership. I know that's a cliche saying but it's true. Honesty has a more profound meaning to me though. Because when you lie, you're trying to distract yourself. You may say it to another person but it stems from you not wanting to admit you're trying to hide a flaw, problem or mistake. I hate lying. Flat out despise it. But I still lie, even when I know the truth behind why I'm lying.

Second, surrounding myself with challenges.  I want to grow and be the best I can be. An easy and effective way to do that is by surrounding myself with people, or events that cause me to grow. It's the underlying reason why I do cross country, track, take a few AP classes, volunteer for club events and even play video games. Yes, I get enjoyment from theses activities but some of that comes from the challenges and the competition. 

Third, making the most of any experience. Lifes full of ups, downs, lefts, and rights. I want to gain knowledge from every turn and then figure out how I'm going to use it. No, I don't plan on using it for grand things; I plan to use it to make my life and the life's of people close to me easier. For every good or bad experience, there is something to take away. I always try and take it and more if I can.

Fourth, the fear of failing my expectations. I don't like to lose and I don't like to fail. When I don't meet my own expectations it frustrates me so severely that I can't get past it. But, I have to say that my expectations vary depending on the project and my attitude toward it. Along with this I find time precious and avoid wasting it.

Fifth, watching other people. I know this comes off as weird and perverted but hear me out. I want to understand others, why they do this over that, stuff like that. So I watch peoples behaviors and try and draw out connections and disparities. For example, watching someone struggle to fit in and resist peer pressure and watching their friend struggle to decide if they should step in and help them or not. I'm an observer. I like to take things in gradually. It's part of the reason I find this class so irritating. 

Extra Sixth, being myself. I've said it and I'm saying it again, I want to be the best me I can. So, being myself is obviously important. This also relates to my hate of lying because not being yourself is lying. I dislike fakes. I understand putting up walls but you should always be true to yourself and stand up for the things you like even if it makes you seem like a fool to some. If you're one of those people that disagree with me and think that you should have a different mask for each person or social group I understand your point of view and can't say I disagree since I do the same but, I must say it gets tiring keeping up with all the different mask.  Because I don't get enough sleep anyway I'm working toward being myself even when it might put me out of the group. Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment if you want to see a post on something specific, something not on the teacher's list.

My Mission Statement

To try my best in all aspects of my life and be my best me. Whether that's in Cross Country, Choir, or class doesn't make a difference. I want to be a person that can act as a role model for younger and older students and be someone who can inspire them to be their best selfs. But as long as I'm being the best me possible all be happy with where I am in life. I will still strive, however, for greatness because you can never truly be your best self because tomorrow will change you and that will change what your best self will look like at the end.