mckenzie06′s Blog

Cheer. That is what most of my summer is going to consist of. Between practices with the team, tumbling, and fundraisers to help pay for everything, I’ll be pretty busy with my new sport. I’ve never cheered before. I’ve been a dancer for four (4) years now and have only been tumbling for a couple months so I don’t really have any special talents there. This is something I’ve always wanted to do though. Ever since I was little I always said that I was going to cheer when I got to high school. I may be half way done with high school, but I’m finally cheering! Emotions are running a bit high about actually making the team. It was a long shot, and I knew that, but I didn’t let it slow me down any. I may not have made the varsity squad, but I was told that I could pissibly be moved up to varsity. “I’m going to take that possibility and make it a Probability!” that’s my motto as of right now. I’m going to work my butt off and show them that I deserve that shot at varsity!

     There are many poeple that stand as heroes to me. One inparticular, however, continues to stick out to me more and more as i learn about him. For privacy purposes we’ll call him Kale. To most people, Kale is just another high school student, and if you met him you’d think the same, but when you get to know him as well as I have, you get to know some increadable pieces of his past.
     This junior in high school has lived all over the United States and has been in many scarry situations. He’s been chased down by tornadoes, caught and nearly shot in a drive-by shooting, made it through the gangs in the not-so-great parts of California, and everything in between.
     Kale’s entire family has been seperated and is now scattered throughout the country. He is living here in Oregon with his aunt, his dad and a couple of his brothers are in New Mexico, some of his siblings are in California, and some of them he doesn’t even know where they are. He has even lost 3 of his siblings; two, twins, who died at birth, and a brother who was killed mere days after his 18th birthday.
     Another thing that makes this guy a hero of mine is what he plans to do with part of his summer. As any other average teenage guy, Kale is going to be busy with sports and camps this summer, but one thing that he plans on doing that most other teens may never do in their lives, is risking their lives to save someone they love. You see, Kale’s father is in desperate need of a new kidney to live. Kale loves his father and he doesn’t want to lose him so this summer he is going to New Mexico to see if he is a match for his father and if he is, he will be giving him a kidney.

     I admire what this boy is doing and what he has been through, but what I admire most is his strength to get through it all. Kale is one of the strongest people I know. He’s kept his head up, faught through it, and kept going everytime another obsticle is thrown at him. Sure, many people can do this, but most will never admit that they do break down and cry sometimes. I’ve seen Kale cry and he’s not afraid to admit that he is an emotional person and has his breaking points. But he knows how to handle it. He knows that if he’s having a hard time, he has people he can go to and that he shouldn’t try to get through it all on his own. Now that is strength.

     Heroes arn’t just the men and women fighting for our country, yes they are my heroes as well, but they can also be, as I found out, the person sitting next to you in your spanish class. A hero doesn’t just have to be the firefighter that pulled the person out of the wreaked vehicle. They can be the victim that made a miraculous and speedy recovery and got on with their lives as though the accident had never occured.

     So the next time you see someone laughing in the hall, or sitting eating lunch in the cafeteria, or asking you a question about what the heck your spanish teacher is saying, or when you see a group of friends playing basketball at the park, or walking through the mall, or when you’re hanging out with your friends think to yourself; what has that person been through? Is that person a hero of yours and you just never noticed? You’d be surprised at what you discover.

In my personal opinion, Earth Hour was not aknowledged nearly enough. I feel as though it wasn’t advertised as much as it should have been. The only time i ever saw information about Earth Hour was on the Esurance commercials and even then, you don’t see those too often. Earth Day is better recognized by people but I feel like it’s still not enough. It seems like people have the state of mind that someone else will take care of the things that they don’t want to take care of themselves when it comes to helping the environment. The problem with that is that too many people think that. It takes everyone to make a difference. Even if everyone only did something small, that would still be a small change.

Twilight Podcast

Sitting in the movie theaters, my friend Joelle (A.K.A. Joey) and I were pretty bummed about not being able to go to our school’s football playoff game that would determine if we went to the title game or not. We had decided to go see Twilight to make up for not going to the game, but we still wanted to know exactly what was going on. Text messages were sent to our friends, cheerleaders, and even teachers that were at the game but we didn’t get a text back. Not until after our movie ended, that is.

“I just got a text. Maybe it’s James finally texting me back,” I stated as the credits began rolling.

“Well open it!” Joey insisted, impatient.

“Ugh, it’s just my mom,”

The text may have been from my mom, but my jaw dropped in excitement as soon as I read its contents.

“We won… Our boys won! We’re going to the title game!” Disbelief colored my voice at first but then it turned high-pitched with excitement.

Eyes wide, Joey looked at me with a mix of the same disbelief and excitement in her features. “Seriously?!”

I simply nodded and we both nearly screamed.

“We’re going to the title game! Thurston is going to the state title game!” We cheered continuously and in unison.

As we’re cheering in complete excitement, I started to look around and only then did I see the expressions of the faces of the people in the theatre who are staring at us.

“Thurston is going to the state title game!!!! …..and everyone is staring at us……..” I added seeing as Joelle was still oblivious.

Together we scanned the small crowd in the theatre and simply began laughing at ourselves.

I listened to many podcasts today but merely one really caught my attention and held it through the entire podcast. This podcast is Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan. Starting out with a peculiar kind of music, the preducers of this podcast wait a moment to speak, but when they do, they ask you to imagine the setting of the book. As that same music continues to play in the background, the speakers read clips and dialogues from the book. The mood of the clips form the book change and the music changes accordingly: starting out peculiar and yet openly imiganative, the music turns serious almost suddenly, then even more suddenly you hear a light sounding music as the podcast wraps up. Boy Meets Boy is summerized very well and with lost of detail. If I hadn’t heard this podcast I would never have even thought of reading this book, but now I’m interested in knowing more.

When you see me at any given time you will find that i always have my iopd. I usually carry my ipod in one pocket and my cell phone in the other. Those are two things that i never leave my house without. On top of that, if you look hard enough, you can usually find my camera in my bag. At home i tend to be on the computer. Talking to my friends in different towns is really easy via IM or myspace. If I’m not blasting music and talking to someone on the computer then you can probably find me texting my friends or talking to them on the phone. Technology for me is relatively easy to figure out. I just play with it until I figure out how it works. However this process can be a bit emberrising if people are around because i tend to make strange faces and funky noises when trying to get a piece of technology to do what i want it to.

~ A Lost Friend ~

By McKenzie Akin

One evening in 2001, I was watching T.V. with my mom in her room when the phone rang. The rest of that night is forever burned into my brain. Like it was just yesterday. My mom answered the phone and almost immediately the atmosphere in the room changed. something was wrong and she couldn’t hide it. She hung up the phone and grabbed my hand as she turned toward me trying to muster up the courage to tell me what she had just been told. Ashlee had died a couple of hours before.

I was frozen. My mind was racing, my heart seemed to stop, and my body was numb. Trembling, the tears started rolling from my eyes. Pain like that was completely new to me, but I’ll never forget the first time I felt it. Just like I’ll never forget the times I had with Ashlee. She’s in a better place now though and I know I’ll see her again someday.

Rachelle

Ashley

Andrew