ANOTHER Job

As if my schedule wasn't hectic enough I've decided to partake in an internship under my dad's accountant, Sonja Dunlap at Advantage Tax. It is an accounting internship so it will be good experience since I want to major in accounting and French in college.

There is another person who also interns there. Her name is Stephanie and she is a junior at Washington High. This is her third year so shes teaching me most of what to expect to do and what time to do it.

These first three days in the office have been pretty fun, mostly moving and preparing files. It's extremely differnet from the outdoor pressure washing work with my dad.

Some office quotes:

Stephanie-I hate wrestling with all these files
Me-Its not so bad when its WWF though
^yawn, one of my lame jokes


Me-So what's the standard dress code here
Sonya-Your fine in what your wearing now, just make sure that you don't wear anything that shows your belly, butt or boobs.
^didn't expect that one to come from my boss


Stephanie-So where do you go to school
Me-Kennedy
Stephanie-Oh, I feel sorry for you
^why does everyone hate kennedy?


Sonya-Just go ahead and use the electric stapler
^electric staplers are SOOOO COOL!!!!!


Me-Hick.....That's an appropriate last name for an Iowan
^there were three people's folders whose last name was Hick in the file cabinet.

Who was that one guy?

Saturday morning was the dreaded SAT's. I arrived at Coe with pencil and eraser in hand ready to take the test. When in line, I noticed that everyone had a piece of paper. This made me a little nervous since I didn't have one. I got to the registration desk and they needed to see my regristration reciept.

"The What?"

"Your registration reciept"

uh oh...... I didn't realize i needed one. They let me take the test as a stand-by taker because they had seen that I registered online but wasn't registered, or something like that. Now I need to register again for my score to count.

I hope I don't get arrested for blogging about the test. They made me sign about twenty times that I wouldn't talk about it. The essay went ok until I ran out of time and didn't finish my conclusion. I also couldn't remember the name of the guy who invented Penecillin so I had to work around it. I'm going to kick myself the next time I hear it. The math was easy as expected and the verbal was pretty hard, but tutoring has helped.

Today was also Kennedy's winter dance night. If I didn't get my tickets free then I wouldn't have gone. It was boring like expected. Oh Well, it killed two hours of the night.

Jimmy the Machine

After tae kwon do on Wednesday was scoreboarding. It had been a long day between school and tae kwon do and I was dreading working that night. I got to score the normal court with the normal scoreboard. Addison wasn't there so David substituted for him, and Chris and Mr. Tsang both got their normal courts.

The game had started.

Two decent teams were on my court so I knew it would be a fun game to watch. One team had all around good players and the other team had horrible players and Jimmy the Machine. Unfortunatly, the other team would make sure to keep two people on Jimmy at all times so he had to rely on the rest of the team. After the first half, Jimmy's team was worn down because they weren't prepared to be relied upon.

The second half started with a tie score but quickly swayed in the favor of the other team. They were controlling the ball often and well. Jimmy's team was losing confidence and rightly so. with five minutes left in the half Jimmy was dribbling the ball down the court and an opponent hit the ball from his hands and it rolled out. Their was a small argument over whether the ball hit Jimmy or the opponent last and Jimmy became furious over this. Every time he'd touch the ball he would shoot it..................and swish it would go in.

His shots were amazing. He was so frustrated yet so intensly accurate at the same time. He would go to just past the half court line and take the shot and swish it. Their team ended up winning by five points and it greatly inspired me to buy a t-shirt that says Jimmy the Machine on it. I thought this story was interesting so I just had to tell it.

Tae kwon do Party

This past Sunday was the ate kwon do party out at Super Skate. Everyone seemed to be having a good time skating, playing limbo, eating, and talking with some familiar and friendly people.

The party was followed up the next day with the welcoming of a decent sized bruise and very unflexible legs at tae kwon do.

Some more pictures

Here's Jim at the end of his form at the last test

Dillon during the same test
John and James at the judges table
Tracy, Gage, and Christian(left to right)

A Week of Updates

One week has passed already.

A busy schedule, lots of homework, and well deserved time for sleep/friends/etc. had left me little time to update. Last Thursday was Master Hughes's birthday. I went to class that night and afterwards he took me out to dinner at Xaviers. The food was really good, I might need to go eat there again some time. Friday night turned into a decent sized party at my house, prank calling people, playing Halo, and whatever else sounded fun.

Saturday lasted forever. After four hours of sleep I took the rest of my friends home and went down to tae kwon do. Taught 2 classes, then went to work. After four hours of work I went home and crashed. Sunday was filled with more work, followed by a two hour tae kwon do party, followed by two hours of working out. What a busy week-end, sheesh.

Monday was a half day at school but still a very busy day. After school, Nikki and Brandon (two of my friends going on the French excursion with me) came over to my house and we planned buying our plane tickets. Next was a visit to Coe College to check out the campus. It was a lot of fun and makes me greatly consider Coe as an option for next year. After that was tae kwon do again. I can't remember anything special that went on there that day.

Tuesday was a work day. Nothing special. Wednesday was a full day though. Ten hours of school, followed by two hours of tae kwon do, and then two hours of scoreboarding old man basketball. Then today was another pretty full day. School, work, then tae kwon do. Fortunatly tonite I was home by 6:45 and have been chilling out since.

I'm going to make two more posts tonite, first about the tae kwon do party, then about a basketball player in the old man basketball league. But for now, Ciao!

A Typical Wednesday

What a long day.....

6 hours of sleep left me just enough time to do my homework and take out the trash this morning, and provided me with enough energy to go to school, walk home, take a 15 minute nap, walk back to school for a club, walk back home, go to tae kwon do, scoreboard two hours of basketball, and write this blog.

At tae kwon do today was the celebration of Master Hughes's 49th birthday and so he got a cake and card and there was a small celebration. Jane took pictures of it so I'll make sure to add those to a blog soon. Also, Cavio bought me cookies, but they weren't the chewy kind so i was very dissappointed in her(had to add that because of what she wrote in her blog http://www.runningcoyote.blogspot.com/) Other than that it was a pretty normal day. Sunday is Skating at Super Skate, that should be fun.

Some more pictures

Here's Jane

And Alex
And here is Master Hughes with Matthew and Michelle

Ironic

A few weeks ago, me and Cavio (a 1st degree black belt at tae kwon do) got into an argument. This is nothing new for us, but the reason for the argument was very ironic.

"Did you know that I'm joining the military?" she said to me

I responded with a brief chuckle which got us into an argument. She never understood why I laughed so I hope she reads this.

Even though our personalities are very different we have a lot in common. We are both in French, play tennis, and are in tae kwon do. But none-the-less, why did I laugh? It's because I greatly considered joining the army last year. How ironic! Am I mistaken?

Another situation like this occured several months ago. I was reading Janes blog www.taekwondomom.blogspot.com and saw that TKDRocker (Pam) left a comment. So I decided to check out her blog. www.tkdrocker.blogspot.com Well, it turns out that she is also in French, plays tennis, and takes tae kwon do. Crazy, isn't it. It's as if I have a secret fan club of people who try to imitate me.

Irony - The contrast between appearance and reality.....A chinese man taught me that definition. Once again, How ironic! But thats enough irony for tonite. Heres a few more pictures.

Jung's tournament picture

Blake on the day he received his black belt
I plan to update about classes tomorrow. Leave comments, thanks!

A Typical Saturday

Today's classes didn't start out very well because of some unfortunate information that I learned, but I would prefer not to talk about it here so ask me online or in person if you want to know whait is.

Classes went well today. I taught both of them and then went to work for about four hours after that. The kids class was small which is typical for a Saturday. We stretched, worked on forms, sparred, and finally i led a game of simon says to finish off the class. Michelle and Tyler both ended up winning.

The adult class also went well. We stretched, kicked pads, sparred, and finished off with 3 and 1 step sparring.

Well, to finish this blog I decided to add a few pictures:

Here is Arthur, Matthieu, and Frederick, in order from left to right. They came to my city (I don't know how they ever chose this boring place) all the way from France. I hosted Matthieu for about a week and a half this past summer and plan to go visit him in Paris this upcoming summer.

Here is our school's group of black belts this past Augest. Unfortunatly, several of these people have left the school in the past few months. This is from the last tournament that i was attended. I placed 1st in forms, and 2nd in breaking and sparring. Brian took this pic, as well as most that I will put on this blog.
Finally is my senior picture. It didn't scan very well but oh well, here it is anyways.
Well, that's all for today, leave some comments

Wassup?

Here is a picture of me during my test for 2nd degree last April!

I've decided to include a little bit more information on my life outside of tae kwon do in this blog, but it will still be the main topic at hand. So, what could a 2nd degree black belt like myself possibly be interested in? Well, my main hobbies would include tae kwon do, French and tennis, and I also hang out with friends all the time. What a crazy combination, huh? Tae kwon do, tennis and french....

Well, French is awesome. I encourage anyone that has the oppurtunity to learn it to go ahead try. After hosting a student from France 2 summers ago and going to France and hosting another student last summer I've decided that it would be awesome to travel there again this summer. Its a beautiful country and the people are very friendly.

Tennis isn't going as well as it went before. I played the #4 spot on varsity last year, had the best record on the team and played all the time. Now-a-days I have become out of "tennis shape" because I have hardly played since early last summer and might not even go out for the team this year. We aren't planned to have a good team, and besides, I'm busy with work and a possible internship coming up, plus tae kwon do and school.

So, what about tae kwon do... Things have been going smoothly lately. Their was a mini tournament held last week which was kind of fun. The New Year is expected to bring about some more success to the school since its recent lack of attendence. We are planning on going to more tournaments which should encourage people to work hard. Also, Master Hughes is going to start advertising more, he's been taking pictures of some people to put into the paper.

Well, I wasn't tired tonite so I stayed up late to write this blog but I think it's time for me to go to bed. I'll make sure to update soon, and some comments would be nice!

A Surprise Visit

After work last Thursday my dad needed to return a CD to Best Buy because it didnt work. So I'm standing in the customer service line while he goes to find another copy of the CD to replace the old 1. After standing in line for a few minutes, bored out of my mind, I looked over towards the entrance of the store and see the Thomas's walking in. The majority of people at my tae kwon do school wouldn't remember who the Thomas's are because the family stopped going a little over a year ago, but they hold a great amount of respect from me because of everything that they taught me. The four of them went toward the back in the t.v. area while I was stuck in the slow moving customer service line. After several minutes of waiting I was finally free so I told my sister that I would meet her and my dad in a few minutes by the front door because it had been a long time since I last saw the Thomas's. Sean and Katrina were off in the video game area while their parents were checking out the tv's. I got a few minutes to talk with them which was pretty fun. I have so many old memories of the people that taught me so much and it's unfortunate that a lot of them didn't continue tae kwon do. I don't understand how others that are in a similar situation deal with it because it's not easy.

The Commenceration of My Blog

I've been using xanga for far too long and so it's about time I switched over to blogspot. This will mostly be a recollection of events that shifted and molded me into the black belt that I am today. If you want to see my past views on tae kwon do (because odds are that they have changed over time) then you might appreciate visiting my xanga site www.xanga.com/JustABlackBelt. Well, that's all that I have to write for now but I'll make sure to post again really soon.