I am aware that this movie came out more than two years ago, but I recently watched it again and it left me fuming. A breif background of the movie: released in the fall of 2017, starred Ben Affleck as the new Batman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, Henry Cavill as Superman and the rest of the “Justice League” who are Cyborg, Flash, and Aquaman. So the plot of this movie is that an extraterrestrial villain who claims to be a god is coming to earth in order to conquer the world. In response the forces of the world team up in order to fight the villain. Sound familiar?(*cough* AVENGERS! *cough*). The plot is bland, predictable, and suspiciously derivative to the plot of the Avengers. To be fair, movies of this genre are hard to be original, but that is only excused when the movie in question is entertaining. Justice League isn’t. The Avengers franchise is successful because most of the main heroes had their own independent movies as backstories. We knew the team before they unified. Justice League only introduced three of the main characters before the movie and added three new heroes during the unification movie and the audience had to play catch up. The one thing I think I hated more than the dry plot were the battle suits and looks of the heros. Cyborg was so digitally remastered that he looked like a video game. Flash was supposed to be blonde but had brown hair in the movie. Last but most certainly least we have the Aquaman who was portrayed by Jason Momoa. Good actor (the funniest in the movie) but his Hawaiian bodybuilder look didn’t compare do the comic version in anyway, shape, or form. I just believe that it wasn’t the right time for this movie to come out. Like I said before, I think there should have been the intro movies for the characters that were introduced in the Justice League. This franchise has potential, hopefully it wont be wasted.

When I ask you to think about someone who really affected your life. Your first thoughts would probably be of the people who raised you whether that be your parents, step-parents, adopted parents, relatives, etc. They are the most responsible for the person that you are today. Then your thoughts would possibly be of your friends as you spend the most time with them, after your family. But try to think about people who aren’t related to you, or people you don’t see all the time. For me, when someone asked me that question I, like you, first thought of my friends and family but as I thought harder, my math tudor came to mind. She is a math teacher at my high school and I first met with her when I was a freshman and was starting to stuggle in Algebra. I was always anxious and a little embarrassed when meeting with a tudor, but she had a certain way about her that relaxed me and made learning math somewhat easier. After that first session she was my go to person whenever I had trouble in whatever math class I was in, which was very often. Not only would she meet with me once or twice a week but gave me last minute help in the morning, befor school. I can tell you right now that without her I wouldn’t have been able to achieve the grades that I did in all four years of high school. My GPA would have taken a massive hit and who knows, maybe I wouldn’t have been accepted into my first choice college because of that hit. A simple tudor has affected my life for the better. I then ask you to think of someone who wasn’t a relative or friend, but someone else who greatly affected your life.

Another guy and I never really liked each other, in fact, one could say that we hated each other. Unfortunately, we were in the same eighth-grade gym class so we constantly butted heads. After one particular PE class, he was already pretty heated after a very physical soccer game that my team won. When in the locker room, he was arguing the fairness of the game’s outcome, where many insults were used on both sides. He was so angry that he shoved me into my locker to try to lock me in. Fortunately,  I got out of that terribly tiny locker and we engaged in a rather brutal fight until the gym teacher broke it up. Even though I was suspended I didn’t feel any guilt. I was proud of myself for standing up for me. Luckily for me, my father taught me how to physically protect myself. Unfortunately, though, not everyone has the option to learn self-defense. Self-defense should be offered in schools because it would decrease bullying, mentally prepare students for the real world, and promote another way for students to be physically active. Teaching self-defense is another great way for students to stay active and healthy. In the unhealthy world that we live in, having another way to physically improve our health is never a bad thing to have. Teaching mental awareness and observation is essential because it allows students to access a situation in which a violent crime may happen, and it could possibly end the threat before it even starts. Like I said befor, it is important to teach kids not start a fight but to end it.

My father is probably the embodiment of the 50-year-old American father. He exercises constantly, rides a Harley motorcycle, owns nine firearms, completed tours as a Navy fighter pilot and has a certain fondness for aged Bourbon. He is always on top of both my sister and me on grades and education and will call us out if we did something wrong. He is hardly a perfect father, but I can say for a certainty that I wouldn’t ask for anyone else.  He is the one who taught me how to grow up, to be a man. I believe in the term, “being a man” because a man, for guys at least, means being a good, caring person. A man is someone who held his ground, no matter how hard things get. A man is someone who will never give up on himself and most certainly would never give up on his family. As my time for going to college is coming closer I have started to realize how soon it will be when I am an independent adult. Throughout my life I have noticed that I have been hearing the term “be a man” less and less. Unfortunately, I have noticed that my peers are starting to forget what being a man means. Off the top of my head, I think the reason for this would be because of the absence of a real man in their life. I am lucky enough to have my father to guide me through this portion of my life and for him to knock me back on the right path whenever I stray. In this current environment of confusing gender roles, I think people are starting to lose sight of being a man means. A man goes off to war to protect his country for those who would harm it, a man holds the door open for his significant other and would protect that other from harm. I sincerely hope that the idea of “being a man” will live on and that those who would disagree with that statement get wise real soon.

Thirteen hours of being on a bus are not easy in it on itself, but even worse when you don’t know anyone. During the service trip in Houston, Texas I have made some friends but there were all put on the other bus going home, so I wasn’t very happy at first. To make things even worse I was the last to get on the charter bus which made my seat choice limited to an aisle seat with a horrible view of the TV. I thought it was going to be an unbearable ride, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. The person I sat next to didn’t look too happy with the seat choice either. We introduced ourselves and started to talk to each other soon after the bus started to drive. We were discussing our favorite parts of the service trip which then led to more conversations. As Kaleb and I were in a discussion about how the Marvel Universe was better than the DC Universe in terms of movies, a girl, Haley, who was seated in front of us joined in the conversation all of a sudden. “The overall quality of the MU’s movies are far better, but the DC comic books were better executed,” she defended. And just like that, Haley was now a part of our conversations, along with her friend sitting next to her, Nadia. I looked at my watch and couldn’t believe that the first four hours of the drive already passed. On the outside, Kaleb, Haley, Nadia, and I were really different. Nadia was a freshman, Haley and Kaleb were sophomores, and I was a junior. We didn’t even have much in common in regards to after-school activities or hobbies. Yet, we were inseparable during that ride home. On the outside, Kaleb, Haley, Nadia, and I was really different. Nadia was a freshman, Haley and Kaleb were sophomores, and I was a junior. We didn’t even have much in common in regards to after-school activities or hobbies. Yet, we were inseparable during that ride home. During those thirteen hours, I became friends with complete strangers and meeting them was all by chance. Its funny how life works, don’t it.

How many times have you heard, “having fun makes us the real winners”? I used to hear that all the time as a kid and it only made confused. We live in a day and age when everyone gets a trophy/award for merely participating in said event. How does that even work? What exactly has someone achieved by merely participating? Some may answer that the courage alone for someone to participate in an event deserves recognition. However, my response would be my doubling over and laughing hysterically. When I would be able to put on a straight face (after a good while, mind you), I would say that that isn’t true. Does it take courage to participate in something you enjoy? Nope! The main reason for giving out awards to people who either failed or lost is to help spare their feelings and then it just took off on its own from there. The people who came up with this system failed to account for the importance of not only failure but also the feeling of failure. As everyone can attest, the feeling sucks but there is no better teacher and it would only motivate you more to succeed. However, thanks to this “everybody wins” mentality that has been instilled in our children, these kids lose the motivation to excel because they know that they will receive an award anyway. Unfortunately, they will also receive a cruel awakening when they eventually go out into the difficult place we all know and hate………..THE REAL WORLD! In reality, there is no award for failure, you either succeed or you don’t. I think that we just have to get out of this “participation is as important as success” belief because failure can be a good thing if is processed right.

Unlike some, I truly enjoyed my Freshman year. That fall I made the Freshman Soccer team and became friends with most of the players on the team. I loved the feeling of being a part of something bigger than myself, of being one of the guys. Unfortunately, the season went by rather quickly and then, what seemed in no time at all, it was finished. We finished the season in an incredible way by ending it with a 17-0 perfect record. I tried to stay in touch with the friends I made after the season, but without seeing each other every day for practice we just drifted apart. As the year came and gone and my sophomore year coming closer, the JV tryouts were being held. After a week of rough tryouts, I was unfortunately cut. At that time I didn’t know that me being cut was actually a blessing in disguise. One could say that I was lost for my first couple of weeks of school. Socially, I was starting back on square one which is a very crappy thing to deal with as a sophomore. During one day, I was walking down the hall with a childhood friend and she said that I should totally try the theater company and that they will soon be working on the fall musical. I agreed because it was something that I have always been interested in. I couldn’t act nor sing a lick so I decided to join the Lights Crew. During the long hours, we spent working on the musical, my crewmates and I started to become good friends. Even after the production, our friendships didn’t waver, they only grew stronger. These were the people that I needed as friends. They are genuine, good people and the best group of friends that I could have asked for. Like I mentioned earlier, getting cut from the soccer team was a blessing in disguise for me. It led me to my greatest friends I’ve ever had.

As you grow up, you start to think about a lot of things. What college you want to go to, what careers you are interested in, where do you want live in the future, etc., etc. The funny thing is, though, you can get caught up in all of thinking that week has gone by or a month or even a year, without even realizing it. It’s happening to me and what I’m sure is a considerable portion of my peers. The memories of my freshmen year feel as though they happened no longer than a year ago, but my sophomore year memories feel so long ago that I can’t quite remember them. Now I am more than half-way through my senior year! It’s as if someone sped up the life clock so that a week feels like an hour and a month feels like a day. If it feels like this when I am only eighteen, I can’t even imagine what it would feel like when I turn fifty, or even older. Time going by this fast is pretty scary, but in a way it has also helped me appreciate what’s all around me. Now, whenever I am with my friends, spending time with family or even just driving my car, I make the most of it because the unfortunate truth is that it won’t last forever. Another sad thought, I know, but understanding that things can’t last is what gives it purpose. One of the many beauties of human nature is that our lives our limited and should never be wasted because we don’t have forever.

Hello everyone! This is my first blog so I guess I’ll tell you guys a few things to know about me. For one thing, I am a St. Louis native and was raised to be a fan of St. Louis’s classic sports teams, the Cardinals and the Blues. Now being raised a Cardinals fan means that I hate the Cubs on principal(nothing personal, Chicago). In my limited experience I tend to lean more conservative than liberal, but am always open to engage in a conversation that could change my mind. I am currently completing my senior year at Marquette High School. There, I am a part of MTC(Marquette Theater Company) as a member of Sound Crew. I am also a member of Key Club International since my sophomore year and I must say that the volunteer work involved has been both a humbling and remarkable experience. I am planning on attending Truman State for my college education where I could major in education to become a history teacher. My favorite T.V show is George R.R Martin & HBO’s Game of Thrones and my favorite books series is Bernard Coswell’s historical fiction series, the Saxon Stories, about the Viking invasions into Anglo-Saxon Britain. Personally, I am a major history geek, especially when it comes to the medieval era, which is one of the reasons I would be open to a career in teaching my favorite subject. I am really excited about this blog because it provides another creative outlet for my writing that could definitely help improve it. I am looking forward to conversing with people from different backgrounds and viewpoints that could help shape my opinions and world views.