Amazing

Our choir performed at Orchestra Hall in the twin cities yesterday. We had the honor of singing there for the Minnesota Choral Arts Finale. Early this year we recorded a few songs and sent the tape in to a group of judges who listened and rated the choirs without knowing which recording was from each school. Out of many schools that sent in auditions, our choir was one of five choirs selected from the entire state of Minnesota. We traveled to Concordia College in St. Paul where we worked with the clinician on two of our pieces. After doing that and working on two mass pieces with the four other choirs, we got supper and got dressed for the concert. We then traveled to Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis and went through sound checks. Our choir has sung in three or four different venues this year, but none of them are even a fraction as amazing to sing in. The sound of the songs just carry so awesomely, the hall is so large, and the way the hall is set up is just brilliant. Singing on stage was one of the most exhilarating experiences I have ever had and I hope, that someday I can do something amazing and have the chance to perform there again.

Team

Being part of a team is more than just working together to accomplish a goal. It's more like helping your family reach their highest level of performance. During the course of a sports season, you and your teammates get very close and when a close-knit group of people push each other, you get results. Our school's wrestling team consistently has one of the best teams in the state, and it's not just the great coaches we have. There are a bunch of guys in one wrestling room for 2 hours straight working their butts off, and when you wrestle someone who is working that hard, you have to go that hard or you will get destroyed. And individuals on a team will often put the team before themselves. This year at the section wrestling tournament a wrestler competed for his team on a torn ACL, risking even more serious injury, to make sure that his team could keep the lead. That is what team is about.

Ill

I have been ill for the past two days. I went in at 9 O' clock on Tuesday morning and got a strep test. I get strep throat at least once a year and it seems that I have this years case. Yesterday all I did was lay around and sleep. That night, my fever got as high as 102.6 degrees Fahrenheit. You know you have a bad fever when your eyes feel like their burning. Anyways. Today I woke up and took some pills. My highest temperature so far today has been 100.3 degrees. I am feeling better but now I have to work on all the homework I missed. :(

Reputation

Your reputation is a pretty important thing. If you have a bad reputation, people might judge you in a bad way. But if you have a good reputation people probably think good things about you. For example, I say Barry Bonds and you instantly think what? Steroids. Or O.J. Simpson. Murder. Or Charlie Sheen. Cocaine and strippers. But maybe I say Star Trek, and you think nerds and fan clubs, that might be a little unreasonable. As you can see, reputations can lead to assumptions. And, you know, they say when you assume you make an ASS out of U and ME.

March Madness

March Madness is upon us and I finally gave in and made a bracket this year. In case you didn't know, March Madness refers to the NCAA division I men's basketball team tournament. Every year, people fill out brackets for the 64 team tournament, and often bet on it with a group of friends or coworkers. Several celebrities (even the president!) make brackets. Snoop Dogg has one, and it's only half bad. The ESPN website has an online tournament challenge, and I have my bracket on there. My friends and I (notice the almost 7th grade grammar I just used) have a group and I am currently in 4th place (I should really be in third but Jason thought he would be tough and make 2 brackets). I am also 1,844,144 overall on ESPN. President Obama is doing better than me, but considering he is the leader of the country, he probably should be. 

Springtime

Well, today is supposedly the last day of winter. I'm not buying it. When you think of springtime, you think of flowers and running through a field of daisies on a warm, sunny day. But I live in Minnesota. If you haven't experienced a Minnesota spring, let me summarize it for you. Lots of mud. Lots of rain. Lots of people whining about the rain and mud. Lots of people whining about the people whining about the mud and rain. Think teenagers at a stormy track meet whiny. Every year it seems to be the same, the one plus is that it means that summer is coming and with it, the end of school.

Respect

Is it better to be respected? Or feared? I don't know why I said that, I just always think of that when I talk about respect I guess. I don't remember what movie I saw that quote on, but it kind of made me wonder. I mean, like in sports, would you rather be known as one of the better teams or one of the scariest. Because no one likes people who take cheap shots during a game, but it's not like your going to hate a team for being really good unless they break the rules. (cough cough Apple Valley cough cough)

Wait, What?

I went up on the fan bus to watch the state tournament for wrestling. Seeing the whole team there really made me regret not going out for wrestling this year. I decided to do weightlifting because I thought there wasn't going to be a spot on either team (JV or varsity) for me, and I didn't want to have to put that much time and effort into it. The Albert Lea wrestling team puts tons of time into being good; morning runs on Mondays and Wednesdays, practice everyday after school, lifting, and a tournament or two every weekend. Seeing all the wrestlers out there, I realized how dumb and selfish I was for not wrestling. I mean we had a wrestler who wrestled a match with a totally destroyed knee, risking his baseball career, to help the team get to state. I think if he could do that, I could have sat out a few matches.

...

I'm tired today.. I don't want to do my homework, but I have to. I have to because I have to get good grades. I have to get good grades to get my class rank up. I have to get my class rank up so I can take college classes. I have to take college classes so that I can get free college credits. Free college credits are important because college is expensive. I hope you understand my position now.

Love

Love is a big word that seems to get thrown around a lot. It really bugs me when I'm on facebook and I see someone who just met someone and is "in a relationship" with them and they have some status like, "OMG, I love Herpy McDerpster!". I don't get why people feel the need to say they love a practical stranger, when they almost certainly don't. But, whatever

The Importance of Blogging

Blogging is important for the sole purpose of me passing my journalistic writing class. We are supposed to blog twice a week. One of the blogs we do on our own and the other is an assigned topic. I haven't blogged for almost a month and I doubt that anyone has even noticed. Blogging can be an important thing for some people because they can write down what they are thinking and it can be almost equal to talking to a shrink. But, in the grand scheme of things, blogging really isn't that important.

Chapped

So the Packers won the super bowl... Some Vikings fans are mad about them winning, but I'm not. I didn't take a side for the game but I always kind of thought that Green Bay was going to win. Winning the super bowl has to be one of the greatest feelings in the world. I mean, just playing high school level games and winning gives me a big adrenaline rush, and if that is like 1/110 of what you must feel after winning the super bowl. At the same time, losing the super bowl would be devastating. Getting to the biggest game of your life, and having to leave knowing that you could have won would suck.

Loneliness

Loneliness is something that everyone goes through at some point in their life. It often happens with different severities. Being home sick is loneliness, being home alone on a Friday night playing Dungeons and Dragons is loneliness, and having someone close to you die is loneliness. Many people cope with loneliness by doing activities that put them in their own little world. Doing that doesn't really help you make real connections so that you don't have to be lonely.

Friendship (Pt. 2)

I liked the show Rugrats when it still was on television on a regular basis. The main theme of the show always seems to be friendship and how you can do anything if you have friends. I don't know if I really believe if that ideal is true or not though. I mean, sure it's nice to have friends, but in a zombie apocalypse, they could possibly use you to distract the zombies.

Title

I am feeling very unoriginal today. I don't really know why, I just do. Anyways, I've started to play Call of Duty. It's pretty interesting. You get to shoot people. And people shoot you back. But, my buddies and I were talking... What if Call of Duty was a government conspiracy to train teenagers for the next time there is a military draft? If it is, what a terrible decision. Do you really want a bunch of gamers running around with guns thinking that it's okay if they die because they can respawn. So Mr. government official, if you are reading this end operation: Train Kids With Video Games; I didn't fall for it.

Intelligence

Intelligence is a very important thing. But not always the most important thing. I know right now you're saying, "What? But Kunkel, how can intelligence not be the most important thing?" Well let me tell you something, in our society, we apparently love idiots. Have you ever watched Jersey Shore? Pure stupidity. Keeping Up With the Kardashians? Stupid. Name most of the most popular shows right now, and most of them are fueled by stupid people making stupid choices. I mean really is it really worth an hour of your time to watch a bunch of dumb, spray tanned, Jersey twenty-year-olds fight, kiss, and puke? Quit watching these shows before you start acting like them. PLEASE

Work Ethic

Some people have it and some people don't, it's that simple. In general, people with a good work ethic, are extremely self-motivated. These people can usually exceed at anything that they have any talent for. When you mix work ethic and talent, you get greatness. Some people have terrible work ethic, and they tend to fail at many things. These people usually have little or no self-motivation. Many people with poor work ethic are people who are very talented; they are used to not having to try hard or work at anything and wind up being lazy. If you combine a low amount of talent with bad work ethic you get failure.

Zombies

Zombies are scary... Kind of. It seems like zombies are portrayed differently in every movie or tv show that they're in. In Scooby Doo: Zombie Island, zombies are just dead people trying to avenge their killers. In many movies or tv shows, zombies are people infected with a crazy disease. And in the video-game Call Of Duty, the zombies just want to kill you, no story behind it. And just so you know, if there is ever a zombie-apocalypse, I call the shotgun.