Hey guys, this is a short essay I wrote a couple days ago. It's inspired by a trip I took with Gabe and Luke one Thanksgiving.
Walden Pond
It’s not snowing
anymore, and the clouds have disappeared.The moon and the stars shine brightly over a vast frozen lake.I wonder how deep and cold its waters must
be, sleeping beneath their icy blanket.The tall trees of the dark forest are the solemn guardians of this
ancient water.They stand proudly in
their frozen armor, strong limbs bound with gauntlets of snow.The only sound is the whisper of the wind
blowing gently through the trees.
It’s cold, very
cold, the kind of cold that seeps up through the bottom of your shoes and
leaves you shivering despite your warm hat and gloves.Hot breath turns to cold mist, visible in the
frosty air.As a child in weather like
this, I would pretend to be an Ice Dragon, with breath cold enough to freeze
the bravest knight.I don’t play like
that anymore, but it brings a smile to my face to remember the follies of my
childhood.
The snow on the
ground is several inches deep, old snow covered with new snow - I can tell from
the muffled crunches I hear with every step.I love how snow makes everything seem so peaceful.Even the earth seems to be sleeping when it’s
covered in snow.
I glance up at the
dark, speckled, sky - black velvet littered with twinkling diamonds.One good thing about living in the city is
that every time you see the stars it takes your breath away, like you’re seeing
them for the first time.Every time I
look up at the sky, I can’t help but wonder if there’s someone looking back
down at me.
I
close my eyes and breath deeply, sucking in the crisp, cool air.I don’t need to check my watch to know that
it’s time to go.I take a final look
around before I begrudgingly turn to leave.My concluding thought is “anyone who doesn’t believe in God has never
seen Walden Pond in the wintertime.”
I haven't posted in a while, so I figured it was time to give everyone an update. So, my summer was one of the sweetest I've ever had. At the end of June, I did a ten day hiking trip with the DE crew that was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. It was painful at times, like when we accidentally hiked down a double black diamond ski slope and then had to walk half a mile back up the mountain, or when we ran out of food five miles into a seventeen mile trail. But I'm grateful to have had those experiences for the stories all of us can now tell, of how we conquered mountains that sought to destroy us and shouted into icy storms "give us your worst!" Believe it or not, there was actually a hail storm on the first day of our trail. I'll never forget the times I shared with my brothers on those mountain slopes, with the weight of the world upon us, each step a test of our courage, strength, and devotion to one another.
After returning from the trip, I taught a two week SAT prep course for a company called Ivy Insiders. Looking back on it and considering how much time I had to invest in marketing, finding a location, posting course information on the internet, filling out contracts and expense reports, responding to emails and telephone calls, securing students, and actually teaching the course, I realize that I could have made more money per hour by working at Starbucks. All the same, it was a fantastic experience. I really loved being a teacher, and all of my students improved their SAT scores by an average of 300 points, which is really phenomenal. And even though, per hour, I made less than minimum wage, teaching this course has given me the credentials I need to do private tutoring and even to privately hold SAT prep workshops.
After teaching my course, I headed out to France with my family, to visit my relatives there. It was a fantastic trip in more ways than I can name. Since my French has finally progressed to a passable level, I could finally have conversations with my Grandmother and girl cousin, Diane, both of whom speak only French. Sadly, my cousin Geoffrey couldn't make it to the chateau this year. He has always been my closest cousin, and I missed his presence there greatly. All the same, since I only ever speak English with him, because he's so good at it, it was probably better for my French that he wasn't there. I was also shocked to hear that none of my relatives had ever heard of parkour. After explaining what it was, some of my relatives recognized it, but, apparently, it's actually a pretty rare practice even in France. So, I ended up doing parkour on my own. Among my experiences were: doing a tic-tac up a tree to an eleven-foot-high branch, climbing into and out of a second story window, and jumping over five chairs lined up one after the other. My sister-in-law took videos of all of these, which I'm going to save onto my laptop ASAP.
More recently, I was accepted into a really prestigious honor society at my school, called the Benjamin Franklin Scholars program. I not only have a personal advisor who helps me take advantage of research opportunities, but being a member of this program gives me preferential admission to all honors courses. If I write a senior thesis, take seven honors courses, and graduate with at least a 3.7 GPA, then I get a special certificate along with my diploma which recognizes me as an extraordinary scholar. So, that's my new goal for the future of my undergraduate career. In any case, I move back into my dorm on September 1st and my classes start on September 5th. I hope to see everyone soon!
Hahaha, I just finished seasons one and two of Da Ali G show. For those of you who don't know, Da Ali G show was a TV program created by Sacha Baron Cohen (the guy who did Borat) that was aired on HBO several years ago. It features Sacha's three most famous characters, the unbelievably stupid Ali G, the strange foreigner Borat, and the gay Austrian fashion guru Bruno. Basically, the show is all about these three characters (all played by Sacha Baron Cohen) interviewing and interacting with people who think that they're being filmed for an authentic television program, and don't realize they're part of a hilarious hoax. It's kind of like candid camera, but way better. Here are a couple of my favorite clips:
Ali G with the Surgeon General
Bruno interviewing people backstage at a Fashion Show
And of course, Borat himself, performing a country song in an Arizona bar.
Oh my God! I can't believe this! My sister got a perfect score on the
SATs. That's right, she got a 2400 on them, without taking any kind of
prep class or even studying that hard. No one in my family has ever
gotten a perfect score on the SATs before, she beat both me and
Godfrey. It's crazy, because I actually consider my sister to be a lot
smarter than I am, but I've always been better at playing the system
and coming out on top, so her grades aren't quite as good as mine were
in high school (not that they're bad, she has close to a 4.0). I'm
glad that Alexia has finally gotten the chance to officially prove that
she's smarter than my brother and me on her high school transcript, so
that colleges will be able to see what a little beast she is. I'm so
damn proud! To express the extent of my joy, I'm going to share with
you one of the sweetest breakdance videos I've ever seen.
For those of you who don't already know, parkour is my newest obsession. Recently, the DE crew has jumped on board, and we've gone on a couple runs together these past few weeks. I think we're all pretty excited by it, since we now use "parkour" as a synonym for "hardcore," as in, "that was so damn parkour!". All that being said, you might be asking yourself "what exactly is parkour?". Well, allow me to explain.
Parkour is an urban sport invented within the last ten years by the French gymnast, David Belle. The basic premise of parkour is to get from point A to point B in a given environment, while moving as efficiently as possible and staying in constant motion. Parkour is very much related to the ideas of escape and pursuit, since the motions one exercises as a traceur (someone who practices parkour) are essential to both. It is very different from exercises like jogging or climbing, since the idea of parkour is to use the landscape as your playground and to overcome obstacles with improvised techniques. Perhaps the best way to understand parkour is to see it for yourself.
Here is a video of a Russian traceur doing some ridiculous parkour. The video has an artsy interlude for about a minute after the first couple stunts, but it picks right back up after that.
Here is the first scene of the French film "Banlieue 13," starring the founder of parkour, David Belle. Everything one does as a traceur serves as preparation for this sort of situation.
Finally, this is a video of a parkour crew throwing down some crazy stuff. It has a longish intro, but it gets really good when the parkour begins. These stunts probably took months for them to compile. My dream is for the crew to attain this level of skill as traceurs.
Just so you guys know, parkour is not the same as free-running. Free-running puts emphasis on aesthetic motion (like acrobatics), whereas parkour deals exclusively with movement that would be useful in escape/pursuit scenarios. The crew practices both, but any free-running exercises we might do (such as standing backflips) are simply training for real parkour. Stay cool, guys.
