Monthly Archives: November 2012

Why are we here? What are we striving for? What is the world moving towards? Why the hell are children voting? Why do people do bad things? And why do the good have to suffer? What’s my dream? What do I want? What do they want? Why don’t I know anything? Why can’t we just learn stuff without being tested? Doesn’t that make things more fun?

Aren’t the birds supposed to be migrating? Why hasn’t my back healed yet? Is the world really gonna end? Who thought of the layout of the subway? How many people did it take to make it? How many years?  Why is life so dull?

Why is it when you’re happy, time goes quickly? And when you’re bored, why does time go so slowly? Is time real? Is any of this real? What if this is just one big game? How do we win?

When you close your eyes and look at the world, what do you see?

Where are you now…under this sky that we share?

When my brother and I were younger, my parents would take us to Blue Mountain Park on the weekends during the spring and summer. My father would barbeque while my mother would watch my brother and I play on the playground. But my favorite part of those trips was after dinner when my father would take my brother and I to the pond to find turtles and catch frogs. My brother would get bored easily so he normally would return to my mother at the picnic table and played on his Gameboy. However, once my father taught me how, I loved catching frogs, even though my mother would never let me keep one. Usually, when I tell people frogs are my favorite animals, they are appalled. They ask me: How could you like something that is ugly, gross, slimy, and has warts? I can never really give them a straight answer; I just love frogs. I suppose frogs remind me of my childhood, a time when I did not care what people thought and my family was always near. Now, people’s opinions matter, I do not live with my family, and Central Park has replaced Blue Mountain Park. The only thing that has stayed the same is my love for frogs, these undesirable little creatures that I find so beautiful.

My greatest fear is the unknown. The way that I think of it, the future is so terrifying. I guess it’s because I don’t know what’ll end up happening to me. It’s like, I could end up a failure. Someone without a family. Maybe I won’t even have the chance to become an adult because I died or something. What if all the work I’ve done throughout my life goes to waste? The more that I think about it, the more negative I get.

This also includes the ocean and the dark. I’m only scared of the dark because I’ve always been pranked by my brother and father jumping out from the dark and scaring me. When I’m confronted with the dark, I can’t help but think “who could be in there waiting for me?” And the ocean is a different story. I’ve always been scared of ocean predators such as sharks or eels. When I’m out swimming in the ocean, I hate the fact that I can’t see anything in the water. It’s even worse when I go underwater. I can’t see OR hear anything! I always get paranoid and think that there’s something that’s going to bite me. The unknown has become my worst nightmare.

Like every other teenager in school, I have to balance time with friends and schoolwork.  Unfortunately for me, I tend to put friends first.  This basically means I procrastinate.  I’m sitting here at 12:30 in the morning writing this monologue when I had tons of time to do it.  We even had a week off and I decided I didn’t need to do it.  I had about 5 hours of free time today and decided to wait until right now to write this.
Every week I tend to do almost the same exact thing.  All week I think I’ll just do my work on this day or that day.  When that day comes i just push it back further.  Eventually it hits the weekend.  Then I stay with friends all weekend and get no work done at all.  I always tend to leave myself all of the work for the night before…

I remember walking into High School for my first day as well as I remember by first day at Baruch. Its funny how similar and different the experience could be. The uncertainty I felt my first day of high school wasn’t there the first day I stepped into college. Everybody knows that they are in college because they want to further their education meanwhile in high school I felt like i was being forced from one jail and graduating into another. The similarities are more physical in terms of the same white walled classrooms with projectors. Some teachers know the material they teach thoroughly and want to be teaching while others are in school to get paid and go home. In these cases it is up to the student to figure everything out on their own.

I have always considered myself a competitive guy and this craving for competition really manifested itself in the form of school work for the first time. Instead of caring in high school about what I could do socially on the weekends, I found a drive in the form of schoolwork. Moving out, the sudden surge of freedom, availability of almost anything anytime didn’t overwhelm me because now I feel like i have a set goal. Some may call it maturity. I personally feel like it is the realization that almost every college student understands that they have to be better than whoever is around them if they plan to make more money or have a better job then their peers. It is a realization that as a student you can go out every night have a good time but what it really hurts is your edge over everyone else around you. It only dawned on me recently that this competition is as important as people tried telling me in high school and its really the best time to take advantage of everything school has to offer.

The summer of 2011 was pretty boring for me, so when I started my senior year in September I was really glad. It was a new year where I was hopefully going to take some classes I like, my friends are there and my skin had cleared a significant amount of acne off my face. Things were looking up as they usually do for me at the beginning of the year. My grades showed I was in a good mood since they were all above 75’s. But as always I begin to lose my excitement for the year and fall into a slump. In this particular year, I felt that my slump was deeper than usual. I stopped doing my work because I didn’t feel like it and it began piling up. Usually when this happens I try to get my act together, but I just didn’t care. With college applications and research papers due, I couldn’t afford falling behind, yet I did. I had barely managed to submit my applications on time and missed most of my deadlines on the papers I had in English class. It became so severe that I was in danger of graduating high school. When my school’s guidance counselor contacted my mom, my mom wasn’t happy. In the email, the counselor wrote that I was in danger of graduating an that she and other teachers thought I might have been depressed. In a way this made sense because the way I was losing my acne was by taking these pills that were prescribed to me. They’re kind of a last resort for doctors because they can cause many side effects. My mom completely ignored the “depressed” part because she doesn’t believe that I can have depression and began insulting me. I don’t like when my mom insults me, but I respect the way she insults me because I go on Youtube and the insults I see on the comment section aren’t usually as elaborate as hers. The worst thing she said to me that night was “You’re still 17. If your not going to study and go to school, you tell me now cause I’ll sign you up to the army. There is no way I’m going to be responsible for letting a parasite like you into society.” With my brother, who is about 6 years older than me, still trying to finish community college, my parents put more pressure on me because it’s like they’ve given up on him and if you’re not going to go to school you might as well join the army. After that day I was given about a week to finish most of the papers I had been assigned during the year. Eventually I did on my papers, graduated and here I am. Writing this monologue in college.

I’m a part of the Baruch Soccer Team. Now, I haven’t logged a single minute of game time. Hell, I don’t even have a jersey. But I’m a part of the team. I’ve put in the hours. I’ve been there. The 7 AM practices in which I get only 5 hours of sleep. The long rides in a cramped van with 12 people only meant for 8. The time spent sitting in the office, breaking down game tape. I’ve done it. I’ve stuck through it. It’s now a part of me. It’s what I do and love. I wouldn’t change a thing about it.

The normalcy it brings has to feel weird, so to say. I’ve spent many lunches with the Baruch player of the month, sitting and talking about anything. He’s had a few people recognize him out of nowhere. We laugh about it. You need to find other freshman to connect with. Otherwise, you might as well be as alone as a cheeseburger in a kosher restaurant.  Or maybe it’s sitting in the coach’s office, watching as the 3 time Coach of the Year listens to reggae music while the team takes a nap on the nearby coach. There’s only a select few who get these chances. I’m incredibly thankful I get to do this on a daily basis.

It’s a process to assimilate into college. I have many friends now, many of which I see constantly while hanging out in The Cove, the hangout for the players and soccer coaches. I have mentors and guides who have gone down the same path. Their mistakes will soon be my trials and hopefully, I’ll learn from them.

I’m a part of the team. Though my jacket may be a different color and my jersey may not exist at all, I am another cog in the machine that is the Baruch soccer team. My title may be Assistant Team Manager, but I am so much more than that. When the jerseys come off and the street clothes are put on, I’m just like them. The off-field stuff matter too. So maybe I haven’t played a minute, but I’ve put so much more than just playing.