Reflection

     I have always been a huge fan of blogs. Growing up, as I was further exposed to the great pool of information known as the Internet, I found that I was reading more and more. I am not a big reader, but when I do read, I am reading blogs. I am attracted to this style of writing because it abandons all rules about grammar and ethics. Anyone can write about whatever they want and you can either choose to read it or not.
     As an eighth grader coming up in the ranks, I was intrigued when I found out when we get to blog for ninth grade honors English. I always wanted to start a blog, but at the time I did not think my life was interesting for anyone to read about. I still don't think my life is interesting enough to read about, but I have some page views so I call that a success. I feel like blogging has helped me evolve as a writer. Even though I do not apply the same grammar/mla rules, I am learning what is important and not. So I think this assignment has helped me evolve as a general writer when it comes to importance.
     I think blogging this year has helped me develop my own voice.  If you read academic essays, you may notice they all follow similar styles and rules. When you blog, you can use your personal voice and write in a similar style to the way you speak. Blogging has helped me develop my own voice. It has made me realize the way I sound to others. I have found words and phrases I am constantly using. I have no used this voice in my daily life and I am trying to become unique as a person.

I got this image from here.

     Writing blogs has also encouraged me to read my friends blogs. I have noticed their individual voices and ways they express their feelings. If you look at the blogs from my friend group, they are all very interesting, yet very different. It has made me notice things they say often while talking usually. I have learned more about my friends from their stories they tell. For example, I have learned a lot from Nash's blog posts about biking. I am excited to keep reading their blogs.
     Not only has it helped me learn about my best friends, but it has also taught me more about my classmates I barely knew. Who knew that shy girl in the corner of the room was a national athlete? It is hard for me to make assumptions about people without getting to know them and I feel reading their blog is an intro to how they live their life. To conclude this topic, blogging this year has not only taught me more about myself, but it has made me learn more and appreciate my friends and those I barely know.
   

Fencing practice

     We just got out of fourth period and now its time to go to the gym. Cole pulls out his laptop and starts to play me the latest hits in the world of bad white-guy rapping or a new branch of music called pirate metal. Before I continue I wanna really quick put out a shoutout to pirate metal, it is actually pretty sick. Anyways, we make our way over while babbling about school, teachers we hate, girls, and of course fencing. We walk passed the front desk at the MARC with the usual greeting, "hey boys, your bags are right here." We pick up our body bags and walk over to the lounge area. Cole has his lesson first so I take a seat and wish him luck, "please make her tired, I don't wanna have to do much footwork in my lesson. He then trails down the stairs and into the depths of hell.

     It has started to become a trend to walk straight from school to the gym and wait before practice. There are a few newbies I try to make conversation with but they are too invested in their anime T.V. shows and online games. That's okay, I have homework to do anyway. I work for half an hour and walk down to the gym to Coach Elaine screaming away. Who knows what she is screaming about or who she is even screaming to. Hopefully she won't try to kill me.

     We talk about the ethics of the fencing world and the disputes I had with the Irvine family at the tournament the weekend before. She laughs and we get to work. We start with standard warm up. I go on guard, she parries, I disengage and riposte. This goes on for a while and happens without thinking. We move on to attacks and move quickly to something new of the day. Usually whatever she has planned is super fun. She doesn't teach her other students these, what we call fun moves. She shows me them because she knows when I fence, I like to play and I like to experiment with different fun moves. We finish with a salute and a we shake hands.

     I get some water and grab my coaching jacket so I can start to give some lessons. Noam arrives and I run him through his warm up. I show him some of my favorite moves and then he goes and warms up with the rest of his team. I get dressed in my knickers, yes they are called knickers. I go run laps with Sean then we go stretch with the kids. Elaine makes us run drills and we end up trying to lunge at each other with the correct distance. After we are completely dehydrated, she lets us get water and set up our strips. Cole, Sean and I lift the heavy boxes and let the little ones run cables. We fence for a while and usually stay after practice time to keep working.

                                               This is a box btw. I got the pic from here.

     An hour after practice is supposed to end, we leave and I finally get to eat and shower. Gotta love fencing nights.

The Normal Day

BEEP BEEP my alarm rings.

Picture from here.

     I roll over and contemplate whether I have what it takes to get out of bed. No matter how many times the answer to that question is negative, something always drags me off my ass. It's now 6:45, and I have 30 minutes till I need to be at school. The speed in which my shower reaches maximum temperature usually results in the coldest five minutes of my life. If I wasn't awake before, I am now. Grab whatever pants are clean and a generic flannel I probably wore earlier this week. Pack a lunch which has a higher chance of killing me than anything else I plan to do today. Well, at least I am ready to go, hopefully I put my contacts in the right eyes...

     I walk down the hall to see the normal road-blocking pack of friends, loud and obnoxious. It's way too early for this. I try to pack my junk in my locker before Sean sees an open shot and nearly closes it on my fingers. I walk with Sam to bio and I sit in my seat regretting my decision previously made this morning. And now its time for the regular scheduled program. First, Mrs. Duis is gonna talk about how she is unprepared this morning and is completely out of it (Imagine how we feel). Next we will take some notes and I won't be able to see the slideshow, guess I have to look off of Rachel's paper. She will forget how long class is and plan an assignment we won't have time to finish. Anyways, off to the high school.

     This is probably the highlight of my day, the walk to the high school with a few of my best friends. Luckily, we are all nerdy enough to have the same math class. We enter the room with the usual greeting, "look, its the freshman." We get it, you're a sophomore, congratulations. We always arrive after they have graded the homework. Our answers are all the same, maybe we did it right. We take some notes and I refrain from raising my hand after every question she asks. Those questions result in one of two ways, either I get it correct and receive a few dirty looks or I get it wrong and someone in the back row shares their opinion with a classic, "ha, the nerd got it wrong." After class we stop by the vending machines to let Nash spend his life's earnings on frozen pastries that have a higher chance of killing you then my home-packed lunch.

     We run into some friends on the way back and walk into AP as Shannon is telling a classic story about how he got shot or the way he acquired his girl-scout cookies. It's casual. We take our seats and get ready for the most confusing 90 minutes of our lives. After an entire class period of confusion, Nash making random sounds, and Annie playing Harry-Potter character guessing games on her computer, we realize we have learned a ton. And thank god, because we have a test later this week.
I grab whatever is left in my sack lunch, I have probably already eaten half of it, and I look for the loudest table in the lunchroom. Annie and Christian are getting in a debate as Olivia stresses out and Nash and Cris are acting like rams locking horns for the appeal of the desirable mating partner.

      Annddddd here comes the headaches. I walk into Spanish as two particular freshman are making complete fools of themselves. Luckily, Mrs. Aplanalp makes fun of them enough that I don't have to. We play some games, I get some candy, and I still learn Spanish. It's crazy how different teaching methods work. I walk down the hall to meet back up with my friends and we all break away to our separate lives, except I am stuck with Sean and Cole. Time to go to practice, but thats a whole different story.

     

History of Fencing

     After pondering what I wanted to write a blog post about for approximately 10 minutes, Mr. Parker suggested I write about the history of fencing. It is extremely interesting that whenever I tell someone I fence they respond with one of two answers. Either they ask, "oh, like Pirates of the Caribbean?" or they ask, "like the Three Musketeers?" Fighting like a pirate is what we call "theatrical fencing". But the Three Musketeers are actually pretty close to original fencing styles. In 1763 Domenico Angelo started a swordsman school. This school appealed to soldiers that wanted to increase their skill in the art. Being that the Three Musketeers were actually King's guards and originally soldiers, they were most likely trained in an original swordsman school.

                                                               I got this photo here.


     These schools emphasized footwork and posture. These principles are still emphasized today, even though the attack and parry methods are extremely different from how they used to be. The original purpose of the school was to train soldiers, but he was the first to explain the health benefits and exercise instead of killing. The first tournament was held in 1880 and was called the Grand Military Tournament and Assault at Arms. That competition featured multiple matches between officers and soldiers. Each bout ended once one hit the other five times (same as today). The blades were tipped with a bright color to help the judges. In 1898, an official set of rules was created.
     Fencing was a part of the Olympic summer Games of 1896. Saber events have been held at every Summer Olympics. Foil has been at every Summer Olympic games except 1908. Epee events have been held at every Olympic Games except 1908 for an unknown reason. Over the years, the use of three judges has been reduced to one judge and an electric scoring system.
  Today, in the United States, fencing still isn't very popular. But in European countries such as Italy, France, and Spain, fencing is a prominent sport. Because of the original starting point of fencing, it has become much more popular elsewhere. Being this as it may, we see lots of diversity at high level events. I have met people from all over the world. My coach is Italian, my side team is Russian and my best friends are Indian.
     You may be thinking that because of the unpopularity of fencing within the United States, our international skill is not near even with those of the Italians or French. This is not at all true. Currently, the United States is the number one team in the world and has an expected gold medal in Rio this summer. To no ones surprise, the Italian team is right on their tail. I am very excited to see what happens in Rio this summer.
     Anyways, it is clear fencing has evolved quite a bit from a military killing style to a sport. Even though we aren't trained to be soldiers, I would still choose my teammates to assist me in The Hunger Games if our country ever came to that. #votecruz2k16

I Feel Obligated to do This

     There is no doubt in my mind that The Office is the best T.V. show ever. I have watched every episode 9 times. With most shows the more you watch them you get less interested, but the more I watch The Office the more I love it. Lately, my friends have been writing posts about our friend group and relating each member to something. I am going to do a similar exercise but I will be relating each of my friends to a few characters from my favorite TV show. If my friends decide to read this, I want them to guess which one they are.

Dwight/Maradith: This person is clever and genius in their own way. They are extremely odd and you never have any Idea about whats going on in their head. This person strives to be the best, and if you watch the show, you know Dwight gets their.

Kelley/Oscar: This person is once again brilliant, but always thinks they are right. In most cases they are, but they always have to debate it. This person is hilarious and if you've ever seen Kelley, you know you watch the things she does and you can't help but laugh. This may have to do with the way she engages people or her constant dilemma with her love life.

Creed/Ryan: This person is probably the funniest person you will ever meet. They are extremely random with what they say. They don't speak much, but when they do you know your side is gonna hurt from laughter.

Aaron/Jim: This person is by far the nicest you will ever meet. They are always caring for others. Not only that, but they love making jokes and pulling pranks on Dwight. You could say this person and Dwight/Maradith are fairly close ;)

Pam/Gabe: This person is extremely awkward, but in a way that you can't help but think its amazing. They are extremely sweet and smart but they have never been very good at flirting. They say so many stupid things but you love them for that.

Andy/Darrel: This person is very outgoing and is always looking after their crew. They call people out for being politically incorrect but god do they know how to sing and act (this one should be obvious). They are very caring and brilliant in their own right.

Kevin/Michael: This person always says the wrong thing at the wrong time. They are hilarious because of the way they eat things. They are love-able and you alway wanna give them a hug. They have awful ideas but they somehow still end up at the finish line.

There is one last person in my friend group, but to be honest they are too smart and awesome to be defined by any of these idiots (not saying my other friends are idiots). This person is clever as hell but I could never ever see them going to work at a place like Dunder Mifflin every day, they are just too good for that.

I love all my friends, and just like when trying to figure out what faction you are in in the Divergent world, its extremely difficult to not say them all. These people shouldn't feel like they are only defined by these characters, because they are so much more than that. This just characterizes and emphasizes a few of their key traits. Love you guys :)

 I took this selfie.

Favorite Family Dinners

     Do you have that one meal that you are always craving? Well for me that is fondue. This is a thing my family does where you are given a plate of raw meat, vegetables, and some bread. You then take the meat or vegetable and put it on a screwed and let it sit in hot oil. It takes about 30 seconds and then you eat it. You obviously do not do this with bread because who wants hot soggy bread? You take your bread and you dip it in melted cheese, and I am telling you IT IS SO GOOD. Maybe its not that good... but I am so starving because I have to wait 30 second in between each bite.

Look at how good that looks! (Courtesy of here)

    The one thing about this dinner that makes it so exciting is we only do it with all five family members. Being that one of my siblings is working and the other is still in college, I rarely see them. Even rarer are all five of us together. This last week both my siblings were home and last night we had our family fondue dinner. All five of us have very strongly social personalities which helps fuel our massive discussion. Our discussion last night went everywhere. It started with the debate of the order of our favorite Star Wars movies. My list goes 6, 4, 7 and 3 tied, 5, 1 , then 2. During this debate I stated that I actually prefer the new Star Trek movie with Chris Pine over the bottom half of that list. Most people believe you either like Star Wars or Star Trek. I do not see why you cannot like both because they are two totally different things. Star Wars is more magical compared to Star Trek which could actually happen in the far future. Anyways, Im getting off topic, back to my family discussion last night.
     We then evolved the conversation from space movies and started debating the best movies of all time. We all conceded that the Lord of the Rings trilogy was the best set of movies ever. I then said Inception was my second favorite with Leo Dicaprio, and then The Dark Knight with Christian Bale.
My sisters started talking about Titanic when my dad stated that Titanic was a chick flick. At first I disagreed but the conversation then evolved to the definition of a chick flick. At first we said it was any movie liked by a girl and then my sister then stated that based on that definition, Transformers with Shia LeBouf was a chick flick. My mom said she thought a chick flick was any movie with a female protagonist. My sister than debated that in Transformers, it is never stated whether Optimus Prime is a male or a female. Sure, it very much leads to the fact that he is male, but it is never technically stated.
   We then conceded with the definition that a chick flick is any movie predominantly liked my females over males. Anyways, this were just a few of the conversations my family had over dinner. I always love these fondue dinners because our family talks about the weirdest things. I love my family.

Local Boy Takes Down Number 3

     On Sunday March 13th, I competed nationally in a Div II event. What that means is very complicated but basically I competed against much better and much older fencers. There are usually five large national events a year. There are four during the main season and then one at the end of the season on the fourth of July that we call summer nationals. Conveniently, one of those four "in-season" tournaments was in Salt Lake City. In the past I had to travel to Kansas city, Richmond and even Reno for events of this size. The tournament lasted four days, certain events on each day and I invited my friends to come down and watch. My events Thursday and Monday were great but not very interesting. But today I am going to tell you about my Div II fencing Sunday. Which by the way was some of my best fencing ever.
     Usually men's foil events are the first event of the day, which means we normally have to be there by 7:00. But on Sunday, God was on my side and we didn't have to start until 1:00. I woke up at around 10:00 and I was ready for an amazing day. I ate a large breakfast and made my way to the Salt Palace in SLC, the convention center the event was being held at. I checked in and stated warming up. After running around the gym and stretching, I suited up with one of my friends and we started running a practice bout, or match. After some brief smack talk we started hitting each other. Probably the only good part of wearing all that gear, other than getting killed, is how fast we warm up. My regular friends showed up slightly later and it was showtime!
     As explained in previous pools, a tournament basically works like this: you are put in a group and you fence everyone in said group (pools), you then are placed into a direct elimination bracket based on how well you did in pools. The only difference between this structure and the structure of a normal tournament was that in this national event there were twenty five pools. I was placed in a pool of six fencers including myself, each of these fencers I hadn't met previously while traveling. Knowing it was Div II, I didn't have very high expectations but I ended up winning two of my five bouts which I was proud of.
    Seeded 67th our of pools, I knew I was going to have my first match be relatively easy, and then I would go up against someone very highly seeded. I was first matched up with someone around number 40. I ended up winning that match 15-11, so not extremely difficult. I quickly learned I would be going up against the third seeded fencer. I knew my time was up and I was headed towards my doom.  You know your parents think you're screwed when they say, "have fun Bryce, think of it like fun, you have nothing to lose." This boy attacked me hard four times in a row faster than I could blink. At this point, my parents weren't the only ones who thought I was screwed. Something clicked in my head and I started actually fencing. Seventeen points later I beat him 15-6.
     At this point I was in the top 32, and my legs were killing me. I now had to fence number 5, a fencer from NYC. He was up on me 10-4 and I could barely walk. I called my medical brake because If I was gonna lose, I wasn't gonna lose because my legs wouldn't let me fence. I called my medical break and laid on the strip in agony as the medical guy did his thing.

After my ten minutes was up, it was time to fence again. Even though I couldn't even take a step. I had a massive comeback and ended up losing 15-13. So as I heard from some random guys from California, "local boy takes 32, pretty awesome."

     

Miles Chamley-Watson

2013 Individual Men’s Foil World Champion

     Dear Miles Chamley-Watson, you are my hero. I say this not only because of your extremely impressive fencing, but you are an amazing man in all fields. I admire you for your fencing and your ability to do many other things as well. When watching interviews with you, you always tell joke at the perfect time and you are arrogant, but who cares you are the world champion. Even this is amusing, my main reason for picking you is your ability to fence. Up until 2013, I hoped to one day be the first American male to win the word championships. But if it couldn’t be me, I am happy it was you to take home the gold. I, at the time, didn’t know much abut fencing other than you looked like Jedi’s, but I still appreciated your victory.

     You have an advantage over many others. This of course being your height. At six foot four inches you are one of tallest foil fencers in existence and I envy your ability to use this massive advantage. I am also a relatively tall fencer but I am awful with my distance and I cant quite get the under-the-leg shots you do. Believe me, I have tried. I have been fencing for about four years now and I hope to one day be as good as you. Although you being the world champion and all, that may be fairly difficult. I am working towards this goal by being in the fencing gym any time I can working on everything. If I am not at school, I am probably fencing.

     It is interesting how in the modern age, teenagers can go out and have fun so easily. My friends are often going out doing God knows what and I am always busy fencing. If I am not across the country competing, you better believe I will be soon and I am preparing. I will hopefully one day be an amazing fencer and be able to look back at these days and tell myself that sacrificing a fun night with friends every once and a while made me one of the greatest fencers ever. I wonder if that is how you feel now? Did you have to make sacrifices to spend time in the gym training to do what you love?

     As I said previously, I spend a lot of time traveling. This blog consists of my fencing experiences as I travel, as well as a few other little things about me. When I was little, I absolutely adored the Star Wars series. When I saw a fencer photoshopped with a lightsaber on my town’s paper, I knew I wanted to finally become a Jedi. I wonder if you think of yourself as a Jedi and I want to know what brought you into the sport. It would be amazing if you read my blog and also shared your crazy experiences for me to read. Well Miles if you are reading this, I hope to one day meet you and maybe even fence you. :)

This is Miles, for you who do not know. This picture is courtesy of NobleBarbarian.com.http://www.noblebarbarian.com/articles/miles-chamley-watson

Star Wars is Amazing

     I, Bryce James Murrin am a Jedi Knight. I am going to straight up say I am the biggest fan of Star Wars on the face of this earth. I have seen all the movies way too many times. I have read all through the extended universe, watched tv shows, collected action figures and even became a Jedi myself. As a little boy who looked identical to baby Anakin, I was taught how to be a Jedi and eventually defeated Darth Vader in a light saber duel. This all happened at Disneyland. They say it is where dreams come true and this is actually where my dream came true, I became a Jedi.

                                 Here is proof of my epic adventure. My dad took this picture.

     So 99% of Star Wars fans on this Earth hate the prequel trilogy. I am that 1% who find them brilliant and thinks they really add to the story as a whole. Unless you are in the mood for some hardcore nerding out I recommend you stop reading at this point. At first glance one would say it is the death of Anakin's secret wife Padme that causes him to turn to the dark side. This is the breaking point but it is not the reason he decided to turn on the Jedi. Being the chosen one, Anakin was expected to be the perfect Jedi and follow the Jedi Code. For you who do not know, the Jedi Code says a Jedi cannot feel love, feel anger, feel fear and a few other emotions. Anakin truly joins the Sith because he realizes how corrupt the Jedi actually are. I am not saying the Jedi are evil but they are all breaking their own code.
     The biggest example of this is Mace Window. No, I know that isn't how you spell his name and I don't care. Out of HATRED, when he finds out that Anakin thinks the chancellor is a Sith, he doesn't look for any more evidence before going to arrest him. He does this because he FEARS that Palpetine is getting too powerful. After Mace and the chancellor fight, Mace says he is going to kill Palpetine because he is too dangerous to be kept alive. Those are the exact words Palpetine said when Anakin killed Count Dooku. Anakin realizes the Jedi are corrupt and allows Palpetine to kill Mace Window.
     Later on the lava planet Musafar Obi Wan says that Anakin is corrupt and he is scared of what Anakin could do. This once again shows fear and further reassures Anakin's position. Later, much later, after the Jedi order has been destroyed, Luke developed a new code that Darth Vader can stand behind and he rejoins the light side, destroys the Sith and brings balance to the force. This fofills his prophecy and proves that he was the chosen one the entire time. But he is still not the perfect Jedi, he used hatred and anger to do what he did. This shows a really strong lesson for real life that even angels have evil within. Overall, I love the prequel movies and the entire series. I am so happy actually that they are making another trilogy and believe me I will be writing about it.
May the force be with you :)

My Concussion

     The plan seemed so simple. I fence in Salt Lake, drive to Denver, fence in Denver, drive home and ski at Vail on the way back. Who knew a Trojan Horse could sneak into my trip and cause me to reach my maximum capacity of boredom for the next few weeks. The trip started off as planned. I fenced in Salt Lake City and did fairly well. We were done by three and needed to get on the road. I was told the drive to Denver is roughly six and a half hours. Eight and a half hours later I realized the truth as we parked at our hotel that we had booked on my father's smartphone just an hour before.
     Considering this trip was confirmed earlier the day before, if we wanted to book a nice hotel it would've costed us a fortune. Luckily, I have never stayed in a very nice hotel so my standards for a satisfactory space of living are relatively low. Our first room didn't work. Apparently the battery in the card scanner was low and we were moved across the hall. As my father has traveled all over the world and stayed in everything from a castle to a hut, I figured he wouldn't mind spending a few nights in a slightly run down room. This misbelief was straightened out as we walked in the second room to find the furniture chipped and the carpet destroyed. My father had what middle aged mothers call a "temper tantrum" and quickly sent me to go talk to the front desk and request a new room. This was the most awkward conversation of my life. The late-teen aged girl behind the desk and I both had a common look on our faces that signaled we absolutely did not want to be there. But, I did as my father requested and got us a new room. I had survived the first day, let's move on.
     The second day, the first day of fencing in Denver, was extremely fun. Those were some of the best fencers in Colorado. One of the biggest aspects of fencing that I love most is the community. The thing about fencing is the average fencer's skill level has raised so high that unless you are extremely committed,  you aren't a fencer. This may seem harsh, and in was it is. But, it results in everyone as these competitions being extremely passionate about the same thing, fencing. My friends at school often make fun of me because of how much I talk about fencing, but until you go to one of these competitions, you have no idea how much one single person can talk about fencing. Anyway, unlike other national sports, friends and family are sitting right next to the strip watching. They arent in stands fifty feet away. They are sitting right next to the strip, so close in fact that they are risking getting slashed in the face. Now imagine this energy amplified and condensed in a tiny gym in the most "ghetto" part of Denver. That and the level of diversity of the competitors in skill, age, and ethnicity, really combines to create the most fun and interesting environment on the planet.
     As I stated before, the first dat was filled with great fencing. Earlier on the second day my head wasn't connected to my blade. I messed up my pools completely which lead me to have an extremely difficult bracket. In the mean time, my best friend and teammate Sean Lydon was as many teenage boys including myself would say "slaying." Sean won all his matches which gave him the easiest bracket in the tournament After my awful morning, I got my head back into it and was ready to fence. My first few direct elimination matches went really well. It wasn't until I was hit in the back of the head that my game completely dropped. I was flicked in the unprotected portion of the back of my head and my vision went completely blank. I unfortunately lost that match and was given a major headache. I didn't think much of the hit to my head and figured I would just move forward on my trip and get ready to ski!
     Fencing is my favorite sport in the world and if you are one of my friends you would know of this great passion. What you may not know is I have lived in Park City, Utah my entire life and have become a relatively advanced skier. This lead me to be extremely excited for what was ahead, Vail. Vail is one of the biggest ski resorts in North America filled with massive bowls with few to no trees. Skiing through there felt like I was watching a nature documentary, it was that beautiful. It was an amazing day filled with lots of laughs and lots of falls. Weirdly, I still had a major head ache from the day before.

                                          This is a picture I took while skiing and edited.

     A few days after returning home, my headache continued and my mom decided I was going to the doctor. After looking at my eyes for fifteen seconds my doctor told me I had a concussion. She continued to tell me the symptoms, and what I should do to heal. She emphasized that I be careful because a second hit to the head could be fatal. I probably shouldn't have skied....whoops.

    I am now sitting in my bed in pain wishing it never happened. Be careful kids. :)

Thanks Mother Nature

     What can be a better Christmas present than snow?  We have been so lucky this last week because we have gotten more snow than we have in years.  As I woke up on Tuesday morning, I looked out my bedroom window with a massive smile upon my face. I mean who wouldn't smile to this?

I took this gorgeous picture myself.

     I immediately knew I had to get onto that mountain as fast as humanly possible.  The women in my family were off to Salt Lake to shop for the holidays. This prevented any of them to join me on what was going to be one of the best adventures I will ever have. My father, the best skier of us, was restricted by his work and was forced to me teased by the view of the mountain from his office window.  I made a few quick calls to my best friends that skied, but none of them were able to go out that day.  At the time, I thought it would suck going out alone, but looking back, I am happy I went by myself. 

     Imagine this, you are in a ski lift line with a few of your friends. The line doesn't seem to be moving as you and the people around you that are equally anxious are bumping shoulders as you try to squeeze ahead. This long and uncomfortable experience can easily be avoided if you ditch said friends for the glorious single's line. This doesn't mean single relationship wise (well, it can I guess?), but it means people who are riding by themselves. This is the golden ticket to quickly breeze pass the funnel of people that Vail tricks into thinking they are each somehow going to get to the top within a good amount of time (as my sister would say, fucking Vail). I probably saved about forty five minutes at least by riding with the singles line.

     This process lead me to "flop" my ski to lift time ratio. I started my day by going to the Orange Bubble lift (btw I am at the Canyons). This part of the mountain contains some of the runs I know best. This allowed be to scout out my powder "stashes." I lapped that a few times, getting knee high snow. I thought I should explore more of the mountain so I headed towards the base. As skiing past Red Pine Lodge, I noticed how absurdly long Saddleback's line was. I decided to abandon this plan and head towards Tombstone. Anyone who has made that journey can sympathize with this next part. As I was skiing down the earlier skied out powder that is now what us locals call "mashed potatoes," I had to deal with all the tourists that make the extremely unpredictable turns. Sean Lydon and I have agreed that if we were ever to commit genocide (not that we will), we would first kill these tourists. 

     I finally reached Tombstone with a welcoming of a predicted twenty five minute line. As explained earlier, I hopped in the singles line and It took roughly three minutes. With the immense amount of people, I thought I should get out of there as quickly as possible. But as I rode up that first chair, I looked down into the aspens to see some of the best powder we have had in years. I figured the line only took a few minutes and started lapping Tombstone. I ended up lapping Tombstone for the rest of my day. 

     This was the first of the best three days of skiing I have ever had. More on that later.

     

More Fencing

     So today actually went okay. We fenced cadet and I was extremely nervous.  Usually men’s foil events are the first event and are super early. BUT NOT TODAY!!!! Our event started at noon and I am so happy. But, we didn’t sleep in because our teammate Alexander was fencing Y10 so we went to support him. I am actually extremely jealous of this child. He bought a blue blade. I have always wanted a blue blade but my teammates said they would make fun of me.

     Anyway, today we fenced cadet and it was pretty hard. My head wasn’t in pools at all and I went 3-3. Out of all the fencers in our event, our bracket end up working out that I was gonna fence Sean and whoever won fenced Cole. Sean hurt his leg in pools and took a medical withdrawal. This means I was forced to fence my teammate Cole. We have been back and forth for years and I hate fencing him.

     He got up like 9-3 and I thought I was screwed. But then I just got my shit together and brought it back 15-9 and won. After that I won another bout that wasn’t that bad. Last weekend i was in Kansas City and fenced cadet. I lost to this guy 5-0 in pools and today he beat me 12-11 in over time. I am very bitter. He was 17 so I think I did fairly well. So that was the round of 16 so I think I got 9th again…ugh.

     Us boys are so sore that we just came home ordered a pizza and all just laid down. We are now in the basement listening to music as Cole and Sean play Pokemon on Cole’s Gameboy color. I think they have homework too, but screw that right? We are all in so much pain, as I said before. We all have attempted to go back up stairs but failed. This shouldn’t be surprising. Sean can barely move his leg. To be honest, I am also completely half-assing this assignment. I probably need more sleep. But guess who does’t get to sleep in? ME1 This is due to the fact that I have to get a plane tomorrow in time to make it to fourth period.

     I don’t think I have mentioned Dima on my blog. Dina is a really good friend of mine who is a badass fencer. Just so you know, his name comes from his real name, Daniel Makogan. My sisters want to have kids and name them Dimu for Daniel Murrin. Whenever I fence, my sister tells me to release my inner Dimu..so thats interesting. Speaking of my sisters, Bree called me this week and gave me a two hour rant about terrorists. I am assuming this was triggered by the recent incident with Paris. I apologize, this blog post is literally all over the place, but I am half asleep so whatever.

Heres a photo from today :)

Denver!

     “I hate the tags on clothes, they should just stamp their products,” -Elaine.  I am currently in Denver for an SYC event for fencing. Shocker right? Anyways,I am writing this on Saturday night and today we had Y14.  I think I may have briefly explain this before, but I am going to do it again. Fencing is based on age and skill. So there are Y08, Y10, Y12, Y14, Cadet and junior. Cadet is 17 year olds and younger. Junior is 19 year olds and younger. Then there are Div 1, Div 2, and Div 3. These events are based on rating. In the world of fencing you are ranked with a letter. So A-E and then unrated. It is very difficult to get rated, especially in Utah. To put things in perspective, only ten percent of fencers are rated and only one percent are A’s.

     Being this as it may, I am an E. To most people that is pretty good, but I have been so close to my D so many times that it has become frustrating. (insert Sean’s bitch face here) So ANYWAYS, today i fenced Y14, It went actually really well. I was 5-1 after pools and then ended up getting 9th over all. I just remembered as I typed that that most people don’t know how these tournaments work.

     The first part of the event is pools. Basically, you are put in a group of people. This group is usually anywhere from 4-9 people depending on how ny people are in the event. This group is called your pool. You fence everyone in your pool, each to 5 points. Each match, or bout, has a 3 minute limit. So today in Y14 I went 5-1. This means I got 5 wins and 1 loss. This section of the tournament helps set up an elimination bracket. This is your standard single elimination bracket. These bouts go to 15 points.These matches have three three minute sections. In between each section is a minute break where coaches can talk with the fencer, and the fencer can get water, eat, wipe sweat, etc. We call these matches Direct Eliminations or DE’s. It may not seem so, but a lot can change within 15 touches. The match evolves so much in that amount of time.

     Tomorrow I am fencing Cadet and to be honest, I am extremely nervous. Thes guys will be smarter, and faster. Besides that, they stop pulling bullshit that younger kids pull. For example, today, I hit a kid and ran into hi and he pulled what I call a soccer player. This means he acts like he’s in  lot of pain. when in all reality he can fence fine. They do this in order to make their opponent feel bad and make them unfocused. My coach told me to kept fencing. “No mercy, he’s faking it,” as she said. Anyway, I am super tired and super nervous for tomorrows fencing. I will upload a post tomorrow to let you know what happens in cadet.

I will update soon.

And btw, heres a picture of us today waiting for DE’s to start.

First Part of the Trip

     I am currently in Kansas City, Missouri.  There are only a few things that draw me to the South. Those are barbecue, sweet tea, and of course, fencing. So as I said, I am in Kansas City at a national event. Fencing is very weird compared to other sports for many reasons. But one of the biggest reasons has to be the tournament structure. In football, track, or soccer, winning State may be a huge deal. In fencing, its like ehh, go when nationals and then you will be good.  This means that most people assume you are super good when you say you are going to nationals. But, this doesn't always have to be the case.

     Ir is currently 8:30 on Thursday night. Before tournaments, we have to have our gear checked. For those of you who are not aware, fencing gear consists of many wires and circuits that allow us to know when a person hits on target.  The unfortunate part about this system is that it breaks....often.  Before competition, you have to have your gear inspected to make sure everything is working properly. This process doesn't take very long but usually the lines are horrendous. Knowing that tomorrow morning my event starts at 8, I will get there at 7 as to allow time for warming up. If I was going to check gear I would have to go even earlier. So instead, Dean and I decided to try to go tonight before it closes (6:00). Our flight landed at about 4:10, and we left the airport in a Super Shuttle at about 4:45. Believe it or not, we did in fact make it to the venue at 5:55 and I successfully had everything pass. Thank god!

     It is kinda strange how this system works, coaches and students cannot sleep in the same room together if they are of the opposite sex. Being that my coach is a woman, I cannot share a hotel room with her. My teammate Cole has family in Kansas City who have offered to\ let people stay at their house.  Their house is about forty five minutes away from the venus and I do not wanna leave the house at six before I fence. This means I had to get a hotel room near the venue, but couldn’t share a room with Elaine. Conveniently, my friend Marissa and her coach Dean were also going to Kansas City. after a while we decided to have Marissa’ stay with Cole, his family, and Elaine at their friends house while Dean and I shared a room in the city.  This ended up working perfectly because the Marriot we picked was literally three minute walking distance from my hotel room. This, with trust from Dean, allowed me to pretty much go to the venue whenever I wanted.  An come back and shower whenever I wanted also.

          Anyway I am really nervous for tomorrow because I am fencing Cadet. some fencing events are based on age and Cadet is the same as 16 year olds and younger. This is one age group above mine, 14 year olds and younger. These guys will be extremely good and I am proud to be killed by them.

Heres a picture I took on the plane :)

Gay Marriage

     Gay marriage was legalized in the United States on June 27, 2015.  This blog post will be one where I explain my thoughts on something.  So, if you are curious to hear my opinions about this, stick around.  It was actually really interesting that day for me.  This is because I found out that gay marriage was legalized while at a kitchen table with my very religious and old-school grandmother (you can assume her opinion) and my twenty two year old sister who lives in San Fransisco (once again, take a guess). Right once my dad told us the good news, my grandmother went into a huge rant about basically how the world was ending.  This lead to a three day debate between my grandmother and my sister. But today, I am not going to talk about that debate, I am going to discuss my own opinions.

Just so we are clear, I personally support gay marriage

     In my opinion, and many others' as well, a problem will be solved when everyone is happy.  And from that perspective, some could consider gay marriage to be a problem due to the lack of satisfaction from everyone.  When I say this, I am talking about older people (usually above 65), religious people, and some times both (like my grandmother). I am looking for a solution for the future, and considering older people's "state", I am basically going to disregard them. This means that the biggest population of people that consider gay marriage a problem are those who are religious. My dad and I have found what we believe to be a pretty good solution.

     Correct me if I am wrong, but the word "marriage" originally was a religious term that was defined as two people being joined together under god. In our modern day, most people do not think of it that way.  Most people are getting married whether they are religious or not.  To those people, "marriage" is not much more than a word to describe there love for their counterpart. But for those who are strictly religious, marriage still means by the church and under god. This raises some problems. I would bet that MOST homosexuals are either not religious or are very lightly religious. But, for those who are, this solution will not be applicable.

     I know people that have been together for as long as I can remember, but have not gotten married because they do not want to be joined under god.  This gave me an idea. What if those wanted to be joined under the church could be and those who didn't want to be joined by the church could still do so.  I call it civil unionization.  Those who do not want to be "married" by the church can be joined through the government and can have the same legal benefits as modern day marriage. Those who are religious can be both be joined by the government and the church.  The religious part of the joining should still be called marriage to maintain the original definition

     This is a similar system to the one they have in Mexico and I believe it could easily be applied to the United States. Let me know in the comments what you think.

.                                       This picture was taken by my sister in San Fransisco.

I'll keep you updated.

     I often find myself questioning why I spend all my time with the same five people. For those of you who haven't looked at my about page or aren't close to me personally, I am a fencer and I am always traveling with my team.  In the last two years we have traveled all over the United States. This allows for a ton of weird experiences. Once, we were in Pocatello, Idaho, and my friend Cole made a brilliant decision. Now, I will not mention his last name, but if you know who I'm talking about, then you will not be surprised with what I am about to tell you.

     In his defense, this was after a very long day of fencing.  So after our tournament we decided to go back to the hotel and relax for a bit.  When a group of teenagers says "relax" they usually mean go screw around in the hotel and pool.  But, for some reason, we were all super tired and sore (wonder why) and we made the decision to go sit in the hot tub and actually relax for once. This small choice that may have seemed like nothing quickly became the highlight of the night as I saw Cole's eyes widen a few seconds after getting in the hot tub. He then quickly jumped out of the tub.  Of course, in confusion, we all asked if everything was okay. Turns out he had forgotten to take his phone out of his pocket which resulted in his phone's appearance resembling that of a piece of fried chicken.  The chemical reaction that caused this mess also caused a slight burn mark on Cole's thigh.  Let's just say he needed to hit up the Verizon store.

Some of you may be worried he ruined his brand new iphone 6, but don't worry.  Cole is incapable of possessing anything nice without breaking it. So his parents let him use this brick.

I got this picture from here.

    Not all my fencing traveling is with my team.  This last summer I spent part of my time training in San Fransisco at a very prestigious club. While training, I became friends with an odd fellow named Sebastian. We didn't spend much of the training time together because he fences epee (ewww epee).  This caused us to spend a majority of our time together during lunch.  One day, we were both craving tacos.  Sebastian was from San Fransisco so he knew the route the taco truck took.  After a few miles of running, we finally found the truck.  But as we walked up they had packed up and were moving to a new location, so we ran after it a few more miles.  I guess you just do what you got to do for tacos.

     Throughout this blog I will be talking about my experiences with fencing. (I mean I am doing it all the time) If you want more fencing stories, traveling stories or just general thoughts, let me know. I also have a very bad habit of ranting about everything and I have been told it is entertaining. So also let me know if there's anything in particular you want me to rant about.

Adios... :)

     I feel that a reason you are reading this blog is to learn a bit about me.  Well, turns out, the biggest parts of my life aren't me at all, but my dear old friend Little Boy Pimp.  Just so we are clear, that nickname, that I developed over two years ago, has no legitimate origin and I have no idea where it came from. Anyway,  in this post I will not clearly state who this person is, but if you can guess than good for you.  This particular idiot and I have spent a fair amount of time together the last few years. But, I guess that is how it's supposed to be with best friends. Before I mention any stories, I want to tell you one of my favorite jokes mentioned to me by this person.

"What do you call a biker gang made up of norse bisexual monarchs?"
"What?"
"The Bikings"

     For who of you do not understand that joke, I am truly sorry because that is hands down the best joke on the face of this Earth.  Back to the point, I have had many strange memories with this person.  If it is four in the morning as we down approximately two pounds if Swedish Fish in my basement, or dancing with pizza in an apartment in NYC, we have very interesting experiences.  My particular favorite of these experiences was when we were doing construction on a house.  We were instructed to take the insulation out of the walls and take the drywall off the the walls and ceiling.  So I find myself in the garage of this house when I hear this person yell, "Brycceeeeee," considering how dangerous this job actually is, I quickly run to his location in the hope he hasn't accidentally impaled himself with a large axe.  When I had last seen him, he was taking off dry wall from the ceiling.  He was standing on some scaffolding with a pile of  insulation next to him.  When I finally got to him, I found him buried in the pile of insulation.  Turns out he had fallen off the scaffolding and thankfully landed in the pile.

     Weirdly that was not the closest we were to death while in that house. (We really should stop working there) Once we had to remove the dry wall from a ceiling in a stair well.  This became an issue... We needed to somehow reach the ceiling...which keep in mind was twenty feet above the stairs.  After a few minutes of debate, we concluded we were going to find a way to put the scaffolding in the stair well and somehow complete our task.  Because the legs of the scaffolding do not go at different heights, we had to put books between the stair and the leg of the scaffolding. After quite a bit of struggle, we found ourselves standing on a very unstable base,  with a twenty foot drop onto stairs.  We could feel the base shift as we passed each other the hammer (if you understand that reference, I love you).  Luckily, we somehow surpassed deaths attempt to meet us.

Got this from memecrunch.com

Another post will come soon.

     As it says on my about page, I travel a lot.  If it is traveling for competitions or just for the hell of it, traveling is one of the highlights of my life.  I am fourteen and i have already been to the six primary continents, and forty nine of the fifty United States.  Traveling is a very important part of one's life because it offers opportunities that usually, you would never experience.  Being this as it may, you often find yourself in a weird or funny situation that you cannot help but share later.  On this blog I will be constantly doing so.

     Last summer (2014), I went on a trip with my family to Spain.  For the previous year or so, whenever we went on a family hike (or any family-time type activity), we would talk about my sisters' dream trip.  For you who do not know, I have two older sisters.  At this time of the story, my oldest sister Kylie was 19 and my other sister was 18. Anyway, my sisters had always planned on traveling through Europe.  My parents decided that we were going to take a family trip, then my sisters could split off from us part of the way in.

     It is summer 2013, we are in Spain as a family and it is week of out month long trip.  At the end of this week my sisters were going to slit off and explore the rest of the wonders Europe has to offer.  At this point, we are in Pamplona for the running of the bulls.A few days before I find myself in my hotel room with my sisters.  Kylie tells us she is going to go take a shower.  The only towels we had were the travel towels.  Okay, a little backstory.  The previous Christmas, in preparation for their journey, each of my sisters had received a small towel for traveling.  What neither of my sisters knew was you are supposed to wash the towel at least once before use. This allows for some of the access dye to get released.

     So we are back in the hotel room as I mentioned before. My sister, Kylie, tells us she is going to take a shower and walks into the bathroom.  For the first fifteen minutes or so everything seems perfectly fine until we hear Kylie scream from the bathroom.  At this point, Bree and I are praying she didn't break something, or herself for that matter.  Kylie then came out, towel still wrapped around her body, and her skin is bright pink.And because of her skin tone (pretty dang white), the pink was very bright.  Here is an example of the color I am describing:

All of her skin, face, arms, body, etc, was dyed for a solid two days and on the third it started to fade.  Now keep in mind, we weren't gonna let her just stay in the hotel.  This means we dragged her around Pamplona as she was constantly being stared at by people.  At one point, she was dancing (probably to some Disney soundtrack) when a woman gave her some money. So that the story of how my sister was a street performer for a day! Hope you guys liked the story and I'll post again soon!