About Me (for all you facebookers out there)

My name is Alex, and this is a little piece I like to call, about me.

I was born in Brevard County, Florida in 1990, on November 4. My mother had long hair then, and was very pretty, just like she is now. I don’t remember much from before I was 3 or 4, but my mom said that I liked to walk a lot, and apparently I was born with a full head of hair. I have only a few memories from my 5 years in florida. I remember the neighbors having 4 dogs. I remember loving to visit my grandma’s house, and eating little weenies and ice cream (not together). I should mention, because it is important, that I began playing video games from the ripe young age of 3 or 4. I beat super Mario bros 3 at the age of 4, which I feel is quite the achievement. This really influenced my future video gaming career.

When I was 5 we moved to Cedar Rapids, IA. Right next door to my cousins on staub ct. i must have spent 3 months or so before school started playing with my cousins in the summer, but it felt like an eternity. My 3 cousins, Brittany, Ben, and Blake, along with my older brother L.C. had many adventures together, often parading around as superheros. I should mention I had glasses at that time. My cousin Blake, and my older brother picked on me (as is perfectly natural), and occassionaly I got into fights with them. Mostly with blake, he was quite a jerk.

I started school at Garfield Elementary in the fall. The first few years at Garfield seemed… unimportant. I was very smart, but I did not know that until 3rd grade. It was quite funny, they would pull me out of class every now and then to do IQ testing and all sorts of mind games to see how smart I was, and I blew through them with ease. And then one day I confounded the person I was working with by telling them I was having trouble understanding how to do subtraction. She tought me and I picked up instantly.

I made had a few good friends, Nathan Gordman in kindergarten, and Keenen Davis in 2nd grade (can you believe it? Me and keenen were best friends once! I will probably keep telling people that, because I think he is going to be a very successful football player) But my real friendships started to develop when I met Luke Reynolds. Luke was smart like me. In fact, although I never would have admitted it then, I think he was smarter than me. I started to identify myself as a nerd at this time, and luke was a bit of one too.

In 3rd grade I had met a guy named Michael Wendt. He was kind of a bad kid, so I didn’t really like him that much. He was always causing trouble and creating a ruckus, and getting sent to the office. We got put in an advanced reading group with Mr Wendt (no relation), a student teacher, along with luke and cody van bogart (I believe… I may be wrong about this… maybe it was someone else).

Before I continue I need to note some things about this time period, and point out some things that I missed. My sister was born when I was 7. shortly after, my father moved out of the house and my mother and him eventually got a divorce. In 3rd grade I began playing the clarinet, and with some skill I should say. I also began taking tae kwan do lessons somewhere around that time, making it all the way to brown belt. I also started going to church around this time, but it didn’t really effect me until later in my life. Also around this time, I fell in love with Final Fantasy VII, and became the final fantasy fanboy I am today.

One day I found out that Michael Wendt had played Final Fantasy vii. That was all it took for us to become best friends. We stayed at eachothers houses every Friday and Saturday, and watched adult swim (which actually had good shows on at the time), and played final fantasy vii, viii, ix, along with legend of legaia and star ocean 2. we thought we were gonna be best friends forever.

But then I moved in the summer before 5th grade. I moved to a different part of Cedar Rapids. My mom married my step-dad colin, and we lived in a semi-chaotic happy dysfunction ever after. I met a couple of friends around this time: chris grahm, jerry maddox, and phil koong. We all got along, and they all loved video games like I did.

5th grade was fun. I went to Jackson for one year and learned a lot of things. The first thing I learned was this: no matter how good my ghetto basketball skills where in the ghetto, they were no match for the 800 dollar basketball camp skills of the rich preps that went to Jackson. Nothing against rich preps… just sayin they got more game. I picked up 2 friends during the year, Caleb D’arensbourg, and Mason Anderson. Chris and Jerry moved away, and Phil, Mason and I became the greatest force of destruction known to man. We were the best friends ever. There was nothing better than going to masons house on a Friday night, playing video games, watching movies, shooting fireworks, shooting bb guns. It was epic. Sometimes we would go out and do crazy stuff at 2am, like terrorize the Xavier kids making out in Seminole valley park late at night. But eventually we slowed down a little bit with the terror, because I shout out some dudes window with a bb gun, so we laid low for awhile.

Then middle school. And puberty. I don’t remember a lot about 6th grade… other than it sucked.. Mason, Phil and I continued to tear it up. That’s about it. In 7th grade a lot of things changed for me. First off, I joined the bible quiz program at church, and met one of my greatest friends, Stephanie Graham. I wasn’t very good at bible quiz, but only because I spent my time playing video games instead of studying. I also got contacts that year… which also represents the transition for me from COMPLETE NERD to pretty cool guy that is also a nerd. I also started playing bass guitar around this time, and joined the jazz band. I also switched from clarinet to bass clarinet, the worst decision of my life. I liked a girl named Torin Mallonee around this time... but she never returned the favor. I picked up a couple more friends, Isiah and Justin. we also got together occasionally to play video games.

Mason moved away. One of the most sucky things that ever happened to me. Phil and I remained good friends, but we were sorta on and off. I think in 8th grade I spent more time with isiah than I did phil, but I don’t remember exactly. 8th grade was pretty cool. I had a lot of friends, and started to develop more into the person that I currently am. I sharpened my sense of humor, broadened my social networks beyond that of friends that I play video games with, and so on. I should not at this time that I really really really started to like Stephanie, who was still at the time on my bible quiz team. She liked me too, and that was all fine and good.

In the summer after 8th grade, I began learning Je Ying Kuen gung fu, which really opened me up to the world of martial arts. I learned a lot from Mr tsang, and my Sehings, and continued to hone my skills for 2 years under their instruction. I also became an employee of Donutland before high school, which is an incredibly wonderful place to work, despite the dysfunctionality of the shop.

High school for me has been a very good experience so far, I have liked it a lot and done a lot of cool things. Dating Sally Johnson was not one of them. That’s all that I will say about that. Freshman year I did Marching band, got into wind symphony, and played for jazz band II. I took one AP class. I was still in bible quiz at that time. I occasionally hanged with Phil.

Sophomore year I started to hang with Sam Amer, who I forgot to mention up to this point, Phil, Joe, and Suhaib (a friend of sam’s). WE DID SOME CRAZY SHIZZAM!!!!!!!!! Every Friday night we would get together. Phil and sam had 2 really neat computers, and we would play BF2, and WOW and have so much fun. We would walk to walmart, and buy food and all sorts of stuff. We had 3 great pranks that we pulled that I will never forget. For me, this represented a return to the crazyness that I used to do with mason and phil.

1st. we went to Covington, where joe lives, stole 2 plastic deer from a neighbors house, and put them up in the middle of a highway, and watched. Aobut 5 minutes later, a truck drove up, swerved around them, stopped, reversed, got out of the truck, picked up the deer and put them into the truck, and drove away. We were laughing so hard, it was the funniest thing ever.

2nd we went to walmart and bought sausages, magnum XLs, and Vaseline. Then we went near blairferry road, and hid behind bushes and fences, combined the three products into what became a slingshot like projectile resembelling male genitals, and flung them at oncoming traffic. Then we almost got gunned down by some gangsters. But we lived

3rd we built a smoke bomb. See the video on my facebook.

Later on in the year the band went to san Antonio, and we had a Magnificent time!!! It was really all jolly good.

My brother joined the airforce around this time.

Also around this time, I realized that I wanted to be a pilot when I grow up. No relation to the statement made above.

Junior year. LOTS OF THINGS HAPPENED. First. My clarinet teacher tought me how to lift weights… and I fell inlove with it. I quickly became a ripped beast the likes of which the world has never known, and decided I would try and break the school lb for lb bench press record by the end of my senior year (im getting there, btw). He also tought me some wing chun. I broke up with Sally, finally. And a few weeks later, asked her step sister out, which seemed like a good idea at the time.

500 people paid me 2 dollars that year, to do something amazing. I joined Colorguard. I was a flag girl. A flagit, or if you prefer, a flaggot. It was realy a lot of fun, and I saved up the money for my pilots license. I built my computer around this time, and continued on rampaging the nights with sam and phil.

My relationship with Sally’s step sister was was banhammered/nerfed by her parents, and set in course a series of events which drove me into the furthest depths of depression I had ever experienced in my life. But towards the end of the year things started to brighten up again. My good friend Caitlin Bradford helped me out a lot, and as a result we became even better friends.

Last summer: I worked anywhere from 40 to 58 hours a week, and dumped every cent of the money into flight training. I got 2/3rds done with the training before I went broke. I aso started training for MMA, which I hope to do a couple of boughts in when I turn 18.

I am a senior in high school now. I am busy a lot, doing a lot of things. Most of which are in some way related to band. I have a lot of good friends, most of whom are in band, and I get to spend a lot of time with them. I am planning on going to ISU next year, and continuing my flight training, in the hopes of one day becoming a professional pilot.



And that’s about it. If you think I left anything out, or would like me to edit anything in here, just let me know. It was kind of a rush job. I just tried to cram my entire life into an hours worth of writing.

Thanks for reading,

Alex


Edit- march 22, 2009

Senior year is approaching its end now. I only have a few more months in high school, so i thought i would update some of the things that i have done this year.

Marching band this year was magnificent. I had a chance to be close with some of my dearest friends, and created some great memories. I attempted to play baritone for the marching band, it was pretty much a fail, but im okay with that.

In the fall i was invited to the alburnett high school homecoming by a very attractive young lady, Kristy Owen, who I met out at the airport. We enjoyed a relationship together for a while before it was disbanded by a few of my more major character flaws, such as inability to cope with reality, and poor decision making.

I started playing bass for 2 great bands around this time. Sage River Satterfield and the Wayfarers, and a band based out of marion that currently has no name, but we like to call it ULTRASONIC MEGABLAST for fun. both groups have a lot of talent, and im not talking about myself, and have already played countless (non profit) gigs.

Phil and i have hung out alot this year. especially when i started to train for MMA. I trained very hard for my debut MMA fight, and won it in 14 seconds. The second i Won in the first round. Right now i plan on taking a break for a little while, and want to explore the Idea of gaining 15 lbs of solid muscle and moving up a weight class.

A friend of mine asked me the other day. Why do you do it? and it provoked some thought. I have actually thought about it alot. And i have come up with a lot of B.S. ansnwers over the months. but ive come up with the one that i like the most: I am second strongest person i know. And when i speak of strength i mean the power of will. the ability to impose your will over other people, and to drive after what you want and achieve your goals. and thought the person that is stronger than me is twice as strong as i am, i am 10 times as strong as the next best person i know. That being said, with all my strength, i feel powerless in my own life, so i use my will in a place where i can: the cage. It is a way for me to use my strength, and at the same time i am searching for the person that will be stronger than me, and will be my undoing. in short: im a sadist on a suicide mission.

I asked a girl to prom, and she said yes. but then she said no. So i decided i would just go with Phil and Sam and maybe Joe. I would like to come out of the closet and announce at this time that i am in fact a heterosexual and always have been, and always will be.

I didnt really try the first two trimesters of school this year. I still managed to get good grades the first term, but not in the second term, so i feel lots of added pressure to do well this term.

and i think thats about it. we will see how the rest of the year pans out. and maybe this autobiography will see another update before i go to college.