Yesterday was our last academic day of high school. Today we just showed up at 9:45 for a quick graduation ceremony rehearsal, so it didn’t really feel like school at all. 

Afterwards, some lovely people in our humanities class arranged a celebratory/last hurrah picnic at the local park. Hot dogs, Popsicles, and other assorted yummies.

Earlier in the day, I was not very inclined to go. My lower back has been killing me the past few days so i wasn’t feeling up for frisbee and other park activities. It’s crazy how a little back pain can make someone incredibly antisocial.

But while I was at home, I realized that I would probably never get to hang out with these people again, all together and at one place. So I walked down to the medicine cabinet, and popped six of those marvelous blue and red striped, fast relief  Ultra Tylenol pills. Thoroughly medicated and back pain slowly numbing, I jumped in the car and headed for the park.

It was a beautiful day.

Right away, we got into a nice game of ultimate frisbee. Shirts verse No shirts. After which we played a game of croquet. The game was unfortunately interrupted by the persuasive calls of our other friends to join a round of sharks and minnows, but that’s no matter. I had been ahead of a good friend of mine Julia. She’s from England so croquet is supposed to run in her bloods. But I was doing better than her. I felt proud- I felt English. And I realize that feeling ‘English’ is not exactly a feeling. But if it were, it’d be a nice medley  of class, pride, and victory.

This was followed by a huge game of  Capture the Flag(Bio class verse the Physics Class). Later on, a game of HORSE with a few of the guys. This game of HORSE was especially interesting. We had all agreed that the loser had to run over to one of the dudes and kiss his chest chair. Never before have I played HORSE with so much intensity and motivation. I need more hairy chest in my life. 

We all parted ways a few hours later but then reunited at the awards ceremony in the evening. For most of us, we got our five seconds of glory and then sat there for two hours, bored out of our minds.

Concluded the night with a late Flame Broiler run with my good bud David. We thoroughly enjoyed our chicken bowls topped with Magic sauce and chopped green onions. Might I mention that David is currently the number one  junior national swimmer in the nation in the 1650 meters freestyle. He’s been to the Olympic Trials and is actually heading off for Indianapolis for World Trials( basically as big as the Olympics) in two weeks. I’m proud to call such an amazing guy my friend.The amount of work he puts into swimming truly inspires me, although I doubt he knows that he has that sort of effect on me.

Over the course of the meal, I realized that I was eating exceptionally fast. I attempted to slow down but it was too late. David was left sitting there eating, while I just sipped on my drink and twirled my fork around an empty plastic bowl scavenging for stray grains of rice. Note to self, I should be more considerate and eat slower with company. That they way they don’t they feel so rushed and can ingest at a normal speed.

Came home, showered, read a few chapters of Zig Ziglar’s autobiography. It was meh. Then read the first chapter of Into the Heart by Kenneth Good. It’s a real account of an anthropologist who travels into the Amazon to study the Yanomami tribe and ends up living there for over a decade and even marries a Yanomami woman. I’m not too far along but I’m fascinated. Here’s an excerpt from the back cover that’s sure to pique anyone’s interest, “Anthropologist Kenneth Good went to the rain forest of the Amazon to study the Yanomami. He found more than one of the few remaining peoples untouched by modern civilization. During more than a decade of observation, Good found himself accepted, indeed virtually adopted, by the tribe and eventually fell in love with a young Yanomami woman. In the process, he made exciting new discoveries about the tribal people and about himself. Into the Heart is the fascinating story of his journey of discovery.”

And now I’m off to bed. I’m tagging along with my sister and my Dad as they travel up to Long Beach for her archery tournament. She came into my room earlier tonight and asked me if wanted to go. I enthusiastically replied yes. I doubt there’s going to be another opportunity in the near future to go support her archery ambitions. Usually, tournaments are  really far and in the middle of school season.