This whole time I've been writing, so, no, I haven't stopped with Ace and Hunter.I've written many more remakes, and I've written 2 more short stories (meaning, like, 3-4 pages long) out of boredom.
Anyways, yesterday was the Pathfinder Initiation where we...well, initiated 7 more pathfinders into the club. (In case you don't know, the Pathinder Club is the Adventist equivalent of a Youth Group Club in a church.) I was told to learn to play the song on the piano about 3 weeks ago and I gladly went home that night and practiced it. The next Saturday, I played it at a meeting and they asked if I could play it at the initiation; which I, of course, could not deny. Though I wish I had.
It's not that I was nervous; I actually felt extremely comfortable playing in front of everyone (including the visitors from the Filipino First SDA Church) while they sang it. The thing is that it wasn't well planned, and over-looking many mistakes made, my father (who was at the sound board at the time) told me to "play the piano while they announced the names." Of course, he told me this right when they were ABOUT TO announce the names. However, I was instructed the night before to NOT play the piano while they announced the names; but my father was telling me contrary. Since Pathfinder Director > Father, I decided to not play the song. Then I looked at the Pastor. He was telling me the same thing. And since Pastor > Pathfinder Director > Father, I decided to PLAY the song.
For 10 minutes straight. Without stopping. Everytime with some sort of difference.
If Vince hadn't told me to stop, I probably would not have stopped.
Then, at the end, I wasn't sure to play, so I didn't. Until the director says (over the MICROPHONE) "Abraham, please play the song,"--obviously he said it normally and nonchalantly, but it was still...sort of embarrassing.
Then, today, we were all invited by our Youth Group Leader to this park in Plainfield; if you've read my previous posts, it's not a town I like to visit often (with the exception of church on Saturdays since it's the closest, I have no say about that until I can drive lol). We went to the park--I was expecting to find Julian, Chemita, and all those kids whom I used to play with all the time when I was younger. Instead, I found a bunch of adults playing basketball--they'd changed the rules so much that they counted stealing the ball as a penalty.
There was just one kid--his name was Dennis, a boy whom, at 10 years old, is not very physically talented. (However, he is talented musically; he's taking piano lessons and knows the violin pretty well.) He's also sort of like the outcast--in previous years I've seen kids call him a homosexual, inept, and moronic (Except they used words like "faggot", "good for nothing", and "stupid").
That hit my soft side. For this same reason, I felt that he needed to be treated fairly because I'd gone through a lot of the same things he's going through, including lack of physical effort and increase of musical knowledge.
Vince on the bridge while walking back to the car.
So after dealing with half an hour of playing wrongly-played basketball, and another half an hour arguing with them about how to play it, I moved away. Then I saw Vince, his brother Ariel, and Christian go through the park gates. And, boy, was that a miracle. I actually hugged Christian and said "THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING I FELT SO LONELY"
I asked Vince where Julian and Chemita were, along with other people that need not be mentioned. "In the other park," he said. I knew the "other park"--which was basically a muddy field with 2 soccer nets. They'd be playing soccer nonstop all day.
Then another miracle happened--Ariel found a football.
Ah, that oval-like, eliptical piece of pigskin. I had never been so relieved to see it in my life. Except one time when we were at Tranquility and it fell in the river, ending an endless game, but that's another story.
Anyways, we decided to just throw it around since we didn't have a lot of options. I'll be frank; I haven't thrown a football since October, so I really didn't know what I was doing--only after a while of throwing did I get my game back. Point is, it was just the 4 of us--Vince, Ariel, Christian and I--throwing the ball around with nothing to do. Then Dennis walks in all clumsy-like, saying, "Here! Throw it to me!"
"Are you sure?" asked Christian, who had the ball. You should have seen it (although you can probably imagine it): Vince, Ariel, Christian and I are all guys with large frames and wide shoulders, while Dennis was just... there. Any other
Actually, it sorta like ricocheted off his fingers.
Oy.
Me and Christian changed places after some time, since the sun kept of bothering him. I didn't really mind; my hair is still long enough to shade my eyes. Suddenly I found myself about to throw the ball at Dennis, when I stopped. "He's not gonna catch this," I thought. "He can't catch, period."
I stopped. I moved forward. I told him how to catch it. Then I threw the ball and he actually caught it in his hands.
You could say I was a little proud of myself. I never was a good teacher.
"Now throw it, but put a little force on your index," I yelled at him. At least, that's how I learned to throw it.
Again, he threw it, and it went perfect spiral. Ok, I'm embellishing; it wasn't perfect, but it was a spiral.
Then Vince decided we should have a real game, even though we had limited space where we were. If you saw Vince, you would definately think "Oh yeah, he's a football player." Truth is, he knows as much about football as I know about India. And that's close to nothing (Although I am slowly learning more)
Again, I will admit; I never really COMPLETELY got the hang of playing football. It's just the way people explained it--it made it 10x more complicated. Learning a whole new vocabulary isn't at the top of my to-do list. This time, I was able to learn how to correctly and accurately play the entire game--no mess, no confusion. Reason being, though Vince knows very little, Ariel knows a lot, so they helped each other out, which I guessed helped me. It's better than having a 5' 11'' long-haired dude screaming "SHUT UP YOU'RE DOING IT ALL WRONG" in your ear.
At the same time, we were all teaching Dennis. Somehow, he had survived us and had (sort of) learned how to play. We ended up having a nice game, though I scored 3 out of 4 touchdowns on my team (the game wasn't long and we only had 5 people with Vince alternating as QB, So you could say we had it super easy.)
While Dennis and Ariel drank water, Vince, Christian and I walked all around the park after that, simply talking about things, joking around, making comments, etc. I knew Vince and I had the same mentality--even though he's 3 years older, you could say we're both very mature for our age--but I never really knew exactly what was on his mind, and today, I did. For some reason, I could relate.
When Dennis left, his tiredness was easily noticeable. Had we pushed him too hard? At that point, it didn't really matter; he had a beaming smile on his face. I was glad the guys and I had given him a chance.
Then I remembered all those times I played football in school, in the 7th and 8th grade. Even one time this year, in the 9th grade. I had made such a fool of myself... I had put myself in a rut which would put me down both mentally and socially for the rest of my life. From those mess-ups, it seemed that I never learned, and I developed an inferiority complex towards those people who had the skill and determination to play the game. Looking at it another way, no one helped at all. All those "good jobs" and "nice tries" were simply sarcastic comments in my ears, and then no one gave me another chance. Therefore, I had neither push nor the desire to try.
Today, just for a moment, that went all away. And I couldn't wait to play it in school again.
