The Good Ol' Days?

This last Friday I attended my old high school's football game.  I was excited to see some of the people I hadn't seen in nearly a year.  I dressed in school spirit, donning the one and only t-shirt I own that I bought with the colors and school name on it and all that.  I arrived a little late, having went out to eat before the game, but I wasn't worried, high school football games aren't nearly as exciting as college football in my opinion.

I saw the students along with my old teachers and administrators, and I was excited to hear a couple old nicknames from teachers and friends I had :)  It didn't take too long to realize how different everything was.  People dressed in the strangest clothes, make-up was more abundant that it ever was when I went there, and all the people were smaller, haha!  For once in my life I actually wasn't really all that short in comparison to everyone else!  I swear, freshmen literally get smaller and smaller every year, and I don't say that because I am getting taller!  I haven't grown in at least 3 or 4 years, so it's not because I am getting bigger that I assume all the childrens are getting smaller. Believe me. (Yes, I spelled childrens wrong, and yes, it was intentional.)

I met up with an old friend of mine who had graduated the year after I did.  We both looked around and said to each other just how different the school was.  It has literally been taken over by a whole herd of immature, strangely-dressed aliens getting what Idaho calls an education.  I wondered aloud if I had been like these kids in my days there. 

Since the day I signed up for classes at Boise State, I have missed high school in many ways.  Granted college is a wonderful thing in many respects (especially in the football respect haha ;), but it is also not as fun as high school ever was.  I wished I could return to the days where attendance was mandatory, when teachers cared about your grades and talked to your parents about how great (or horrible) of a kid you were that semester.  I missed seeing the best people in the world every school day and getting to laugh with and at each other while waiting for the buses to show up and take us home.  I missed going out with my best buds for movies and McDonald's after.  I missed the stupid romance in high school.  Even the drama had been entertaining in some ways, haha.

Looking at how much the place I loved so dearly has changed, I realized that perhaps it was for the best that I left it when I did.  Maybe someday I'll have to become a teacher at the old place and make a difference there.  If that never happens, I think I'll always have to visit every now and again.  However, I can't say that I want to go back anymore.  I wish the good ol' days would return, but it seems like they are so far gone now.

In light of my rather disappointing discoveries, I have decided to look forward with a twinkle in my eye.  There is no point in looking back to something that is no longer there.  Perhaps this is why I felt the need to return.  I needed to see that I'm heading towards a better place. :)

9-11

It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years to the day that the Twin Towers and World Trade Center were attacked.  I was only 8 back then, almost 9.  These days, the whole attack has a lot more significance to me.  I remember as a kid hearing that the towers were attacked, I didn't understand what was going on at all.  All I knew was that my mom tried waking me up to tell me this, and I think that I came into the room where she was watching everything on TV, but I really don't remember.  All I know is that my life didn't seem to have any immediate effects from the whole thing.  I went about my little existence as I usually did: playing, doing school work and getting into trouble.

When I got a little older, possibly a few years or so, I started understanding just what happened on September 11, 2001.  Traveling by plane no longer was a simple feat.  Being a military family, we moved in 2003 to Hawaii after having been in California for a mere 3 years.  Airport security was tight, and traveling home to Idaho was quite the excursion every year with all of the scanning and processing and whatnot we all had to go through.

I saw the attacks as a sad day for America, and I realized that a war had begun, regardless of what others were calling it.  At one point I became very interested in the whole thing and began actually looking into what others were saying about what had happened so long ago.  I believe this happened after I became a teenager and had moved yet again to finally end up where I am now.  I was in high school at the time, probably a sophomore or junior.  Everything finally made sense to me, I saw Clinton's mistakes which led to the attacks, and I saw the controversy of the war.  I saw just how angry so many people had become, as well as how relaxed they were in their little lifestyles.  It amazes me just how stupid Americans are these days (no offense, but we are).

This day 10 years ago changed our lives dramatically, whether we see it now or not.  I look back and wonder how different I might have felt if I had been my current age when the attacks aired that morning.  What would I have done then?

Looking forward from this 10-year anniversary of such a tragic day for America, I really don't know what to expect from our nation 5 or even 2 years from now.  My beliefs about America aren't exactly optimistic, but I hope continually that somehow, someway, America will become a better, more responsible nation than it has been in the past 10 years.