The Three F's

This year (senior year) I’m in British Literature. Although I know that sounds like one of the most boring classes I could possibly be taking, it actually hasn’t been that bad. I really like the teacher and she gives me lots of freedom with the papers that she assigns.

One of the most fundamental things that makes someone who they are, are there beliefs. Without our own beliefs and ideas our lives would be a bland monotony, similar to the life of a microwave (but without the wonderful ability to unevenly cook frozen dinners). Three of the main things that have shaped me into the person I am today are my friends, family, and fun (the 3 F’s as they have been compassionately called since the construction of this sentence). These three items help to make up who I am and where my priorities lie.

The first item in my triumvirate of morals is friends. As a teenager my friends greatly influence who I am. Although sometimes my aspirations should reach farther then things that my friends choose to do, (like trying to pole vault over an eight foot volley-ball net) they are still a huge part of my life. I have known many of my friends since elementary school and throughout our friendship we have shared many fun and interesting experiences together. At times we’ve been known to do things such as: convincing each other to try skateboard tricks well out of our abilities with much chance of bodily harm, play catch with pocket knives, chase geese with our parent’s minivans, and sometimes even commit heinous crimes against humanity such as talking in church. But as a group we have stuck together throughout thick, thin, and “possible police involvement” and I think we are all stronger because of it.

The next stop on our voyage of my beliefs is my family. As embarrassing as it is for me to admit they have had some part in raising me and thus have influenced me to be who I am today. Even as a young fetus (ewwww) they were instilling values upon me (although as a fetus most of the things I was being taught were items such as: develop a circulatory system and don’t wrap that umbilical cord around your neck). Later in life they taught me right from wrong, how to manage money, and the awkward tale of where babies come from. With out my parents I wouldn’t know how to survive in a society such as our own. I’d probably be sitting on some street corner with all of these crazy ideas in my head, thoughts like babies are created by sexual intercourse or some other foolish idea like that. But thanks to my loving parents I know that none of that utter bologna is true.

The last piece trilogy of Joel is fun. While at first glance fun might seem misplaced in my paper of beliefs, after further examination I think you will agree that it couldn’t possibly fit in any better. Firstly the word fun starts with an ‘F’. This paper could not be about the three F’s if I picked another word such as spectacular. Sure spectacular describes me fantastically but well, “The two F’s and the S” isn’t that catchy of a title. Secondly I try to have fun in many if not all of the things that I do. If you only knew me by reading this paper you might think to your self “Self, this writer sure is a literary genius but he seems so uptight and boring. Do you think he ever has fun?” but of course you’d be dead dog[1] wrong. I try to focus my life on doing things that I enjoy such as watching wonderful NBC programming such as The Office and inserting references to the bottom of my school assigned papers. I feel trying to live my life like this will make life, well, a little more fun.

After carefully examining what makes me into the amazingly looking man that I am, I feel I must bring this paper to a close with some thought-provoking insights or conclusions (at least that’s what the assignment was). This paper (‘The Three F’s’ [not to be confused with ‘The two F’s and the S’]) is a lot like an onion. As we peel back all of the layers we start to see a transformation take place. First off comes the dirty outside, then we start to rip away layer after amazing layer, our eyes begin to water, and as we fight back out tears we see that we are left with the wonderful and pure center of the onion. It sits there looking us directly in the eyes and whispers “If you hear an onion ring, answer it”. Although that metaphor really got away from me, what I take from this paper is this; during the last 17 years of my life and infinite number of things have impacted me and molded me into what I am today, and I wouldn’t trade any of those things for the world.

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[1] The term dead dog refers to a level of sever seriousness. The term was coined because if you were telling someone that there dog had passed away, you would need to be very serious.

September 18, 2006

My Personal Wellness Plan

Junior year I took a gym class called Lifetime Fitness. I was drawn to this class because it would A) fulfill one of my “physical education” requirements and B) the class consisted mostly of fieldtrips to health stores and the bowling ally. At the end of the semester we were assigned to write a paper instead of taking a final exam. The paper was supposed to sum up what we had learned in the class and share how we were going to use this new information to create a healthy lifestyle for ourselves.

As people grow and mature, both mentally and spiritually, their healthy life styles can sometimes start to lag. As hard as it is to believe, even in our great country of America, the health capital of the world, some people can become over weight and even obese. In this literary piece of art, I will uncover how if I focus on four simple yet important areas: nutrition, exercise, stress management, and personal safety, I can become the ultimate health-fighter-for and defend America from obesity.

The first challenge to defending our country from the evils of obesity is to make sure we receive the proper nutrition. Personally, I believe that two of the main obstacles that could slow me down on my journey towards a healthy life style are excessive weight gain and poor nutrition during competitive activities. Excessive weight gain could become a problem for me because I tend to have the eating habits similar to someone that’s bulimic, except I don’t throw up, I just binge several times a day until my stomach feels ready to rupture. My problems with getting proper nutrition during competitive actives arrives because when I start dominating in athletic activities I tend to hulk out, and refuse to stop until my opponents are begging for mercy.

My family is pretty healthy so I am not very concerned that my genes (witch I believe are near super human) will betray me on my odyssey for health. I will try to put my self in environments that complement proper nutrition, in places such as India, where obesity is much less of a problem. I will try to eat more balanced foods to gain more nutritional value from them. I will also cut down on my normal diet of raw boar.

If my nutrition improves I believe I can become a national hero, known as super-awesome-good-nutrition-man. Children will want to be me, orphans will want to be adopted by me, and old national heroes such as astronauts and smoky the bear will envy me. These objectives can start being attempted as soon as instantly, and can be continued for all of eternity, or until my death. Whichever comes first.

Another one of the blocks I will build my great health on is proper exercises. Two of the things that hold me back in the field of exercise are my poor aerobics and my terrible flexibility. I do not do very many aerobic activities, other then dancing for hours on end. I fear that if one day I am chased by a dog I might lack the aerobic ability to escape with my life. To decrease my environmental risks of becoming unexercised I will try to walk places rather then drive. This will benefit me greatly based purely on the amount of income I will gain from walking. Think about all of the time you see money on the ground when you are walking. Now picture if you walked everywhere you went. And if you did that everyday you would make profit. That and the fact that I would be better suited to escape from dogs.

Improving my exercising habits can start immediately. I will know I have accomplished my goal when I have gains exorbitant amounts of money and can escape from all pending dog chases.
One of the final hurdles I must conquer in order to reach my epic goal of total health is stress management. Stress affects us all in different ways. For some it makes them cry, some people become grouchy, and some such as the hulk turn green and rip their shirts. Personally I am a combination of all three of those, making stress management something I need to keep in control. Two things that could try to throw my stress levels to an unhealthy and dangerous level are high gas prices, and late papers in my gym class.

High gas prices have been slowly starting to fuel (no pun intended) my rising stress levels. Over the last few years my parents have started to suffer from high gas prices so I fear that this may be hereditary. Even my grandfather had some problems with gas prices in the 1970’s. I think my walking everywhere will soon start to ease my gas price stress.

Late papers in gym classes have also started to become major stressors in my life. To help decrease this stressor I will try hard to finish my future gym papers on time and to complete the ones that are already late as soon as possible. Turing my gym paper in will greatly benefit me because I will be able to go on field trips and I will receive credit for my current gym class. I will be able to measure my progress when I get my report card and hopefully receive a 1 for that gym class.

The final thing that will try to stop my epic journey to becoming the ultimate health master is my personal safety. How can people look up to my greatness if I become critically injured or even worse, dead. Some people would say but Joel, you are so truly awesome, how could anything horrible like that ever happen to you. I know that it sounds impossible, but even I, Sir Joel “danger” Killough could become morally wounded. The two things that are most likely to derail me from my health are my lack of street sign awareness and my use of my George Forman grill in my bed.

Firstly I have trouble following street signs. Sometimes they are so blatantly racist I can’t even begin to use them for safety because I am so offended. Lets think of the street sign for children crossing the street in a school zone. On the sign the children are always portrayed as African Americans. The racist sign companies don’t dare to say that white children could be in the street. When I see these signs that is what I think of, not how to decipher the message on the sign and continue carefully on my way.

Secondly I create a huge safety risk every morning. I love to wake up to the smell of frying bacon, but my mother will not cook this for me every day, so I devised a solution. Every night before I go to bed I set out four strips of bacon on my George Forman grill and then go to bed. In the morning when I wake up I turn on the grill and then go back to sleep. Then five to ten minutes later I wake up to a nice and warm breakfast in bed. The problem with this is twofold. First off it’s a huge fire hazard. With an open stove on my bed I could see a fire breaking out quite easily. Secondly I quite often roll onto the grill and then, instead of waking up to the fresh smell of bacon, I awake to the fresh smell of my foot, baking.

To help keep myself safe I will need to change the environment that I put my self in. I will need to stop putting open stoves on my sleeping apparatus, and to stop turning helpfully safety signs into targets of affirmative action. I also believe that bacon every morning does not do my body well nutritionally. Fixing this situation will greatly help me to become burned less often, and less angry with signs. This will be a goal I work on for the rest of my life, or until the sign companies become more tolerant. I will be able to tell I have reached a satisfactory level of success when I can go weeks at a time without ripping off my shirt in a Hulk-ish rage.

Becoming a healthy individual will take many steps. I would be kidding my self if I were to say that I will never falter along the way. But even though my failures I will need to stand strong. If I focus on nutrition, exercise, stress management, and personal safety I can one day become the greatest health guru in the world.

May 15, 2006