final blog

Yes, this is going to be my final blog of the semester. This was my first time doing blogs in my life and I would like to say that it was a good experience. Through all the ups and down I have taken you through this semester, I hope you have learned a piece of who I am. I have told secrets, experiences and personal stuff about my life. Blogs are a good way to vent because I feel like someone is always going to listen to what I have to say. Other than that, I have only one exam on Thursday for ROTC and then I am done!!! I go to Hawaii in June, which is pretty damn awesome. I go back to Tennessee for the rest of the summer and then back to Tampa!!! I will be a senior this year and will go out with a bang. Wish me luck at camp because I finally get evaluated as an officer for the military. I hope I get active duty so I can travel the world and live life to the fullest. Take care readers and enjoy your summer!

worst times

This semester was probably the worst semester in my college career. I haven't had bad grades like this in a long time. I feel like some classes were so much bulls**t because I tried so hard to do good, but ended up with a bad grade. I learned that the classes I take, I only learn from my mistakes. The mistakes I make, helps me learn, but my grade does not reflect my learning capablilities. One of my teachers frustrated me so much because she has no heart. My friend died last week and she didn't not care and gave me a zero for the assignments that day. She told me I had to show three proves of documentations saying that I was at the funeral. Then she had the nerve to tell me that I need to prove that my best friend that died was my actually friend. How am I suppose to do that? She told me that I have to have a written statement from a high school coach or principal saying that we were friends. What is crazy is that we were in high school 4 years ago and he was like three 3 ahead of me. That teacher should not be teaching because she does not understand her students. She has no interpersonal tact. She refused to let me make up my work and it frustrates me so much because I did not intentionally want to miss her class and ended up losing crucial points for my grade. Now I have a low GPA and is scared about joining the army because I might not get active duty. This sucks and I hope things will get better.

Another death

After my visit to Tennessee, I decided to visit a friend on the way back to Florida. He is currently in the Army, stationed in Ft. Benning, GA. About 5 minutes from my destination on the highway, a deer suddenly ran in front of my car. I hit the deer going 70mph and it died! I immediately pulled over to the side (more worried about my car) to check what happened. The deer obviously died because I hit it full contact. I was more concerned with my car because I need it to get home. I found out that my front end suffered minimal body damage, but severe internal damage. My transmission got messed up and my electrical system was out of place. A police car pulled behind me about 5 minutes later to check on the situation. I told him what happened and he told me that deer I hid was a "suicidal" deer. I thought that was strange because I never heard of deer like that. The car was still drivable so I ended up staying in Ft. Benning for a day, then drove my car home carefully. This week had been crazy with the deaths I have encountered. I hope nothing like this ever happens again.

Losing a friend

This past tuesday, I found out that my best friend from Tennessee past away from a car accident. When I heard the news, I immediately dropped everything in Tampa, and drove to Tennessee to attend his funeral. Me and him grew up together during middle school and high school and we were like brothers. When I arrived at the funeral thursday morning, I saw ALL my childhood friends there and that was a rare thing to see. We all got together and mourned for his death. This was the saddest day I ever had in my life. The whole week I could not put myself together, I just kept on reminiscing all the good times we had. I ended up staying in Tennessee for the remainder of the week to spend time with friends and family.

Long weekend

On Friday, I made a trip to Ft. Myers to attend a probate show that my fraternity held at FGCU. I was excited to see the new pledge class reveal themselves at the show because they came a long way to make it this far. Many brothers from all over Florida came to FGCU to support the new line coming out. Whenever I go to a probate show, it reminds me when I used to be in their shoes. The spotlight, the excitment, and the intensity is what you experience when you are in the show. A probate show is basically when a pledge class finishes pledging, then put out a "coming out" show to introduce themselves to the greek world. Their show was a success and I got to congratulate all of the pledges. The following morning at 6:30am, I had to do land navigation all day for ROTC. I ended up making it back home from Ft. Myers around 5:30am because I got carried away and decided to stay for the afterparty. Around 8am, I had to do land navigation for 4 hours, then do 6 hours of squad missions, then 4 more hours of night land navigation. I only had an hour of rest the previous night, so my body was very tired by the end of the night. When I got back to campus around midnight, my friends wanted me to go out with them, but I decided to sleep in for the night. I woke up around 4pm!

Here is a little clip of my probate show:

Always a good Samaritan

Yesterday, I felt like I had to give back to the community and the first thing I did was donate blood to the Red Cross. I haven't donated blood in over a year because I got a tattoo last October. I forgot how tired I became throughout the day because of the lack of blood in my body. Later on the day, I saw a homeless lady with her dog posted on the side of channelside drive. I gave her ten dollars in hopes of her finding a way to pay for her mortgage. I am assuming she was laid off of work and couldn't afford her house. Then, one of my frat brothers needed a ride to buy groceries, so I helped him out. My roomate also needed help moving out some of his stuff from his room, so I did that too. All day I felt like I was doing something good, event though I was so tired from donating blood. By the end of the day, I passed out after watching a movie and that was my day. On a good note, I received a purple and white polka-dot bowtie in the mail. Yes, it is my first offical bowtie!

weekend

This weekend was busy because I had a lot to plan for my fraternity. On Saturday, I had to coordinate a chapter photo shoot we all took on campus. It was fun because a lot of brothers showed up that I usually do not see that often. After, we had a social, where we all went out to eat at Chili's, then we played bowling all night at Pinchasers. The next day I had to attend a regional meeting at USF, where 2 delegates from every chapter in the Southeast region that to attend. Then on Sunday afternoon, I challenged the founders at my chapter to some basketball and it ended up being a trash-talking day. My team lost the first game, but then beat them the next two games, which made us the champions. Other than that, I had a good time spending time with my brothers.

Back to the Boonies

I just found out that I am forced to go back to Tennessee for the summer! I made it in my mind in 2008 that I was never to step foot in that horrible state ever. Usually, I would stay with my aunt in Miami, but since my step mom in Tennessee is going to Russia for the summer, she wants my aunt to watch over the house. Now I have to reconnect with old friends and see how much their lives suck compared to mines ;). I think it is going to be different though because I am over 21 years old and I can do more things than I used to do. I am definitely going to hit up more bars and clubs with old friends and focus on my military training before I go to Hawaii. At least Ft. Campbell is only 5 minutes away from my house, so I have access to military supplies and free taxe. This summer will be interesting and full of fun because I am the type to make it fun!

Easter/Frat Birthday

Today is marks the 24th birthday of my fraternity. Yes 24 years is very young compared to other fraternities at my school. Other fraternities average around 100 years old. What I like about my frat is that since its so young, we play a vital role in the growth and expansion of our organization. I always imagine 100 years from now, what our frat would look like and what is crazy is that we are the biggest and fastest growing latino-based frat in the world. It is ironic how our birthday is on Easter Sunday. My plans for today is just to enjoy the day, go for a long run, and finish any homework. This weekend was also fun, I went to the beach with friends and attended a probate show for the Sigma Gamma Rhos. They reveiled their charter line at UT. More greeks on campus=more craziness!

One Year in the Making

Yesterday was my one year anniversary of being in my fraternity. I felt like time went by so slow because so much has happened this past year. Fraternity life feels like living in "doggy years": the hundreds of people I have met, many places visited, and several events attended, all would equal to five years of living. I do not know if that makes any sense, but that is how I see life right now. On the other hand, my bowtie experiment was an epic success. My first night wearing it was for my fraternity brother's birthday at a club. I wore a purple bowtie and when I got in the club, all the ladies looked at me more often. I was at the bar and a lady actually came up to me to compliment my bowtie. She told me she never seen guys rock bowties at clubs and that she thought I was brave. I also noticed females were more open to dance with me and I got rejected less than usual. I ended up having more fun than ever before. Then on Friday, I experimented at a college-like tavern where all the guys typically wore Abercrombie and Fitch and all those ridiculous brands. I decided to wear a bright,red dress shirt, jeans, and an ugly brown and blue, polka dot bowtie. One of my fraternity brothers picked me up and told me straight up to get out his car or take off the bowtie! I told him it was an experiment, so he ended up laughing about it, telling me I won't get any girls looking like that. One hour into the bar, I proved him wrong! Many females were coming up to me just to compliment my bowtie and told me it was hot! All my fraternity brothers were astonished and told me that they might start wearing bowties too. I will tell you this, bowties will be apart of my permanent wardrobe.

Rockin the Bowtie Tonight!

Ever since I have been introduced to bowties from Dhani Jones, I wonder if bowties are really the new fashion. I youtubed "how to tie a bowtie from a necktie" and after 5 minutes, I now know how to tie a bowtie! I am wearing a purple bowtie tonight for my fraternity brother's birthday at some club. Hopefully the ladies dig the bowtie! On another note, I passed my CWST! The five minute treading water was easy, but I had trouble passing the 15 meter swim with a rifle. I swear, swimming is so much harder with a rifle on your hand. I re-tried that part like 25 times and finally passed it! If the bowtie thing is a success, you will definitely see me wearing one on a regular basis. Wish me luck!

swimming isn't my thing

I have a swimming test for ROTC today at 2pm. We are required to take one every semester, it is called CWST (combat water survival test). I suck at swimming because I cannot float for a long time. One of the main parts of the test I cannot pass is the five minute treading water portion. If I do not pass this test today, I am subject to not commission as an officer. This morning during PT, I had to take a last minute swimming lesson from an experienced swimmer, but I kept on drowning. I kept on panicing whenever water got in my nose or if I felt like I was going to drown. Then the instuctor sat me down and physically showed me how to properly float. The main thing I learned is I have to focus and relax when it comes to floating. So I took his advice and next thing you know, I was floating like a champ. The main problem now is my arms and legs are sore and tired. Floating took a lot of energy out of me. So wish me luck today and hopefully I pass that stupid test! Other than that, my week is going good so far!

unstoppable

Today, I had a realization that I have been sick for the past two weeks. What is funny is that I have been ignoring it and living my regular lifestyle. I know a lot of people that get sick alter their lifestyle to accomodate their sickness, but I guess I am a new breed of sick people. For the whole spring break, I have been partying and living my life the same, ignoring my sickness and my mind still has the energy and strive to have fun. I constantly cough out green mucus and sneeze 24/7, but that does not stop me from having fun. I do tell people I am sick and not to drink off my beverages, but that is the only difference. My life lesson is do not let things interfere with my lifestyle no matter how bad it is. Always stay on the right path and never steer away, unless it is life or death. I feel like I am unstoppable and can accomplish anything no matter what the obstacle is. Hopefully, my sickness will just go away and let me be. It will. I am always moving forward.

Never Had I Ever...

BEEN IN A RELATIONSHIP!! I know it might sound crazy, but I have been independently single all my life. Females would always ask me why and I would tell them because "I do what I do." This means that I am so used to doing things my way without someone telling me what to do. I party when I want to party, go out whenever I want, and hang out with whoever I want. I am also too busy with my own life with school and trying to stay on the right track. Now don't get me wrong, I have dated girls before, but it never got serious. I do treat women with respect, for example I'll always open the door for them, pay for the date, and not treat them like pieces of meat. Sex is not that important to me. There were females I was interested in, but there was always something wrong with them. For example, they might be in a relationship, have kids, stuck up, too jealous, bossy, just broke up with their boyfriend and need space, or gave me the "friend zone" speech. I HATE that! Sometimes I think I am just too nice of a guy and that the good girls look for the bad guys. I guess I just have bad luck with girls. I am up to new relationships, but it has to be the right one and the right time. I am not that picky in looks, the personality is what matters to me the most. All I ask is to be "real" with me and down for whatever. Not with sex, but with time. They have to have time for me, just like I'll make time for them. I also never been in love, but that is a different story ;)

Frat Life

Ever since Spring 2009, I have been a member of Sigma Lambda Beta International Fraternity Incorporated. Our frat at UT was founded in 2005, so we are still young and growing. My pledge class was only the fourth line to cross into our chapter and consist of five diverse gentlemen ranging from Puerto Rican, Puruvian, Tanzanian, Italian, to Panamanian/Colombian/Korean. So far frat life has been good, I met so many people throughout the US and continue to meet brothers in my path. I love my frat for the simple fact that we are so diverse and multiculurally expanding. Last year, I went to a national convention in Minnesota where two members from every chapter in the nation had to attend. When we all were in one room, I could see the diversity my frat preaches. In California, there are many asian brothers. In Louisiana, there are the country, red-neck brothers. In New York, there are the "New York" brothers. In Texas, there are the Mexicans. Enough said. Being in this frat helps me open my eyes to different cultures. Besides the diversity, extra things we do for fun are stepping and strolling.

Spring Break

When I used to live in Tennessee, Spring Break was exciting because I always would leave the state to go somewhere else nice to have a good time. Now that I live in Tampa, my Spring Break consists of spending it with friends who came to Tampa for me to be their tour guide. It kinda sucks because my Spring Break is not the same experience as them. They want to go to the beaches, clubs, amusement parks, all of which do not exist in Tennessee. So for this Spring Break, I had to cater to 5 friends, all throughout the week. The first weekend of Spring Break, my friend Dawn and Sheena came down and I took them to Busch Gardens and to the beach. Then the third friend came down on Sunday, which I had to multitask myself to please all of them on the weekend. The following Tuesday, my boy came down and on Wednesday another friend came down. What I learned through this Spring Break is to not plan it with different people at the same time. I almost had a mental break down because they all expected me to show them a good time and I had to constantly think of plans throughout the day to entertain them with. The last weekend I ended up taking them all to Miami, where I am not familiar with, so we all could plan our Spring Break together. It ended up being more fun because I did not know what to expect and it ended on a good note.

Long week of accomplishment

After my epic half marathon and PT test for ROTC, I have completed my week's challenges. Now it is time for spring break! I have several friends from my hometown of Clarksville, TN coming to visit me today and I am very excited to see them. Usually when friends come into town, I try to show them a good time by being the best tour guide. This weekend's festivities consists of taking them out on the nightlife in Channelside and a day at Busch Gardens. One of my friends that are coming is my best friend, which is a female, and we been friends since middle school. She is also in ROTC and is commissioning as an officer this May. I have not seen her since my 21st birthday, so we intend on having a lot of fun. Another good note, my ROTC professor informed me that I will be going to Hawaii in June for Army training. Out of the 27 cadets in my class, I got chosen to go there for 21 days. I never been there before and I am very excited to see paradise. Yes, I will learn to surf when I get there and am interested in their culture. Life is going in the right direction for me so far.

On to the Next One

Yesterday I completed my half marathon race in 1 hour and 37 minutes. I was so proud of my time because I did not expect to run it that fast. My goal was 1 hour and 45 minutes. Victor's family flew down from Pittsburg, PA to support my race and that gave me enough motivation to finish strong. I placed top 25 in my age group and 188th overall out of 20,000 runners. What an accomplishment! My legs feel beat up right now because I never ran that much before in my life. I definitely tested my limitations and now I am willing to go further. My next goal is to run the full disney marathon on January. Now I have a Physical Training test tomorrow morning for ROTC and I do not know if my legs will be recovered by then to run the two mile test. Two miles is better than thirteen miles so I will just wing it and see how I do. Wish me luck!

Accomplish a Dream One at a Time

Last night I went to the dream interpreter and it was very interesting to hear her speak about dreams. I typed up a page paper about my dream I had and read it to her in front of everybody. She told me I had sleep paralysis because I had altered my sleeping pattern with lack of sleep, which was true. She explained to me when I am in that state of mind, its equivalent to the the mind of Einstein. She told me the next time I have a dream like that, to "play around" with the dream and ask questions to the "ghost-like" figure I saw. She told me I could do anything in my dream and it will feel like reality. Other than that, I was not the only person with crazy dreams, other people in attendance had dreams about their teeth falling out or swimming with fishes. I did learn a lot from her and now I am more interested in dreaming. Besides that, my race is on Sunday and I feel like I am ready for it. All my other friends are doing the 15k, but I like to go above and beyond to test my limitations. Hopefully my friends will come support my race, since it is on the following day after the 15k race.

Dream interpreter

Tonight, Sigma Lambda Gamma National Sorority Incorporated, my sister sorority, is having an event tonight at UT with a famous dream interpreter. I am excited because of the dream I spoke about in an earlier blog about having sleep paralysis. I want to know the reason behind my dream and why it happened. They say she can interpret my dream, so I am excited to ask her a lot of questions. As far as that, I have a half marathon to run this Sunday and I hope I can finish the race. More details of the dream interpreter will follow the next blog.

Back to Life

FINALLLLY!!! Back from the ROTC Field Training. It was a great experience because so many schools from all over Florida INCLUDING Puerto Rico was there to train with our battalion. The weather was cold at night, but at least it did not rain like last year. I met some cool people in my squad that helped me improve on my leadership skills. The only thing I hated was the night land navigation training. We had to do find grid points on a map at night time and it was very frustrating because I can only see three feet in front of me in the woods. The next day we had nine, two hour missions back-to-back and that was very tiring. The last training was day land navigation and I had to find 8 points over a 5000 meter area. Overall, I performed excellent in my training and I am ready to get my evaluation in the summer before I become an Officer. The next goal to accomplish is my half marathon this coming up Sunday. I have some intense training this week to prepare for my big race. Let's do it!!!!!

Playing Soldier

I've been so busy this week, mainly because I am preparing to leave tomorrow for ROTC Field Training Exercises at Camp Blanding until Sunday. I am so nervous because they are evaluating me on what I have learned throughout my 3 years in ROTC to prepare me for the real evaluation this summer in Ft. Lewis, Washington. The evaluation at summer will determine my branch in the Army and my ranking in the nation as a cadet. This weekend I have to do land navigation and squad missions for 3 days straight. The only thing that sucks about going is that we have to sleep outside in the woods and we can not take showers. I can imagine that it will be very cold and I will be mentally drained from the weekend. Tonight, I am going to take my mind off things and hang out with my fraternity brothers and just have fun. When I get back, I am going to take a long shower and eat junk food. Playing soldier gets difficult at times, but it is what I have to do.

Rest of the Weekend

After Victor's one year death, the Tampa life started to cheer me up again. On Thursday after all my classes were complete, I celebrated my friend's birthday and ended up having a lot of fun. After that I wondered what I was going to do for Valentine's day. I have not had a Valentine's date since I was a senior in high school. I did not count on having one, but things seemed to go the other direction. I asked a girl I hung out with recently to be my Valentine and she said "Yes, I would love to." It sounded like a cheesy romance scene. To sum up the date, I took her out for Japanese Hibachi and went to watch Wolfman. Nothing serious or cheap because she was not my girlfriend, just a "potential". She is not getting the full package at this moment. The end of the night, I thought about being cheesy so I asked her if she wanted a kiss. She looked at me weird, then I pulled out a Hershey kiss. She smiled, then I kissed her. To myself: GET IT ISAAC! ;)

Day of Mourning

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the death of my fraternity brother Victor Strizzi, who died in a motorcyle accident. I did not know what to expect, but I felt a little out of my norm. I felt like the year went by so fast because it seemed like he was alive yesterday. I woke up for ROTC PT training and we had a moment of silence with the ROTC Batallion before we did our daily workout because he was also an ROTC cadet. I began to feel emotional throughout the day because the tragic memory kept on coming back to me. I only had one class and was occupied the whole time, so class did not affect my studies. Around 7 o'clock my fraternity brothers set up a visual at the intersection of Bay to Bay Blvd and Bayshore Blvd where he passed away. We all attended and gave flowers and paid our respects. I felt very emotional and broke down in tears. I know then I joined the right brotherhood because my brothers were there to comfort me. After the visual, we all went to Mr. Dunderbak, which is a German restaurant Vic loved to go to and we all enjoyed a nice jagerschnitzel. After that, we all went to Wendy's and ordered frosties because that was his favorite dessert. Overall the one year anniversary was emotional, but I got through it with the help of my brothers. Life must go on with my head up high.

reflecting

This weekend had to be the longest days of 2010. I had four birthdays to attend on Saturday and a long day of trash talking on Superbowl day. Birthdays are fun, it is always a good time when you are spending it with close friends. Life seems to be maturing because most of my friends are turning over 21. I remember the days when we were not old enough to buy a pack of cigarettes. Soon we will be old enough to get a degree and live the real life. In the distant future, my whole generation of peers will have kids and families they make of their own. Life is so much unexpected, for all the people you meet or encounter throughout your life, all the good and bad times you have, and the many hours and days you breathe. I am expecting a lot in life with goals to accomplish, places to see, and people to meet. I am living life by going with the flow and I will keep on living until my life is ended. Hopefully that will be long enough to the point that I can accomplish all my goals. I know for a fact that I am on the right path and will keep on going that direction for a long time. Only time will tell the answers and I have to keep it plain and simple.

craziest night experience

After a long day of classes, a physical workout for ROTC, and a 6 mile run at night, I arrived in bed at midnight. I was so happy to sleep because my body was so tired. After a couple hours of sleep, my mind woke up but my body was still asleep. Crazy things were happening to me in my sleep. I first felt like my body was being pulled down my bed. I felt there was a demonic presence in my room and this frighetened me the most. I paniced and try to get out of bed, but my body was frozen and could not move. I tried to scream for help, but I could not speak, it felt like I lost my voice. After ten minutes, my body finally woke up and I was able to move. My body was still tired, so I closed my eyes for a minute and then my body went back into paralysis. These occurences happened repeatedly throughout the night until my alarm clock rang at 5:30am. It was the most frighening experience in my life.

I looked up the symptoms and charcteristics on Google and found out I had sleep paralysis. I then looked up sleep paralysis on wikipedia.com and it said under the symptoms and characteristics section that it "occurs when the brain awakes from a REM state, but the body paralysis persists. This leaves the person fully conscious, but unable to move. The paralysis can last from several seconds to several minutes after which the individual may experience panic symptoms and the realization that the distorted perceptions were false." It also says that you can suffer horrible hallucinations and having a sense of danger.

I felt very frightened from the hallucinations I experienced, a figure hoovering over me looked like a dark shadow. I heard voices saying "they were coming to me." This is what caused me to panic and made me want to get out of bed. I did some more research online and it showed many blogs of normal people experiencing the same symptoms. I felt like I was in the middle of my dream and in reality at the same time. My whole "dream" occured in my room. Wikipedia.com said that "Several studies have concluded that many or most people will experience sleep paralysis at least once or twice in their lives." I am very interested in this and wonder if it will happen to me again, but hope it doesn't.

I am doing this for Vic

When I transferred to the University of Tampa, my first roomate experience was exciting because I never lived with anybody that was not my family. His name was Victor Strizzi and he was also doing ROTC with me and we were both sophmore transfers. One thing we loved doing as a hobby was running, so we became running buddies. He always told me that he was going to run a full marathon before he died and I applaud him for that. We always ran 8 miles on Bayshore Blvd together and we wer were almost the same in speed, but I was a little faster than him. One day, he randomly told me he was going to run the Disney Marathon 3 months from that day. I told him he was crazy and that marathons take over 6 months to train for. He did not care and told me that I should run it with him. I "chickened" out and told him that I would run it next time. He trained everyday for his big race and packed on way more miles than me every week. He exceeded my expectations and became a better runner than me. He ran the race with pride and finished in 4 hours and 7 minutes. I was so proud of him. The next semester we ended up pledging the same fraternity and during the pledge process, he died in a motorcyle accident on his way to get a haircut. This affected my life a lot and I now take running more serious than ever because now I want to finish what he did. So in respects to Vic, I am going to run the disney marathon next year and my goal is to run it in 4 hours and 7 minutes. For now, I am training for the Gasparilla half marthon in the end of February to build myself for the Disney Marathon. This is for you Vic.

Run for Life

Ever since I was a freshmen in high school, I had a skill that I never knew I had because I was so busy trying to become the next Michael Jordan or the next Brett Favre. Running was a sport I was a "natural" at. I ran my first cross country race and beat half the guys on my team. After a while I realized that I ran better than I played basketball and football, so I decided to stick with the sport I was better at doing. Throughout my high school career I developed into a runner that most people aspire to become. I loved it so much that I wanted to become a cross country coach because I loved to train runners to become better competitors. My senior year, I was captain of my team and wanted to win regionals and place in the State Championships. Unfortunately, I got tendonitis in my groin and could not lead my team. My team ended up placing second place at regionals and still qualified for State. We then placed last at State because of my injury, but I still respected the sport. I stopped running competitive after I graduated, but still run as a hobby. Now, I train for half marathons and marathon races for fun, just to reach the limits my body can take. This is what I live for now and what I still love doing.