There were some things that I was able to do at home in my high school years more than I am able to do now. College is something that I have embraced more than I expected. Before I went to Ohio Wesleyan, I was fed all of these stories of other people's experiences in college. I had to go to different colleges before I decided on one to see if these stories could be potentially true and if they were, were they the right fit for me. I had a right more time to do whatever I wanted in high school; I did not have as many priorities as I do in my life now. I did not have meetings to attend, the organizations I am involved in are pretty in depth with the goals they set, and the classes/studying were not as time consuming. I have to worry about all of these things now and do not have all of the time to do these things that I did before I left. Enough on the background for the topic, let's get to the gist.
One of my favorite pastimes while in high school was after I finished my homework, I would love to relax playing video games. I am a video game aficionado and really enjoying the hours going away because of an intense battle. When I started playing video games, I was mostly interested in fighting games such as Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. At my home, I have a SNES, a Genesis, a Nintendo an Atari 4000, a Dreamcast, and a Playstation 2 console. In high school, I played either from the Playstation 2 or the SNES console. These are the game consoles that had the majority of the fighting games on it. I remember sitting down and playing Street Fighter 2 until I got frustrated or my hands were numb and could not play the system any more. I would look on-line for codes for Mortal Kombat and memorize the combos of each character. I know, this is nerdy, but it helped in tournaments and arcade battle a whole lot. I would spend hours looking at the fatalities and training myself where to stand, what specific techniques character possesses, etc. As I got older, I got bored with the fighting genre and switched it up a little. I started played games such as Killswitch, Need for Speed, and Contra. I decided not to limit myself to one genre and explore other opportunities of video game excitement. I am just now getting back into the groove of things- really, I have not pick up a game controller until next Thursday. Guess what the game was- you bet, Street Fighter 2. That bought back memories. During the Break, I have started to play Naruto. I was introduced to the Naruto series back in freshmen year when I had a little, just a little time to spare. I am hooked to fighting games again. I should really invest in a Playstation 3 or better yet, a Nintendo Wii. I probably won't do it because of the lack of time I will have free.
Another thing I used to do before I left for Ohio Wesleyan is make smoothies. Believe it or not, making smoothies was a stress reliever for me. Whenever my family left the house to do their weekly grocery shopping, I plugged the Jack LaLanne power juicer up. True story: I bought the juicer off Home Shopping Network for a Christmas present. As Naruto would say- "Believe it!" Anyway, I would take the juicer out and there would normally be an abundance of fruit laying around the kitchen (someone in the house would buy fruit for the week). I would pick my choices and blend the ingredient to a pulp. My favorite concoction would always involve apples and bananas and the rest of the ingredients would be an random, one week would be pears and grapefruit for a sour mix and the next week would be golden pineapples and watermelons. I had a system going for a while and the juicer still sits in the kitchen of my home. I have been tempted to use it over break but there is not enough fruit here to make an entire batch so the house can try some. I better put it to use soon though otherwise, the entire mechanism will become rusty and not as effective as before. I paid a good amount of money for the juicer and I want my money's worth. It is a good bet that the house is not really using the machine with the exception of my brother so I might take it back to my house in two weeks. This way, I can drink more healthy food instead of a daily intake of orange soda. The one bad thing about the juicer- the amount of time it takes to clean it up. Every crevice of the machine is affected by the remaining bits of pulp that did not get blended. I never said that the juicer was perfect just very effective in giving a person what they want in a drink. I know that the pros outweigh the cons so this does not bother me much. I want to bring that memory back into my life.
I dreamed about my future a lot when I was younger especially in high school. The future was so close that I could taste it with the scholarship opportunities, the decision about college, watching my friends experience different lifestyles, the list goes on. I pondered what kind of job would fit me. I did not wish to work in the fast food chain like how a lot of my friends did. Some of my friends did work with cars- I did not want a trade like that. I always thought that I would be in a job with security and many benefits to them. I dreamed of the opportunity to work with the best. I was persuaded to work for my own self- that was the ultimate goal so that I did not have to put up with restrictions of someone that was higher than me. Realistically, I knew that I needed experience in a certain field before I can manage to do that. I always wanted to be in a field that dealt heavily with computers. I did robotics and I was hooked to the programming portion of it, thinking that would be a cool career to have. If I didn't have programming in my future, I would still be interested in a career with computers. Programming was the first type of career in computers and information technology that I was introduced to. Toward the end of my career in high school, I realized there is so many different directions I can take to succeed in a career with computers, not just programming. My future became my reality when I was awarded a stipend for the fall semester of my freshmen and I was granted an internship opportunity with Parker-Hannifin. All of the thoughts I have been dreaming off once I started to use the robotics program were made into reality. Where that takes me- I have no idea. I have to keep dreaming.
The last main thing that I did before I left for Ohio Wesleyan was write. If you would have told me that I would be writing for Ohio Wesleyan as a blogger to share my life with students, parents, and those interested in Ohio Wesleyan in my senior year of high school, I would have shrugged you off. My tenth grade honors English teacher had us write a journal entry every day. This inspired me to do writing on my own for a while. I still my entries where I wrote in the morning about what I thought would happen that day and my reflections on what happened. I miss writing in that journal and keeping a mental note of what was happening around me. Writing in my journal was special to me because I had never endeavored to do such a thing before so it is like my precious message to myself whenever I look back into the past. What happened to me, what happened to people that I care about, what was the high and low points in my life. That journal give me direction to what I am today and where I am poised to go in the future.
These past events are significant to me and to my development as to who I am now. Many of these things I have gone without in the past one and a half semesters; however, they helped me calm myself and take my mind off things in my life, no matter how trivial some of these things seem. I am a video game aficionado, a health man, a dreamer, and a writer. I am all of these things which shape me. The younger me is a cool guy and still has a grip of the current me, even though I was doing newer things and focusing on other interests. Sometimes, I wish the younger me would come out more and blend with the current me. I know that will happen sooner than later; it just takes time. Ultimately, I am happy with who I am now and the past events that I described that gave me comfort in some way, shape, or form.
Letting the past, the current, and the future form the total package,
Hasani Wheat
Class of '10
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment