"The pain passes. The beauty remains." - Auguste Renoir

I went to a funeral yesterday for Kevin Southwick, a 22 year old whose parents are good friends of ours. It made me sad and grateful at the same time. I was sad that such a great guy had died, but felt so blessed to still be alive, to still have an opportunity to be with my friends and family here on earth and enjoy life. It was actually a really uplifting experience, even though I had to miss a math quiz to go.

This morning I had to go in to make up said math quiz at 8:00 in the morning, what is that!? Grr....math should never be done before 11:00 AM at least. That was the first bad thing of the day, the other bad thing happened during 7th period, and those of you who vaguely know my schedule may know what's coming next. That's the period I have PE, and, thanks to my lack of cooridnation and inability to avoid objects flying at me, I was forced to endure such torture that no 15 year old should have to experience. To those of you who are yet confused, I need say only these two words, dodge ball.

Dodge ball is evil, variations on Dodge ball are pure evil. We played a version of the evil game in which one class is forced to run across the gym between two menacing rows of fellow students who are trying to hit them with a ball. If you get hit, you have to stay were you are and try to protect your fellow classmates from the balls zooming overhead like so many missiles in a war zone. I had just been hit after several successful passes across the gym, when, out of nowhere, I get smacked right in the face with a ball. This might not have bothered me so much if it wasn't such a prevalent trend in my sporting life. It never fails, I play any sport in which balls are being tossed though the air and one will eventually come into not so gentle contact with some part of my head. It's been like this for as long as I can remember and honestly, I'm sick of it and kind of aggravated by it as well. So naturally I was a bit upset when it happened, but after a minute or two I was back in the game because now it was my turn to throw stuff at people. I was ready to take out that guy who had hit me, the only problem was, my aim is piteously lacking in accuracy. So I didn't even get the satisfaction of nailing the guy with a ball. (Not that I use violence to solve my problems or anything....)

The next time it was my classes turn to run, I thought I was going to do ok, I got across the gym twice and had just started my third pass when, to add insult to injury, I was nailed in the face by yet another ball. By now I was just angry. Both time I got hit it didn't really hurt to badly, the pain went away after a minute or so, it just really made me mad. And the second time, just as with the first, my aim foiled all of my attempts to anyone else with one of the balls. After I while I plain gave up and stood and just watched, still rather upset. I spent the rest of the period ranting about the stupidity of a game in which multiple people are hit in the face with balls. I still fail to see how anyone could find this fun.

It continues to mystify me.