Taekwondo and my first Love-Hate Relationship

Before you start reading this post it's important to know what a Mcdojo is.


Once you've gotten the general idea, moving on.

I have been taking Taekwondo for over a year and a half at an ITF school.  What belt you wonder? Doesn't really matter.  I'll get to that later as well.  I won't really say the name either. So don't wonder.  Look around.

To be honest, we had a done a whopping total of 0 hours of research!!!! That's right!  Partially because of martial arts myths, and partly because at the time, it was really a short term idea.  You don't research tennis classes, and you don't research soccer games.  As a sport, everything is cool! You don't need to learn anything really.  But, that also defeats the purpose of doing MA over running, swimming, or weight lifting. 

Getting to the love-hate part, this is really complex and I might catch myself drifting around, so bear with me.

(TL;DR warning. I've had this floating in my head for a really long time). 

(Deceptively small)Table of Contents
1. Day to Day Taekwondo
2. Bimonthly  Taekwondo
3.Year-to-year  Taekwondo
4. A Compare/Contrast between Boy Scouts and Taekwondo.

 That tag spam. :)

More after the break :)

Thoughts from Costa Rica (Que es un ferreteria?)

Speak softly and carry a big sword.

Hello reader!

About that follow up post on leadership?  I'll get to that sometime.  I am on my first legit vacation in Costa Rica.  I've been here twice before, but on serious mission trips with solo one day por hanging out.  Costa Rica is not actually the rich, beachy, palm tree resort that one would think.   The land is dominated by farms, rainforest, vegetation, and small, shack-like houses.  Larger houses and resorts periodically appear along the road, and there are a handful dense, packed cities.

As far as Spanish goes, I can speak it pretty well, and I have an idea of how to form sentences and think ect, but it is impossible to comprehend what people are saying to you.  :P  Most of the time, brief questions followed by confirmation or complex answers take place instead of the neat, clean cut conversations that one sees in a textbook.  A lot of things have happened on this trip, and I'll give you a brief layout of the events.

We started off in San Jose, el capital, and kicked it off with a 4-hour car drive to Guanacaste, one of the seven provinces in Costa Rica.  Our place was near several beaches on a coastal strech, and we went snorkeling about every day.  The food was great; fresh fruit, fish, and chicken are very cheap and...  bueno? We went to a relative's wedding, and then we drove down to Alajuela, which is near the capital.  From there, we decided the city wasn't the place to be, and made literal last minute reservations at a small hotel place, where I am writing this post. 

A few things I thought to bring up about our time here. I save best for last.
 
1. Arroz con pollo
Literally translated as "chicken with rice", this is actually a fried-rice style dish with chicken pieces and a great sauce-y taste.  This is my favorite standalone dish in Costa Rica.  Even better than the fancy wedding food and fish.   It is inexpensive and delicious.  Always good and filling. :)  I would think that its the signature dish from Costa Rica.  Other than fried platanos.  Those are good.

2. Soda
Contrary to first impressions, a soda is a small family owned restaurant that serves super local and cheap food.  When I say small, I mean small.  It's like your kitchen with extra tables. Depending on where you are, they have beans, rice, meats, and smoothies for a unbelievable price.  (5 people for $25 USD) Not bad.  Some places are super sketchy, but other places are very clean and nice.



3.  There are mosquito everywhere.  Even underwater.
On the beach, you must choose between sunburn and bug bites.  I chose bug bites.  Well, the snorkeling was great, but I had to choose between bug repellant and sunburn.  The bug bites weren't so bad at first, but the wedding reception and dancing which I did not participate in took place outdoors, and we were eaten alive by insects. 35 bug bites. Ack.  However, by moving around every few minutes, I managed to avoid the big, bad bites, and get the smaller, less itchy bites.

4. What is a ferreteria?
Ferreterias are awesome.  In concept at least. On the road, I would always be looking for them.  Why? 
The English word for ferreteria is a hardware store.   Why a hardware store?
 In rural countries, especially Costa Rica, there is a ton of overgrown vegetation and weeds, jungle, and large chunks of meat.
A ferreteria is where you can buy ...

wait for it...

 A machete.   ~toggle happyness~

 Here in Costa Rica, it's totally cool to walk down the street and wave to amigos with a machete.  Life here is pure.  Pura vida!!

You're probably wondering why I want/need a machete.
Well, this year, I joined the Venture Crew,which is like level 2 Boy Scouts with less rules and more blades and fire.  That's how I would sum it up.
"Anyone got some lighter fluid?"    "Let's see if I can use this knife to cut the chicken."    "Don't forget your Gerber."   "Will this burn?"    "Check out this cheese wire".    "What's your longest knife throw?"     
"Let's try to melt this aluminum ball around this sugarcane pole".  (me) (I'm a hardcore scientist)

Anyways, night hikes and bathroom runs are super sketchy, and there is nothing like an 18" blade to ward off coyotes.  And cutting meat.  And coconuts. And brush. 


5.  Back to Costa Rica, every time I saw a ferreteria, my face would light up.  Like In-n-out, an Apple Store, a Macy's, or whatever you people like.
Machetes are legally farming tools.  So like a shovel I guess. Heh heh.  The middle of useful ness and knife ness. 18" is long enough to chop stuff, but short enough to avoid nicking myself or some nearby bloke. 

6.  POPs. 
It's an Ice cream store. Go there.


7.  The Kane Chronicles
This is another series by Rick Riordan, and it is pretty great.  I think.  Some ideas are repeated, but the storyline is new and fresh. 
Discount Artemis Fowl. *ding
Discount Percy Jackson.  *ding 

Karter is a jerk to everybody. *ding


You can't really do parkour here. Too many dang red ants and mosquitos. 

The number of bugs here is too darn high!!!

OK.  That was a super long post.  I have a lot of stuff more that I would like to mention.  Did I just use that sentence?  I've spent too long on this. :P  I have to say, after 1.5 weeks of using colones(money), swimming, getting bug bites ,and hiking, I do wish to return home.  Is this what you call homesickness?  Well, I wouldn't mind a return to the regular life.   I do miss martial arts, church, parkour, and fast internet. DDD:< 




Catch you later!!

Life is fine!

Rant: Who's watching you? - Line-cutters

Before I get into this, let me start by saying that this is a rant, and there isn't going to be a philosophical light bulb buried here. I'll probably follow up with another with actual lessons in it.

If you didn't know, I volunteer at my church's children's ministry (as a student leader), and it is awesome. I love hanging out and teaching younger kids. We chill, play games, talk, and assist in running the general class. As one of many SLs, (abbr. for student leader) we sometimes get a bit crazier than usual. Unfortunately, selection process and responsibilities of a leader are pretty loose, and there are a handful of questionable SLs. There is a fine line between not being helpful and being disruptive. (There's a third dimension too). I'll write more on these later.

So, this Sunday, our church had a celebration week with catered taco stands and cookies and lots of fun stuff.  The events and services were pretty specific,and logically, there was a massive crowd in between services, which led to longer lines as well.  When the services got out, in addition to the regular attenders, the SLs and leaders got out too.
After a brief discussion whether to wait or return later, I found the back of the line and began the wait.

Now, when you're standing in line, there isn't much to do except hang around and watch stuff going on.  About this time, a group of 5-6 SLs (between 12-20 y/o) came out from the building area and were walking past the line, when they noticed some of their "friends" in the middle/front of the line.  They were wearing staff shirts and badges, and it was deadly obvious that they were associated with the church in general.  I was a couple families behind them, which was the worst place to be, since I could hear everything that happened, but couldn't interfere or step in.  D:

The entire group of them cut into the middle of the line, and it was super obvious and outraging at the same time.  The main person kind of gave shifty glances and mushed in.  Not only that, but a TON of people noticed, and the SLs were laughing and joking about it because "everyone is doing it."  Not only were they cutting the line, but they were joking about it and calling friends over. I already was aware that they weren't the best people in the world, but it still deeply bothered me.  Even worse, they cut right in front of a new family who was visiting.  Acckkkkkkkkk.  (One of the children was in my class, and I talked to him a bit in the service.)
 Nothing super big.  Ok these people are jerks but that's fine as long as the people behind them don't mind too much.
Then, to top it off, when they were ordering, the new family behind them asked one of the leaders (with a badge and shirt) why she cut the line, and her response was "Well, I serve in kids ministry and I need to get to the service."



...
(ಠ_ಠ)
.....

WHY
....

 (ಥ﹏ಥ)


Rant time:

Don't you know you are the scum of society??

How can someone do that at church?? Especially as a student leader?  Is there no responsibility involved with the position?  What about being a role model or setting a good example?
Who are they serving? Are they really helping other people or are they in it for themselves? 

 When the person asked them why, they could have at least just admitted "I'm a terrible person doesn't care about anyone and just wants to eat."  The position as a leader is the worst and lamest excuse possible.  They were representatives of our ministry to parents and kids and all the people in the general area!!!!! Gahhhh!

 Line cutters are the worst.  :P  Using the excuse that "everyone else is doing it" is even worse, especially when you are a leader.  The family didn't have an overly visible reaction, but the memory of it still makes me cringe. It was a poor reflection on the values of a church and especially a leader.  Way to give everyone a bad name.  People who cut lines are people who will take advantage of others and have little regard for rules or personal conduct.  These are the type of people you don't want to be near in an emergency.



Yeah.  Ok I got some of it out now.  :P

But in James it says not to judge other people.  That's tough. Really tough. So I guess I'll let it      out. No.  I will not reference it.  XD

That was probably the worst experience in my entire SL career. Even worse than getting kicked and puked on and getting stuff thrown at me.  :P


--JRO

Vroom Vroom

Hello readers,

It has been way too long since my last post.  Ack.

He's not dead. Not yet.

 I actually kind of thought my blog would just die off, but about a year later, stuff gets stirred up again. 

The thing that got me thinking about this actually happened yesterday and I'll make a post about it later today.
 And a good amigo of mine is starting up his own blog.
I read over the posts I wrote as an SPL for some nostalgia.



Some upcoming posts:
Who's watching you? Setting a good example.
On Taekwondo and Mcdojos.
One does not simply complete an Eagle Project (3 part)
Chinese School.  The best and worst.


Meanwhile: some updates.
 "We are no longer in the 4th inning.  We are in the 9th!"

This year, instead of rechartering with my Scout Troop, I joined the venture crew (675).  It's a lot like scouts except nobody cares about character development.  And you can detonate fires.  And carry massive blades.  It's sweet.   In a venture camp out, it's totally cool to throw anything into the fire.  We aren't super active, with one meeting a month, but the charter fee was 20$. Can't beat that.

Another thing is that I've joined the SSM band. (Youth group).  Yea.  Not much to say about that at the moment. I play once every monthish.  (Keys).  What I wanted to mention.  We are officially called the Cluster of Students Irvine.  Abbreviate that into:

YEAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Wait for it:
CSI IRVINE.
If you don't know about CSI Miami, look it up on memebase and the internet.  I have found it in my duty to make cheap one liners every time I can think of one. 

Sir, the band leader's guitar fell of the stage, but nobody told him.  
Well I guess you could say...

•_•)
( •_•)>⌐■-■
(⌐■_■)

They didn't want to break it to him.

And, lastly, I have worked up to Red Belt in TKD.  This is kind of a love-hate relationship, and I'll write/rant about it more later.  Curious? Look up what a Mcdojo is and isn't.

I've been doing a lot of parkour, especially at church in the mornings.  We meet at a high school, and I do a lot of vvork (volunteer work), and I can jam in between. :)


I haven't posted in a while and so I suppose I felt obliged to make it up with an oversized post.
I'll get back to you all later.
 :)

--JRO
 

What's been up.

Hello.  :-///

 I'm going to make several short posts about different topics.  :-)

Yes it's been a while since I've last posted.

ho hum... Where should I start?

Well, I'll start with the top.
 Remember the kip up?  Well, it's been quite a bit since I've gotten that move down.
I've heard the word "Parkour" quite a few times before, but I never really thought much of it.

Long story short, I found some really good spots and started learning Parkour and Free running. :-)  I can't really expound on it, but it's really awesome.
Parkour is

Moving quickly and efficiently through an environment using only muscles and their surroundings to propel themselves, negotiating obstacles in between.

There's a lot of really good tricks that can be useful and awesome. :-)
Some moves include vaults, cat-leaps, wall climbs, and land-rolls.   The concept is to build up basic moves, then combine and progress them into crazy awesome tricks you can do anywhere. :-)  I'm working on my own video, but it may not be around for a while.

Check out these videos! they're awesome.
Just Move - Parkour and Freerunning 2013 - YouTube
Amazing Parkour 2013 - YouTube

Another video.  This one has the best action clips, but bad song lyrics so I would suggest watching without the music.
 The World's Best Parkour and Freerunning 2012 - YouTube

 I've mastered handsprings, kips, most vaults, wall climbs, diverolls, ect. :-)
It gives you wings. :DD No actually it doesn't.  But it's really good for:
Killing time
Building muscles
Exercise
Impressing friends.


 Alright, moving on. :-)
__________________________________________________________________

What's been up.

I just finished the Certificate of Merit for Piano last week. Tons of work, no time to post.  We went on a campout, played piano, moved up to green belt, played piano,_______ ______, played piano,  __  ___ ____, played piano. 
No time to fill in though. :)

CRZAY Meeting!! fires, fistfights, and elections

This will definitely be one for the books.  I spent a fair amount of time planning and coordinating the meeting.  However, the moment the car parked, everything SNAFUed.

 The meeting would have Order of the Arrow (Scout honor society) elections for 20 minutes, then we would go outside and work on lashings. THis one scout had volunteered to lead an activity called Kim's Game.

Before the meeting,  I sent our Quartermaster to go set up 2 propane lanterns for lighting.  Then,  I put the scouts into formation, and started up the meeting. After the opening, I had the scouts twiddle their thumbs for a few minutes.  Just Kidding.  The OA people were supposed to show up to hold the election, but they decided not to... Well, they were late.  So, after 10 wasted and boring minutes, I had the scouts go outside to set up lashing stations and Kim's Game.

HOWEVER, this one adult had decided to have a presentation for all the new scouts without letting me know, and so the activities missed the main point, and were sorta reviews for the older scouts.. Meanwhile..

The lanterns weren't  up yet, so I had the scouts get started on the stations.  We were already 20minutes into the meeting, so I wanted to get started ASAP. The scouts and Patrols began setting up poles and stations.  I headed to the lantern station and went "Status report"  and this guy said "operational"  "Anyone got a match?"  Well, alrighty then!.  I headed to a Patrol Box and extracted a blue, snub nosed light.  Click click*.  And then all insanity broke loose.
FWOOSH Whoomph wahhha wahhhunknjf safuawuif  for a currently unknown reason, there was a propane leak in the head of the lantern, and it went up. Like a crazy torch.  Oh, btw, some genius had decided to open up the gas valve before I got there, and so there was gas running a bit earlier, which helped make the explosion a bit more balloon-y.

 
It was slightly panicky and yelling for a few minutes, but someone turned off the tank, and stopped the propane flow, but the fire continued.  I set up a perimeter around the fire, and then checked on the tank.  The quartermaster and I quickly blew out the remaining fire and then contained the situation.
ALRHGTTT THE FIRES OUT EVERYONE CALM DOWN.
QM, mark this lantern and put it back in the shed.
 Put the lighter back in the patrol box and stop ..a . adwda.geg 
I gave the lighter to an older scout, and headed inside.
Then, to further complicate things, the OA people showed up, called me inside, and wanted to run the elections. Alright I'll send everyone in in a few minutes.  

When I headed back out, everyone was like

after a minute of observation, I realized that some idiot (the older scout prob) had not only restarted the lantern, but opened the gas, set the PLASTC knob on fire, and ignited the entire lantern!!! There was poisonous smoke billowing out, the knob was covered propane and melted, burning, and liquified, and on fire!! There were actually gobs of molten plastic and metal dripping off the contraption! I called for a fire extinguisher, and they brought one over, clipped off the safety, and gave the furnace a full double-barrel.

I got the bureaucratic OA elections started, and then headed back out to pack up.

It turns out that the new scouts weren't going to vote, and so they would just run around while the other scouts voted. Fortunately the Scoutmaster saved my stripes by stepping in and teaching the new scouts a couple knots while they voted and I helped pack up the molten lantern.  Meanwhile, remember the scout who volunteered to run a station?  (BTW we never got any lanterns up)  He/ his parent's weren't too happy that he couldn't lead his activity.  We were already running overtime, and there were elections, messes, and classes going on.  His dad was like "no we have to do it.  just 5 minutes maybe" and I just went: No next time."" THEN reports started coming in about new scouts fighting and biting each other. -.o  I had to go sort that out for a bit.  And then this little scout threatened me because his mom was the adult grubmaster.... .. .. . . .

After the long, boring 1/2 hour vote, I managed to do closing and apologize about the crazy meeting. (half an hour overtime) 

D:

I'm going to do something about the fire thing later.

Meanwhile, remember the bear trap I was building?  Well, i've made a wooden model and have designed it and I'm gonna test it out at this week's campout.

Remember the guy who I could tell he was lying about his emails? He just proved he was lying. He showed me his outbox on his phone to show that he sent ONE email RIGHT BEFORE THE MEETING.  And he sent it to -----------@gamil.com.  -.-   I didn't catch on until later, but earlier he said he sent 10+ emails to me. His outbox only showed one email to me. 

 Should he still get the position? :D Comment!! 

Littledude!! BIGDUDE IS LEAVING BOYSCOUTS. I can't say "yay" as the SPL but read the other posts about him to decide how I feel.   His parents want him to transfer to another patrol.  for some reason.  I think they think people are approaching him and bothering him .  it's pretty much the opposite.

Anyways, can't wait for the campout this weekend!! :-)  I'm going to do a complete guide to camping for scouts soon. :-)

Insanity resolved!! :D

Hello readers!! Today I must say I am in an exceptionally good mood. :-)

First, I am officially a Life Scout now!! :D

If you read the last post, there were quite a few issues that arose and released chaos to roam freely about.  Anyways, this week, my voice was back, but so were the weblos. :\

I planned this meeting knowing that there would be a ton of chaotic scouts.  As Camporee (Where troops gather and compete) is coming up, I planned the meeting to work on First Aid skills.  There are quite a few useful/fun activities involved with First Aid.  We work on :
Ankle bandages, head bandages, Chair Carries, four-handed seat carries, and Stretcher shirt carries.  Argh for some reason I can't paste pics, but you can look them up. :-)

I had planned the meeting to run pretty smoothly, and I remembered a really good trick from another SPL.  When you're dealing with krazy kids,  ask them their name.  Individually or as a group.  Great tactic.  It's really good for sorting out which scouts are good and which ones are bad, and it shows that you care and know them. The new scouts are quieting down from the crazyness though. :-) At the meeting, we also played tug of war (really fun. The DOC has a ton of big guys) and set up laterns and worked on activities and stuff.  :)  We set up stations for each activity, then each Patrol would go around and do one. 

The door handle:  Ah! That's right! Remember locodude?  Broke the lock? well, everything proceeded to go better than expected.  He told his parents about it on the way home.  That really simplifies it because I hate confronting unaware parents.  (Little Dude)  Anyways, he wrote an apology letter (wow) and promised not to break anything else. :P.  It's all cool now though.  That'll be one to remember. 

About individual scouts:  These are interesting to review because they provide good lessons about.. .. .. things in general.

Little Dude!.  Well, let me go back in time a bit, we were having a holiday party, and after we left, my dad suddenly flipped out and started yelling at me about what I did.  And it sucked, because I had no idea what was happening.  It turns out that Little Dude had accused me of shoving him into someone holding hot chocolate. DD:<  WAHT .  According to his story: "He was walking around and then I pushed him and he fell into someone carrying hot chocolate spilling on him and burning him.  After that, he went crying to mommy his dad and then he got mad and started telling everyone about it."  -.-  After a fair amount of chaos and arguments, I made some 9:30pm phone calls and pieced together what happened.  Oh yea, the person little dude ran into was a cool guy and a friend of mine, so I trusted his response.  I called him  and "Little Dude ran into me and spilled my hot chocolate, and then told me I(Jro) pushed him(littledude) into you.(him) .  Catch that? I thought he was crying?  If he was crying, how could he tell the person I pushed him? ? Anyways, it turns out Little dude had been running around and ran into someone and then blamed it on me.  No apology, but no more trouble.  Also they never responded to my dad's follow up email..   :(  Hmmph.  Caused quite a bit of chaos.  Moving back to now, Little Dude has been back to running around causing trouble and bothering working scouts, and so I put a scout in charge of watching him. It turns out Little Dude is really good at fake crying.  His parents fall for it every time and it's actually pretty funny.  That's the most annoying thing about parents now days. No matter how stupid their kids are, if they cry, they're victims and they get anything they want.  :P  Good luck with that. Its that way with one of my SECOND cousins.  I just can't wait to see what they're like when they grow up.  :D It'll be so funny.

This one scout is trying to get a troop position. You see, to get a troop position, you need to email the SPL (me) to request a position.  He's not a very good scout, honestly, I haven't seen him work that much,and he doesn't like to wear a uniform.  He swears and is really rude.  His first words to me was. "your mom ate it."  .  Anyways, he's matured a bit, and so I decided to give him a shot at the job.  I told him to email me and he said "Hey louk im not good with eamil so ill gif you my cell phone tho you can call me" .  What?? I need to call YOU so you can get a job?? L.  O  L.    For the last few days, he's been giving me lame excuses such as "i furgot my paswurd"  and "wy didn't you ged it"  "did you get my email"  He keeps insisting he sent an email and so finally I was like "Hey _____, stop lying to me.  You aren't sending me emails and you aren't getting a position. "  with authority  Then he pretended he was sending them to the wrong address. -.- 

However, this other guy approached me, and asked for the same position, AND he said he'll email me.  So it's a race for the position. :-)



Alright.  Gotta go now.  Enjoying the job of Senior Patrol Leader.  :-) Thanks for reading!

Crazy-nesss

Yesterday, my troop received a dozen new scouts.  I did see this coming, but I didn't see the chaos of it.  I overestimated the time it would take to introduce the scouts, and I ended up trashing my schedule and working on knots.  A couple of the scouts were also slightly.. ... .. idiotic and rude and disrespectful . >:(  Everytime I finished an announcement everyone would start talking and shuffle-ing and I would have to quiet them down after each one. Also, I am recovering from a cough, and had a slightly weak voice.  D:  We spent the meeting going over scout knowledge and having crazyness.  also Going back in time,  Right before the meeting, we had Leadership training for Patrol Leaders.  However, most of the scouts didn't respond to my emails or calls, and the entire thing SNAFUed with us missing 1/4 of the troop leadership.  It made me look extremely bad and I felt bad. :((

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE

On sunday, for Small Group (Bible study for adults, hangout for kids) we got 4 toddler brothers.  IT WAS CRAYZY.  They ran around the entire time slapping, kicking, screaming, and yellinh. Also , as a side effect, we couldn't play nerf or Mafia or Night Tag because of them.  WAIT THE WORST IS YET TO COME.  There's this guy in my group who we will call ..  .. LocoDude.  He's asian, short, and he speaks in a mouse-like soft voice.  He likes to push and tease little kids occasionally, and when we eat snacks, HE EATS ALL THE DESSERT.  He's eaten 10+ Oreos in one sitting.  He eats handfulls of ReesePieces at a time.  HE"S CRAZY AND SKINNY.  Suprisingly.  His excuse is that he doesn't eat sweets at home so he has to gorge himself when opportunity arises. -.-  Well, first, I am only listing his bad side.  Believe it or not, he does have a slightly good side.  Anyways,  he really likes to play nerf, and he will crash into my room, grab as many bullets and guns as possible, and run off.  There were a lot of little kids today, so I had locked my room door with all the nerf guns behind it. 
So, a bit later,  I was chillin with my bros (:P)  in the study, and all of a sudden in LocoDude walks carrying two nerf guns.  I was like "waittttt I lockeddd theee dooorrr"  and then in slow motion, III raannnn ovvverr tooo myyyy rooommmm.  the door was busted open.  and the door handle was stuck.  :-\  It turns out that he jammed down the handle and broke the lock just so he could touch some nerf guns for 3 seconds.   ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGHGHGHGHGHH I WAS SOOOO MAADDDD.    poker face.  Anyways, I kept it contained until later. later, my dad unjammed the door and switched the handle out with another room. :)



Well, that's all for now.  : \  Chaos roams freely.  However, the toddlers are looking for another group, the door has been "fixed", and locodude's parents later called to apologize and ask about the door .   I'm getting my voice back, and I will have some new tricks to throw at those scouts next week!!

--JRO

Submitted by: Unknown 

Checkmate atheists

Hmm..

!

Hello readers!!!

I must say that I regret for not posting for a while.  Well, if you're looking for an explanation, then:  My google account ran out of storage space:.  That basically means I can't upload any pictures.  HOWEVER, I was advised to make a new account JUST to upload pictures and then I could C/P them here.  :-)

Let's see what I've done for these past few months...

Life Scout and SPL
 Ah yes,  I've just scheduled a Board of Review (a test) for Life Scout!! (Next up, Eagle)  It's the one with the heart.
 
 ALSO I was elected Senior Patrol Leader for my troop!!
(Like president except a lot more.)
Job description:
Run and plan:
Meetings, events, campouts, and new scout divisions.

 Bear in mind that there are meetings every week and events and campouts each month.  NTL, I enjoy doing so and I am happy to be elected.  Well, I was going to be the only candidate but for the heck of bureaucracy, they threw in another candidate.
 
Went to San Fransisco to visit cousins. For christmas
 It was awesome!! We spent most of the day playing VIP assasination with nerf guns.  There was a VIP and a bunch of assasins and civilians and stuffs.
 Our aunt bought us Jolts!  They're these single shot compact pistols.  Really good too.

Saw Les Mis
Yep..


Yellow Belt
Made it to yellow belt!! the third rank.  Learning sidekicks now! :D

Finally masted kipups.



That's all for now.  I'm planning to post more often.  :-)

--JRO