Matt’s Quarentine Days

Last night I spent my night watching a documentary. Right now, all of my pro documentary watchers are excited, while all of my anti documentary watchers are debating to pass my blog. Here is the thing though. The documentary was about Michael Jordan.

There is a good chance that you watched the documentary also. The documentary is a ten part series in which two episodes will be released every Sunday until it is over. Titled “Last Dance”, the documentary is about Michael Jordan’s tenure with the Chicago Bulls, and more specifically, his final season with them.

I, like my classmates, didn't get to watch Michael Jordan in our childhoods. Michael’s marvelous run with the Bulls happened in the 90’s, and we were all born in 2001 and 2002. We had the privilege of watching Derrick Rose's short time with the Bulls, but our parents would tell us that's nothing like what they got to experience. Derrick Rose was the MVP of the league before he got hurt later that season. He was talented, but he was all we knew.

When we participate in the Michael Jordan vs. Lebron James debate, you can still see a large number of kids who never saw Michael Jordan play still vote for him over Lebron James who is playing currently. You’d think that they would be more biased towards Lebron, right? Well, maybe it's because I am from Chicago, but it still seems like kids are buying into the legend that Michael Jordan is, even over league changing superstars like Lebron James.

The documentary started off with a shot of Michael Jordan now, a much older and larger Michael that people had known from his playing days. It goes on to do an overview of Michael Jordan’s career. Although it states that Jordan and the Bulls went on to win a sixth championship and a second three—peat, the main emphasis of the documentary is the give insight into the journey to the sixth championship.

Six. Over half a decade. Still surreal. The city of Chicago got to have SIX celebrations over championships won by the bulls in just the span of a decade. Some teams haven't even been able to celebrate once and the Chicago Bulls fans are celebrating SIX times! That is incredible. When looking at it in those resguardos, it almost compliments just how good the Bulls had been. To be able to take down your competition, the greatest basketball players in the world, at a rate over 50% for ten years is incredible.

We have a situation. I forgot over break that I have to have three blogs over three separate days and done by tomorrow. Will, actually its 1:06 AM as I’m writing this, and probably the last blog to be written in our class until the beginning of the new era of blogs. The blogs that will be due next week. Why am I telling you this? I am telling you this because I honestly ran out of ideas to blog about. Actually? No, not really. I actually take pride in my ability to continue finding different topics to write about even though my life, along with my classmates, has been repetitive and boring. However, at the moment, I am a bit flustered and cannot find another topic. So here I am. Depending on how you interpret it, I am writing to you about everything thats gong on in my life right now, or nothing at all! I hope I am as entertaining right now as I am trying to be.

Let me continue by describing my desk I am sitting at right now. It is currently as messy as it has ever been. Papers are scattered to my left with my Xbox One controller buried in there somewhere. My baseball mitt, which I have unfortunately not been able to use all that much, lies on the very edge of the desk on my left closest to me. To my right, there is a styrofoam cup of coke, about half drank, from my Chick-fil-A earlier. You know what, I think I’m gonna take a sip. Hmm. A little flat, but still good. Shoot… should I be drinking pop at 1:12 in the morning? Probably not. That makes me think… do I say “pop” or “soda” more often. I heard through the grapevine that “pop” is sort of a midwestern thing. So, me being the true Midwesterner I think of myself as, I think its safe to declare that I use the word “pop” more than the word “soda” in my everyday life. Boom. That was a long sentence, just like we learned about in our writing tools notebook. Number nine I believe it was. Wow, I am writing in a really informal way that is foreign to me. Wow. Foreign. That’s a formal word. I’m a mess.

Ok I just took a break to jam out to Tame Impala's popular hit “The Less I Know the Better”. What a groovy song. I highly recommend it if you haven't heard it before. I don’t know if it's his soothing voice or the distinct guitar riffs that attract me to this track so much. I think it's the combination of the two. They really compliment each other very well.

Welp, now either I’m hallucinating or my google docs app is actually tweaking. Tweaking. Tweaking is a slang word often used by high schoolers around here. I don’t know how to explain it but in this case, my google docs app is not really working.

Today I am deciding to have a little happier post. Yesterday I was honest to my emotions about not being at Marist and not playing baseball. One of the things I am looking forward to most after quarantine is attending college. I decided on The University of Iowa in the fall, which may seem pretty early compared to other seniors. That is because, quite frankly, it was early. Iowa was the second college I visited. The first college being Notre Dame, that was at first a dream, but then became realistic. I visited Iowa for the first time in the early fall. I then proceeded to visit just three more schools after that: Marquette, Dayton, and Miami Ohio. I could see myself at all of these schools because I find myself to be a flexible person. Marquette reminded me of Marist in several ways, and I admired the Catholic presence on campus. Dayton’s strong community feeling was just as great as I had heard about, and had a vibrant campus. The University of Miami’s campus was so beautiful and clean. Miami had caught me by surprise because I had gone into the tour already thinking I wouldn’t like it as much as schools like Dayton and Iowa. I was quickly proven wrong. The red brick buildings were eye catching, the facilities had history, but they were of the finest quality. And, for some reason, the transition from Redhawks to Redhawks didnt seem that hard.

But it would not be Redhawk to Redhawk. It would indeed still be bird to bird so to speak. Redhawk to Hawkeye. Although I could see myself at all of the colleges I visited, Iowa just stood out the most to me. Although it was Miami that made me somewhat second guess myself, I can say now that I am confident in my decision.

I first visited Iowa in the early fall of 2019. I drove my two friends and I up there at six in the morning to get there at 9:00 to get ready for game day. The Hawkeyes were playing Rutgers, another Big Ten conference opponent. Why not drive up the night before and save the trouble of an early morning you might ask? Ask my friend Billy. Although, I cannot get mad at Billy, for his sister who is a sophomore at Iowa showed us around and took care of us. Without her, my experience wouldn’t have been nearly as great.

I got to see all around the campus, and even parts of the downtown area of Iowa city. Who would’ve thought the state of Iowa had more than just corn fields! Not me at first. I was really impressed with the quality of everything in the downtown Iowa City area.

It’s been over a month now. Easter break is coming to its end. It’s probably a good thing for my sake since I've been sleeping till noon since break started. As I write this, our student council members are posting pictures of seniors and their commitments for next year on instagram. It’s a bittersweet feeling. All of the comments on these posts are happy, and encouraging. After all, we all know how tough high school can be, so we are proud of one another’s accomplishments. But the posts, comments, and all the virtual interactions seem to ignore the obvious. We aren't in school. We aren't seeing each other in class, in the halls, on the fields like we were used to the last three years. I've always been told that you shouldn’t take anything for granite. Those are words of advice that I live by. But now after being away from Marist for some time now, I realize that the only way to realize how precious something is, it must be taken from you.

I had no direction in mind when I decided to write this blog. I had been silent since the beginning of Easter break about a week ago. Some things haven't changed since then. The uncertainty, boredom, self reflection, doubt, sorrow, worrying, gratefulness, all remain. Everyday I struggle a little bit more. My senior season of baseball, a game I’ve played since I was four years old, has been stripped from me. Many of my teammates have chosen to go on and play collegiately. For them, I am very proud of their hard work to accomplish that great achievement. For me, I made a choice to walk away from the game so I could attend a university for my academics. However, when I made that decision I didn't know that my senior season would be postponed, and likely canceled. I had worked very hard during my three years in the Marist baseball program, and this year was my opportunity to perform on varsity at the highest level. Since I have no intentions of playing in college, this was going to be it. I was going to give it all I had for my final year.

There is a baseball saying that many baseball players hear from time to time. You might hear it from your little league coach, or you may recall it being referenced by some greats like Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez. “Play every game like it's your last”. It’s an easy line to remember, but difficult at times when you’re playing your third game of the day in the middle of July on an unfinished infield. The truth is, I’d do anything to play a game on an unfinished infiel in the dead heat of July right now.

Hey guys. I thought I would take a break from telling you guys what I've been up to during these days of quarantine. Instead, I'll be filling you in on particular things that I miss during these times. For each of my posts, I'll try to limit myself to one specific thing I currently miss. However, because I need to write at least five hundred words, I may expand to several topics.

Concerts. Highly anticipated. Highly satisfying. I have been able to experience some great live performances over my four years of high school. I say over those four years because it was freshman year that I started to form a music taste of my own. I've been to concerts for solely one band, mini festivals of eight bands, and iconic festivals of Lollapalooza.

Some of my favorite acts over the last few years that come to mind are bands of Foo Fighters, Arctic Monkeys, Quen, Cage The Elephant, Catfish & The Bottlemen, Lumineers, Muse, and many more. I've noticed that an artist isn’t necessarily as good on Spotify as they are live! But Ive also come to realize there is an appreciation for live music. I would prefer to listen to some bands live like Lumineers, Muse, and Foo Fighters than on my phone.

Concerts are surreal because people from all backgrounds come together to see a band or artist they love. Concerts are a way for people to escape their problems and get lost in live music. Although their problems may return to their minds following the encore, they are left with a feeling of satisfaction.

Concerts vary from many different genres of music. As time goes on, more genres surface. There is rock, country, pop, metal, EDM, indie, psychedelic, and many other sub genres. Each genre has its own stereotypical concert experience, but no two are the same. That's what is awesome about music. You could attend a Foo Fighters rock concert and get to experience what is left of the old rock and roll days, or attend a Muse concert and experience their futuristic, simulation theory light show with aliens and more. No two concerts are the same, even if they are of the same artist. Setlists change, bands and artists do cover songs, come out with new albums, and more.

I encourage all of my followers to attend as many concerts as possible. I know tickets can be expensive, but even a $10 lawn seat at Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre is an experience waiting to happen. I've been on the fence about seeing several artists. I was unsure if it’d be worth the experience because I either didn't know many of their songs, or did not like the genre. But after saying “ay, why not” to myself, I have turned doubting situations into memorable experiences. Some of the artists that I was unsure about attending their concert have turned into my favorites.

Hey guys. I know I’ve been discussing video games a lot on my blog. Typically, I only play video games in moderation. But, considering the circumstances that COVID 19 has left us, it's one of the few things that keep me from losing my mind.

In one of my previous blog posts, I discussed the new game I was playing: Call of Duty Warzone. Now, I have taken my talents back to Black Ops Two. Black Ops Two was the first Call of Duty game I had ever played, and remains my favorite till this day. Nearly everything about that game seemed perfect. The weapons, the graphics, the maps, the commentary. The list goes on. However, that game came out in 2012, and was played by the majority of the Call of Duty community until 2014. Although the Call of Duty franchise comes out with a new game annually, the games following Black Ops Two just did not compare to the greatest of them all. It’s not that the Call of Duty community wasn’t satisfied with the new games of Call of Duty Ghosts, and call of Duty Advanced Warfare, but why play something new that wasn’t as good as the old? Eventually, the community moved on from Black Ops Two, carrying with them some amazing memories.

Nearly six year later, my friends and I mutually agreed to put the Black Ops Two disc back into our Xboxs. Black Ops Two, originally made for Xbox 360, was made compatible for Xbox One a few years ago. As of yesterday, my friends and I have had some very nasty logic moments.

We all hopped back onto multiplayer and played a game of domination on Nuketown. Domination is a game type that deals with capturing flags and taking down enemies. I was reunited with my favorite weapon, the submachine gun known as the MSMC. Man, do I love that gun. After a few victories with the boys, we hopped onto Zombies and played a game on the map town. Town is a basic, but yet iconic map for the game mode zombies. It is so coveted in the call of duty community that it was even remastered and put into call of duty games after it. Although the return to the game was great, it was more difficult than remembered. In zombies, we only made it seventeen rounds, which is mediocre to our standards. I guess you could say we were a bit rusty!

Another game Ive been playing on the side is Friday the Thirteenth. If you have seen or heard of the slasher horror films, you might have a pretty good idea what the game is like. There are several camp counselors in Camp Crystal lake, and Jason Vornhees goes on a rampage. It is up to the counselors to escape via car, boat, or police. It is up to Jason to take out all of the counselors before they escape.

Hello everyone. It’s Matthew back again here. The morale isn’t as high as it was when I was writing my previous blog posts. Quarantining has officially started getting to me. If it wasn’t for E learning, I would have lost track of the days. Weekends no longer feel like weekends. Everyday kinda has that gloomy Sunday feeling to it (no offense to the sabbath day). The only problem is on these sundays, there is no football to be watched, let alone any sports.

I’ve previously discussed several ways that I have been keeping myself occupied. My newest way is playing the new Call of Duty Warzone game on Xbox One. I have been playing Call of Duty for many years now. However, this is different from the traditional Call of Duty. Call of Duty Warzone is a game mode that was added to Call of Duty Modern Warfare remastered a few weeks ago that is similar to Fortnite. This means battle royal. Battle royal is a concept that has been popular amongst video games recently. Typically, players are grouped into teams of either 4.3,2, or solo. Once they are loaded into the game lobby, they then drop from a plane in the sky to a place on the map of their choosing. Once all the teams have landed with their respective teammates, they must begin looting. Now all battle royal games contain some sort of loot that has weapons and armor. But in Call of Duty Warzone, you can collect cash that then allows you to go to buy stations. At these buy stations, you can purchase armor, kill streaks, load out drops, and many other things to benefit your team. As teams begin to loot, a storm forces them to relocate inside a safe zone from a storm. The storm continues to push players into a confined area as the number of players decline. Another thing that Warzone has unlike other battle royal games is 150 people per lobby. In Fortnite and other typical battle royale games, there are only 100 people. This means that as the safe zone gets smaller, the amount of people in the circle remains high. This makes for hectic final moments of a match.

In my opinion, Warzone is much more challenging than Fortnite, and other Battle Royale games I've played before. But with that being said, receiving a victory is that much more satisfying. Working together with your friends to place first out of fifty teams is remarkable. Working together means calling out enemies when you see them, reviving teammates when they get shot down, sharing loot, buying armor, and many other miniscule things that ultimately decide the winner and loser.

Hello everybody. It’s Matt back here with my third blog post of this quarantine. I’m starting to lose my mind, and I started watching a simulated baseball game on PS4 to fulfill my eagerness for baseball to start. They just announced that the MLB will not take place until large gatherings and air travel sanctions have been lifted, which means the targeted date for spring training resumption is May. Opening Day was suppose to be yesterday, and baseball fans everywhere are trying to cope with the separation from the game they love in their own way.

Another thing I've been doing to keep myself occupied during this quarantine is watching the Barstool Sports Documentary. I became a big fan of Barstool during my time at Marist, and it would be a dream of mine to work there. Their comedy content ranges from sports, to social events, to stocks, and to anything that is a part of the common man/ woman’s life. The Documentary focuses on the growth of the company from day one. Dave Portnoy, also referred to as “El Presidente”, is the founder of the company. I really enjoyed watching the adversity he overcame on his way to the top. Portnoy has a unique personality that inspires me to stand up for what I believe in, and to not be afraid of failure. Portnoy also knows how to take a joke, and sit back and laugh at himself at times. I think this is a ver important trait to have if you want to live a fulfilling life. Some of my other favorite parts of the documentary series so far has been the episode on recovering from the Boston bombing (Portnoy is a Boston native), interns, music tours, and many more things I probably shouldn’t mention in this blog post.

What makes Barstool truly special is a few things. First off, they say what everybody’s thinking, but are too afraid to say. They are a voice for a large community often referred to as “The Stoolies”. I would consider myself a stoolie. Barstool consists of several social media presences, podcasts, live streams, merchandise, and people. People that are just like you and I. People who just want to see their favorite sports teams win, go out with friends, have a good time, and have something to look forward to after work/class.

Hello everyone. It’s Matt back here again for my second blog post. I plan on going over my daily routine since this quarantine has started. I only really leave the house when it is absolutely necessary. In most cases, it is when I am either visiting a family member, or going to get food/ groceries. My “go to” place since quarantine has started has been Chick Fil A. Man do I love their chicken sandwiches. Usually, I just get their regular chicken sandwich meal and put the Chick-fil-A sauce on top. But recently, I've been getting an extra sandwich, the spicy chicken sandwich. On the spicy sandwich I put ranch on top. Truly amazing food. Oh! And I cant forget about their amazing waffle fries as well.

I happen to be a big fan of Barstool Sports. If you’re aware of their content, you know that Dave Portnoy, founder of the company, does pizza reviews. Today I reviewed a Chicken sandwich from Chick-fil-A and it scored a 8.9! That’s an incredible score. I think my next stop will be Popeyes.

When I’m not out, I am either E learning or playing the new MLB The Show video game. So far, my e learning experience has been alright. Some classes are more difficult than others, but for the most part it has been alright. However, nothing compares to the in person experience at Marist. I didn't realize how fortunate I was to have the small interactions with my classmates and teachers. Once we get back (if we go back) i'll make sure to fully embrace the last of those moments I have before graduation.

As mentioned before, I also have been playing the new MLB The Show video game on PS4. The game is rewarding yet frustrating. It may be difficult for people who are newcomers to the game, but after a while you’ll see improvements. Practice makes perfect. Well, close to perfect.

As a matter of fact, I have a goal to make all of my blog posts at least 400 words. Why may you ask? Personal reasons. I am currently nearing that 400 words mark, but have some ways to go. I intend on blogging at least 3 separate days a week. As I sit her at my desk in my room, I am listening to the newest Lumineers album. Their first song off the album, “Sleep on the floor” is one of my favorites. However, their song “Stubborn Love” is my favorite song out of all three of their albums.

Well, looks like I made it to 400 words! I'll check in with you guys again soon.

For me, a high school senior, I find myself in a spot I could’ve never imagined. Extended Spring Break? Stay inside and play video games? Learn from home? If you would have told me these things a year ago, I would’ve been all over it. But the truth is, the uncertainty of whether or not Ill have another day of high school at Marist is killer. After being away from Marist for so long now, I truly realize how grateful I am to have attended Marist for the past three years. I miss my classmates and my teachers. The human interaction we had every day is something I tried to embrace at the time, but I never fully cherished it. I guess this is a way of me being honest about my mistakes.

What I hope for is to use my blog as a way of connecting with classmates I haven't seen due to this “social distancing”. Although this is my “blogging debut” per say, I am hoping it will be an interactive platform for all of us.

Personally,I am struggling with the idea I may not play baseball again. I have no plans to play in college, and this year was suppose to be my final year. The “farewell tour” (lol). However, due to the Corona Virus outbreak, the season has been postponed until further notice. Will we have a season? It is still up in the air. What I can almost guarantee is that even if we do have a season, it won't be the same. At this point, I would just be grateful to step foot out on the field one more time with my teammates.

These are sad times. However, I find it important to try and find positivity by being optimistic even in the darkest parts of history. We are all going through this together, and it is nice to know we have each other.