NO I WON'T GIVE IN — My 10 Consecutive Years on Myspace (2007 - Present)

"Glorious. No I won't give in, I won't give in. Till I'm victorious. And I will defend, I will defend. Then I'll do what I must. No I won't give in, I won't give in. Oh so glorious. Until the end, until the end."
- "Glorious Domination" by CFO$ {Bobby Roode}

Never in this last decade would I have thought to use the repetitive lyrics of a short verse of a Professional Wrestler's entrance music to describe my undying support for my most frequently visited website. But that's how I can truly, honestly sum up in words, my personal perseverance with all that the Myspace brand has been through in the last decade, in a nutshell.

It was on the final weekend before Memorial Day in 2007 when I first accessed this currently inactive URL: https://signups.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=signup

And the rest as they say, is history. I was still new to going through the process of confirming your email and having your own custom URL for your profile and all the other technical aspects of having a Social Media account.

The sole reason I created a Myspace account at that time was as a way to connect with my friends who were about to graduate Middle School along with me, knowing that we'd end up in different High Schools. I wouldn't nor couldn't imagine that in the same time period, 10 years ahead, I'd be more personally connected to the website brand itself than the people (family, friends, celebrities, music artists, comedians, brands, etc) on my friends list.

My first 2 years on Myspace were entirely copacetic. I was so fascinated with the fact that I could conveniently interact with family, friends old & new, and public figures all on the same platform. And sure, some of their profiles were a bit extreme when it came to the HTML, but I looked past that because I taught myself ways to private message or comment on their profile without accessing their profile. I was even more fascinated with the fact that I could log in to my account through a mobile device such as a Playstation Portable or my mom's pre-smartphone flip phone. And then once 2009 had arrived, the world as I knew it started to change before my very eyes.

In the Summer of 2009 during a visit to my house by my cousin, I first became aware of the cultural transition that had flown over my head for a while before that day. It was the very first time that I had been told that Myspace was no longer the go-to Social Network and that it had been topped by Facebook. To paraphrase, she recommended to me that I should depart Myspace and jump ship to its competitor because that became the site where she and her friends were making themselves known. Keep in mind that my cousin resided in Rincón, Puerto Rico at the time and when she informed me of this, I assumed this was just a societal thing in that small corner of the country and that it didn't translate to a metropolitan populous like New York City. And in addition to that, my friends were still as active on Myspace as I was, so I saw absolutely no reason to believe this absurd claim that my cousin had presented to me. Little did I know, in the next year and a half, I would see the true colors of the "Top 8" friends on my friends list.

And those colors were Blue and White. Not the Blue and White of Myspace's logo and color scheme at the time. They were the Blue and White of its succeeding rival. And I went from originally thinking nothing of it, to bleeding the colors of the Social Network that became the catalyst for sparking a creative side of me that I didn't know existed. And ironically, starting in 2010 and every year since then, "Myspace" literally became "My. Space."

2010 became a year of awakening for me and liberation for others. Myspace at the time, had a widget on its homepage that showed the names of your friends that were online at the same time you were so you could instantly connect. At the start of 2010, I probably had at least a dozen friends actively logging into Myspace. By Mid-2010, that number cut in half. By December, it was at 2. January 2011 marked the first time in the 4 years I've been on Myspace that I was the lone user of the website within my inner circle. But going back to the month prior. In December of 2010, I labeled myself as the "Fresh Sole Survivor of Myspace". I gave myself that self-establishment because of the fact that the activity on Myspace among my friends became non-existent every couple of months and by the final month of the year, it was as if a nuclear bomb had dropped and I happened to be the 'Sole Survivor' of Myspace. And with that title, I vowed to stick with my favorite Social website no matter who suggested to me otherwise. I was comfortable with where I was at and my goal was to relate that message to the entire world.

And that's what I did 2 years later in the form of this YouTube video where I unapologetically brought the verb of "Myspaceing" back into the English speaking vernacular. And this video which is actually directed to Myspace instead of its former audience. And so on, and so forth between 2014 and the present year. For 7 years now, I have actively posted status updates and uploaded my own personal media knowing good and well that I don't have a single friend online to view it. And that's why...

'I won't give in': I won't give in to the peer/family/societal pressure of leaving Myspace in the past. You'll have to pry my devotedness to Myspace from my cold, dead hands.

'Till I'm Victorious': I'm ready to have a good old-fashioned Myspace vs. Facebook debate with anybody until Myspace is proven victorious.

'And I will defend': I will defend Myspace with the same fiery spirit that's been burning inside of me for 7 fucking years.

'And I'll do what I must': I'll do what I must to enhance this potentially viral campaign. One that itself, is almost a decade old.

'Oh so glorious': Myspace has been in the game since 2003. So it has every right to be referred to as simply GLORIOUS!

'Until the end': God forbid that day ever comes. But the foreseeable future of Myspace, even with all the finger pointing that it receives, looks to continue to be of public interest from this point to the year 2027. And on that year, I plan on typing up and publishing another blog while in the position of being one of the longest tenured active Social Media users alive and Myspace.com will continue to forge ahead while remaining unsullied through my eyes!

Making A Living: Where I Want My Life To Be

This blog is a deep and personal one. Even as I write these first few sentences, my eyes are tearing up at what I am about to express. I don't know if any of these things will ever come true, but just the optimistic thought of this makes me emotional. Now that I am growing into my adult years, I feel as if I'm finally in a position to make these things happen. A never-ending experience that I've wanted ever since I was a kid. And that's simply to just be an adult without dependence and to live life completely on my own terms. Nothing extravagant. I'm not gonna come out here and tell you that I'm coming up with a foolproof method for me to become rich, famous and successful beyond my wildest dreams. But at the same time, I don't want to continue living my current apathetic excuse of a life. I just want something at least in the middle of those two. On New Years Day for the last couple of years, I've definitely felt more of a hot-blooded desire to provide a much needed upgrade to my current socioeconomic status in the months ahead and once that change finally comes, to keep it that way. I need independence before I can do that.
     If you don't mind, I'd like to ask you to please take a look at the aesthetically pleasing Instagram photo below and the caption under it.

One word for #2016: Change

A photo posted by Summer Rae (@daniellemoinet) on Jan 1, 2016 at 1:56pm PST

The woman in this photo is Danielle Moinet, more commonly known as WWE Diva, Summer Rae. In my opinion, this is the FIRST meaningful Social Media post of 2016. It is also what inspired me to write this particular blog post. And that's because she 100% hit the nail on the head with that caption. If she or I or anyone had to define #2016 in one word, its Change. I really can't elaborate it any more than with just that one word. Instead I'll just describe where I desperately want my life to be on any given year.

But before I do that, I want to give you a picture of where my life has been for the last 22 years. I'm being raised in the Bronx, New York. To the outsider, the Bronx is the home of the New York Yankees, the New York Botanical Garden, and the New York Bronx Zoo. And sure, if it tickles your interest, visiting any of those 3 places would be a great choice. But to the Bronx resident, at least to this Bronx resident, living in this borough is like being trapped in a box and me trying to climb my way out of it in order to explore life outside of the inner-city. The person that has the majority authority over me is not someone I can look up to and say to myself "That's who I want to be when I grow up". She's spent the majority of her own life depending on the wealth of her superiors instead of being a contributing member of society and financially benefiting from it. At 22 years of age, I am unfortunately being sucked into that hole of a lifestyle and using every bit of strength I have to pull myself out. I'm being forced by this person to assume that as I grow older, the lower-working class life that I've had to deal with every single day of my existence, will be the life I never escape from. Even with a job, some friends to help me out, and a college education, I just "have" to get used to below poverty-line living. The people in my community aren't much influences either. Whenever I'm asked by these people "What grade I'm in" and I respond with "I'm in college", they look at me as if I'm Warren Buffet offering them some monetary wisdom of advice. And that's sad. To think just because I'm a College student, that I'm in some exclusive club that they aren't permitted in. I seriously have had enough and for my own mental sake, I NEED to give my final goodbyes to this low class experience. Humble beginnings but still, I gotta leave it behind.

1. Finances in Check
At the time of this writing, the Powerball jackpot is at $800 million and the odds of me winning a piece of that cash are 1 in 292 million. So you can rest assured that I will not depend on a lottery ticket/s to finance the next 30 years (at least) of my life. I'm a dude in his early 20's with a willingness to put employment over education. But I'm also someone with a résumé that could rival absolutely no one, because of the fact that the higher powers within my surroundings thought it was best for me to put full time education over any form of real world working experience. I've been manufactured to believe that an Associate's Degree is what's most necessary to fall back on for my entire lifespan. And after all that, those same higher powers have the impression that I'm a lazy person who feels like he doesn't have to seek employment any time soon. Here's the point that I want to get across. I. WANT. TO. WORK!  I want that burned out feeling of working a 9-5 for 4-6 days a week and coming home knowing that I've accomplished something. I want to earn an income and save finances and spend them on the essentials, and then have the means to spoil myself or someone close to me. I want to be an ADULT in the United States of America!!! I've been pointed in the wrong directions by so many people during my adolescent years. Society has to realize that the only single person that knows what's best for me and the necessities that I'd like to have on a daily basis, is me. I currently don't have a surefire strategy to becoming financially stable, but I know for a fact that I have the determination to capitalize on the first thing that comes my way. You have my word and that's a word you can count on.

2. Move out of Mom's house (apartment)
I'm a post-pubescent person. That means I've reached that self-conscious point in my life where I want to move out of my parent's house (or in my case, low rent apartment). The thing about this is that I don't mind living in the Bronx. Sure it has its noticeable blemishes, but there are far worse and higher crime rated cities than the Bronx, New York. The single best thing about moving out of your parent's place is not even the physical aspect of moving yourself and your belongings from one residence to another but the feeling that you've turned the page to the next chapter of your life. That's a feeling that people would kill to have and that's a feeling that I will scratch and claw my way in to receiving.

3. Enhancing my friendliness qualities

The power of positivity is real. Surround yourself with people who will only bring you up! More importantly,be that person for someone else!

— Summer Rae (@RealSummerWWE) March 3, 2016

When it comes to friendship, I've dealt with every stage of it that I could possibly think of. When I was very young, I was so dependent on friends. If one of my friends was absent from school, even for a day, I would feel like the loneliest person on the face of the planet. I needed friends to thrive in elementary school! Then came the 4th grade where I still depended on friends but an entirely new group of peers came into my life and I always kept my balance with them around. It wasn't until High School where I started to look at the idea of friendship in an entirely different way. I attended a Middle School/High School campus which meant that life long friendships were made before I even stepped foot in the classroom.... on the 1st day of school.... as a Freshman. It was in these 4 years that I became introduced to the "2-faced friend". The one that will force themselves to pal around with you because you share the same class/es but wouldn't personally want to commingle when it really matters, like at a non-school sanctioned social event. Friendship lost its importance to me within those 4 years and I had the intentions of living the rest of my natural life, as a loner. When I started to become this lone wolf, it felt as if an unbearable ton of weight fell off of my shoulders. I had no obligations to anyone and even being as dependent as I am living off of my parent's hand, I felt as free as a bird. Even after graduating High School, I've continued to play for my own 1 man team but felt a little bit different about it. In High School, I was a loner among people that I was familiar with. Post High School, I'm a loner within the rest of society and that just makes me feel like the lowest of the low. So I'm deciding to make another significant change in how I view friendship. If my life ends up where I want it to, making a friend or friends will become a top priority. In the end, I figure that if I'm comfortable with where I'm currently at mentally, then that would be such a good starting point for socialization. Its an ice breaker when meeting new people or that eventual special someone. But until that time comes, I'll be out and about, by myself with no one else.

4. See what this world has to offer
We've already established that I want to be financially stable, live outside of the home that my parent has provided for me these last 22 years, and to have a circle of like-minded acquaintances. When you put all of those things together, you obtain what's called a social outgoing life. 8,400 days I've been alive, and in all that time I have absolutely no idea what that feels like. To combine the social interactions with other people and actually going out to places with them? And then doing so without the verbal permission of your caretaker? That's an actual thing? Well if it is, I've never experienced it. Yet I've heard about it. I thought it was a myth but I stand corrected. It seems that there are activities such as a sporting event, a live concert, restaurants, clubs, etc that are just a couple of examples of where these social events occur. Even a daily trip to the local Starbucks to purchase a premium quality caffeinated beverage seems like an exhilarating activity to do on a daily basis. Maybe I could even use this blog to share those experiences with a viewing audience! What a fantasy!

5. Taking an adventurous chance

In terms of my future residence, I've made the choice that I do not wish to involve myself with the urban, ghetto society here in the Bronx. I've come to the realization of envisioning myself living in this borough as the years come and go, and it really disturbs me as I think about it. It's not the worst place you could ever choose to live in, but its also not one that I would recommend an outsider relocates to if you're looking to start a new life in New York City. So that brings up the question of where would I like to call my new home? Obviously the idea of moving out to the United States' most prominent & enviable west coast state (California) is very appealing. The New Yorker in me is to accustomed to the Empire State and Los Angeles doesn't seem half bad. At the end of the day, wherever in 'La La Land' I decide to familiarize myself with, I hope my presence there will provide me a chance to brighten someone's day on any given day.

6. Netting the Plus from the Apple Tree

There will be bills to pay. Groceries to always consider. A significant other and possibly a kid to support. Taxes (whatever that means). All the little expenses that when they come together, take up a lot of your hard earned money. After those are all paid for, we can only hope that there's a good chunk of it left over. No, I'm not talking about the money you save for emergencies. I'm referring to what's left over in my "Discretionary Income". A couple examples include a monthly subscription to Hulu Plus for $7.99, $15.00 for HBO Now and $9.99 for Apple Music or Spotify. Along with online paid services, there's also a little thing called Cable Television which you will never hear me speak out against. I mean sure, refusing to become a cord cutter can be a serious financial affair depending on your status. But ever since cable boxes went digital, for the most part they haven't proven to be a major failure for my television consumption. The point of all this is that I have a very strict and limited number of TV shows that I currently watch and for the sake of conversation, I definitely need to expand on that. Its not even an "if" or a "when", but an ASAP kind of thing. As someone who was born in the early 1990's, you don't even understand how badly I want to avoid the wide open mouths that people give me when I tell them after all this time, I have yet to watch this movie or that TV show.
I can say that I am currently hip to all of the latest top notch music videos thanks to the convenience of YouTube and owning a mobile device, if that counts.

7. Giving my overall psyche a makeover
Lets move on to emotions. Mentally, I just want to wake up every morning at least 4 days a week ready to do something that I'm really looking forward to doing for the course of the day. I want to go to sleep at night with the feeling that I've actually achieved something big or small and that I made a positive impact in someone's life today. Happiness is what I'm in dire desire of. Happiness as an adult in my opinion is that on a daily basis, you spend hours of that day doing something so self-gratifying that it doesn't even feel like work, and getting compensation for it! Currently in my life, I kinda feel the opposite. I wake up in the morning stressed over the fact that at 23 years of age, I haven't grasped on to life yet. I'm stressed out with the little activities that I do at home. I'm stressed out as I sit in a desk in a classroom in Nichols Hall at Bronx Community College just being the last person who wants to be there and the first one who's dying to leave. I'm stressed out between Friday afternoon and Sunday evening aka "the weekend", when I can't even find the emotion in me to trigger the interest to get off my butt and do something active outside of my own bedroom, let alone outside of my apartment building. There's just one huge wall blocking that one opportunity currently heading in my direction. Its been doing that for so long that I'm so tired of waiting and that's why I feel this way. I just don't know how people have done it. Its become so hard for me to even watch television or check up on my Social Media because every time I do, I see someone that has grabbed life by the horns and they're living it. They're really, really living it with very little to complain about. As far as I'm concerned at this present moment, the happiest moment of my life will be the very 1st day that my eyes truly open as a result of feeling that feeling for myself.

8. Giving my overall physique a makeover

At 6 foot 5, and 180 pounds soaking wet, I'm not where I want to be physically. That's mainly due to the fact that I haven't lifted a dumbbell in 5 years. I'd like to have a more muscular physique to the point where my arms and midsection show a bit of vascularity. I hear so much about supplements, cutting the carbs/processed foods, consuming more of the h2o and vegetables, getting on a high-intensity training regimen, and most importantly, hitting the gym and picking up those weights! I not only know that I have to do all of these things, but I really want to fall in love with that lifestyle. I want that list of things I need to do to get in shape, to be embedded in my mind and for it to just play out. With the living I strive to work for, this is something I feel is of a high importance to spend that $$$ on. I want to invest in myself in this sense as well as what I'll explain in the next topic.

9. Down payment on my internet aspirations
I've been producing and publishing amateur looking videos of myself on YouTube for the last 6 years. In those 6 years, I thought I found the secret ingredient and cracked the code to getting viral attention from my fellow online commuters. But, no luck. I can't complain about 6,700+ combined views across 29 videos though. But with the topic that I consistently bring up, I really expected more than that. It's not that there's a lack of interest in my content, there's just an audience of people in this video consuming world that is completely unaware of me. The majority of the stuff I've posted are videos of me advocating for Myspace in a way that if an audience eventually discovered this and shared it around the internet, would probably be of significance. The shaming that Myspace receives as a brand is a serious of an issue to me personally as anything you'll see on the news. But, I will never promote that issue in such a way because I fully understand that defending the Myspace name against critics is one of the least important things that society should care about. That being said, I've been doing so for half a decade, and I have no reason to give up on this mission even after being given every possible reason to do so. When you're struggling this long to get attention to your YouTube self, and you make an honest living, the best thing to do is to invest money in yourself using "Google AdWords" for video. With the right budget, I can basically advertise myself as an aspiring entertainer, and promote my principles to people that I know will have the 1st reaction of "Myspace? I gotta see this!" on their minds. Understand this, viral videos and viral awareness aren't as easy as its made out to be. Especially when you have no connections with people that have connections to connections. I've been patiently and anxiously waiting for my break. Its an inevitable bound to happen circumstance. And I know in my heart of hearts that I've got that hook to grab people's interest with what I have and will continue to put out, year after year. http://www.youtube.com/mrfreshlemania

10. The urge to give back
Something that I attempt to think about every single day of the week are those who are less fortunate than I am both monetarily and physically. I obviously want to have an outgoing and responsible life of my own with the salary I plan on earning, but the sentimental part of me would feel greedy if a portion of that money wasn't going to a good cause on a monthly basis. Charity. When you give to charity, you're basically giving an organization and the clients they serve, a reason to exist. Its the "Come To Jesus" meeting that I, as well as the 7.3 billion+ of the rest of us, want out of the present day. Even before the destined day when I become financially independent, I've already made sure to follow up on my heart's intentions to provide that monetary reason to these charitable organizations whose names and donation pages are all individually hyperlinked below if you'd like to contribute as well:

- Dean Thomas Moinet Foundation
"Fill the spiritual, emotional & physical needs of families with medically fragile children being treated in local hospitals."
(UNC Children's Hospital and Duke Children's Hospital)

- Susan G. Komen
"A mission to save lives and end breast cancer forever by empowering others, ensuring quality care for all and energizing science to find the cures."

- Make-A-Wish Foundation
"Granting the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy."

- Connor's Cure
"Supporting research by Ian F. Pollack, M.D., chief, Pediatric Neurosurgery in the Brain Care Institute at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, including laboratory-based research and a vaccine-based immunotherapy research."

and others in addition to that. I know my heart is in the right place in giving back to these important causes, but soon after my credit card has been charged and these foundations have officially received my money, the first thought that pops in my mind is "When am I going to be able to do this again?" And when I do donate again, will it match the last one, will it exceed it, or will it be less than? In my mind, I'd feel selfish if I lived this one and only life only for me, myself and I. Using my independence from my current state of dependence to provide a non-curfew, non-permissive, totally live by my own rules life for myself just sounds so wrong. I'm not only going to promise to continue to donate money (that I'd probably use otherwise to purchase something that I don't even need) to a foundation on a recurring basis, but with this fully functional body that my soul is occupying, it'll also be a goal of mine to devote time out of my day to repetitively lend a helping hand in volunteering as well.

My Plea To Be Forever Excused From All Mathematics Classes

Let's talk about Math. When I'm in Math Class, every single thing that is said to me by the teacher/professor (no matter who it is) will literally go in one ear and out the other. My brain consumes little to none of material that I'm supposed to retain in my mind. And don't give me that whole "You Should Apply For Tutoring" schtick because quite frankly, I've been through it all. I've had After-school tutoring, Saturday school tutoring, I've even taken tutoring classes as a filler class in High School. (For those of you who are unfamiliar, a "filler class" is basically a class the school just gives you which isn't worth any credit and it takes up the same period of time that an actual class would take. In college, its referred to as a remedial class). This isn't some self-fulfilling prophecy of me saying"I'm gonna fail Math" and then I eventually end up failing or getting a seriously low grade (a D or a 65) from the instructor. I WANT to master this subject! 'Arithmetic Mathematics' past the Elementary School level and into the Junior High School level is a language that I know deep down inside of me, I will never, ever comprehend. In this blog, if you choose to read it, specifically describes my 10 ½ year oral history of applying myself to Math class. Straight from the community college student that I currently am as I type this, on my never-ending conflict with Math starting from the 3rd Grade all the way up to High School's Senior Year. Even though it'll take me some time for me to gather these ancient memories, it's pretty hard for someone to forget something that's been haunting their ass consistently for over a decade. You'll also hear about a shameful event that happened to me in High School where a teacher sneakily and successfully corrupted my decent but not perfect GPA just because I didn't attend her non-mandatory Saturday school tutoring. This is just another day, in my life*.
(*Lyric from "Just Another Day" by John Cena and Tha Trademarc)

Kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade made Math seem like the easiest subject in the entire freakin world. Adding, Subtracting and coloring in Bar Graphs were literally all we did in those years. I seriously thought that this was how Math would always be as I got older. Then the 3rd grade happens and you get hit with Multiplication, Division, Word Problems, etc. Then the 4th and 5th grade shove fractions up your anus. Middle School introduces Pre-Algebra and then the shit hits the fan in High School where they teach you every mathematical situation under the sun. Ever since this 21 year old guy was 7 years old, Math has been a thorn in my imaginary paw. I've never felt more stupidly confused in my life than in the 3rd grade. I say that because in the years prior to that, I was a wizard of knowledge! I had as much efficiency in my schoolwork and homework between kindergarten and the 2nd grade as any of the smart kids in my class. And now I'm in classes where 90-95% of my fellow classmates actually understand the material while I'm the confused dumbass in the corner of the room. So for the 1st time ever, I enrolled in Afterschool.

3rd Grade: It was meh. Just one of those after-school programs where they'd let us play games and watch movies but if we got too wild and crazy, then they'd start tutoring us with Math and other subjects. So that was a total waste of time and tax dollars.

4th and 5th Grade: I applied to be in an actual after-school. 2 hours a day for 2 days a week. Tuesdays were for Math and Thursdays were for Science. The added bonus was that our own Math teacher was our tutor. So the dude didn't have to go through that name remembering process. When it came to the State Test in June, I sucked... but not enough to fail and be denied my Public School diploma! To this day, I remember them accidentally giving us the 5th grade state test while we were in the 4th grade and none of us students pointed it out (on purpose) until about 20 minutes in to the period. Then it took them another 10 minutes to replace them with the 4th grade exams.

6th Grade: Marked the first time my feet have ever entered inside of a school on a Saturday. One of the worst mental experiences ever. Goodbye to sleeping in on Saturday mornings or waking up early to watch Saturday morning cartoons. It was gone, all fucking gone because my genetics aren't descended from Albert Einstein and my mom signing me up for 3 hour Saturday school sessions. The teachers were people I'd never seen in my life, the lunch tasted like defrosted dog crap, and it overall just felt like you were being punished for committing a felony.
- I also remember that year, our math teacher (Ms. Abraham) giving us a lyric sheet of Usher's "Confessions" but she rearranged the lyrics to terms relating to PEMDAS (Parenthesis, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition and Subtraction) aka the Order of Operations. I really wish I still had that lyric sheet because it was a legitimately catchy remix of a popular hit song. Ms. Abraham should have her own mixtape.

7th Grade: Platform Learning. As a part of then President George W. Bush's "No Child Left Behind" thing, our school was introduced with a new standard in the Afterschool initiative called "Platform Learning". It's basically a program that bribes kids into signing up for Afterschool by offering prizes for the amount of times you attended it every week. You got a certain number of points for every time you attended. At the end of the year, you'd receive the prize you wanted that equaled to the amount of points you had. Oh boy did I wish that were true. It was your standard small group Afterschool program where they lectured you in Math along with other subjects that I didn't need tutoring in but I had to attend because I needed those points. I wanted the iPod Classic that could only be awarded to the students with Perfect Attendance. So at the last session of the year, practically everyone in class, including me, were on the edge of our seats waiting to receive our iPods. And then we get the bad news (cue: Bad News Barrett - "I'm Afraid I've Got Some Bad News") that for some strange reason, the majority of the prizes in the catalog weren't shipped to the school. So as a regretful side prize, they gave every guy a Basketball (still inside the box), and every girl small Pink Boombox. I felt like giving those all Platform Learning fuckers a kick in the...

8th Grade: I had the incredibly lazy yet smart idea to just be involved in a small group Afterschool tutoring session ONCE A WEEK on the few weeks leading up to the State exam as opposed to an all year tutoring program. And for the first time since the 3rd grade, the teacher's lecturing stayed in my brain instead of passing through it. I ended up getting an increasingly higher score on that year's state exam compared to the 7th grade one. After that shining point in my educational life, I unfortunately made my unwanted return to sucking at anything relating to Math. And you can all thank the daily lectures filled with low-self esteem brought to me by Ms. Matos.

9th Grade: You know, I could write a whole separate blog about my past with Ms. Matos. It's a student-teacher experience that I've never had, never wanted, and thankfully never relived with any other teacher at the time of this writing. It's one you should be grateful to never have been through. If I need a reason to feel annoyed, I'll think of any moment I've had with her in 4 years of High School and there you go.
It's the first day of High School on my Freshman year. Math is the first class on my schedule. The class has started and the majority of students are in class learning at the time of my late arrival to Ms. Matos' Algebra class from H-E-Double Hockey Sticks. From day 1, DAY DAMN ONE, all she had to do was look in the exact center of my retina to know how completely hopelessly stupid I would be at this subject. The week before Thanksgiving of 2007 is when she started her Saturday school program. I've had my Saturday school experiences before but it was more of the culture shock of being in school on a Saturday morning that had me angry more than anything else. In this case, it was the solely just the instructor standing in the front of the classroom that pissed me the FUCK OFF. I really don't want to get in to specifics out of respect for her as a person, but if you know how RED I'm getting just writing this all this down, you'd know how hard it was to hold my insults. 2 months go by, I take the Algebra Regents, and I bomb as expected. So I'm re-admitted to her Saturday school program for the remainder of the year, I take the Regents again and I fail again. Keep this in mind, while all of this was going on, she was my everyday teacher aside from being my Saturday school tutor, and for some reason she never once gave me a failing grade during that entire year. She just kept on passing me with a 65 which is the lowest passing grade I could receive. I thought that she just had pity on me while all of this was going on but on the last day of school I figured out that she came to the realization that had she failed me in any quarter of the semester, I would've had to register for Summer School. On that day, I was notified by some of my peers that she was looking for me for that very reason. She aggressively started handing out Summer School slips left and right. How could she just force me into Summer School when she never failed me at any time between September and June? I remember it being a half day and as soon as my final class was over and I was the first motherfucker out of school just bolting home as fast as I could. I was so paranoid that she would just call my house and notify me or my mom from the phone but she didn't. I had a math-free Summer and I couldn't be happier. Too bad I can't say the same about Summer 2009 (tenth grade).

10th Grade: I swear I thought I was gonna be stuck with Matos as a Math teacher for all 4 years of High School. I remember that being my main fear going into the first day of school more than the general pressure of school itself. She was the "10 Month Itch" that I could never scratch off. You should've seen the sigh of relief on my face when I first looked at my program and discovered that I did not have Ms. Matos as a Math teacher. Hallelujah!!! I didn't even have Algebra which (should've) meant that even though I failed the Algebra Regents exam, I had no reason to study the subject again until Senior year. For this year I had Geometry with Mr. McMahon and Mr. Lewis. They were 2 of the most down to earth Math teachers I ever had. Even when I'd really bomb a quiz, McMahon was cool enough to add enough extra credit to give me a grade in the low 60's which I couldn't be more satisfied with because it meant I decently passed. Tutoring was offered by Lewis. He'd always mention that he's available after-school every day of the week and that he'd go over any of the problems we had. I was definitely a candidate for many of those tutoring sessions yet I didn't attend any of them. The 1 thing that separated Lewis and Matos is that Lewis didn't force anyone to do anything. He'd be delighted to even have one person attend after-school tutoring and even though he'd would sometimes tell us how frustrated he was if no one attended after McMahon would tell us that our overall grade point standing were low,  HE NEVER FORCED ANYONE FORCED ANYONE TO DO ANYTHING THAT THEY DIDN'T WANT TO DO! If I didn't go to after-school, I was never, ever reprimanded for it. I thought 10th grade would be a pretty chill school year. I thought that and I thought wrong. Matos with her "Bounty Hunter" sense caught me in the hallway after-school one day and without the slightest bit of hesitation, gave me a death stare, took her cellphone out, and told me to give her my phone number. It was to call my mom to ask her permission to attend her fucking Saturday school class for another semester. I must of done something fucked up in a previous life to not only have to deal with her bullshit again, but to be forced into a Saturday school class when #1 I wasn't taking the subject
and #2. I was not required to take the test that she was preparing us until SENIOR YEAR!!!
Do you understand how it feels to spend 4 and a half months of your life learning a subject that you wouldn't be told to take the Cumulative State Exam for another 2 years? The agony of waking up at 7 am to go to school on a Saturday morning to study for a test that would not apply to me for 2 years!! Looking back at it now, I should've attempted to report her to the proper authority. Possibly the NY Board of Ed because this was some really stupid fucking bullshit. But thank you goodness gracious, between January and June, I played hide and seek with that woman to ensure I wouldn't deal with her again. That year I ended up "passing" the Geometry exam with a 60. I guess there was some rule about the year I entered High School at that time and for the rest of my time in High School, a passing grade in a Regents exam would be a 55 or higher. So I was happy but also surprised that I earned a grade on a state Math test so high. I thought I'd have another smooth sailing Summer vacation. That was until I was smacked by the worst stench of bullshit, horseshit, dogshit and any other animal that is known for crapping handfuls of shit, in the 16 years of me being alive. On the last day of school, as I was headed out the building, I unfortunately ran into Matos who gave me another "Hallway Death Stare" and told me to go to the guidance counselors office to pick up my report card. Normally, my homeroom teacher would inform me to do this, so it was extra weird that this woman who hasn't been my legit teacher in a year is telling me to do this. So I head into the guidance counselor's office and as I'm being handed my report card, I'm being told that I failed Algebra. I look at my report card and I received a failing grade in (get this) Saturday School because I didn't attend it for the 2nd half of the year.

WHO FAILS A TUTORING SESSION? WHO IN THE FLYING FUCK FAILS A MOTHERFUCKING TUTORING CLASS THAT IS STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO FUCKIN BE GRADED FOR? THE WHOLE REASON YOU'RE IN THAT CLASS IS SO THAT YOU DON'T FAIL THE ACTUAL CLASS AND ITS ACCOMPANYING STATE TEST.

I didn't even have to ask around to come to the conclusion that Matos with her evil death stare, forced my "guidance" counselor to put a pretend class on my report card for the sole reason of failing me (and possibly some other students) so we could attend her Summer School class. If the NYC Board of Ed is reading this, I'd be totally fine with opening up an investigation of an event that happened in 2009 because this woman needs to be stripped of her teaching license ASAP. The only saving grace through all of this is that she didn't teach the Summer School class I was involved in.

- On a side-note I just want to say that between September 2007 and June 2011, I had an enjoyable High School experience. The events I'm describing are true but they do not apply to my entire my High School in general or any of the staff members that I have not mentioned in this blog. I made friends, a lot of the teachers saw me as being an efficient student of theirs, and I didn't have any form of physical or verbal arguments with anyone. The one and only constant in those 4 years that made me legitimately want to transfer to any other school was Ms. Matos' breathing down my neck when the majority of those times she had no business doing so. She was the bully you wanted to avoid as an incoming Freshman but remained to be that same person for all those years. I've never felt so endlessly furious than the times where she'd come in contact me in any way, shape or form within that building. If Ms. Matos didn't teach at there, my High School psyche would've been unblemished and I'd probably appreciate Math just a little bit better.

11th Grade: Another grade and another year with the same obsessed Math teacher grabbing me by the Belt Loops and forcing me into her Math class. The bullshit that occured this semester is that she actually went to that same guidance counselor and had me taken out of 1st period US History tutoring and put into her 1st period Algebra tutoring (without even informing my US History teacher). So there goes another 4 months of my life to be involved in a class that once again does not 1. have a cumulative grade to give the students involved and 2. does not end in a cumulative Regents exam. January 2010 just happened to be the 1st time and only time in High School that I didn't take any cumulative Math exams. The actual graded Math class I had that year was something I never saw coming. It was some sort of intermediate Trigonometry type of class being taught by Ms. Maldonado (not related to me). I was familiar with Maldonado because she was my graphic calculator teacher during Freshman year. Being in this class felt so weird because my previous schools are used to putting me in lower regarded Math classes with a Collaborative Team Teaching requirement. This was an upper level Math class with one teacher. Even my own friends and former classmates who read my class schedule told me I was in the wrong class. But at the end of the day, I didn't give a fuck because even though I was in a class that I should've had no business in, I felt smarter than my former classmates and I tried my best to keep up with the pace of the class. I failed the first semester but passed the remaining ones with a 65. My saving grace that year is that the previous guidance counselor made her exit (for a reason I was never informed of), so our grade had a new guidance counselor named Ms. Headen and she didn't take shit from anyone! Student or Staff. Ms. Matos knew that and that's why after January, she (figuratively) was on the outside looking through the window and watching me deal with all of my High School matters without her interference. That included Summer School. I did have to go to Summer School that year but it wasn't because of Matos' intentions. My school just required me to take an online Math course called Plato Learning (now referred to as Edmentum) for a few weeks just to get my study on. I was actually OK with that and it turned out to be the least stressful Summer School experience of my life even though I still sucked at Math during and afterwards.

12th Grade: 12th grade literally continued the smooth sailing ride that was Summer School because of the fact that our Math teachers Mr. Lewis (again) and Mr. De la Cruz had us take that online Math course known as Plato for the first 4 months of school. I was Matos free for the opening 4 months of a school year for the 1st time in 4 years and I couldn't, just couldn't be more happier. No Matos and I had internet access during Math class. But as you've read for the last 3 years of High School, whenever something good happens, it doesn't last for long. In January 2011, I along with a few of my classmates were transferred from 5th period cumulative Math to 5th period Math Regents Prep with a teacher that you'd never expect to be your teacher. As a matter of fact, he was so knowledgeable about Math that he taught a separate Advanced Math class to a select number of Seniors. This person was also the principal of our entire School and his name is Mr. Morales. The guy definitely had the qualities of a strict Math teacher who didn't abuse the material to you. He taught us the ropes both as a class and individually. Something Matos obviously never learned in whatever school she got her teaching skills from. Plus he held his classes 4 days a week because he had his principal's meeting on Fridays which meant we had a 50 minute break to do whatever we wanted on that day every week. I do remember one instance where Matos used her tactics of Death Staring to put me in her Afterschool program and threatened to call my mom because she "still had her phone number on her phone". So my intimidated self entered in to her 2 hour after-school program... for 20 minutes. I manned up and snuck out of tutoring without getting caught and never entered back that whole year. No phone calls were made. I took the Regents exam for the last time and I can guess because of the fact that I have my High School diploma means that I passed it. For what shouldn't be the motivating reason to graduate High School, a motivating reason for me to graduate High School was that I wouldn't have to deal with Matos anymore in the educational field anymore. And as of this writing, I haven't.

I could write about Math at my current collegiate level but its totally different than the grade school system. Its an individual semester of your average Math for 4 months. There's not much of an experience I can discuss.

And that's that. The fact that I've written this large blog about my lackluster experiences in Math class since Fall 2001, should be more than enough of a reason to excuse me from any Math class that I would have to be on the roster of according to my curriculum. In this world there's people that suck at Math but with extra help in the form of tutoring, they can put enough effort on the big exam that they will eventually pass. And then there's me. I'm not skilled enough to be one of those people. It's not that I don't want to be skilled in Math because I desperately do so I can pass it and leave it in the past. But as you've just read, I've been to every Saturday school, Afterschool, and Tutoring session known to man with every tutor and teacher in the Bronx, NY. Every single time I've left their classroom, I've had a big question mark over my head. Having a question mark hovering over your head is just as bad as having a black cloud over your head but the difference being, that a black cloud = bad luck no matter what your intelligence level is and a question mark = you can go through 10 years of your life passing practically every class subject put in front of you but one. Throughout my life, I've been constantly told that it's very unusual for a student to be so proficient in English but to always be at the very bottom of your Math class. As if both subjects actually integrate with each other so much to the point where you can't be successful in schooling with one and not the other. I honestly feel that between Fall 2001 and Summer 2011, with an exception for Spring 2007, I benefited passing every one of those Math classes with the doubt coming from my teachers that I'd actually learned something. I know myself that I surely haven't. In short, I shouldn't be in anyone's Math class anymore because it'd be a complete waste of time for the professor who's being given the task of directing me to have a mastery of knowledge in any type of Math of the 3rd grade level and beyond. I just spent so much time recollecting memories on my experiences with Math that are more than a decade old. I seriously can't do that with any other subject.

To NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, the City University of New York and any other university system that wants to acquire me into their campus, it's your call. My academic record, your school wide GPA, and possibly a minor or major perception of both parties (you & I) by an even higher authority that has the power to terminate jobs if need be, depend on me not being required to be lectured in Mathematics anymore within a higher educational campus, indefinitely. And to put it in even shorter terms, unless some Professor wants to tarnish their scholarly integrity by pitying me a grade of a D-, then I really don't belong in any Math class in which an academic credit is on the line. I don't know how to plea any more than that without getting down on my knees & physically begging.

My Very 1st "About Me" on Myspace (May 2007)

I was just 14 years old when I wrote this short little biography of myself on my Myspace profile. I'd say I'm quite the storyteller. Anyway, this is the 6 year old original unedited, unrevised version of my Myspace profile's About Me section along with it's original font, and text size. I eventually updated it and you can check out the newer and more descriptive version by clicking here.

 

Current mood:

Well, Here's my life story. I was born on a cold winter day at Harlem Hospital. I went to Preschool (and cried like a freakin baby all the time) at kennedy preschool.I then went to ps 23 from kindergarden to 2nd grade. I was like the smartest reader in my class. Then i decided to do comedy at 3rd grade in ps 20. I was the class clown (and still am). I then went to ps 59 (4th and 5th grade) and met my soon to be 4th to 8th grade Friend Aaron. I was the joker,he was the laugher. In 5th grade we actually won an award for being funny. I advanced to middle School at Middle School 45 where I learned slang, curses, girls and to always hang (chill) with the cool people to get respect. Currently i am still at that (horrible!!!) school (did i say i was an 8th grader at the time)till the 22nd of june 2007. Then I will go to Theodore Roosevelt H.S. (program: West Bronx Academy For The Future)