The Holy Fire

For this last entree I would like to talk about, what I think is the greatest miracle of all time, the Holy Fire. Most people in the West do not know about this miracle because it occurs in the East. The miracle takes place in Jerusalem at the Church of the Holy Scepulchre, during the time of Greek Orthodox Easter. On the day before Easter, thousands of people who are apart of the Eastern Orthodox Church, flock toward this spot so that way they can experience the awe of the miracle. The Patriarchs of the Eastern Church are the ones who must pray for the miracle to work. Before they do so the Jewish athorities inspect them and the church, for flammable substances that would make the miracle a fraud. The Patriarch then goes inside the inner chapel to pray to God, then at midnight a huge lightning bolt comes down into the chapel and ignites the Patriarch's candels. He then comes outside to the crowd of believers and lights their candles with the fire. The most extraordinary thing about this miracle is that people have stated that their candles have lighted on their own. Also ordinary people have placed their hands and faces in to their torches and the fire doesn't burn them. The fire will not burn any one for 33 minutes which is an interesting coincidence, because traditon says that Jesus Christ was crucified at the age of 33. This event is one of the things that I really want to witness.
Here is one such video: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ys8hNr7BZ70&feature=related

Interviewing Catholic Nuns

Since I am a student of St. John's University it is required for me to take Theology as one of my classes. Although I didn't choose this class, I am glad I took this class because it was very interesting. For my final project I had to do an interview with a Catholic nun, to ask her what life as a Catholic was for her before, during, and after the Second Vatican Council. My professor told me that he would take care of finding us a nun, however the nun he got me in touch with, lived four hours away. My teacher told me I could do the interview by phone, but I wanted to do it face to face. At that moment I decided to find my own nun to interview, and thanks to my mother and a friend, I managed to find one at the Visitation Academy. The Visitation Academy was an all girl's Catholic school with a monastery for the nuns who teach there. At first I though I would meet strict women, however they proved to be very kind to me, and answered the interview with great enthusiasm. They even answered questions before I had a chance to ask the question.

Hunting

Hunting, the great outdoor American sport, an activity that has been around since the Stone Age. This weekend was the time I was waiting for my whole life because my brothers and I were finally going hunting after two years of being licensed to hunt big game. The big game included boar, deer, fox, etc. However I was only licensed to kill bucks not does. The hunting season just began this week so it was the perfect time to go hunt for some bucks. The site we went to was located on Bear Mountain which uninhabitable. When we got their we hiked up this hill that was so steep that it tired us out in 10 minutes especially with all the thick clothing and gear we were carrying. Yet when we reached the top, we found the perfect spot to ambush deer which was over looking the bottom of a small cliff, the perfect place for deer to cross over and be hunted. For those of you who think that hunting is just hiking around with a rifle until you kill an animal, you don't know what hunting is. Deer have keen senses and they know when hunting season is on, they can hear a single footstep from two minutes away and they will run for the hills. At the same time you must wear orange so that way other hunters will be aware of your presence. The best way to hunt is to sit in a good spot for hours and hours and let the deer come to you. It requires alot of patience, and most likely you would be unsuccessful. Nonetheless hunting is a good experience, and even though we didn't find any deer, I enjoyed the experience and would do it again any day.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, what a day that is. A day in which we, like the Pilgrims, have settled down and stuffed their faces with mashed potatoes, cranberries, yams, ham, peas, stuffing and most famous of all, big fat and juicy turkey. The classical feast held every year to celebrate being thankful for all the things that we have such as our family, our home, our lives, and our health. Unlike most holidays like Christmas, Passover, or Ramadan which are celebrated by distinctive religious people, Thanksgiving can be celebrated by all, including athiests. The holiday was founded by Christians who escaped Europe for a better and freer life. Their Native American neighbors also celebrated it with them and they were not really Christian. Yet the Natives celebrated Thanksgiving because they were thankful for what they had on behalf of whatever spiritual divinty they believed in.

Trip to the City

New York City the greatest city in the world, because of its prosperous economy, huge population, and its eye popping attractions. On November 8, 2007 I went on a trip to the center of New York, which is Msanhattan. The reason we went to the city was because we were going to take a tour of the places that involved the gangs of New York. While we took the tour we saw alot of awsome sites, such as the tall artistic skyscrapers, city hall and city hall park, and the Supreme Court which I was really impressed because it resembled the ancient Greek architecture, a feature I love to see on a building. The best part of the trip of course was that we didn't have class, and it was great enjoying the view of Manhattan. The only flaw of the trip was that it was freezing. I brought gloves and earmuffs with me, but sooner or later I was desperate for warmth. Thankfully we stopped to eat at a store in China town to eat some lunch. I ate pork dumplings and they were very delicious, plus they kept me warm. Overall the trip was incredible and I hope to go on another similar trip for Discover New York.

The Basketball game

Holy Cross church has a bsaketball team for teenagers. The players have to be 17 years old at the most. As a result I was unable to join the team since I was to old for it. However my younger brothers were able to join the team since they were younger than 17 years old. During Wensday nights my brothers go to practice with their friends at the gym and with each practice they always come out better than they were before. The last Sunday that past was the day of their game that I went to see. My youngest brother's team were very skilled players however they didn't win becaus e their oponents were like 3 feet taller than them not to mention they were wider. However my middle brother's game, ended in a very close victory and they all recieved cheers from girls they knew. The cheering those girls made were so loud that I thought my ear drums would explode. Luckely they didn't. Any way I had a good time spectating how well my brothers played.

Count Dracula

Count Dracula is known by many as the legendary vampire who has been out in the middle of the night sucking blood from the necks of innocent people. His legend is very popular amongst Westerners, but who was the real Count Dracula. Count Dracula was really a man nsamed Vlad who was born in 13th century as the the prince of the Eastern European kingdom of Wallacia. It was located in modern day Romania which was at that time a apart of the Eastern Orthodox Church. When Vlad became king of Wallacia he took the name Vlad Dracula, which meant "son of the dragon". He named himself this after the Order of the Dragon which was an Eastern European Organization dedicated to waging crusades against the Ottoman Turks who sought Muslim expansion into their homeland. However his connection to the dragon would later have him viewed by many as the son of the devil, especially after he commited his most infamous act in his reign.
To psychologically demoralize the Turks and to keep his enemies under control, Vlad Dracula had hundreds of thousands of people (the Turks and political rivals) impaled on wooden stakes, to the point where he would be nick named "Vlad the Impaler". It was at one battle against the Turks that he was finally killed, filling the Ottoman Empire with relief that the impaler was slain. However his castle still stands in the mountains of Romania and many claim it to be cursed. His infamous reign of terror inspired the publishing of the 19th century book "Drqacula". The Romanians today view him as a strong ruler who did what he did in order to stay strong. By the 1960's, Vlad the Impaler became a national hero because of his bravery in defending Romania from the Ottoman Turks despite his blood thirsty methods in impaling people.

Halloween

Halloween, the great American holiday which is the day people carve and light jack lanterns. It is the day when children dress up as freaky monsters and travel from house to house saying "trick or treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat". Then the best part comes out and they are given free candy from strangers. Halloween is an incredibly popular holiday. Unlike most holidays Halloween is more of a fun kind of holiday instead of a religious holiday like Christmas and Easter. The history behind Halloween dates back when people were very superstitious about evil spirits possessing them or giving them bad luck. The villagers then decided to wear costumes and light jack lanterns to drive the evil spirits away. However Halloween's origin is viewed by some to take place during the middle ages when people used to dress up as demons and killed Christians in the night. Things like that had led many to believe that Halloween is the devil's feast day.

Wilderness Survival

Have you ever gone extreme camping? Have you ever experienced sleeping under the stars with nothing but a sleeping bag and a make shift shelter? I have done such a thing three years ago at Ten Mile River, a campsite located in up state New York. For one week my friends and I went to this campsite to earn awards from the camp councilers there. On the day we got there it was a beautiful and sunny day that brought our spirits high. But then all of a sudden on the second day, it started to rain and it didn't stop raining until the day we left, which was one week later. It seemed our trip has been cursed by God's fury.
On our last night some of my friends and I went to accomplish our test to earn the wilderness survival award. Our task was to build a shelter out of the natural resources in the woods. Our shelter was an incredible success. We found fallen logs and used them as the exoskeleton of our shelter by leaning them on a thick tree and then placeing a buch of leaves, sticks and pine wood leaves over them. The pine leaves were very helpful because they were designed to keep the rain out. My dad told me later that deer stay out of the rain by going under pine trees. Our shelter ended up being huge and very stable, we were all surprised at how we managed to build such a magnificent shelter. Some other boys who couldn't build their shelters asked us if they could bunk with us. They were very big kids who looked like ax murderers in the dark, we were so scared of them that the only thing we said to them was "please don't steal our things".
Sleeping that night was anything but comfortable. The inside of the shelter contained rocks buried partially in the ground. We didn't want the rocks to distub our sleep so we took them out, however diging the rocks out left holes in the ground and while I slept my head crouched backward into that hole. To make things worse I was sleeping in between to boys. on my right was my brother who built a little make shift tent out of his poncho which directed all the rain leaking on him onto my side. On my left side was my friend who was rolling on top of me in his sleep and was crushing me. Then another one of my friends said that their is a chipmunk inside. The news angered me so I ran out of the shelter saying I can't stand this misery. My friends had to pull me back in the shelter to stay out of the rain. As soon as I went back to my spot I couldn't wait for morning. Yet despite all the hardships we went throught that day it was worth it because we got the awards we came for. Now when I look back at this wilderness survival experience I think of it as a good adventer that I will remember in years to come.

Speech Pathology

On October 18 from 12:00 to 1:30 St. Johns was hosting a fair to help students decide what to major in. The major that I was most interested in was speech pathology. When I first went to the speech pathology table I was surprised to hear that I was the second boy to come over and learn more about speech pathology. I discovered that girls mostly take speech pathology as a major and few boys take it. However that makes it better for me because speech pathology is a very demanding career. Many people need help with speaking so they hire speech pathologist to help them. Men are in higher demand than women since there are so few of them.
From my discussions with the teacher I learned that upon receiving the degree I will have a high paying job that is very demanding. However in order to receive this job I needed to earn a masters degree at graduate school. Unfortunately graduate programs are very hard to get into but I would still be able to take online courses to get my masters degree if I fail to get accepted into graduate school. Nonetheless I still hope to make it to a graduate program and I hope to grasp this career, since it promises alot for my future.

Majors Fair

The Majors Fair just occured today during common hour which takes place from 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm. It is a fair in which we get to check out the majors available in St. Johns and to help us decide which one is best for us. The subjects I went to check out today was Speech Pathology and History. Speech Pathology is the subject that i want to major in because I wanted to do something that involves having patience with people and Speech Pathology requires alot of patience.
History is my favorite subject in the world. If I had a choice I would have chosen to take history as my major, however history would not garantee me a promising career. As a result I have decided to take history as a minor. The only problem I have with the majors fair is that I also have a Discover New York Lab to go to which is at the same time as the Majors Fair. Hopefully the lab would go by quick and I would make it to the majors fair.

I'm a History Buff I am

History is the subject I love studying in school. I love history beecause it studying it draws meowy different from our's today. My favorite time periods go from ancient mesapotamia to the end of World War II. However I am not very interested in history after World War II because it is to similar to today.
When I was young I wasn't interested in history at all. In fact I actually dispised it whean ever I was learning it in school. Yet my interests changed dramatically when I watched this documentary on the discovery channel called the "Spartans at the Gates of Fire" wh ich was about the 300 spartans at the battle of Thermopylae. I was completely drawn in to tstinghat documentary which was both interesting and entertaining. That was the first time I developed an interest in history. From their my intrests in history expanded from the history of the Greeks to the history of the Romans and onward to the medeival and pre-modern times.
Today I constantly watch the history channel if there is a good documentary playing. I also love reading historical fiction as much as I love reading historical fact, such as "Gates of Fire" by Stephen Pressfield and "Brethren" by Robyn Young.

My Backyard

From the moment I moved into my house many years ago I realized that I had a huge backyard. From the moment I laid eyes on the yard I was very excited to play in it with my brothers. It was a big yard with a large amount of grass and a huge tree at the back corner. Yet as the years passed my backyard went through many changes. A year after we moved into our house my family and I built a fish pond the backyard. Four years later we built a tree house on the tree that was growing in my backyard.
Soon our pond and our tree house was gone because we needed to fix a wall in the back yard and the construction killed the fish. Also the treehouse restricted the growth of the tree it was built on. Therefore the tree was dying. Seeing all these things going on led us to get rid of all that and build an inground pool. I was sad to see the tree house go because I used to have alot og fun on it. However I was excited at the thought of getting a pool. The tranformation of the backyard was tremendous. The grass was cemented over, the pond was dug up, the tree was knock down and the gap in between my house and yard was filled up. My back yard was transformed from a meadow like area to a lushious paradise that people would see when they go to Florida or the Carribean.

CRAZY Weather

It is unbelievable how crazy the weather this year has been. All ready it is October and yet the weather is still warm. Had it not been for the calender we would propbably think it is still summer. It is so sunny outside that I still have a tan from walking around the school campus.
The other day I was going camping with my friends in up state New York. As soon as we stepped out of the cars the b;lazeing heat hit us hard. It hadn't rained in that area for over a month, thus the trees and the green grass turned brown and withered. The waterfall we always went to was flowing lesser water than usual.
But the worse part of it was that the camp grounds forbidded any use of campfires because the farests were so dry they didn't want to start a forest fire. The day was wasted so we pact up and left for home. I wonder to myself if this warm weather that we are having is a sign that Global Warming is taking it's toll.

Water Safety Instructing

Many people my age work part time to keep some extra cash in their pockets. Most of them work part time in resterants, shops, or for family businesses. All of that is good and honest work. Yet I like to think of my part time job as one of the special ones. I am a certified water safety instructor which is generally a person who teaches people (mostly children) how to swim and be safe in the water. Some might think of me as a lifeguard, however a life guard just sits on a high chair and watches for any causualties, which rarely happen.
Water Safety Instructing is wear all the action happens. When I work I am in the water with a group of kids and I teach them the right techniques of swimming. Teaching this involves more than just words. It requires demonstration as much as explanation. Children always tend to get things wrong while they practice, ergo it is important for me to correct them with positive reinforcement. If I don't give the children positive reinforcement then they will be demoralized and may even cry, which is something I nor any other instructor wants. I enjoy working as an instructor, it never gets boring, you get to socialize with the other instructors, and the pay check is also good. It is a great part time job.

I'm the Eagle

This past Sunday was an incredhicble day for me, my brother and my good friend. It was the day of our Eagle Scout cerimony, in which we received the highest rank in Scouting. During the cerimony many guest speakers came and made speeches congradulating at us on our job well done at achieveing this great rank of honor. They also gave us plaques and certificates, including one signed by our US President George Bush.
After the guests gave their speeches, gave gave my own speech to the audience, as I said it I was very nervous, but as soon as I was done my scout master asked, "Wow, are you a public speaker". This gave me pride in both myself and my abilities. After the cerimony ended I was congradulated by countless people, some of whome I barely knew. This moment is an event I will never forget, because to get it was a challenging process.

What is a Memoir?

Memoirs are similar to diaries. They are written passages that allows the writter to record his or her life experiences that he or she might want to remember in years to come. A memoir can come in great handy when an old person whose minds are stretched because they can read the memoir that they wrote to remember little details of what they went through in life. Also if a person is dying and he or she have no children to leave behind, they can write a memoir to leave their legacy behind and so that they can be remembered. This may sound a bit like an autobiography, yet an autobiography only records dates and important events in general. A memoir is more specific on the subject and is written in a more personal way.

The Weekend Festival

This weekend I went to the Greek festival located on eighty fifth street and second avenue. The festival was hosted by people who were a part of Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Church. The festival is held once a year during the begining of fall, and it is an event I never wanted to miss out on. The festival has Greek food, dancing, music, and thrill rides. All of those things were great, but what pleased me the most was that this festival brought together my old Greek friends. Since I went to college I barely had time to see them, but this festival was so popular in the community that it drew in all the Greeks that I knew.
I had alot of fun this year walking around the festival and hanging out with one group of friends after another. We went on rides, chatted about how school was, and took walks to Fort Hamilton high school. It was also a great opportunity to go over each other's houses and hangout there for a little while. Being together with them was fantastic and I hope some day I will see them again in the not to distant future.

Orientation at St. John's

Every high school and college requires a new student to be oriented so that they may get their ID cards and to help familiarize themselves with the school. Of the many orientantions that I have been to, St. Johns was the best. Unlike most high school orientations which last a few hours, St. John's orientation lasted three days. During those three days I was astonished by the amount of good people their were. All the orientation leaders had a smile on their faces and made us feel welcome. I was also impressed by the dormitories here because I always pictured them as a small room that is cramped, yet they are like mini houses with alot of room to stretch your legs out.
The food that they served us during breakfast, lunch and dinner were all delicious I couldn't stop eatting them. Apart from the lectures and the tours, we did alot of activities like the dinner cruise that sailed around Manhattan, giving us a great sight of the sky scrapers and of Liberty Island. There was also the carnaval which was very fun. Over all I met and befriended alot of great people and had a great time at this orientation. Who would have guessed that I would return home to find out that a tornado hit Brooklyn.

Viva Las Vegas

The place I went to this summer was the city of Las Vegas. It also known as Sin city due to the amount of gambling done there. When you see Las Vegas in pictures, and on the television screen you see a city with massive sky scrapers, and it appears as though it can rival New York. However the majority of Las Vegas is nothing more than a city with small houses no more than two stories high. The vast hotels and casinos are situated on a long road called the strip. The moment I got out of the airport the heat hit be like a blow dryer because the city is situated in the middle of the desert and the heat feels dry. Here in New York the heat feels humid.
When I was in Las Vegas my family and I avoided the casino's and instead went to see incredible shows like Hans Klok (a magic show featuring Pamela Anderson), Tony and Tina's wedding, and a circus involving swimming acrobatics. In addition to the shows, we took a helicopter ride over the Grand canyon which was incredible to behold. Security at the hotels was very strict concerning the age limits of gambling, they wouldn't even let me stand still in the casino, I had to keep moving to avoid trouble. Yet despite all that I saw alot of neat things like the lions, the white tigers, the shows, and the beautiful themes of the hotels. Overall I had a great time.

My Experience on 9/11

It has been 6 years since the attack of 9/11, and I can still remember the horrors of that catastrophe, the continuous broadcasting of the airplanes crashing into the World Trade center and the towers falling, and the first time I heard the news which was from my junior highschool principle on my second day of school. My thoughts turned immediately to my dad who worked in Manhattan as a sheriff.
We were dismissed from school early that day and my mom picked me and my brother up. I asked what about dad, and it filled me with relief when she said "Daddy is okay, daddy is fine". I remember those words as clear as crystal to this day. However my dad was with the authorities and it was his job to stay overtime on ground zero. Normally he would be home by 4:00 but his overtime sceduele kept him there until 9:00 for two months. When he came home that day he was completely covered in dust. That whole day I thought New York was going to soon become a battlefield full of invading terrorists. Later after my dad came home I heard that my old best friend's father was killed in the World Trade Center. I immediatly felt sorry for her, and I thought it good of my church to name the avenue after her father. 9/11 is one of those days in which I will never forget the details of what happened that day.