Life is a blast! At least it is in the eyes of the heroic Grant Boothe

Seriously in two weeks my life has been altered in so many different ways it would take a giant post to list it all. Thank goodness I'm the kind of guy that like to make big posts! :)

Let's start with Tae Kwon Do. As many of you have recently seen I just completed my testing for Second Degree Black Belt! Believe me I still remember not only the story and it's details, but also how I felt too. I was sooooooooooooooooo stressed and I was so terrified of failing! The reason why is because in order to pass a testing one not only has to memorize the moves of their form and spar other people, but they also have to break their boards. Despite the chances that I had been given to break my boards I didn't break them. So I literally had to break my boards during the day of the actual testing. If I didn't break the boards then, I would have failed miserably for sure. I was very scared of failing because, for the first and probably only time in my Tae Kwon Do "career" failure was a frighteningly real possibility. Plus I was also very very afraid that all of my family who had come to watch me would have wasted their time, and that Mom would have wasted her money, because I wouldn't have passed for sure. I had prayed and prayed endlessly that I would break these boards, and that God would help me break these boards, but it seemed as to no avail and I got pretty frustrated too. So right before the actual testing began Mr. Yee had the board breaking commence, only I wouldn't be breaking with the usual brown plastic boards that everybody else breaks it, I had to brake wooden boards. Now I know that this sounds like Mr. Yee was trying to make things more difficult for me but in fact he was actually trying to make it easier for me, because the wooden boards were actually easier to break. Mrs. Yee explains that sometimes they ("they meaning any Tae Kwon Do instructor) sometimes make their students break wooden boards, that are easier to break, because even though the boards are easier to break everybody thinks that they're harder to break so mentally they give more into their board breaking.

Here are the pictures of the board breaking that occurred during my testing. Becca took these. Now during the board breaking part I successfully managed to two of the three boards that I was required to break rather easily. The third technique that I was supposed to break a wooden board with, as show by the picture above, I did not break on my first attempt. In fact I did not break this board on the second attempt or even the third attempt. Mr. Yee basically said that if I didn't break this time that I would have failed this testing for sure! I spun and kicked, but still, I failed to break this board. At this point I despaired, and I felt as if I were to just ball my eyes out miserably! Then Mrs. Yee, out of the pure goodness of her heart told Mr. Yee that if he switched the boards around that they would break. So Mr. Yee gave in and consented to giving me one last chance to break this board. Now this was it! The ultimate sink-or-swim moment! In just a few seconds, with one simple kick, this board break would decide whether I would pass or fail miserably! This was the crucial point in which not only I, but my family who was there (Ryan, Becca, and Mom), was pouring out our hearts to God and pleading with him that I break this board. So I spun, kicked, and as Becca's picture showed, I broke the board. At the time I didn't even know that I had broken the board until I had heard a thunderous applause coming from the audience. Whoo boy! I had never felt so relieved in my life! I seriously just collapsed on the floor, and silently was singing everlasting praises to my Heavenly Father on high! Mr. Yee told me to give a hug to my Mom, so I did.

After that I felt so much better, and I felt confident that I'd pass now. Of course there was one more thing that was weighing on my mind: doing the White Belt form backwards. This freaked me out simply because I had only done it twice, and I wasn't all that sure that I could pull it off successfully in a testing situation. Well I didn't have to do it, all I had to do was my form, the first degree Black Belt form, and the White Belt form [going forward]. After that came the weapons forms. Even though I knew what I was going to be doing, I still prayed to Heavenly Father that my performance would be enhanced, and He immeasurably enhanced my performance. During the time that the other students were showing off the moves of their form I was not only visualizing but also doing the moves of my form, only I didn't have my weapons with me. I could tell that my family was watching me, by this time Dad, Molly, and Grandma Barbara had shown up. I had to pose for the camera, before I made what is still possibly my last Tae Kwon Do performance. As soon as I got up there I was fast and furious, and I got applauded for it too. That was great! Honestly it was! What was unique about my double bong mong ee drills was that in addition to the drills that I had to do I had some extensive partner drills that I was expected to memorize. Bong mong ees are the blue things that Mrs. Yee and I are holding in this picture to the right. Mrs. Yee was my partner for these drills and she specifically told me to slow down. I kind of find that as a complement because I like being super fast and powerful.

So after the drills came the free sparring. That was pretty easy and there are no pictures of that so I won't bother with any more details about that.

So after the free sparring came the award/recognition part of the testing, and in my opinion the best part. For those who have never gone to this here's how the last part of the testing goes. All of the students sit on the floor, Mr. Yee says a few words and then the students run up to Mr. and Mrs. Yee, bow, shake hands, and face the audience while receiving some thunderous applause. Usually those who are midterming go first; these people do not achieve a higher rank, but are one step closer towards achieving a higher rank. After everybody who midterms comes up, then everybody who made it their first degree black belt run up to Mr. Yee and they get to take off their old belt while Mr. Yee ties their new Black Belt for them. Then after these people, comes me, or should I say anybody that has become a Second Degree Black Belt or higher. What happens is that I get to stand beside Mr. Yee, Mrs. Yee, and anybody else who is there with them at the time, usually it's a higher rank Black Belt but in this case it was a guy by the name of George Lewis who is the instructor for the soon-to-be Turlock school. I am considered a senior rank, which means I doin't have to sit back down with everybody else in the class, and they have to bow to me. It was pretty sweet to say the least and Dad got some rather interesting pictures of me during the end of the testing.

Okay seriously I have no idea why I posed in this particular way for the camera so please don't ask. I think Mom hit the nail on the head when she said that I was "as light as a feather" after my testing. Seriously I was, and I could not make a decent smile to save my life, but in my defense I probably didn't care as much about that then. After all a few hours earlier I had been stressing out about failing the thing. Mr. Yee did his best to try and get me to smile normally which at first didn't work. But then again his attempt was somewhat fruitful in getting me to calm down. So after this amazingly wonderful ceremony we decided to celebrate at my house with Chicago Stuffed pizza, Root Beer, chocolate cake and ice cream. So while at my house I showed everybody, as I will show all of you who weren't there, a preview of a song that I will be singing on the 23rd at my last fall concert. Unlike this video we won't have a long monologue, and I was a little harsh on this guy when I first showed this video. He really isn't that bad. Anyway, so the song will be sung in Knights choir and it will be called "Tell My Father".

So moving on, the next huge part of my life involves Water Polo. We played three games this week, (Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday). The reason why we had three games was because last week our game against Ceres was cancelled for some weird reason or another. So our Tuesday game was against Johansen. So here it was, the long awaited game. If you all would remember I had made a bet with Brother Lewis that, out of all the shots I took, if the majority of my shots were goals then Brother Lewis would buy me a milkshake. If Brian blocked more shots than I would make then he would get a milkshake. So to be honest I expected us not to win, because Johansen hasn't literally lost a league game since 2006, and they've been consistently mopping the floor with us. All I cared about was that I won the bet and got the milkshake. Well, I am pleased to announce to everybody that not only did I win the bet, but WE BEAT JOHANSEN!!!!!! Seriously the score was 8-11! Not only did we beat these punks but we led the entire game, they never caught up! By the way my Dad is a very, very cool guy; He took this picture of my "victory goal" (I call it the victory goal because it's the goal that allowed me to win the bet).

I am white cap # 13, the same cap number that Garit wore proudly when he played Water Polo for Downey. Anyway, I was 1/1 in this game so I'll have to arrange a time so that Brother Lewis can buy me a milkshake. Man oh man was I sooooo happy when we won, but you can see that for yourself, but that's not the end though: We went on to beat both Ceres (the score was 9-10, I didn't score) and Davis (8-17, in this game however I did score.)

So now I move on to Scouts. A week from today (I'm writing this post on Sunday) I had a board of review for my Life Rank, AND PASSED! Right before October 8th too! The importance of October 8th is that in order to be an Eagle Scout I have to be a Life Scout for 6 months, and once I turn 18, that's it. So right now I'm on a deadline to get my Eagle done. I have 10 merit badges to go, plus a project, and I have to do all of this before April 8th. Wish me luck!

So on Saturday I took the SAT for the first time. It was not fun at all! The test was literally 5 hours long and there was a lot of math! I'll probably have to take it again though, and I missed the early Saturday morning session of General Conference. It's a great thing that we have a DVR and that I know how to work it! So I'll get a chance to watch it. Speaking of conference I'd like to know all of your thoughts about it. Sad to say I felt my attention span waning and I didn't pay as much attention as I ought to. Oh well, once again thank goodness for the DVR right?

So before I end this post I'd like to give my thoughts about the upcoming week.

First off, I won't, and I haven't been having, have Tae Kwon Do to go to but I still have to work on my Eagle now, and time is severely of the essence now.

Second I still have Water Polo practice and now I'm about to enter the second half of the season where we start playing everybody else for the second time, and on Thursday we'll have a chance to take out Modesto. For me this second half of the season will be the last time that I'll be playing Water Polo for Downey.

Third, I'll probably have to re-take the SAT (not looking forward to that) and I still have to take the ACT, once again I am not looking forward to that.

Fourth, I ask for your prayers concerning this nasty procrastination cycle that I've gotten into. I have been pathetically lazy and things aren't turning out as well. The Lord has been helping me a bunch, by having teachers push back their due dates on assignments and not checking our homework, but as the saying goes "God helps those that help themselves".

Anyway I love you all and I hope that life for whoever is reading this is a blast and I hope to see you soon! Love, Grant