//blog42

/Kyle really likes playing the guitar. However, this wasn’t always the case. He used to take piano lessons when he was in grade school for around 4 years but he soon lost interest and quit. He played trombone for a year in grade 6 but he didn’t like that either and quit playing any instrument until grade 10. His parents were trying to convince him that an instrument was a good thing to learn. At first he was uncertain but then he decided to learn guitar. It just so happened that a new guitar teacher in Kyle’s home town was looking for students. Kyle took advantage of this great offer and started his lessons. He began playing how any other person would start playing, sounding really bad. Kyle didn’t seem to understand that everyone started out sounding bad and so he got discouraged. The first year of his lessons went by slowly for him and he hardly practised and didn’t really enjoy it because he felt he wasn’t making any progress. If it wasn’t for his mom who gently pressured him into taking another year, he probably would have been done after his first. The second year went by better and Kyle began to see how much of an improvement he was since he first started. Soon he was in his third year of lessons and he was finally starting to enjoy the guitar. He still wasn’t the best but he was having fun playing songs and he was always excited when a song actually started sounding like it was supposed to. Now that he is away at Providence College, he has learned how much he actually loves playing the guitar. He can often be found in his dorm playing guitar quietly (sometimes too loud) to himself and just enjoying the fact that he can make music.

//endofblog42

//blog41

/Oh man, exams are coming up. This will be my first college style exams so I have no idea what to expect. Sure I can go by the mid-term exams but I have no idea how much to expect to be on one of these exams. This kind of feels like high school all over again. I remember when I first wrote an exam and I thought it was the worst thing in the world. Now I feel that way about college exams, even though I chose to be here and am not being told I have to take the classes I am taking. I hope I do as good as what I did on my high school exams. Somehow I think these will be a bit harder.

//endofblog41

//blog40

/A dorm wide dance off may sound kind of silly, but it was actually really fun. At first I didn’t want to go so I put the idea out of my mind and just went about my day without thinking about a costume that people attending the dance off are supposed to wear. Then, half an hour until the event begins, I decide that I want to go. So me and the rest of the guys from my dorm quickly wrapped me up in toilet paper and duct tape and I went off to the dance off. It turned out to be an awesome time and I am so glad I went. It is awesome that the RA’s and other leaders put these events together.

//endofblog40

//blog39

/His legs feel like they are about to collapse. He can hardly focus on one thing because everything seems fabricated somehow. He finds it hard to judge distances and finds his depth perception feels off. This is how Kyle Bergman feels before every basketball game.

/It is the first game of his senior year at Morden Colligate Institute. It just so happens that his team’s first game lands up being an away game, which isn’t that much of a difference from home games since the same handful of people (mostly parents) would come to watch a home game anyway. These thoughts didn’t help Kyle’s situation so he pushed them aside. He needed to concentrate on shaking off all the feelings he had now that seemed to prevent him from making any successful shots or even run properly. Sure he has played basketball before, but he has never felt this way during warm up for a game. It felt like he was viewing everything through a television so that when anyone spoke to him it took him a few seconds to realize they were addressing him.

/He knew all of this was just the nervousness before a game but what really bugged him was that no one else on the team seemed to feel this way. Everyone else seemed so be running with energy and making shots with accuracy that were of normal standards. Then he began to see subtleties that gave away the real truth about everyone else and their state of mind. He noticed beads of sweat collecting on someone’s brow when they hadn’t done enough activity to break a sweat. He also noticed solemn faces on those who were normally grinning and joking. In fact, now that he was watching for it, he noticed pretty much everyone was displaying some sort of nervousness. Somehow this made Kyle feel a bit better to know that his team mates were feeling the same things he was.

/Five minutes to game time and Kyle’s shaky legs take him to his team’s bench to hear the coach’s pregame words and strategies. He still feels separated from reality but things seem to snap back into focus as soon as the coach says that he is going to be starting the game on the court.

/ Kyle may feel better now that he feels re-connected to reality but the excitement just builds as he strides onto the court with his team of five. They all spread out in their standard formation for the start of the game tip off. The two tallest players from both teams meet in the middle of the court, towering over the official who has the job of tossing the ball. Kyle feels the tension on the court build as the two competitors in the center crouch, ready for the sudden movement of the basketball that would start the game. Suddenly Kyle’s legs feel like they might just bend in on themselves and felt like his chest might explode. He starts worrying he might forget plays, he might miss all his shots, might fall right on his face, might...Suddenly the ball is in the air! Kyle’s body takes over and all previous fears, doubts, and ailments fall away as he begins his game with his team. Nothing mattered now that the game started; all he needed to do was play.

//endofblog39

//blog38

/I have had a pretty easy semester so far here at Prov. I thought it was going to be a bit busier but I am surprised at how much down time I have. That is about to change. I looked at my schedule and realized we have a very small amount of classes left till the end of the semester. I also have a few papers due along with all the smaller assignments I have to do for all my classes. The worst thing is that I will probably not any of it until the week it is due.

//endofblog38

//blog37

/Today for our care group we got to play some Nintendo Wii games. I don’t know what beating on each other on “Super Smash Bros Brawl” has to do with caring but I guess it could fall under a dorm bonding activity. If you didn’t know, this game is the newest game in the “Super Smash Bros” series where you basically bash the other characters off the small platforms and the one left standing at the end wins. I would like to say I am a master at the game but the simple truth is that I’m not. But considering I haven’t really played the Wii at all I think I did pretty good.

//endofblog37

//blog37

/I said that coming home for the weekend was awesome and I still hold to that. One more thing I would like to say about coming home is the ride itself. I enjoy the time I get alone in a world with 6 billion other people so anytime by myself is a miracle in itself. Just me in my car with my music blasting is the most relaxing thing I experience all week. I just consider myself lucky I didn’t fall asleep at the wheel. An hour and a half on the road with some tunes is the perfect start to a weekend of rest and relaxation.

//endofblog37

//blog36

/My tooth is hurting. This is a big deal to me because I have a big case of Dentophobia. This is a fear of dentists if you didn’t know already and is something I have always had. In fact, anything metal touching my teeth, such as a fork at lunch, has the same effects on me as someone scraping their nails across a chalk board. So you can see that a dentist with their metal prongs and pokey objects would be something to avoid if you were me. Now with my hurting tooth, I will be forced to make a trip to the dentist so they can poke around in my mouth while I ring my hands in agony and sweat in their big comfy chairs.

//endofblog36

//blog35

/I have an exam tomorrow. It is at 3:20 and it in the class Introduction to the Bible and Christian Theology. My last exam didn’t go too well so I am trying to study more for this one, “trying” being the key word. I don’t know what it is that is so hard about studying. I guess it is the fact that I could be doing so much other stuff that is a lot more fun. Right now I feel as prepared as I did for the last exam which is not that prepared at all. Oh well, I have all of tomorrow to study too.

//endofblog35

//blog 34

/Over the last year of high school my pair of basketball shoes wrecked. I wore them all through high school so it only made sense that they would wreck after 4 years of hard use. I then decided to get some indoor, all purpose shoes because I wasn’t planning on playing basket ball in college. I got some Nike shoes that were really nice and I didn’t get cheap ones because I wanted them to last a long time. I only got to wear them around 6 times before the bottom of them started to fall apart! I am now kind of sad that they are breaking but I will try to fix them with shoe glue or I might try to return them. Either way they are not my new shoes anymore. Oh well, there will always be more shoes.

//endofblog34

//blog33

/Watching Star Wars again brings back memories from grade school. Me and a friend would get hooked on them and watch them together with lots of junk food. That’s what I am doing now years later; sitting in my dorm room watching Star Wars with some friends; eating ketchup chips. I feel really nerdy and kind of silly but these movies are pretty good so I will continue to watch them. Episode II is almost halfway done so I will turn my attention back to the movie.

//endofblog33

//blog32

/Today’s entry will be in the form of an obituary. I was asked to do this for a class and since I have not had someone pass away in my family or close friends for a long time, I will do one for one of my cats. I do really like my cats so this is in no means a joke.

/Mr. Anderson, a small grey tabby cat, barely 4 months old died in September 2009. He was a very pleasant cat and never fussed too much only when he wanted food. He was also very curious that trait eventually became his undoing when a vehicle in reverse ended his short life just a short 10 minute drive out of Morden, Manitoba.

/Early in July a litter of kittens were born on a farm outside of Morden. There were 4 kittens in total and since there were 4 children in my family we each got to name one. I chose the only male cat and named him Mr. Anderson. It was interesting watching him grow because he started off barely able to move and soon grew to eat hard cat food. Even though my two younger sisters had cats of their own they always said that Mr. Anderson was the cutest. There is only one of the four cats of Mr. Anderson’s litter left living at the farm outside of Morden, the other two cats being deceased or missing. The mother cat is still alive and healthy living at the farm. Even though there have been many cats that have come through the farm, Mr. Anderson will be missed and remembered as an individual cat.

//endofblog32

//blog31

/Today my roommate and I rearranged our room so that now we have so much room for activities! Before the big move my roommate took up over half of the room and I never said anything. Then I had a bright idea today that would give us equal room and make both of us happy. So we dusted off our thinking caps and started playing the fun game of trying to move furniture around in a space that they barely fit in to begin with. In the end it worked our alright and after only a minor injury to our fan the room was complete. Thus ends the first, but not last, blog written in a new and improved room.

//endofblog31

//blog30

/All last week I was struggling to come up with an idea for an essay proposal I had to write for one of my media classes that was due this week. The topic I originally came up with was something I was really interested in but since the final paper had to be 7 to 8 pages, I wasn’t sure if there would be enough information for my topic. The paper is due tomorrow so I cut it really close when I waited until today to go and discuss this with my professor. I am really glad I did because he gave me some really good ideas and now I am actually excited to get a start on my paper since I know I will have enough information.

//endofblog30