I haven't blogged in awhile. I'm going to try to give a little background so you can try to understand where I'm coming from a little so were going to go back a few years. This is what I like to consider my all American boy self, and the most well rounded I was very well balanced, excellent in school, excellent in sports, excellent with friends, and yes excellent at halo as well. The order pretty much did first things first in that exact order I was getting everything done in that list no questions asked. 4.0 GPA and I'd sneak in a solid 3 hours of gaming every night. 9th Grade: Priorities 1st. School 2nd. Sports 3rd. Girls 4th. Friends 5th. Halo Fast Forward to 10th grade and the priorities had quickly changed. Suddenly, my priorities began to blend, I was no longer taking sports as serious in that my competitive drive was being filled by halo now, school was very important still and I still managed a great GPA. However I remember a period of time kid you not where this was my schedule. Go to School at 7:30 A.M-2-30 A.M I had wrestling class at 1:30 so I'd wrestle from 1:30-6:00, I would then precede to game from 6:30P.M-2A.M, wake up at 6A.M and do homework for an hour and a half. I did this for about a month before the stress had overtaken me and I had finally to give up my passion for wrestling. (I was a really good wrestler, and now kinda wish I would have kept going, I had a decent chance to become a state champ had I continued.) When I quit midway through the season everyone was shocked, little did they know I was pursing a different dream, to become a MLG Pro Gamer. I then began to game non-stop with Victory along myside, on our i JL i tags standing for Justice League. We ran hardcore and were the highest levels in it by quite a margin. My halo career continued magnificently right on to junior year. 11th Grade Priorities: 1st Halo 2nd School 3rd Friends This was the era of "The Agency" My mind had found its goal, and I shoved the lever into full speed. "Top 3 at Meadowlands 2007" This was great time in my life I knew exactly what I wanted to do and was doing it. All of my time was spent maintaing a 3.5 Average and you guess it on halo. literally I don't think I've ever been so inspired to do anything in my life. My best friends were no longer average names like Bryan, Alex, Paul. They had been replaced by names that resembled Gods, and War efforts. Victory X, ElamiteWarrior, SK Halogod v2. They were my family. Our goal of top 3 was achieved quite easily. I still don't really know why I broke up that team, greed gets the best of us. However by the time Naded had joined the team I began to reset my priorities a tad which I felt was for the better. They resembled my 9th grade a little bit more. 12th Grade priorities 1st. Cross Country (captain) 2nd School 3rd Girls/friends 4th Halo Fun Fact: Just because halo is further down on the list does not necessarily mean your playing worse, I tend to think it makes you play better. So the off season began after 2007, Me and my boy Victory were looking for 2, I had just finished cross country which was definitely one of the best experiences I've ever had in my life. ( I had to miss toronto due to CC State Finals) I was feeling great I had tons of friends, smoking school, and averaging about 7 miles a day. + I had halo. I had really liked lunchbox and Roy and thought they were great people(not so sure about their halo skills) ha jk Jason and Justin. So as the event neared I know this is going to sound stupid but I was sorta forced to go on spring break with my senior class. (I really just wanted to game hard and prepare for the event.) Well guess what Spring break was alot more fun than I could have guessed, it did give me a completely different outlook on what I had been giving up for halo the past year or 2. I was then rushed into the str8 lan before the tourney. It was alot of fun, and yes it was kinda weird because I hadent played in 2 weeks and felt outta the halo loop. However I was performing pretty stellar like. The tourney came and passed we placed 3rd, altho we felt we coulda placed better. This is where things start heading down hill for me for a little while. Prom Night: Ends up kinda being gay. Prom Morning: Victory Leaves (makes me an unhappy camper) I'm now pissed at the world, screw girls, screw Victory, screw everything. Graduation:Moving on, when I'm not to excited to be. I have to make a choice which college I go to Either A. Western sorta the safe route, I have alot of friends going their, less hard of a school, more time to socialize, get better grades, and more time for halo. B. Miami University Great school, don't know anyone, gotta be ready to grow, adapt, and work my ass off. I end up picking Miami for the fact its such a great school and a great opportunity and a fresh start for me. The one downside was that I was going to have to miss the welcome weekend due to Toronto :( I basically then go into hibernation mode for the summer even tho that prolly the worst thing I could be doing and I just start playing halo aton because its somthing to do, not because I wanted to, because everything else had been going shitty. San Diego we end up placing amazing which I did not suspect to, I was not playing some of my best halo at all prolly some of my worst, I missed Victory and really felt that we could yes be the team to beat with Me Victory Roy and Lunch. So we end up making the trade. However, we had quite the disappointing Orlando tournament for us, no one performed to their ability. Then the whole FB Fiasco happens, Really don't know why I left Instinct a team we had built together and felt so confident with, yet again Greed grabbed ahold of me and I left. Altho everything else in my life seemed to not be going amazing atleast I was getting good offers from halo, what I was focusing on. Well guess what, the team I joined FB and left my good ole buddy ole pals at Instinct I got booted from a day and a half after. My world was turned up side down. It was all I was currently doing during the summer and I had just laid myself out on the line to be destroyed. I then ended up abandoning victory to try to save somthing of this terrible summer and joined triggers down. I continued to game non-stop drinking energy drink after energy drink, getting little sleep gaming non-stop. Altho true, I really didn't feel like playing, and I was just mad at life and Final Boss more than anything. Toronto ends up being a disaster, I played pretty average, I had the weight of knowing I was going to be thrown into college unprepared, and a whole new world when I had closed myself out of everything. Toronto ends horribly and I have to drive that night 10 hours to Miami University. On that way I wanted to still have halo apart of my life, but I really missed my good friend Victory, I knew that this season was shot, and I was going to have to focus on my school, and if I was teaming with Victory atleast their would be somthing salvageable. I get into college life, back into school, guess what its fun, my mind gets off halo for awhile maybe a bit to much, we end up losing game 5 for top 4 to ambush which was really disheartening in Dallas. I had been excelling greatly at my grades but I had been falling to the devil of partying and slacking off. By the time Vegas came rolling around I was super far behind in school, was pretty upset with myself and had began to start sealing myself off from the world again. Vegas was approaching and I couldent get myself to care about much of anything, I felt crappy about school mainly and that corresponded on my halo and all other parts of my life. The str8 lan came and I had 0 Motivation I was checked out, I didn't want to play halo I didn't want to go to school I was so overwhelmed and saw no way out. It was like a dark cloud was over me. I could only see one solution, and that was to withdraw from my first semester at Miami. I couldn't believe that was even on my mind if I had looked at myself from 4 years ago I would not have believed it in a million years. However, even if I withdrew I didn't want to play halo, I just wanted to lie in a corner. luckily the str8 members pushed me to game and woulden't allow me to lie in a corner even tho I wanted to lol. Vegas came and I had basically blocked school outta my mind for the time being. I played a pretty good tournament, then real life came back and hit me like a sledgehammer. I felt like lieing in a corner again after talking it over with my mom and dad they let me come home and I had withdrawn from my first semester at Miami. I then had 2 months of nothingness, baiscally to dwell on what I had screwd up on, which I felt like definitiely didnt help me. Luckily my dad is very caring father and talked with Miami to see if their was anything they could do because some complications had happen while I was their. We worked out a deal where I could make up the credits during 2nd semester which was going to be a pretty rough 2nd semester. Now my life involved school again at home, where I had a good base. It's been tough but I started to plant many seeds none of which had grown yet, my life started to come together again. Exercise, School, Girls, Friends, Halo all began to bloom again, I'm still on a journey but it's crazy how far I've come in these last few months it feels like all parts of my life are beginning to return and each day I can see my improvements. I'll tie this back to halo now. When I felt like lying in a corner, I could not play halo. Period. I was not engaged, nor did I care about it. Now that I am getting back into a normal life, when I start to play halo it's fun again and I care about what others think. I want to succeed, and see the seeds I plant bloom. I'm still growing and am not outta the dark yet, I've got to continue working hard and I do think that a more well rounded life is essential for me. I wanted to write this blog just because I feel like this has been a tough last year for me and I just felt like getting it off my chest somewhere, I figured what better place than the MLG? Looking forward: I'm really excited with my new team Final Boss, practice is a t on of fun and I think we stand a real chance at meadowlands and I hope to see you their. P.S GO FINAL BOSS!!!!! P.S.S Thank you to my mom and my brother during those rough times.