A Tease with Feelings About Baseball =P

Note: this is one of the more unorganized stream-of-conscious blogs I've written in awhile, heh heh.

I wonder if people put me over the same way I put them over. Like I was describing what good people my friends were to a friend, and I was thinking, Do they talk about me in the same way? I would sure hope so, even though it sounds vain, but there's no real way of knowing. I guess the only answer would be to keep being the best person I can be and learn from my experiences.

Awkward yet fun time at Tapas the other night. I was kinda expecting it to be a bust because a lot of my friends that came last time couldn't make it this time, and there ended up being no dance battle (which I love doing). I ended up dancing with this one girl who asked me some pretty weird questions like "How tall are you? How many people do you know here? Have you heard of Outkast?" It was kinda awkward, but at the same time fun getting to know new people. Next time Ace-man or JG will show up and we'll battle all those crazy Filipino kids, haha ;).

Some of my favorite memories of Boys and Girls Club have been on the baseball field. Watching Alvaro hit the first homerun in his life was special. Seeing BJ grow from an inexperienced kid to one of the best players on the team was magical. Working with Adrian to become a kid who couldn't field a single ground ball become the best second baseman I had on the team. Jimmy pitching a complete game shutout, striking out all but one batter was simply amazing. These memories will stick with me forever because they brought them to me as well as I brought them to them. I helped them grow, realize their potential, and bring it to fruition. After watching the effect I had on these kids and winning the RBI Championship with them, I knew that coaching baseball is something I definitely love. When my boss (Josh) brought me in to work at Alamitos, it was a given that I was going to be the new baseball coach. I wanted to turn around the program that had a lackluster previous year and turn it into something that could compete with the best. We more than surpassed my expectations by winning all our games but one and forming a team bond that those kids will remember for years to come. Even the kids that crawled under my skin and made the job more difficult than it should have been were all smiles and asking to come back when it was over. Needless to say, I've been excited for this upcoming baseball season all year. Today my boss tells me that we are going to have to choose between having a baseball team or a softball team (because there is not enough buses). This is ridiculous, and my coworker that wants to coach the softball team doesn't seem like she is willing to give up that position even though my team one the championship last year and she has never coached softball. I have no hard feelings on her but on the position I am in. I'm a nice enough guy to concede a team to someone who really wants it, but not baseball. I took on the soccer team this winter because none of the other staff would. I sacrificed coaching my favorite team of basketball players to coach soccer players that lack a lot of respect (no disrespect to my team, it's just that they've never had the structure of being on a team before, they don't know how to handle it just yet). I took one for the team, and with all the great memories I have of RBI Baseball, I am not willing to give up on my baseball team that easily. In fact, I am not willing to give up at all. Coaching baseball was one of the big reasons I moved up from elementary to the junior high level. If I'm not going to be able to coach the one sport I've been brought in to coach, I don't know how I would react to that. I think I would feel pretty heart-broken and mistreated. I know what you're thinking: it's just a sport, it's just a job. To me it's more than that. I feel I've sacrificed a lot for my coworkers, picking up the slack when someone doesn't carry their weight, or doing something I don't want to do for the better of the team. It also sucks that I've taken ONE day off the ENTIRE time I've been with Boys and Girls Club, and can't get a day off for sure when I ask for it two months in advance (I know I'm the lead so I need to be there, but still...one day...). I dunno, I'm not mad or anything, I just needed this rant so it wouldn't spill out of me later. I wish I could have talked about it tonight, but alas twas never meant to be.

I need to clarify some things with some of my friends. It would be fun to have some nice conversations with a couple of them I haven't talked to in awhile =)

I know I've gone over this before, but I'm starting to think how people perceive me again. I think people consider me a tease because I like to flirt/compliment girls a lot the first time I meet them, it seems to be my way of breaking the ice, but I'm not trying to do anything more than get to know them. I wonder how I come across to most girls that I meet for the first time. Do I seem more like "Heyyy baby," or more like "Hey, howdy"? =P

Btw, House Warming (Warm House) at Shawshank was great tonight. Good potluck and Cranium. I'm glad Scuba is getting the chance to meet all my Liwanag friends; they're really good people. =D