It's the Anticipation That Kills

UPDATE: So, I lied. Never got a chance to type everything up… sorry about that.
-AP

So this past week I have been spending... well, freaking out. I have noticed that as soon as we get into summer, I have this semi schizophrenic mode that I switch into. I go inside and outside, inside and outside, and quite frankly my mother gets quite flustered with this constant in and out thing.

Most of all though, this week's flusteredness has come from preparations for next week's adventure... JLT. Basically, I am going to be throwing myself into the woods for a week to get Junior Leadership Training.

The eventual hope is that this week-in-the woods will magically make me a better leader and person. I believe the latter completely. My mission, if I get anything out of this, would be to become a better person.

So with this I am announcing a hiatus, with a catch. Starting today, I will be on hiatus until July 1st. While at camp (I have summer camp the week following) I will write one mock-post reflection thing per day. These will be typed up and published on the week of July the 9th. They will be posted two per day (depending if I actually can write everyday) during that week, as to avoid my brief July hiatus due to me wanting a break from everything.

I invite you to take a look back at the past year or so of my posts, to catch up on things, and I hope to be back with fresh stuff in July... including possibly posts on an Eagle Project???

Writing about Romeo, Pip, oh and it's SUMMER

That title means a few things. For one, my blogposts will not be regular until July. Sorry about that, but I have obligations to places all over, and have to meet certain ones.

So this past Thursday marked the last day of my Freshman year at Carlynton. I now get to embark on a semi-needed vacation from classroom work and the sort. My post today, however will be about the two days prior to the last day, and the day after that. On the first day of finals, we took a final for English. On top of it being unreasonably long, it included an essay referencing Romeo and Juliet and my favourite novel of all time, the great Charles Dickens' Great Expectations (Sarcasm Much?).

The prompt was asking to compare and contrast their views on love. Now if I had about four hours and a blogpost-esque format, I would begin by questioning What Is Love and Am I Qualified to answer that? But I didn't, so I didn't. (Sidenote: I just searched my blog for instances of the word "love" and it's like 15 posts... I think that deserves a medal or something... I have a feeling that I will just keep adding to it subconsciously.)

Instead I took on the analysis of Romeo's quick-to-love personality of being a Petrarchian Lover (Yay Context Clues making things redundant) and Pip's My-First-Love-Is-My-Only ideaology. Granted, Pip attempts to catch Biddy on the rebound and finds she is going to marry his adopted father (Weird Much?) [I am not ruining the plotline, there is none]

Anyway, I went into how different yet alike their styles were, and talked about how neither one ended up too well in the end. In retrospect, Romeo's rebound to Juliet wasn't exactly the best idea considering he is dead at this point.

The Moral? Don't go all out for trying to rebound love, and love in general hurts.

Delving further with a friend, I was talking about the topic of Romeo and Juliet. She brought up the thought that unconditional love is the thing that bound Romeo and Juliet together, and something that is dead. or at least dying.

I happen to disagree with that theory. I believe that true unconditional love is something that is rare, but in reality just as rare as it was in Shakespeare's time. Granted, we now have more distractions to blame for stuff, but it is just as alive as it was.

To be totally honest, I had no clue where that post was going. I am going to aim to make the next one about Microfilm and my Research Adventure(s).

Don't Know What to Write... CENTRALIA and WCHS

So the day before the day before yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of Centralia... and it's still burning!

Okay, so back story... Like 50 years ago (Wooh anniversaries making dates easier to remember things) there was a mine in a Pennsylvania town called Centralia. Technically, it's still there, but the town isn't.

In an abandoned part of the mine, they used to put garbage there as a dump. One night (fifty years ago) some genius either set the garbage on fire or it caught fire. Bottom line, the trash started burning in the mine. It caught the junk coal on fire, and next thing you know, everything under Centralia catches fire.

Due to health concerns, everyone had to leave Centralia, and the town is left to the weeds. It's quite eerie from what I gather. However, the fire is still burning. If you want to hear more of a brief history, click here: http://www.damninteresting.com/the-smoldering-ruins-of-centralia/

This week was also the week where we said good-bye to (in my opinion) the best crew WCHS [Morning Announcements] has had in a long time. Our anchors and sound girl graduated from high school. I first met the anchors two years ago when I started the announcements as a sound guy. Back then, we had a switching crew every month, and a total of four anchors that rotated. The two that stuck were the ones that had stayed this past year.

To say I've gotten to know them was an understatement. I was involved with chorus and the musical with these guys, and they have been all-around awesome people to work with. One is studying to enter seminary to become a Catholic Priest.

On their last day, I ran video board like I had the whole year. I asked them right before we went on air, like always, "You guys ready?" They hesitated, and then said "Yeah..." And that crew launched into the history books. I asked what the priest-in-study had in the way of words of wisdom when we had gone off air. He responded simply with: "Wake up each morning and thank God for being able to wake up." Simple, yet profound.

I took over anchoring the next day with my friend Dave Wovchko (Yeah, that Dave...) who will anchor next year. To say it was strange being on the other side of a camera is saying the least. I wasn't fully prepared to take the chairs the two senior had occupied just 24 hours previously, but we did anyway.

I have hope for this coming year, but at the same time I know it'll be different then it was. But in the end, I guess everything goes on... people never stop and freeze like Centralia. The people there moved on, and so must we.

On the Rank of Life...

So I came to the realization today that the Scoutmaster Conference that I just passed for the rank of Life is the last regular Scoutmaster Conference, well, ever.

Let me explain a few things. First off, a Scoutmaster Conference is the scout-equivalent to a military performance review. Essentially, your boss (Scoutmaster) goes over your accomplishments, or lack thereof, and then decides if you can be promoted to the next rank.

The ranks are posted in a picture next to these words... Essentially you start as a newbie and get to life (Where I am about to be at) and then Eagle.

So why do I say regular? For Eagle, a scoutmaster conference is essentially the troop's main representative's parting words to you. Let's be totally honest here, most Eagles don't stay hugely active within the troop. (I am planning on sticking around until I can instill wisdom and the sort... but who knows?). A Board of Review is essentially a panel interview version of a Scoutmaster Conference with other troop leaders. The aim is to satisfy a panel of troop leaders that you have the right stuff---character, work ethic, personality, et cetera---to represent a troop, and get on the right path yourself.

For the rank of Eagle, one hand-selects his board. If you have a group of leaders whom you feel would represent you well, or at least know you well enough to put their name on an application (Did I mention only 2.1 Million Scouts have ever made Eagle).

So back to what it all means. In order to rank-up, you must prove yourself worthy to get it.

This past Sunday we had a Memorial Day Parade. Every group who was anyone---Civil War Re-enactors, Local TV crews, Military personnel---shows up to this parade. We had a grand total of five scouts show up. Now I understand that there are people who have plans and whatnot... but seriously, only five?

This reminds me of two things. Number one, today's youth doesn't value citizenship nor doing what's good for others (our membership is down to like 15, so about 1/3 of a showing is pretty good in my eyes).

Number two, the trail to Eagle is very much a personal journey. It is kind of like religion in the sense of getting closer to a greater good, yet at the same time, it focuses on self-improvement.

No group gets you Eagle. You make those connections and create the group yourself. You meet fantastic people, and gain connections and references otherwise unattainable.This, my dear readers, is how you EARN an Eagle. You get as much out of this as you put in...

On a side note, without scouts I probably wouldn't have gotten into blogging, and this wouldn't exist...

Becoming Attached to Being Detached

So I spent this weekend (or at least the part that went from Thursday until Saturday) up at my grandparents' camp. They have this neat little trailer in a campground {it's called a CAMPING RESORT} off of I-80 where on occasion I will make my way to spend a weekend.

The cool part about camp is that it has all of the comforts of a home and the welcomed inconveniences of a camp... Let me explain that.

You see, because it is a trailer and not in a tent that could collapse due to your poor plan, and therefore not scout camping (Did I mention off of I-80... not exactly out of civilization either) it isn't exactly "camping" per sey. However, you spend 90% of your day outside either chilling around a fire (CAMPS!) or on a golf cart (preferred method of transportation), so is somewhere in the middle...

The inconveniences are quite minute. You don't have internet connection, or care too much about getting back to phone calls/texts (unless it is something important). The loss of internet is actually a tad welcome. I don't need to answer emails or worry about keeping up-to-date with a friend at school or whatever.

It is kind of addicting... just relaxing being care-free. You certainly aren't home, but sometimes it feels like one.

Sorry for the brevity of this post... With finals coming up and all, it is getting crazy here. I may post again before the weekend is out...

Stories, and Projects, and Some Cemeteries

I recently posted a thing on my Facebook account along the lines of complaining that I can't use the same name for all of my projects. Writress Lana Meyer commented that I should just begin calling everything "The Projects." Lana, this is for you.

So Wednesday I spent a few hours at our Scout Group's chartered organization's Cemetery somewhere in Collierish Township. There were like 8 of us painting this fence with a stain that now stains my work jeans.

Friday I spent on an island in the middle of the Parkway West right outside of the Fort Pitt Tunnels planting flowers. Our honor society has this strange tradition of doing this... as well as dragging along all 80 of us. Later that day I worked lighting and stage for a production at school.

Saturday morning I spent with my scout troop out at Chartiers Cemetery at the GAR Plot. For those keeping score at home, I have been working with the local Civil War reenactor group for about a year and a half now, and last year we started this annual Memorial Day project of cleaning up the GAR plot as well as shining up the monument and planting flowers.

The reenactor group had raised money to have the headstones that had sunk into the ground re-set, and as a result, the bottoms of the headstones were dirty. A few of us scrubbed off the dirt and generally made the headstones easier to read.

We also planted flowers at the graves of all of the veterans, as well as generically cleaned up stuff.

I took on the long task of placing a flag at each of the 120-something veterans' graves. I thought this was cool---a Boy Scout laying flags at the graves of the Union soldiers who after the war fought to get an American flag in every public classroom. I also (being my egotistical self) thought... now what would they think? Then it donned on me---a lot of the veterans died before the Scouting Movement started in the US. So, in a strange way, it came full circle.

I also took a pilgrimage around the cemetery containing a PA governor, Myron Cope, a monument to a fatality of the Titanic, and a fatality of a Flood in either California or Florida. Looking around at all of the graves brought me back to John Green video (which can be found here) about going to see a cemetery.

In short, it is amazing to look around and admire those who had gone before you, and to those you don't know... just imagining their stories.

Cemeteries fascinate me just as much as they disturb me. I love to look at the names and imagine the stories, but when you look at the permanence of it all, and the thought that you too will become one of those lost stories... it's unnerving.

But at the same time, in the end, it fascinates me. The least I can do for these people whom I never met nor will ever meet is to place a flag at his grave, or maybe plant a flower, or even read their name aloud.

Brief Bonus Blog Post Fun Time!

So this past week, shortly before I wrote the post of the week, I wrote a little reflection of sorts on Bishop Daniel coming to Slickville. They published it on the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America's homepage. I am an internationally published author. This is kind of awesome.

Read the Original Here: http://uocofusa.org/news_120512_2.html

Or, Read the Text Version Here:

UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH OF THE USA

CONSISTORY OFFICE OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

PRESS RELEASE

Archpastoral Visit to Slickville, PA!
By Alexander Popichak

I am the teenage son of an Orthodox priest serving the quiet village of Slickville, Pennsylvania. Not many things come in the way of excitement to the mining town of less than three hundred, so when His Grace Bishop Daniel visited Holy Ghost Ukrainian Orthodox Church on May the 6th, he was welcomed as only Slickville could, with a buzz of excitement and open arms. When our parish president greeted His Grace with the traditional gifts of bread and salt, Bishop Daniel had said that he had never visited Slickville, but was glad to finally be visiting for the first time.

Shortly after, Divine Liturgy was served with four students of St. Sophia Ukrainian Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Bound Brook, NJ, Subdeacons Vasyl and Andriy, seminarians Yuri, and Ivan, who Bishop Daniel brought along with him, as well as two altar boys and parish pastor Father Robert Popichak.

The average age of our Slickville parish is around over 50, and the youth and energy demonstrated by four seminarians gave those in attendance a sense of hope for the present and future of the Orthodox Church as a whole.

I included this because I took
This picture myself...

After giving a brief talk about his personal history in the church, His Grace took a picture with our entire church family. We welcomed him, as well as his seminarians downstairs for a coffee social hour. Bishop Daniel was touched by the outpouring of hospitality our humble parish gave, and in response made it his mission to hug everyone there. The bishop and the seminarians were sent on their way eastward with bags of goodies, and muffins galore. Our parish family is extremely grateful for the visit, and can’t wait for His Grace Bishop Daniel to stop by again!

Originally Posted on May 12, 2012 at http://uocofusa.org/news_120512_2.html The Article was written by Alexander Popichak for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the United States of America.

Re(ImagiNATION) (a Two-Parter)

This part two of a two part post... see the one right before this to know what you missed (I doubt you missed much)

SO I wanted to reserve a separate post for my final thoughts on the first Re(ImagiNATION).

For those of you who don't know what that was, it was a high school band competition that my group at WYEP (Re(Imagine) Media) held back on May 5th 2012 at Schenley Plaza. I, as well as Neil, Mark, Ally, Alyssa, Sammie, Molly, Gabriela, Meg, and the rest of Re(Imagine) Media crew emceed the event introducing bands as well as putting into words what we do every other Saturday. Now you should be able to follow the rest.

Packing the Plaza

I got there about two hours before the start, and I am immediately handed this V-Neck t-shirt to wear as uniform for the event. Armed with this new-found (rather low-cut tshirt for my taste) uniform and some energy, I teamed up with one my friends to help publicize the event on the street with Frisbees. It was interesting, to say the least, explaining our event to people, however we packed the little gazebo-esque thing that is Schenley Plaza and began a freaking-awesome band competition.

T-B: Ripe For Theft,
Samj ft. Chuck Deze
Mos Lov, Jordan Montgomery, and
Jupiter Sampson
Hat Co.
Mount Royal

We kicked off with this group called Ripe For Theft with member Alex Zukoff (A friend of mine from WYEP as well as other places) and just like that all five acts flew by. We were entertained by a duo Samj ft. Chuck Deze whom I got to meet beforehand backstage. Chuck was a really nice guy, who gave me insight into his stage name. He had told me that in football, his nickname was "Chuck Diesel." One day, the gentleman who started it shortened it to just "Deze" and Chuck Deze was born.

We also met a group called Mount Royal (also quite nice) as well as rappers Jupiter Sampson and Jordan Montgomery and DJ MosLov. We met a school group called Hat Co from Hope Academy.

As all of this band awesomeness was going on, there were activities such as sidewalk chalk drawing, spray-painting a community canvas (Shoutout to Sammie for coming up with that one!) oh and there was a green room.

WYEP is a place that instead of being built of like bricks and stuff, is built of pure awesome. They built us a little WYEP tent to use at the plaza as a freaking GREEN ROOM! Essentially, us emcees got to hang out with the bands performing (did I mention these were bands that our group picked as a top 5 to play at this event to start with‽‽‽). To say the least, I was psyched.

The event's actual winnings was judged by professionals, and the winner receives a press kit, studio time to record a three song ep, and the title of first winner of the first-ever Re(ImagiNATION).

Mount Royal came out on top. However, each of the bands received a mentorship with a local artist.

I took turns co-emceeing with the fabulous Gabriela Latta as well as the always-bubbly and uplifting Ally Bair and overall, the event went very well.

The only way we were able to do this was through the generosity of WYEP, its listeners, and the amazing staff we have worked with since October-ish. I can't wait to see what's next from this group of people.

L-R: Alexa Belejac, Brett Bridges, Matt Spangler
Photo Taken By: Alex Popichak

Curious about the Bands? Check out the event page here.
To See more pictures of the event, click here.

My Weekend and Re(ImagiNATION) (a Two-Parter)

Warning: This may be hard to follow.

So my weekend began when I walked off of my bus and packed for the Camporee. I began texting a friend, and before I knew it, I was standing among tents that I helped put up (Note to the reader - Our Scoutmaster was last on the site. I was playing SPL and scoutmaster at original setup.). So I attended an SPL meeting where I learned that everything I knew as far as timing goes was a lie, and we had to wake up earlier.

I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of my troop surrounding my tent screaming "WAKE UP ALEX!" For the record, the only reason they wanted me up was because I was supposed to help making food for them.

We plugged through half of the day doing events such as lumberjack, this crazy memory game (more on that in a second) and a legit discus competition.

So there was this crazy memory game where there were 100 items on a tarp and we had to remember as much as we could after looking for 5 minutes. I was amazed at not only my own memory, but my troop's. They remembered close to 70 of the things.

Lunch rolled around, I had some ramen, and we had a shotput competition.

At this point, I had to leave my troop to join my WYEP group at our band competition in Schenley Plaza. My next post will be on my thoughts on that event.

I made it back to camp just in time for my father's interfaith service at camp, and got to listen to his sermon. Most people in general hate sermons but I kind of enjoy them. It gives me the chance to hear other people's perspective on things, and most of the time they are semi-profound. I like the profound ones... anyway, next topic!

So we went to the campfire in the parade field where troops sang songs, and we gave the best skit ever and other troop stole said skit and bottom line it was this amazing brotherhood-ish thing that is hard to explain fully but bottom line bonds scouts in general together.

I left the campfire at the end to attend yet another SPL meeting where they offered dutch-oven deserts and announced the winner of the patch design contest. I am proud to say that I am the designer of said patch. However, said patch hasn't come in yet from the patch makers as of 5/6/12 when I wrote this. When said patch comes in, I'll post a picture of it next to this rant.

We left camp that night, my father, brother and I for home. The next day we were to be in Slickville to greet the Bishop.

Slickville can be summed up in these sentences from a previous post:
"...Being the son of an Orthodox Priest kind of puts you in this alienated bubble. You see, my geographical church is in downtown Carnegie, Pa., but in reality I end up going to my appointed church in the center of the Universe Slickville, Pa. The median age in Slickville is 75ish, ergo I am the only highschooler other than my brother. But nevertheless I love it."

After church in Carnegie on the day that I posted about (link here) I invited Bishop Daniel (If you didn't click the link you are lost now) to come to Slickville. That was back in January. This past Tuesday we receive word that Bishop Daniel is coming to Slickville - because of my invitation. 

Slickville is this amazingly stark contrast from my hometown in the sense that it is a very simple town, where everyone knows everyone and greets anyone who walks through the doors. In the city if you did that, odds are that you would get mugged or something. 

So we are driving out to Slickville and we hit the half-way point of Export, Pa and my father turns around (Slickville is about 45 minute drive) and asks if his red bag which contains, like, everything involved with a church service minus the building is in the back. It wasn't. So he turns the car around and drives us back home, I get the bag and toss it in the back with lightning speed.

There is a lovely ending to this story in the sense that we were able to be back and ready before our regular start time of 10:30. We proceeded with a service in Slickville with a bishop for the first time in about 13 years. 

The neat part about the whole ordeal is that we didn't have enough time to call the presses, fix up some elaborate service, but rather gave the Bishop a truly Slickville Service. He recieved the raw un-rehearsed group of singers (We don't have a choir), the hospitality, and welcomed him as a visitor. And, I think to him he welcomed it as a change. 

In his words, "You guys didn't put on a show, you gave me a service."

That was my weekend, minus Re(ImagiNATION). That is my next post when I can get to it.

The Semi-Final Word on DROWSY and Re(ImagiNATION) and an Announcement of Sorts

That was a longer title than I anticipated. However, it is a three-thing title and covers all of the bases. Oh, and look at that! I don't need to give an intro now!

So this past Wednesday, the cast of The Drowsy Chaperone partook in an event called a "Set Strike." Basically, what happens is that we take a beautiful set that was used on Sunday and reduce it to a dumpster in back and a whole lot of wheels (I'll get to that soon).

So we started at about 6PM, our regular start time for a rehearsal and started moving wood and screws and the sort off of the floor.

When taking things apart, it helps to have some form of background music. Our director decided to play the entirety of 3 year's ago's musical My Favourite Year. I began dismantling anything with wheels.

If you saw our production, you would know that there were a lot of moving parts. Each of those moving parts were either dangling above a stage by wires, or had at least 4 pivoting wheels with 4 bolts each that needed to be salvaged while the things that they were attached to were being dismantled around me. Not to mention, we only had one ratchet that worked. 

All aside, as we progressed dismantling the set, the soundtrack progressed. We moved up to 2010's production of The Wedding Singer and then finally to last year's production of 42nd Street. Slowly, piece by piece, the set we had made great memories and laughed, and Toledo Surprised on faded. We finally made it to The Drowsy Chaperone with the stage looking more and more like just a stage. 

By the time the finale came on, the stage was bare. The cast lined up and performed with the Broadway Recording. One of the things our crazy vocal director kept on asking for was for a push on the final four measures of the show. 

Just as we began rehearsing with no set and nothing but a stage, ourselves, and some music we ended. We gave her those last four measures. We swept the stage one last time, and The Drowsy Chaperone passed into history as a Carlynton Musical.

I'll give this a line. Re(ImagiNATION) is May 5th. I am encouraging everyone to come out and show your support for the WYEP Re(Imagine) Media project, as well as the bands performing.

Finally, I leave with you with an announcement that I will be working on a journalism project with Carlynton High School. I was just greenlighted to create a somewhat blog-esque style journalism project within the Carlynton District Website. If you are interested writing (Sorry, out-of-area people, but this is really just relevant to Carlynton district content) feel free to email me.

This Week On Re(Imagine)...

Sometimes I feel like my life is a never-ending television show. There are certain things that happen all of the time, and others that are huge events (IE, this show that just happened) that are worthy of a marathon run of past episodes. One of the amazingly regular events that is just so much fun to partake in is WYEP's Re(Imagine) Media.

This week we sat round-table style in our conference room listening to the entries to our band competition, Re(ImagiNATION).

As in classic American Idol audition style, there were some bands we loved and others not so much. In the end, we narrowed it down to the bands that will appear at 4PM in Schenley Plaza competing for the top spot and some grand prizes.

The meeting sparked some interesting debates on music taste and content and other things of the sort. I didn't say anything two controversial, seeing that I was outnumbered like 7 to one by girls in the room. However, I must say that I did agree with most of the final choices.

This little meeting with the fourteen or so of us every once-in-a-blue-Saturday reminds me of a few different things. For one, there is a group of us who genuinely care about the world around us. There are a few mature individuals who want to be informed, have a heck of a fun time, and want to share it all with the world.

It reminds me that there is hope for the world, and that I can enjoy myself in the outside world.

Returning from the philosophical, I am again returning to my regular Friday-ish postings starting this Friday.

That's about it. I'd like to thank everyone who was a part of our show. The French word "to attend [a concert/event]" is "assister" which I think has the hidden meaning that for any production to go well, everyone assists. I'd like to thank from the bottom of my heart the whole cast, crew, staff, ushers, backstage people, and last but certainly not least, everyone who showed up and made the musical great.

On Musicals, and Singing

Note: I am taking a break from April 9th - April 23rd due to my show, The Drowsy Chaperone. I will post when I can. This post is pre-written.

So I was asked to talk on Tuesday when we took the Drowsy Chaperone on the road to the elementary schools about singing. This is what I wrote:

I joined the musical not because I have a dancing skill - Trust me, I don't - but rather because I enjoyed singing. I thought that it would be kind of fun to just try out this thing anyway. Just to put this into perspective, this is not only my first music, but back in January when we started practice I had never even heard of the Drowsy Chaperone.

Music is the thing that differs a play from a musical. Over the past three or so months, we spent hours in our vocal director's room running the same numbers until that room resembled somewhat of a musical prison. HOWEVER, in the end, the 46 or so of us cast members forged this bond based in rhythm and other various stuff. Those who know how to read music helped those who couldn't and by now everyone can conceivably randomly sing the entire show in our school hallways in perfect harmony. BUT we won't be doing that anytime soon because that would be weird.

Through it all, this weird rhythmic bond has grown tighter. The music sticks with you, whether you want it to or not. We've learned 10 or so numbers ranging from backup on a bluebird song main vocals about a monkey. Musicals are the marriage of having fun with singing and enjoying it all.

Four months ago, I had no idea how close 46 or so high schoolers could get with 10 music numbers. Wanna see it in person? Check out our show.

Love, Family, and Why That's Important

I am writing this on the couch in my grandparents' house with limited Cell service and internet in the beautiful village/town-ish place called Petrolia. I am here on the occasion of Western Easter* with my maternal family. It is kind of nice to be able to celebrate a holiday with most of my family.

In doing this, I have been default babysitter for my 6 cousins which is, to say the least, interesting for an age range of 2-12. Being in a semi-rural area, the older ones decide to burn some stuff in the back yard, and naturally the younger kids gravitate in that direction. The issue - IT ISN"T THE LEAST BIT SAFE to have small children around the older kids and their fire.

This is a recipe for me being semi-exhausted and drive me to three conclusions. Number 1, I am not in ANY position to handle small children in bulk anytime soon. Number 2, I have come to love these small children who seem to have no purpose in life other than to do exactly what you tell them not to do (Don't run out in the street---and, oh, he's gone) and Number 3, this is what family is.

By definition, family is relatives. Family is the lineage that bonds a group of people together who can trace to the same last name. However, there is a meaning that far goes beyond these simple technicalities. These are the people you love just because.

In reading for theme (I never do this unless prompted [Rather, Required], mind you) one looks for an idea that is universal. Now, every English teacher in history (except the crazy ones perhaps) would disagree with the idea that a theme could be, quite simply, family. It fits all of the definitions, and it bonds us all together. So, I am rolling with it.

I guess another thing one could consider is what the definition of this "love" truly is. {The next part or so of this post may prove irrelevant to anyone but me or those around me, so I recommend skipping it if you're not feeling particularly philosophical today}

Love, as defined by Dictionary.com, is "a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person." That leaves a lot of room for interpretation. I see love as an understanding between two people that there is something more. Love is this concept one cannot quantify in mere words, but rather through this mental understanding. There are ways of showing this love, but in the end the love itself is this understanding of one another. The understanding goes as far as knowing who that person truly is as well as this universality of being human, and having an attraction to one another.

Now I tie it all into something amazingly profound. Bottom line, we can all identify with the ideas of Family and Love because we have all have attachments as humans. This is the closest thing I could manage to type to an Easter Sermon without a church service. Happy Easter.

*For those of you playing at home, I am Eastern Orthodox and celebrate on the Julian Calendar. In other words, 2012 Easter for us is on the 15th of April**.
**For those of you playing at home, my birthday is the 15th.***
***For those of you playing at home and feel compelled to do something, send cash.

Spending Some Time In The Studio

This past Saturday was spent hiking up yet another hill (This was a hill as opposed to the magical mountain of West Virginia (Wild and Wonderful) and then orienteering a bit followed by yet another trip to WYEP.

There's something amazing that happens when I am on a hike anywhere, call it a sort of awareness of what's around you or whatever, but bottom line, something amazing happens.

There's also something to be said for getting to a point where you have a map in the woods and need to decide how to get a group of eight people out of those woods and back to the cars from which they parked earlier. I don't know how to explain it, but something snaps and I go into this weird quasi-leadership mode, where I suddenly know more than I consciously realize.

After getting out of the woods, I hitched a ride down to the WYEP studios. I just love going down there. We start out in a conference room and then split off into groups working on the various projects that Re(Imagine) has taken on. We filmed a promo for the Re(ImagiNATION) contest that I am a part of, but (amazingly) I didn't make the video for.

Anyway, after helping take part in that, I went to one of their state-of-the-art recording studios with another Alex (not the Unicorn Alex, but another Alex) for about an hour just kicking around what will (Cross your fingers) become the podcast Alex Squared which will basically be our random podcast where we talk about stuff. It's still in EARLY development, but we're working on it.

There is something completely free, or possibly even carefree in radio that you don't have in television. Don't get me wrong, Television is absolutely amazing to work on. My point here is that you don't need to care about physical appearance to do radio.

Radio focuses solely on content, which I kind of like. Television and YouTube have this pressure of making things LOOK fancy as well as having good and short enough content to keep the viewer's attention, and it is stressful.

So keep tuned to our blog (moderated by me) at http://reimaginemedia.blogspot.com/ for more on our project.

Wild, Wonderful, and Apparently Not Wireless

So this past weekend, my backwards troop fulfilled a tradition that has been going on for about 15 years and took a trip to the West Virginian wilderness to spend a weekend at a Girl Scout camp.

It is kind of a feat just getting there. As with many places, there is no direct way to get from my house or for that matter, the Greater Pittsburgh area, to the tiny town of Bruceton Mills. So, what should take about an hour directly takes about two going further south than needed via the highways, and then the magical back roads to this camp.

I didn’t know why we went to a Girl Scout camp until we got there. The “cabin” we were in was basically a secluded ski lodge with indoor and two outdoor fireplaces, bunk beds, heated floors, and a huge kitchen. This “camp” was a hotel in comparison to winter camping in Guyasuta in tents.

So Saturday rolls around and our Scoutmaster Extraordinaire proclaims that we have a “mandatory hike” to a place called Coopers Rock. I am not a huge fan of large rocks, or hikes for that matter, but because it was mandatory I went.

He had proclaimed that this hike would take a little while and would be a short hike. What he hadn’t accounted for was the fact that the road leading to the part where we would have started was closed. So we start at the trailhead which proclaims about 3.2 miles to go.

Anyone that has been to Laurel Caverns can testify that the signs proclaiming usually one mile are in fact terribly wrong. Coopers Rock is no exception.

About 4 miles and a change in elevation of at least a good 300 or so feet brought us to the actual site which had a drop of about 1700 feet. To say the absolute least, the view was fantastic.

After successfully injuring my ankle and my knee, we hiked the 3.2 miles back to the car. Unfortunately, when I got back to the luxury cabin, it donned on me that I had not even tried getting WiFi to publish my previously written blog. A few clicks and it would have been published. But alas, the beautiful views and amazing wilderness-ism came at the cost of not having Wifi. I also attempted to text from there. I am however trying to piece together a hike video that I filmed as a “Thoughts from Places Video” a la Vlogbrothers.

I learned later (Keep this in mind) that our carrier (Verizon) does not have any towers in the entire state of West Virginia. (I am dead serious here – West Virginia and Verizon almost had a monopoly deal a few years back but decided that they didn’t need West Virginia, so consequentially there are no towers there) So, West Virginia is amazing, mountainous, wild, and wonderful but apparently not wireless.

The Education Continuum VIACOM'd

{Note - I wrote this post Friday during Eighth Period... I haven't had internet since as I was in West Virginia. I'll post about that next... but as for now, here is a lovely post/rant thingy}

If you were to go ahead and walk in during an English class, you’d probably see some form of the written word being, well, written. Odds are, we would be clacking away at some outdated laptops writing a paper about some old piece of literature, and giving our modernized thoughts on it. What you wouldn’t see is any actual literature being created.

I think it is a major flaw with our education system today that we study works that are out of touch and do not encourage the creation of anything new. However, as my last blog implied, I am not qualified to give comments on this matter.

 I think that we are victims of a flawed system. As a video that I talked about in an earlier post said, our education system is designed to work with the thoughts of the Enlightenment, not two hundred years later in a modern school system.

I believe that if we threw out the archaic thought that only PhDs should write a curriculum, and let retired teachers, or even teachers currently in the workforce write the curriculum, we will once again be on top of the education game.

I bring this to your attention not because I want to have a revolution, but rather to use it as an exaggerated segway into talking about writing itself.

This past Wednesday, our school had a community service day where we as high schoolers gave back to the communities in which we reside. I got to go (huge surprise here) to the Andrew Carnegie Free Library. I organized, dusted and went through their entire {American} Civil War collection, and also cleaned up a hallway or two and part of their storage.

In a period of downtime, I talked to the executive director of the library about the building itself, and if anyone had ever written a complete history of the place. The building is well over 100 years old, and yet she informed me that no one had ever taken on anything of the sort. I have made it my mission to over the next few years publish such a project.

I apologize for the brevity of this post, but I am strapped for time.

Qualifications, Kony, and Other Stuffs

So recently I have been working on too many projects. This usually leads to my temporary insanity as well as increased tiredness. Bottom line, if the below lines in this blogpost seem murky, that's because I am on limited sleep and a tad distracted.

Apparently in order to have an opinion, one now needs to be "qualified" to do so. All to often does the phrase at my lunch table get thrown out that "YOU CAN'T SAY THAT!" Which leads me to the question of what, exactly is qualified, and who Can say that.

Qualified as far as designing a corporation website (or at least helping) means having an incorporation myself or the three letters LLC (What does that mean?) tacked on to your name (Oh yeah, from now on I am calling myself "Alexander Popichak and Associates Web Firm, LLC") and did I mention you apparently needed to charge an arm and a leg?

Due to moral and practicality issues, I cannot charge much (So far I have never had a paying customer - YET; I have mainly been doing volunteer work) for a website design job. I do some talking in a prospective client meeting session, some fancy work on the part of my image editing programs, and coming up with something that looks pretty cool.

I work on the idea that the content builds the website, the images draw the users in. Basically, if you don't care about what you are putting out there as far as content outreach goes, no amount of flashy imagery can fix that. It WILL shine through.

Qualified as far as CPR goes is having a magical little card, and taking a course. Does that necessarily mean that you need to have an EMS or CPR certification to save a life? Heck, no! That's what the scouts are for!!!

Qualified for being an SPL on paper is a Star rank (yeah, I have one of those). As for in reality, one would need character, a sense of adventure (IM GOING TO JAMBO!) and a real belief in the people he leads.

Qualified as far as tech goes, well, you got me.

As for what I can and cannot say can be debated, and I welcome any feedback.

So one of the internet trends that made news this week was #KONY2012. You can Google all 900,000 different opinions on it but here is what I learned by watching CBS's take it. Basically, the firm pushing this ad campaign took in about $17 million last year, and of that only $3.3 million went to aid. The "charity" is pushing itself as a wonderful cause that is worthy of your patronage. Please please please look into any charity before donating anything! I am not saying that the KONY guy is not bad (in fact he is just plain terrible), I am just saying that these "action kits" that they are selling are not going to be as effective to direct aid as would be calling your congressman, and urging your neighbors to do so also.

I rarely plug my own things, but my WYEP teen group is sponsoring a band competition for high school students and we will be accepting submissions from MARCH 12 2012 UNTIL APRIL 14TH 2012.  If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to contact me at alex.popichak@gmail.com with the subject Re(imagiNATION) Contest.

As for the Re(Imagine) Media website project, it is still a work in progress, but I do have this awesome animation thing that I can't post here due to issues with my incompetence at 10PM with HTML coding.

Other than that, I'll give a shoutout to my secret sister Mikaela as I hope she is doing well.

Culture. Cultured. Culturing.

So I guess this week's "theme" if you will, was the arts. Tuesday morning I spent on Pittsburgh's North Side to see The Elephant Man (to be detailed later). Wednesday brought TIED to the arts. Today, well, I did the morning announcements — does that count? {The only reason I felt obliged to have three things in that sentence is because three-thing sentences are much better than two-thing sentences.}

Tuesday. So I went to Pittsburgh's North Side with my school's GATE group to watch The Elephant Man on stage. This group called the Prime Stage Tehater was putting this on at this neat little theatre called the New Hazlett. The show itself was about the true story of this man who was born horribly disfigured into a circus family (his mom was trampled by an elephant when she was pregnant-get it, elephant man?). Anyway, when I go to theatres I look at three things — the acting, the content, and the tech.

The acting was phenomenal. This theater is set in an intimate fashion, and the acting made you ask yourself whether or not they are talking to you, the audience, or to the offstage "public".

The content was not overly amazing, rather it was the way in which it was presented. Each scene was divided by a 30 second music break with a slide with a quote from the upcoming scene. The interesting thing about the set is that it started quite bland — Just a circle set with a drawing in the center. As the performance went on, things were added to the set — A Bathtub, a bed, a chair, a desk, etc. — But nothing was ever taken away. It was a unique technique, so that at the end of the show you saw this progression as well as what the final original set looked like.

On Wednesday, I took part in a Carlynton Event called TIED to the arts. Basically, it is a pep rally for the arts in our District. The chorus sings, the band plays, and the Musical — oh, the musical — Musicate. I have been on all ends of this event. This time, I was in the chorus and in the musical.

The chorus sang this lovely song about believing and whatnot, but I think the most interesting part from a Choral member standpoint is just how this whole song got put together. The High school learned our part, the Junior High theirs, the soloists theirs and the Elementary— well, theirs. It was only about an hour before our actual performance that we ran through the song all together— once. Amazingly, it was lovely and wonderful and all of those things that you don't hear choral directors say but parents told them to pass it on so they will... 

As for the musical, we performed one of the numbers in our show in our Musical Promo t-shirts as opposed to costumes; and sang unaided by microphones, or you know, a stage or orchestra. Check out the final performance April 19-22nd At Carlynton Jr. Sr. High school. Tell them the 2015Blogger sent you (that would actually be really cool, just to confuse the ticket people :-) ). 

It is very different to be on the other side of a performance. I think we all do something that has another end to it, it's just that we rarely get to be on that other side. If you get a chance, try it sometime.

Honus Wagner, Unicorns, and Peter McKay

Note/Warning: The following post contains a lot of links. -AP

Source: Baseball Hall of Fame

So for those of you who didn't know it, today was Honus Wagner's Birthday. For those of you who don't know who Honus Wagner was, please drop your laptop (Please not your desktop) on your foot, and then click this link here.

The reason I bring this up is because it is trivia that came to me via twitter, and Honus Wagner was from Carnegie (Originally Chartiers [#TheCarlyntonProject for the win!]). I have somewhat of an interesting connection to Mr. Wagner. His house is across the street from one of my troop member's houses, and my grandfather used to run beer to his house when he was a kid. Just goes to show, when not looking too hard for something, you can find stuff you never know you were looking for.

Anyway, my secret sister Mikaela was texting me earlier when I was gathering my thoughts to attempt to write another post. I at that time, as almost every other Friday, was wondering what to write about. She suggested the existence of Unicorns.

Source: Wikipedia

Unicorns, for those of you in the future who are without knowledge of what a Unicorn is, are magical horses with a horn protruding from its head and, in some depictions, can fly. However, loosely defined, anything with a singular horn protruding from its head can be considered a "unicorn" however it is not what we will call a true unicorn.

My friend Alex recently discovered that he is, indeed, a unicorn. (Again, loosely defined in this case). He has this bump that appeared square in the centre of his forehead. When he had it scanned for tumors or whatever, it turned out that this was actually Just his Skull. When I approached him on the matter, he said that "I could start my own RELIGION now that I'm now a unicorn."

As to whether or not that actually happens (Its just as sketchy as Tarvusim) is to be determined. Either way, know that my blog will be the #1 source for coverage on this Modern Unicorn-Driven Religion.

So Tomorrow is Saturday. Other than being the one day in a week where I can (rarely recently) sleep in and go to WYEP, it is also the one day where I actually read a portion of the paper. I usually just read page 2 (Because Page one is SOOO Mainstream :P ) the comics, whatever seems interesting in the Local News, and this magical column that I discovered.

This column is published once a week by a Ben Avon resident named Peter McKay who writes under the title of "Homemaking". Now, this really almost never has to do with actually making homes, or decorating homes, but rather what really makes up life. He talks about the things that make up life - the little pet peeves, the relationships, the stories that we all share but never publicize.

Basically, for those of you who know who Tom Bodett (again, if you don't educate yourself, then throw a dart at something) is, Peter McKay is a Pittsburgh version of Tom Bodett. If you want to check out his more recent columns, or the sort, check him out at http://peter-mckay.com/.

Sorry no adventure stories this week, but I will go someplace soon! And I will add another Super Special Bonus Blog Thing!

Side Note: From now on I am going to have a tag for blog posts that is "Unicorns"

Super Special Bonus Blog Post Fun Time!

Do I ever use my own pics?
SOURCE: OrthodoxCarnegie.org

So yesterday I was texting my sister (No, not my real sister, but you get the idea... [maybe this is what Jay Scribble means by "Secret Sister" and "Secret Brother"]) and she invited me to church. Granted, I can go to church down the hill anytime I want, but I got invited, so I decided to come...

So this morning I woke up and walked down the hill, over a block or so, down the hill some more, and eventually made my way to Mansfield Boulevard where the church is. I walked into the church, greeted the greeters (Its a bizarre feeling to be formally 'greeted') and then got the reader(My not-real sister's father)'s permission as well as the priest's permission to serve (I'm an alter server, not a priest, or deacon, or bishop, or anything else).

It has been a long time since I have served solo with another priest; and it was, to say the least, interesting. It isn't, at least in my eyes, my "home" parish. That title goes to Slickville, and will forever be Slickville. But it was nice to be able to experience church through the customs of my geographic home parish.

On a side note, the priest was absolutely amazed I walked the five or so blocks to church.
"If your dad and brother are in Slickville, and your mom is in Butler, how did you get here?"
"Um, I walked"
"Woah. Oh, thanks for coming"

Anyway, I stayed for the Parastas, and then attended Sunday for the first time in about seven or eight years. Again, it was a tad taboo for me to go into a church basement, sit with people my age, and discuss what had just happened upstairs. I won't go into too much detail (Feel free to ask, I just am not trying to be a blogevangelist), but it was bizarre to me, or at least foreign. Slickville has an average age of about 75, making my brother and I the youngest "members" of the church (legally and canonically, we can't be members, but again, I am not going to go into detail). Our Sunday School was my mother brother and I talking in the basement of the church about the miracles of Christ, as well as what the parts of the liturgy meant, et cetera. It was very much the same in the content respect, only it wasn't two small children and their mother talking one-on-one.

We later went next door to the hall, where I talked for a while with people I hadn't seen in a while, greeted other people, and then my sister's mother gave the two of us a ride to musical practice.

I am not at liberty to discuss the specifics of the show (See it at Carlynton live April 19-22nd) but basically, we took pictures, sang a little, attempted to dance (Or rather, I attempted to dance whilst the people around me actually danced), and then went home.

Yay, this is something I actually own!

"Going home" was staying at my house for about an hour, and then descending the hill I already had walked this morning to the basement of another church for a boy scout meeting. We discussed upcoming events, and then had some team-building stuff that we went over as well as chain of command.

According to my friend, the girl scouts are a classroom-oriented organization. You are sorted by age group and have one year or so to accomplish a rank. The boy scouts is quite the opposite. You gain a rank by earning it with your own initiative (You can be in the program for six or seven years and be a tenderfoot... we don't encourage it, but you can do it). We are very much boy-led, and its kind of amazing how it all is brought together.

I finished my Sunday by texting my sister and the before-mentioned friend and coming up with a blog post idea. I decided I was going to talk about my Sunday. I texted my sister a name, and that was "Super Special Bonus Blog Post Fun Time!" And she liked it.

PS: Why is Blogger telling me Slickville is not a word... or texting?