At this current moment, I’m sitting in business class on a Boeing 747 that is currently flying over the Pacific Ocean and is making its way towards the lovely string of islands known as the Philippines. I just finished a sprite and doritos while watching Gullivan’s Travels. The guy next to me is currently asleep (everyone is) , but from our brief talks, I’ve learned that he is a former nightclub owner of the 70’s, currently living in O.C., likes to go to the Philippines for vacation, and that he has a smoking hott Vietnamese girlfriend who is 40 but looks like she’s 25 and likes to wear Abercrombie Attire. Why am I saying all this? Because I need to record this feeling right now. I’m 20 years old on the second summer of my collegiate career. And I’m sipping a sprite and eating doritos above the Pacific Ocean on the way to the Philippines. This is what summer is about baby ^_^ Ahh counting my blessings. Even if I was cramped in a tiny space chilling next to screaming babies, I’d be enjoying this moment. Everyone around me is sleeping. But me, I feel like this is such an epic moment. Exploring the world? The EPITOME of Youth. This is how summer should be spent. Off, to play some NBA 2K11 on my laptop, do some MCAT studying, read some Dorian Gray and fall asleep. When I woke up, I hope to be in the Philippines. I’m Young, Wild, and Free =D

This is a post that’s somewhat out of the blue.

It’s also a post that’s long overdue.

Timestamp: 11:06PM Pacific Time
Location: Small studio apartment in Woodland Hills, CA
Current Status: Listening to my “Sleep Mix” and typing on my computer while lying down next to my sleeping Dad and cousin on a small twin sized matress that is laid on the ground so our feet can fit.

As I lie next to my dad napping so that he can pick up my mom and sister in 2 hours from the airport, I feel this need to share a little bit of their story. To share with the world what they’ve given me.

As some of you may or may not know, I’ve been spending the last couple weeks in the lovely city of Los Angeles. And I’ve loved almost every minute of it. From the feel of the air in the city to the diversity I encounter around me, the sights and sounds of LA continue to take me in. The chillaxed pace of the city with still an immense load of hustle and bustle is just my style.

But what some of you might not know is that this isn’t merely a vacation. And this also isn’t something that was planned. Just about one year ago, my dad was, in all essence, “forced” to take a job in Los Angeles due to the challenged job market. My family is from Ohio. According to google maps, that is a 2,184 mile journey.

Being in college, I was aware of the situation but largely unaffected. My sister and especially my mom on the other hand was another story. In just over two years, the two-story house that was filled with NBA games, dinner talks of zone offenses, musical duets, and dirty boxers was now… just my sister and my mom.

Once again, I have to be careful for if I start talking about my mom and dad’s relationship, I tend to start ranting on and on. So let me try and focus this specifically on the move.

Amid the chaos of sophomore year, my knowledge of the situation just scratched the surface. I understood my dad commuted back home to Cincinnati via plane every weekend/every other weekend. I understood that my mom and sister were now stepping up on taking care of the responsibilities of the house.

But what I didn’t get to see firsthand was the emotional impact it had upon my family. When I came back for fall break, I realized how wiped my mom must be because essentially, she was almost a single parent during the week. Before when I came home, I was a slouch. Well to be fair, I still am a slouch, but before I was a super slouch. That changed the first night I came back and saw my mom on her bed absolutely passed out on her bed. She hadn’t even changed (and though I shouldn’t make this public, I’m not sure if she even brushed her teeth). She had fallen asleep after a long day of work. She had fallen asleep with the laptop in front of her skyping my dad.

Across the country, my dad was starting a new job with a small insurance group in Encino, CA. With all due respect to my dad, this was a humbling step backwards in my dad’s career. The ol’ man had spent his lifetime finding a job in the United States to bring his family over, rising in the ranks of his job to support said family, and being the most hardworking and dedicated man you have ever known for almost 20 years…only to be let go in modern-day-put-middle-management-least-priority-recession-America. You may sense a little spite =P But even without the biased lingo, I speak only the absolute truth. You’ve never seen a man who works to better his family more than my dad.

And what was my dad now enduring? Aside from starting his new job, he had to start a new life on his own here in California. Studio Apartment? Check. Learning to cook food so as to avoid eating out every night? Check. Finding friends so that he wasn’t stuck up in the apartment every weekend? Check. Flying almost 8-10 hours every weekend/every other weekend and spending a noticable amount of his paycheck so as to spend a day or two with the women he loves? Check.

You talk to your parents all the time. But how much do you actually hear them? I still remember the day my dad lost his job and he tried to tell me. I was on my way to a CoRec game and it was impressive I even picked up the phone. Here’s pretty much how the dialogue went:

Dad: Hi Kuy
Me: Hey Dad
Dad: (choking up in the background) (silence) How you doing Kuy?
Me: (chatter in the background, shouts of a broomball goal) I’m good dad, good dad, how are you?
Dad: (more silence) I’m ok… you have a sec?
Me: (half-listening) I’m in a broomball game dad, can I call you later?
Dad: (swallowing back the preparation he probably had taken to make the call) Ok.
Me: (no hesitation) K bye dad.

How much do you listen to your parents? How often do you call your mom just to ease the anguish she has in dealing with her daily life without your joyous face to remind her of the reason why she’s so happy in the first place?… I know I never do enough.

Long story short, it’s been about one year since this entire transition has been made. Many things have changed since then. My aunt and cousin moved in with my dad to share the studio apartment as a trio. My sister has become much more responsible and grown closer to my mom. My parents have learned how to handle tasks via Skype and Cell Phone. We’ve considered moving. My sister’s cried considering moving. My mom’s cried considering moving. My dad’s felt sorrow, and maybe even cried, considering moving. We’ve become excited at the possibility of moving. We’ve told people we might be moving. We might be moving.

And that’s the question I’m often asked. So when are you moving? Are you moving? The reality: it’s not that simple. You don’t understand how the stability of jobs has a factor in this move. How my sister having such a solid group of friends in Cincinnati and just finishing her 7th grade impacts this move. How the fact that we’ve already faced a beast like this when we moved from Peoria to Cincinnati almost 5 years ago has a say on this move.

Here’s what I’d rather tell people. How despite all the trials and tribulations we’re going through, my mom has never even thought about making me move to a school that I didn’t want to go to. We looked at schools at California. Not seriously, just looking. But she knew how important it was to me to finish my undergraduate at one school. She never let me entertain the possibility of switching out of Notre Dame because she knew that’s not what I wanted. Or how about how my Dad has always heard my offers of picking up more loans to support my undergraduate degree and how he’s also kept that as just a back pocket option? To quote Travie McCoy,

If that ain’t love, then I don’t know what love is

And despite all the questions that are up in the air for our family’s future, what won’t change? Our family. You don’t understand our family man. You don’t understand what a blessing it is to be a part of this family. We aren’t perfect. We all get moody and cranky. My mom can be stubborn, my sister hard-headed, my dad ignorant, myself just straight up lazy. But despite it all, we’re not ambivalent. We all care. We love each other greatly. And while we each strive for individual success, we never let the core of our family’s values, roots, and identity out of sight.

My dad is my role model. My mom is my best friend. My sister is me, if I was a girl.

Atlanta is my birth place. Peoria where I was raised. Cincinnati my high school memory book. Notre Dame the place I currently live. California area where I’d like to live in the future.

And my family my home.

Ring-a-ling. My dad’s alarms going off. 2 Hour Nap over for my dad, blogging session over for me. Time to pick up my sister and mom from the airport.

-Matt

I’ll try and keep this short and sweet. Otherwise, I’ll ramble on incessantly when #NuffHasBeenSaid.

NuffHasBeenSaid. Dirk Nowitzki let his game do the talking.  The man is a true champion.  He stepped up when need be.  The whole playoffs we thought he was a demi-god because every time a ball left his hands it dropped through the net.  And when he started going cold in game 6 of the finals, his team wasn’t screwed.  Why? Because Dirk’s a leader.  His teammates weren’t solely dependent on his play because he’s allowed his teammates to be involved the entire season.  They were able to develop rhythm and flow, and so when Dirk was off, he was able to look to his teammates to bring the team till he found his shot.  

What is a true leader? Not someone who scores 40 ppg or makes three from halfcourt at the end of the first quarter.  It’s someone who, when on the court, makes his team play better and excel.  He’s clutch, determined, and inspiring.  His presence pushes the players around him to play with all they have.

Basketball is not about this:

Or unnecessary gestures like this:

Many people hate Lebron for his cockiness, his disloyalty, his decision to screw over the town that he became popular in.  But as an Ohioan native, this isn’t what turns me off the most…

I hate Lebron because I think he’s ruining the game of basketball.  And not singlehandedly either, that goes for many players (and I include Chris Bosh in that mix).  How do I mean? I’m not saying Lebron isn’t freakishly talented or that he doesn’t have game.  The man throws down some of the craziest dunks and hits fadeaway 3’s like he’s playing in a Chuck-E-Cheese game.  One on one, there are few who I think could take Lebron.

I’m a basketball purist.  I like oldschool basketball.  Basketball where players don’t complain after every single foul and refs don’t just give technicals when a player throws his hands up to react to a call (see below).  Basketball where a player gets back at the other team by showing his skills on the court and not by making fun of a sick player on the opposing team while walking into the shootaround when he had lost the night before.  

The NBA’s “Respect the Game” Rule:



Lebron has a fancy clothing line.  He’s found perfect pair of sunglasses to wear in Miami.  Because he’s not a leader.  He doesn’t do what Dirk does and make his teammates better.  At the end of game 6, he had no tenacity, no desire to win, and not even a single look that made you think he had the team on his back.  Hell, the big 3 as a whole looked as if they didn’t want to touch the ball.  He seemed… apathetic.

Put the glitz and glam aside.  Put away Jeff Van Gundy’s praise for your every single play.  Put aside your Gucci suit. Put away your empty promises and lame-ass politically correct answers.  

Instead, give me some tenacity.  Give me some desire to win.  Give me some belief that you are trying to do the legendary greats proud instead of expecting that it should be handed down to you.  Give me some credibility that your teammates will be there to perform because you have empowered them too. Give me some assurance that the team will not win only if you decide you want to win.  Give me some heart for the game that marked my childhood.  Give me some belief that there are players who still think that “Basketball is life.”  Give me some Dirk Nowitzki, some Jason Kidd, some Tyson Chandler.

Treat the game of basketball right.  Play with your heart and your soul.  Make the finals as exciting as the ’80s Lakers-Celtics series or the ’90s Jazz-Bulls, Sonics-Bulls, Pistons-Bulls series.  Then you’ll be allowed to put #winning on your twitter.

#NuffHasBeenSaid. Like this post if you have as many NBA Championships as Lebron James.

So this morning I was awoken to my sister geekin’ out.  She was like, “Kuya, kuya, alyssa bernal commented on our video” and I was like WTF David Blaine?  Well ‘pparently, my sister speaks the truth.  Alyssa Bernal, the girl who wrote the song Cali, Cali, Cali which was the same song that we covered yesterday via youtube, commented on our youtube video! You can find her comment (user name: hchsknights08)  on the video page here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaKTvNkERu4&feature=channel_video_title

I’ve seen this girl’s youtube videos for almost two years now so I recognized the username immediately.  I was in such disbelief, I was freakin’ geekin’ too haha!  Not only had this girl somehow stumbled upon on our video, she flippin liked it too.

Someone else had written a comment saying “Like this if Alyssa Bernal sent you here.” Well that comment had gotten almost 60 likes and I was curious how they had gotten there when her recent activity was blank.  I did a little investigation and found this on her twitter:

http://twitter.com/#!/alyssabernal/status/78370770237132800

Alyssa Bernal just gave us a shoutout on twitter.  She’s got 68,000 followers.  Craazy huh? ^_^

And finally to put it all in perspective, this is day two the video has been up.  We currently are at 894 views.  Alyssa Bernal’s post lead to almost 900 people watching our video in one day.  Think about it, we basically just played a song in a full 900 person venue.  That’s a whooole lotta people.

Haha needless to say my sista and I have been excited all day.  Even my parents have gotten bitten by the hollywood bug.  They’ve been so starstruck by the whole thing, haha, and we pretty much have been too.  

In reality, this is just a tiny blip in a large viral music community.  But even small, it’s nice to get some appreciation for the music I’m putting together.  It’s a lotta effort, and sometimes the haters and the doubters can get ya second guessing yourself.  It’s tough, especially with high dreams and expectations.  But even if the whole world isn’t listening, it still feels epic to know at least one person likes my music. Made my summer ^_^ (so far) 

#CaliforniaLove