16th grade

Senior year of college. Lot of crazy stories from this year. Here’s a fun one: Right at the start of spring break, a freak blizzard hits Denver, and we get absolutely buried. Roads were un-drivable for nearly two full days. Disastrous situation for some people. But for college kids [...]

15th grade

The 2390 era begins. Rented a house with 3 of my friends. Just to give you an idea of how clean we kept this place: it was not uncommon to find dirty dishes placed in the cabinets, because the sink and counter tops had gotten so full of dirty dishes that there was nowhere else [...]

14th grade

There is a bar near the DU campus that is so slack on IDs that 90% of the people in the bar are under 20. One time my friend Garreth (a 5′ 5″ English guy) got in using my friend Dee’s fake ID (Dee is a 6′ 4″ black guy) – the bouncer looked at [...]

13th grade

Freshman in college. Here’s one of the perks of skipping a grade: I’m trying out for University of Denver Division I soccer team. I’m nervous as hell; everyone around me seems enormous and old.  Before tryouts begin, we have to fill out some paperwork for physicals, etc.  Only problem is, I’m not 18 yet.  This [...]

12th grade

I will spare the details (my mom reads this blog), but let’s just say that Innocent Derek is officially dead. The good news is, the crazy son of a bitch who takes his place manages to keep some perspective in life. I finish up my bid for Valedictorian, just to get snubbed at [...]

11th grade

Played in a basketball league for the first and only time. We had no coach, painted our numbers on our jerseys, and only won one game. We did manage to start what had to be a record number of fights though. My personal highlight from the last game of the season: we’re [...]

10th grade

In an attempt to achieve a small boost in popularity, I decide to allow myself to start using the word ‘Fuck’. A small piece of innocent Derek dies. Plus, it didn’t even fucking work. I suppose it makes me a pretty strange kid that I remember my first use of cuss [...]

A student’s life: Part II

A couple months ago, I started a blog depicting highlights of my 21 years of school. It was a huge hit. Then, nothing happened for a while. Now, it continues with the second installment: “The Teen Years”. To make things even more dramatic, and because I am constantly chided for not updating [...]

shortcomings and coming up short

I don’t fail very often. When I do, I typically bitch and moan and feel like crap for a while. Then, I feel like crap for having wasted part of my life bitching and moaning and feeling like crap. Then, I try to learn something from it.
Today I was shot down [...]