How I Lost The Love Of My Life

If I were to look back on my life, I can pin-point the exact moment I fell in love. It was love at first sight, crazy, unpredictable, and life changing. I can remember the fluttering in my stomach and the chills that went through my entire body. I even remember the exact song that was playing; the chords still make me shiver.

The moment was perfect…until he saw the love of his life. 

It was pretty heartbreaking. The chords no longer sounded like my wedding song but the song that would be played as I was prosecuted for murder. Ironically, the name of the song was Start Of Something New

It was the start of something new for me, it was the beginning of an era. Also known as January 26, 2006; the release date of High School Musical One. On that date, I fell in love, was betrayed, and still ended up singing along to the movie. 

I’m not entirely crazy, according to Wikipedia, HSM1 was the most successful movie Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM) ever released. It was so successful that DCOM created a franchise. 

At the young age of five, I was in love. Zac Efron was my first celebrity crush (still is one now!). Vanessa Hudgens was the first girl who made me jealous and Ashley Tisdale was the girl I aspired to be. 

Not only did I love the movies, my parents loved me. They provided me with tickets to see High School Musical On Ice. The experience was magical and I was never more in love. The only downside, was there was no Zac Efron, but only a measly card board cut out in his place (I'm still bitter!). 

Me and the Bae (image source: my mommy)

You may be thinking “What’s wrong with this girl? It’s been about ten years and she’s still crazy over a movie.” 

You are thinking correctly. I am still in love with the HSM movie trilogy and probably will always be. If you must know, I missed Supper Bowl 2015 to watch a HSM marathon (it was sing-along, let’s be real and get our priorities straight). 

The HSM trilogy was life changing, it was perfect…and it was the last good DCOM movie ever created. It’s success rate was beyond imaginable. It was so amazing that the third movie went into theaters instead of being an TV only movie. I’m pretty sure it is the only DCOM movie to ever do that. Now, that’s the power of music. 

High School Musical was literally the best movie DCOM has ever created. The amazing trilogy that shaped the lives of thousands of people was incredible and the start of an era. 

Sadly, that era ended in the worst way possible. On October 4, 2008, the release date for HSM3, was the beginning of the end. The HSM movies were ending and gross new movies began. The farther we move into the future, the crappier DCOM become. 

The sad, sad ending to my childhood will always haunt me. Although, I will always cherish the sing-alongs and perfect duets between the love of my life and the actually really cool girl who chose her education over a boy (hey DCOM! really good life advice!).  

Lots of Love, 

Shaun 

The Thing About Family

The thing about family, is the fact no matter how crazy they are, you love them. That love is tested all the time; this is the story of how my little cousins not only tested my love, but (almost) changed my opinion on gum. 

Before we start, you must know I love gum. When I’m not sleeping or eating, I’m chewing gum. There is something about it that calms me down and focuses me. Not once have I ever questioned my love of gum…until February break 2014. 

My February breaks are crazy, half the week my dad’s family is in town and the other half my mom’s family is. I love them all dearly, but wow it gets crazy. 

I have cousins on both sides of family; I am the oldest overall. This story focuses on my cousin’s from my mom’s side of the family. They are younger than me by four and six years. I love them intensely (despite being the designated babysitter on family vacations!), but wow do I forget what it is like to be arounds kids that age.

My own siblings and I are all within a three year age range and there was never one of us who was young compared to the others. My cousins on the other hand, are very, very young.

They are young and crazy (yet somehow lovable) and did the nearly impossible: made me question my love of gum. 

It all starts one night after a long day skiing. The kids are watching a painfully G movie while the adults chat and drink. Luckily, we hit pause and go down for desert (only to come back up and finish the movie). 

The movie eventually ends and we are all heading to out rooms as my brother says “Shaun! What’s on your butt!”

I ignore him, because he’s a twelve year old boy and I don’t need that humor in my life. I only checked because my mom backed him up (thank god!). Then, I saw it! It was awful; it was a bright pink wad of Hubba Bubba Gum. 

(image source: yimg)

You know the kind I’m talking about, the obnoxiously bright pink kind that feels and tastes chalked after about five minutes. The thing is, the only thing worse than chewing that gum, is having all over your clothes. 

Not only was it all over my clothes, my mom found it on the couch. Which should have been impossible because I was sitting on a blanket and there was no gum on it. However, the biggest mystery of the situation, was “whose gum was it?” My parent’s knew my siblings and I only chewed mint, so it was clear it was my cousins. My youngest cousin admitted to chewing gum, but she said it was four hours ago and swore she put it in a tissue. Queue eye rolling. 

It took nearly an hour and way too many chemicals to get the gum off my clothes and the couch. Then, right as we were “finished”, my sister pointed out something. There it was! Gum, sticky, gross gum, all over my hip. On my actual skin. I don't think I have ever wanted to throw a tantrum more than in that moment.

Insert loud screaming and a eight year old bursting into tears. It took forever to get the gum of my hip, soap just was not working. My hip was bright red from all the scrubbing. Finally, everything was clean and the upstairs only slightly smelled like chemicals. 

The night was over.

 

I’m not sure if the worst part of that night was the fact my cousin did not apologize, or the fact it took me entire week before I could look at gum without feeling angry and grossed out. 

I learned, that family was crazy (insensitive!) but you love them anyways. I also learned how to not throw a tantrum larger than an eight year olds.

Lots of Love, 

Shaun 

Hitting v. Hitting On

Why is hitting people not an acceptable public action?

I mean, people hit on people and it’s perfectly acceptable. It’s more acceptable to make inappropriate and deeming sexist comments to girls under the pretense of flirting, but it is not socially acceptable to hit someone. I’m not talking about the abusive, leaving bruises kind of hitting, but like lightly tapping with force kind. 

There are so many benefits to hitting people. Like, I am so tired of quoting myself eight thousand times in a row just so people hear half of what I say. In this situation, if I just hit someone (lightly!) I can save my voice and get all of my thoughts out. Win-win situation.

Or what happens when someone is being a rude flirter (as described above) and the only possible way to shut someone up is to hit them. I’m not saying I have experience with this personally, but I could have hit a couple guys for my friends. 

So, why is unacceptable to lightly hit your friends? I mean, I am all for stopping abusive relationships and that respect is a very important thing. 

But if I need to lightly tap my friend for being rude or ignoring me, I should be able to do it without like getting weird looks. 

Now, let’s go back to that nasty thing called flirting (call me a bitter old soul all you want but guess what! you aren’t changing my opinion). Flirting, in theory, sounds lovely.  I mean there are so many options. You can go for the classic threatening suicide if a girl doesn’t say yes a la The Notebook. 

(image source: blogspot)

Or, you know you can ignore the girl you love to impress your friends while secretly practicing your singing a la High School Musical. 

(image source: high school musical wiki)

Sadly, high school boys do not pick up these tactics and choose (out of all the romantic tactics available!) disgusting pick up lines. Not only do these pick up lines sound like they are right off of Tumblr, they also literally can be used on anyone. 

Hint: girls like to feel special.  Corny pickup lines literally turn girls off of you. I suggest maybe a pun or a compliment. 

Also, flirting with a girl in front of her friends (I’m am speaking from the experience of the friend) literally sucks. Like if I’m currently complaining, literally the worst thing you can do is come flirt with my friend. Also, if your pick up lines suck, it’s even worse. 

So lovely readers, don’t send people odd looks in public if they are hitting their friends (please look out for signs of evil intent) and do not ever ever ever use gross pick of lines and please, please politely talk to girls. I hate to break it too you, we are far superior and way better and you all would be dead without us. 

Lots of Love, 

Shaun