Being thankful

This years Thanksgiving was probably the best one I have been part of.

Most of my teammates, whom are mostly from California, went back to home to California or went to a relative's place in the Midwest. But for the eight or nine of us that stay here in Cedar Rapids made the best of it.

This was the first time there wasn't a woman in the house cooking for all of us. Usually, moms do most of the cooking while the guys watch football, but we don't have the luxury here. We all pitched in a cook a Thanksgiving feast. I didn't preparing for Thanksgiving can be so time consuming and costly on the wallet.

I am thankful for the guys that made this years Thanksgiving possible. They are my family away from home and I wouldn't give up anything for them.

...

I really don't know how to put it but I been hearing devastating news this month. Just last night, a person from my city I grew up at (Torrance, Cali) got hit by a drunk driver and died while he was in the emergency room. This past week, I had a friend who's relative passed away. And for me, this was the two year mark of when my roommate from Barstow College passed away.

It really got to me when I heard these that I should appreciate the people surround me the most because they are going to always be there for you, when they can be taken away from you in a blink of an eye.

I am thankful for all my new and old friends, teammates, coaches, and most of all family for what they have done for me all these years. Never take them for granted....

-Jun

"Its never goodbye. Its see you later"

"Dear Rudy,

Whats up B! How's everything going man? I hope heaven is treating you like a God. Man, its been two years since you left all of us. I remember like it was yesterday when you, Shawn and D-Ray made me drink my first beer. I think you made me an alcoholic! Oh wait, I'm not an alcoholic, I'm in college.

Speaking of college, it's my last year as a college student, well unless I go to grad school, but last time to be care-free before I enter the real world. I think I told you this last year but when I moved out here last year, I didn't know what I was thinking B. Middle of no where and far away from home. Being away from home like this, isn't so bad after all man. I met some of the coolest and nicest people here. Not stuck up like all the LA people, you know what I'm saying? School's hard man. I had pulled an all nighter last night doing two papers! Worst decision of my life, but I had to get it done. But overall, I'm doing well in my classes.

I know your going to ask me about the girls here cause that's all you talked about with me besides baseball. The girls here are different in a good way here; really down to earth, easy to talk to, friendly, you name it. And no I dont have a girlfriend. I have the worst luck with girls. I think its the timing, or maybe I just bought the wrong set of brooms.

Baseball is going good too. I dont know if I'll be starting this year but I'm busting my ass like always. If I dont get some playing time, I'm gonna be mad as hell. Yea, I switched from second base to third. Its different but I think it suits me more. I just gotta react to the ball and give me no time to think about it. Oh, and I'm gonna try to hit a bomb for you this year B. I know where ever I go, you'll be watching anyways but be on the look out.

Still, to this day, I regret not calling you back the one day I was at Disneyland with my family. I never realized that was the last time I was going to hear your voice. I always wonder if something different would have happened if I did give you a call back. I, along with others that cared and loved you, wish that you were taken away so early in life. I gotta start appreciating a lot more because something can be taken away in a blink of an eye.

I know you already will but keep us safe and look after us B. Ill have a couple of cold one for you today. Love you and miss you man. See you later, and have a beer for me ready when I come visit.

Sincerely,
Endo."

Never take life for granted. Appreciate the things you have in life. Tell the people that care about you that you love them because you never know when something will be taken away from you.

"It's never goodbye. Its see you later"

-Jun

Tough times don't last but tought people do

As the fall semester is coming to its end in December, there are tons of school work to be done.

I'm going to be honest, I been a little lackadaisical this semester. Just the thought of being in college for five year when I could have graduated in four year makes me exhausted.

I had two assignments given to me at the beginning of the semester: a book report for two of my classes. One of them was a 250 page book I had to read and the other one is about 550 pages, which I'm only on page 68 as of right now.

The 250 page book, Twinkies, Deconstructed was about how Hostess, the company that makes those golden sponges, makes Twinkies. I had to write a book report on it and was due on Wednesday. It took me about a week and a half to read it (I'm a slow reader if you could tell). The book I am currently reading right now, Life and Death In Shanghai, is quite interesting so far. It is about a Chinese women's life during the Cultural Revolution. For that book I have a eight page book report due on Monday. Time is only moving forward and I should be reading the book but I decided to take a little break.

As I sit in a rectangular kitchen by myself in a suite at my school, it gives me a lot of down time to think about things, especially home.

Times like these, when school work starts to pile up and have all nighters to finish the work, I start thinking about home. Just the fact that if I was at home, there is that comfort you get from family; always being there for you when times are tough. I hear a lot of people here at school that are from the state of Iowa say, "I miss home," or "I feel homesick." Luckily for them, they only are couple of hours, even minutes away from home. Being about 1,800 miles, 30 hours away from home sucks. But I feel like sometimes, we have to go through this at some point in our lives. I guess its part of growing up.

But I am fortunate meet all the people, especially my teammates, I have this past year and a half to support and push me. Without them, I would probably be insane right now. It's early to say but I am thankful for those guys being there for me.

Well its already 12:27 a.m. here. I better start reading my life away

“Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It's not something you learn in school. But if you haven't learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven't learned anything.”-Muhammad Ali

-Jun

Mind over matter

For the past two weeks, my teammate Abe and I have been working out for six of the seven days out of the week. Two days which we work out on our own and four days which we do with the baseball team.

I remember one of the first couple of weeks of school, when I was hardly putting time to be the best I can with my body because I thought I can get away with the work I put on the baseball field, Abe was playing a video game without his shirt laying on a futon. I took a picture of him and posted it via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Couple minutes later, he found out and told me to take it off the social media because he said it was embarrassing because his stomach was sticking out and he was fat!

Now, since we aren't practicing on the field any more (it's too cold to practice outside in the Midwest during late Fall and Winter), and like a mentioned in a earlier post, I wanted to start to eat healthy and work out to be the fittest. Some things that motivated me again was 1) While taking an American Food class here at Mount Mercy, for an assignment, we had to record whatever we had ate in a span of five or so days. After writing the food I had consumed, I thought to myself, "Wow, I really need to watch what I eat." 2) Like one coach told me, "Somebody, somewhere is always getting better when you are just sitting down doing whatever." 3) I can't let the Nation (Functional Fitness on the Bluffs) 4) Abe and another teammate Martin (we call him Mini) said they wanted to get fit. And 5) I want to be the best I can be at all times.

What set me back from working out was I pulled my lower back muscle while doing a work out and to be honest, I was afraid to lift any weights again. But after a couple of months of sitting back and not training, like learning how to ride a bike, I got up and started to train again.

Before I started to train with Abe, I was thinking, "I don't want to just lift weights in front of a mirror. I want to do something different than anyone else does at school. So I informally introduced Abe to cross training. 
Our first WOD consisted of:
AMRAP 8:
10 kettle bell swings
10 Sumo Dealift High Pulls
10 Burpees
Suicides
Our warm ups were a 16 minute run on a trend mill, 1000 meter row and decline crunches.

Abe finished with 3 rounds and I finished with 3 rounds and 6 SDHP.

Post WOD Abe

Today, our workout consisted of a 16/17 minutes run on a trend mill, a partner workout: each partner does 5 rounds of 200 meter rows and do as many decline crunches you can while your partner is row for 200 meters, and planks. Then a 5 minute bike cool down.
Results consisted of:
Abe / Jun (crunches by rounds):
18  /  20
15  /  21
12  /  22
13  /  20
14  /  20

I posted on Facebook one time that I wanted to make a difference in the world. Even though it is something microscopic to the world, I feel like training with Abe and pushing him to work hard for me is making a difference one way or another or making an impact on him.

One thing I noticed while working out is the struggle getting through these work outs. Its a grind getting through it. It helps having a coach, friend, teammate or someone that's going to push over that limit you personally have. But ultimately, it is you who has to push yourself; telling yourself "I can do it" instead of "I can't do it," "I quit," or "I give up." Another wise man told me once that whatever you do on the field, reflects what you do in the real world.

So there you go. You always want to work hard at what you are doing. See how far you can push your limits. Don't think about the results or outcome, work for what is now.

Shout out to FFOTB, the Nation!

Congratulations to Abraham Carrasco on being picked as a NAIA Preseason All-American.

Feeling a little jittery

Last night as I sat in the seat at Henneseey Recreation Center to watch the women's volleyball game, it started to hit me.

Yesterday was Senior Night at the volleyball game. Each and one of the seniors were honored before the game with their accomplishments announced as the they walked down the line of teammates. As I saw the seniors walk down the line and gave hugs to their teammates one by one, I started to realized that it was going to be my last season of playing baseball.

As I watch the ceremony, I started to get flashbacks of the people who helped me to get to where I am today. I never thought I would be playing college baseball out of high school, with the body size of 5'6'' and a thin 155-160 pounds and being so mediocre at baseball.

When I was younger, I was the kid who would come home from school and throw everything on the floor and turn on the Play Station and play it for numerous amount of hours. My mother will always told me as I played Final Fantasy IX, "Stop playing video games and go practice some baseball. Talent isn't just handed on a silver platter." I would feel guilty when she said it but my priorty at the time was to beat the game I was playing

...

High school baseball was fun. My senior year was the first time we made it to playoffs since 2004. What made it an awesome year was the teammates I had, which was mostly all my friends since middle school. There were ones who were so focused and was game ready all the time and there were some who kept everything loose. I thought I would never be part of something special again. Sometimes I wish they can come watch me play out here because they are support system that keeps me going.

Then college came. Long story short, the five years I been in college as a athlete, I have made some friends that I call family now that kept on pushing past my limit to become the best I can be and became the person I am today.

But the biggest supporter is my family, especially my mother. She is the one that always told me to work hard, scolded me when I didn't, yelled at me for being lazy. She is the one that always listened to my ranting about baseball when she didn't want to be any part of it. She is the one that supported me in anything I did...

When the senior volleyball players came down to the end of the line to hug their parents, I started to get this jittery feeling.

I don't think my mother came to any of my baseball games I played in since my Little League days. I recalled my mother and sisters coming to a game at El Camino College when we hosted Super Regionals, but I wasn't playing then because that was my redshirt year. Other than that she hasn't seem me play in a long time. Also probably because she worked siz of the seven days of the week, day and night.

This year marks my senior year as well as some other teammates on the team. I talked to my mother if she can make it out to Cedar Rapids for Senior Day. She told me she doesn't know if she can with work. But said will make it out for graduation. One thing I want in the world is for my mother to see me play again for one last time.

I know my mother isn't technology savvy at all and she probably wont read this (probably doesn't know I even have a blog, or even know what a blog is), but even though if its only her, I want to surprise her and fly her into Cedar Rapids to watch me play that day.

I am fortunate to have the friends and family that has been supporting me. I just wanted to thank and every one of you who has been there for me through the calm and the storm. Never taking things for granted.

Biggest supporter! (Taken on 12/25/2010, also Mom's birthday)

-Jun

A new lifestyle

Lately, I have been eating out way too much and I feel like my body is taking its toll.

You would think after enrolling in a class this semester titled American Food, where the class teaches you about how the meat industries make process their foods, I would watch myself with what I eat.

Well, being a college student on a low budget, sometimes you have to buy the cheap stuff that might be less quality over a high priced food that's high quality.

I feel guilty because I had worked hard and ate right to get to where I am today, and also got coached nutritionally when I was attending Functional Fitness on the Bluffs. I guess there's that factor where if I'm living at home, I have mom's homemade cooking or I can make food with the ingredients that my mom bought.

But that should be no excuse. I should be going to the grocery store to by food to make instead of going out four of the seven days. Whenever I wake up after eating fast food, I feel like crap.

So starting Monday, I'm going to start a new project called "Project Transformation." This will consist of eating right and working out constantly.

So if you ever see me eating fast food or catch me at a fast food restaurant, guilt trip me, please. I don't want this project to only last for a month but I want it to be a lifestyle. I'm still in college and fast food might be the food I buy at times because its cheap, but I have to start somewhere to begin a healthier lifestyle

-Jun

Dont take it for granted

Seeing old friends that you haven't seen in a while is great.

This past weekend was Mount Mercy's homecoming/alumni weekend. It was great to see all the guys that played baseball at Mount Mercy in the past play again, even if it's one day out of the year.

I remember before the alumni weekend, some of us were s*** talking each other on who was going to win and all. But you know who won the game. Of course, we took the game. I think the score was something like 14-3. 

But you know, playing against alumni this past weekend makes me realize that being able to play baseball is such a privilege and some of us take the game for granted.

I talked to some of the alums and they feel like they still have playing years left but there comes a time when we stop playing. Everytime I think about how close my days of baseball is getting closer, I always think about a quote fromt he movie Moneyball; "We're all told at some point in time that we can no longer play the children's game, we just don't... don't know when that's gonna be. Some of us are told at eighteen, some of us are told at forty, but we're all told. But this is a once in a lifetime opportunity, we want you badly and we think that this amount of money expresses that desire."

I know during the game, they were on cloud 9. Being able to be on the field again to play the game they had played since they were little kids. That feeling is something I can't describe in words; it's something you have to experience.

In all honesty, I think this is going to be my last year playing competitive baseball, besides maybe playing a Sunday beer league or something. But being with group of people that have your back and look after you is something I cherish and would never give up anything for that.

When ever I coach little kids, I always tell them, "being able to play baseball is a privilege. Dont take things for granted because you never know what's going to happen." With that being said, I'm going to work harder than I ever have to make this one unforgettable season.

-Jun