This was an article I had to write for Rick's final project, so I figured why not put it up here.

My days begin like any other persons day with opening my eyes in the morning. Once I’m awake I prepare myself to my favorite part of the day: breakfast. It’s the only time I get to enjoy a stress free period. Everyday I do the same robotic thing for a good six to eight hours of my life, I go to school and I attend classes I don’t have any interest in. Actually I don’t have interest in school unless it’s for meeting my friends. I don’t see the point in learning I will forget in the future. I pass my time in school in my program PDHT, I didn’t really want to do web or graphic design. I was kicked out of Vanier and I didn’t want to go back there, so I applied at John Abbott in Fine Arts and got rejected. Good thing though because I had no clue what I was applying into, Fine Arts would have been hell for me and so I applied in PDHT without knowing what it was about.

 

My passion isn’t exactly graphic or web design, I just happened to be a fast learner and I picked it up pretty quickly. For the majority of my day I just sit and play flash games and do my work in class. It’s very boring and very robotic, it doesn’t seem to spark my attention and due to the lack of excitement I end up getting impulsive. Once I arrive back home from school like usual my stomach is hungry for warm home made food. I eat my meals slowly enjoying it because I know after that it’s off to that senseless homework that teachers love to give. The homework portion of the day really drives me insane, I forget to do everything around me for most of the time, and my legs hurt from just sitting on a chair doing nothing. This is the routine I follow three days out of my four school days. The real day begins once I am done school on Thursdays. Once I have finished my work and chores I head on to my break-dance practice.

 

With my boys I am more wild then anything. I don’t hold back anything I say everything and anything I want to say raw and uncut, no filters or any other form of restrictions. My attitude defines my style of break-dancing: wild and aggressive. Everyone goes through phases in their lives and sticks with the one that suits them best. I have found my right place, I break-dance and I train hard to stay healthy and in good shape. Practice sessions take off a lot of stress, all my boys are brothers to me since the only other brothers I had I left them in my country.  Our bond is stronger than regular friends, we aren’t just a crew of break-dancers we are a brotherhood of individuals from different backgrounds. I am from Pakistan, when I was a kid I moved to Canada with my mother and father and I had to leave everything else behind. We moved because of financial issues and the family tensions that would cause major stress of my parents’ lives. From the start I was a street kid, my home town was an abandoned colony, we used to live under a tin sheet roof held by bricks on each corner. I had no streets in my neighborhood only dirt paths; the government stopped developing that area after the partition. If it wasn’t for the health care in Canada I wouldn’t mind going back to my country to matter what the condition may be. When I came here I met my crew members one after the other, each with their own unique trait. Richie the master of back flips was born in the Philippines; the doctor had told his father that his son was going to die if he didn’t get a blood transfusion. Richie’s father found a way to get him to Canada in order to get a transfusion done and save his life. Lexi was always an adventurous guy, he would experience everything he could possibly can but financial issues always got in the way till this day he stills struggles but keeps his head up and fights on. Jo was the most timid person I had ever met, before he hung out with us he would never say a word to anyone, his mind was sharp but his mouth was. Once he got with us his mouth became just as sharp as his brain. My boy Matty was born in Germany to Polish parents, he is probably the most motivated guy around, he takes a goal and sticks with it till he reaches it, and he is very smart when it comes to human biology and chemical reactions. Hype is a musical genius as well as a scientific one, his parents are a confronting force with him so he stays as a normal boy around them but when he is with us he unleashes all his energy through his dance hence the name Hype. Franz and ATP are the only two people left in this world who can make me laugh until I cry. Franz is a street kid with an attitude and a dynamic personality like no other he knows how to work well with people around him. ATP is the nerd with a street kid inside him, he has the highest memory capacity out of all of us and his knowledge in sciences exceeds all of ours. Unlike most break-dance crews out there, everyone I practice with have an academic feature ahead of them.

 

During out practices we train, we do choreographies, tension always rises but as our crew name Goof Troop, we bring out the goof in each of us and our practice sessions end up with a series of laughter. Once I am with Goof Troop my worries are all gone and I feel refreshed, school just blanks out of my mind and then I don’t have to think about it at all. I really dislike putting on a mask on my face on a daily basis, sometimes when I see people do or say stupid unethical things I just shut up instead of taking action. When I am with the boys if any of us hear something like that we erupt. As much as the crew and I goof around we stay serious in real life matters, I discuss as much as I train and after practice sessions we all have discussions about society, economy, biology, engineering, warfare, cuisine, women, break-dance, and our futures. Break-dancing brought us all together but our personalities and egos will hold us together. As our day comes to an end we sit down and enjoy a moment of silence outside our practice area. Then it’s time for all of us to go under the rug and pursue our robotic lives. We all head in different directions and return home quietly the way our parents see us. Once I am home I refuel and relax my body and prepare to go to sleep knowing that the next day will be the same. What ever happens I know my crew and I will always b-boys.

Photo 1 From Left to Right: TOP ROW - Richie - Franz - Lexi - Matty - Jo    BOTTOM ROW - Hype - ATP - Me
Photo 2

 On every Canada Day there is a parade on Boulevard Pierrefonds, this year however the mayor is planning on cancelling the parade. At a dance show in Vanier, a lady came up to my crew and asked us to perform at the protest near the Pierrefonds Civic center and help them bring back Canada Day Parade.

I got a call from my day camp informing me that I am hired again for the summer. It's the best job so far, all week long I play activities outdoors, I get free food, I go on field trips once a week and I go to the pool once a week. Day camp is more like a vacation than a job.

Jan asked us to make a website as one of her projects, so I made mines about Marvel. I decided to link my Marvel Movie & Jan's Project all together. My website for the trade fair will be a promotional flash website about my Marvel Movie. Ill will advertise it online in forums and facebook groups about Marvel. I will also submit a trailer of the movie once it is finished. Then I will pick a release date and finallly I'll release the video online. I also have plans on emailing the video directly to Marvel. I am thinking of spreading this further and emailing it to website owners of certain critiques or marvel fansites.

Anyways time will tell how the movie rolls out.

Since P.D.H.T. is a technical program requiring technical skills would it really be beneficial to attend a university in order to improve ones skills?

That's the question that has been bothering me for a while. I find that skills take time and dedication to develop and can be obtained by someone if they try hard enough. So what would be the benefits of going into a university for graphic/web skills? In case of programming there are thousands of websites containing JavaScript, AJAX, PHP codes with detailed descriptions on how to apply them to a specific website. We covered most of the essential skills for HTML coding and CSS coding. Even then, all the information required to make a website pretty can be found floating on the internet. As for theory we covered essential theories in college. In the end when people make a design they don't apply every single theory they learned. A good eye for design can't be developed the same way as a skill it's either people have it or they don't and that shows as their designs look the same one after the other.Unlike skills that require a physical level of fitness, mental skills are much faster to learn, and I think people have everything they need inside their heads but they can't find a way to get it out of themselves.

During my appointment with my physiotherapist I asked his points of vue on the advantages of a University. He explained to me that if a person with a college degree was to apply for a job he would be placed in a lower rank position because their diploma would describe their knowledge and skills being at a lower level than someone from a University. As for a University graduate, their diploma would indicate that they have a higher understanding of their field and are professionals. However, a diploma may lie sometimes. There are possibilities that someone with a college diploma has a higher skill level than someone with a university diploma from the same field. In the corporate world, ranks are established by the academic levels. It's very different from the entrepreneur world where its a battle of individuality instead of academic levels.

There are certain fields where a University is mandatory; fields such as engineering, medicine and international commerce. Knowlegde can't be learned alone, it has to be transfered from one person to another. In a field like Design where the most important form of knowledge comes from the constant change of time and taste. How can a University provide help in becoming a better designer? Does it take a University to make someone become a better designer? Perhaps young designers go to a University because it's what they see everyone else doing or saying.

I'm never gonna see the bright side of a University it reminds me of a box where unique individuals go into and come out as drones.

Jan asked us to do a Flash animation using the Bone tool. I did exactly as she asked but I ended up making a 45 second movie out of it. So now I will be preparing a 2 to 4 minutes long Flash Movie that I will display at the TradeFair.

Most people know this as break-dancing, this was a term made by the media once the businessmen of USA got a hold of this form of art. They made all the money they could possibly make and by the time Disco came, B-boying was dead in the media. Many people thought it didn't exist no more. Little did they know, it was alive in the underground scene and now there are many more people practicing this form of art than ever before.

I started b-boying in November once a close friend of mines studying at Gerald Godin visited me at Abbott. He did a back flip and landed on his elbow doing a elbow stand. I was impressed by that and started looking in the B-boy scene, the next week I went to a YMCA to practice and got addicted to spinning and rolling all over the floor. It was the best stress relief, mentally, physically and spiritually. I started to meet more old friends from then on and we would practice and hang out twice a week. Later on we decided to form a crew, what made us strong was the bond we all had with each other. We all knew one another from a long time, there was nothing we didn't know about each other it was like a brotherhood. This took place in 2008 in November and we have been going at it since then, always practicing twice a week and hanging out after practices.

B-boying really makes people feel good, for one its the most extreme form of art out there. No other discipline does such crazy death defying stunts that push the human body to its limits. Like in martial arts, in b-boying the thoughest opponent is yourself. B-boys really stand out in the athletic level, they can spin and balance on most part of the body: head, shoulder, elbow, wrist, fingers, back, hips, knees and toes. This discipline is a form of expression, dance floors weren't the same after b-boying was made; the dance floors became a spiritual plain to overcome the mental and the physical pain.

To me there is nothing more satisfying than moving wildly on the floor and spining on my back, I found it hard to live a boring lifestyle with no mental and physical benefits. I couldn't live the bodybuilder lifestyle it was too selfish: eating large quantities of food for no reason and working out day after day for no reason; it felt like I got dumber by the second. I couldn't live the lifestyle of money spending outgoing people, it was destructive to hit clubs every week and intoxicate my body realising that as I grew older my body would have a harder time keeping up. Spending money on things I wanted rather than needed did not appeal to me either. B-boying was the perfect balanced lifestyle, dancing makes everyone feel good, in this case there were physicial benefits through an increase in endurance, strenght and flexibility. Mental benefits, being different than the majority of my surrounding put a big smile on my face cause I know I could spin on my back and walk on my hands without doing handstands while other people couldn't even walk the walk. B-boying helped me understand nutrition and the human body much more than bodybuilding did, my knowledge in these fields expanded to a whole new level.

B-boying was known to be the dance of the poor, it started in New York in the Bronx, it was made by African-Americans and Peurto Ricans who would attend weekly jams. At street parties for everyone in the neighbourhood one person decided to go on the floor and dance, from there one that person didn't get back up. More and more people started getting into it and it spread like a fever all across the Bronx. There was no material needed for this dance, Ballerinas need their shoes, contemporary dancers need their stereo, traditional dancers need their festivals and music, but b-boys only need the rock steady ground. B-boying can be done anywhere.

One of the worst stereotype concerning b-boys is that thy are all failiures at life or they don't have a future. Opposite to that, the majority of b-boys in North America attend academic institutions, my crew members are in the dental, science and engineering fields in McGill and Concordia while the others study at John Abbott, Vanier and Gerald Godin.

To finish my blog post, I won't be going back to being a dumb bodybuilder or a destructive money oriented prick. Hip-Hop and rap, that's were my hearts at. I will keep b-boying for as long as I don't feel the symptoms of my body wearing and tearing as I reach an older age and I will keep studying healing, physiology and nutrition. The rest of my family lives in Pakistan and I would go back to them if I could. In the mean time I'm going to keep doing the dance of the poor to relieve myself from the daily stress of this robotic life and cracking jokes to make people laugh as I laugh with them.

Here is a video I put together during the time I was injured and still b-boying.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQU1f_yjsJI

    Lately I have been experiencing my head spinning in circle, day after day my brain is at school but my mind is set on my knee injury as well as my break-dancing fever. I haven't made a blog post earlier for that reason. I am taking more and more interest in medical studies I  find myself studying about the joints of the human body and I take more notes on that than I do at school. Daily my brain is somewhere it has to be and my mind is set on what's more important to it. My doctor has given me a note to show to a surgeon for an appointment but the surgeon won't be in town until March 22nd.

    I know myself enough to say that my mind isn't going to be set to school. In fact I am losing interest in PDHT slowly  I find myself sitting in class and just staring passively at the floor or the desk thinking about my injury and my "fever". My mind is inclining towards medical studies because I know that if I get an injury in the feature PDHT won't help me heal but medical knowledge may.

   Hopefully this Trade Fair will get my competitive spirit running and help me focus a little more.

Today at school, I had my first volleyball class and the only expectation I had in mind was that it was going to be an easy course. I was wrong..dead wrong.

At 10:30am my stomach started to growl begging for food but I just compressed that feeling and proceeded to my volleyball class. Once I arrived that class had already begun a small warm up, so I decided to embark in it as well. After the first few matches of volleyball, I came to the conclusion that it was not child's play. It drained out every bit of energy I had left and my forearms were pumped with blood after hitting the ball so hard. Once class had finished I was completely exhausted and food was on my mind. Overall the day passed very well, the moment I arrived home I ate food and fell asleep.

Few hours later, I find myself waking up from my sleep and the thought of writing a blog makes me think about it. I find it very weird to be writing a blog post; because personally I believe its kind of ludicrous. I get the impression I am talking to myself, and everybody gets to read whatever I have in mind. I will try my best to filter my words and thoughts.

I selected "drained" as a mood. It appears to be a blue colored happy sad-face. Its not reflecting my mood however. I am actually happy that I am drained out of energy and I can sleep early tonight and wake up fresh tomorow morning.

 First blog entry, I couldn't select the name RUNDMC because it was already in use I couldn't select it. Instead, I chose Rundimc. Its a cheaper version.