Infestation

That Bakugan Stuff is Cool, Huh

When you're a third grader, counting calories and freaking out over things with over 100 calories you know something went wrong earlier in your life. I mean, I was scared of anything that said over 100 calories, and it was wild man, god, but I mean, I got really good at math throughout that year. While I was in third grade, the year was 2008-2009, which meant that the rise of the myspace scene (I will go massively into detail at one point here, just not yet, it's a whole story on it's own.) It also meant that there was a rise in nerd culture, and me, being the big freaking nerd I was at this age already, it was just really intriguing. My school had hilariously banned Pokemon cards at this point, so we were trying to find ways around it. Kids at this school weren't sly to be honest. It was a small school and it was extremely rural, pretty much five minutes from my house. The kids were very mixed as well, we had the country folk (putting it that way, but you get what I mean, I hope), we had the preppier ones, we had the loners (aka me), and then the nerds. I was sort of walking alone one day during recess, and this kid was digging a hole in the school's playground, and me, being the kid I am, I asked to join because I was bored with my usual antics of walking the schoolyard until recess was over. The kid said yes to my offer, and so we started to dig this hole. Don't ask why though, because I don't even know, we were young man, kids do crazy stuff. Ok, so this damn hole actually caused me to make friends for the first time in my life. Woah, surprising, I know. The real thing happened later though, like maybe in September, early September? I don't know, it was pretty early in the school year.

It all started when my friend brought in this ball, that when you'd put it on a magnet, it'd open into a creature. He had two, and gave me one for no reason, so I had this thing, I wasn't told what it was called, but I was fascinated. The day afterwards, I started to bring this little ball to school, and realized that others were doing the same. So thus this trend started, and we started trading these little balls. It replaced Pokemon now, since the cards were banned from the school. The whole third grade class would buy these, but me, if I start liking something, I obsess over it, so yeah, I bought a bunch, and by October, I had this massive collection of them.

Along with this new found obsession for these little creatures, we had this new thing we made. It started with us just trying to find new ways to jump off the swings. Again, third graders, we were insanely stupid in a sense, but yeah. We called it: "swing jumping olympics", and we'd try and outdo each other. Me, being a gymnast, I had a little bit of advantage I guess, and that definitely worked in my favor in this instance. We'd swing insanely high, and then jump in these massively strange ways, it was definitely wild, but hey, so were we. The weather grew into the cold, dreary, late October weather, but this was before I developed seasonal depression so everything was still pretty decent at that point. I think that year I had decided to be Anakin for halloween, which I mean, I think you are now very much aware of how much I loved him at this point in time. Trick or Treating used to be fun for me, as I would be able to eat the candy without feeling like puking it up or burning it off. I never let my disordered thoughts ruin halloween. I'd carry my favorite of the little ball-creatures. I never had figured out what they were called by this point. I'd always go with my best friend, every year we'd go together, and it was fun back then, and it still is.

I feel like I jump topics a lot with these, and I apologize to be honest, because I have issues talking about one thing for a longer time, but I can try ok. I can try to keep it together and talk about one thing, and not jump around here.

On that note on this, I want to say that as September had hit, my dad was building solar panels in the front yard, so that was happening as well, and I'd be digging a lot in the hole, which by the way ended up being seven feet deep. It was my favorite thing to do back then, because I loved dirt and being enveloped in dirt or snow, or whatever. I guess I've always felt like digging myself into holes that are hard to get out of now.