sinclairsprivate

[sinclairsprivate]

Caitlyn.

As of now, this is the best story that I have to tell. It is a story about a period in my life where I was completely in-love with a girl. Stupidly in-love even. My mind and my thoughts solely belonged to this girl, everything else just didn’t seem important. She was something else to me, so superior to anyone I had ever met. I couldn’t sleep, eat, play or work without thinking of this girl at the same time. This is not necessarily a love story. There is no happy ending, let me just warn you now. This is the story of a girl named Caitlyn, Cait for short And a boy named inferior piece of crap, Troy for short.

I knew after spending just one day with Cait that things would be different from then on. I knew then that I was falling for this girl. Do you know the feeling you get in your stomach when you are falling or driving down a dip in the road? That’s the feeling I had every time I saw her. It was like I was literally falling. But before I tell you about our first day together, let me tell you how we first met. It was on a Saturday, and I was at a music festival with my friends. I was lining up to get inside, when I see this tall girl walk right past me. I only saw the back of her but I remember thinking something weird like: “Wow, this girl has REALLY nice hair” or something like that. She had a sort of walk that made her hair swing side to side. So there I was, staring at this girl’s hair swinging like a complete fool when suddenly she turns around. Almost like she sensed me staring. Have you ever seen a movie scene where the girl (the love interest) turns around in slow motion in the direction of the guy (the protagonist) while he basically salivates over the sight of the girl? That’s what happened. She turned around and probably caught gaze of me staring at her, then faced me. We stood looking at each other for a few seconds until we both gave in and looked away. Simultaneously almost. After this happened, I asked around for her name and found out that I was Cait.

It was now 9pm, the music festival had finished and Cait was nowhere to be seen. I was looking around for her, trying to catch a last glance before possibly never seeing her again. But I couldn’t find her. So I walked home with my friends. I told my friends about Cait and how I wish I had approached her when I had the chance. I told them that I wish I had the guts to start a conversation with her and now I might never see her again. I was walking home completely depressed and angry at myself for not doing anything. I MEAN, we were looking at each other for a solid 3 seconds. All I had to do was say “HI!” or smile or even raise an eyebrow for gods sake. But all I did was stare. Like a deer in the headlights. The entire way home I was tearing myself apart and my friends were laughing at how crazy I was being, this wouldn’t be the last time they would see me like this over Cait.

I got home and fell into my bed. I thought, nothing seems that bad when you are laying down in your bed surrounded by pillows and blankets. I thought I’d lay there for at least a week until I could get over choking at the music festival. I opened my phone and checked my Facebook account. I saw that I had 10 friend requests, and thought: “Just a bunch of people that I don’t really care about” but looked through them anyway. I was looking through them, eyes squinted, just going through the motions when I saw her name. Cait had added me on Facebook. I honestly couldn’t believe what I was seeing, I was so shocked that I nearly pressed delete request. I ditched my bed, and screamed “SHE ADDED ME” over and over for a solid 5 minutes. My friends were once again laughing, but this time I didn’t care. I was too happy to care.

I took my phone to the rooftop of my dorm (my favorite place in the entire world) and accepted the friend request. The rooftop was so simple, yet so beautiful. It was the roof of a 6 story building where I lived in with my teammates. It wasn’t the highest point in the city but it felt like it. It felt like you were looking over the whole city of Cebu when you were up there. I would sometimes go up there by myself and just stare at the city. Screaming out: “I WILL OWN THIS CITY ONE DAY” or “THIS IS MY CITY” just for the sake of it. Just to feel significant. I would always lie on the roof and imagine having a girl there with me. Someone to just talk to, to look at the city with and to stare up at the stars with. I took my phone up there and talked to Cait the whole night. Imagining she was by my side while we chatted.

She told me that she had a soccer game in two days at my school, I told her that I would watch her play. We must have been talking for 4 hours straight when she told me she had to sleep because she had to do something the next day. I said goodnight and that it was nice talking to her. But it was more than nice, at the time, it seemed like it was the best thing that ever happened to me. You know how you over exaggerate when you have feelings for someone right? We stopped talking and she probably went to sleep, but I stayed up for a few more hours and stared at the sky. Thinking about how I could make this girl fall in love with me.

Two days later....

Class ended and I was on my way to the soccer field to watch Cait play. I was so nervous. I was going through every possible situation in my head. How was I going to say hello for the first time? Here were my options:

HI! Nice game, you played really well.

HI! It’s nice to finally meet you.

Hey, I like your.. hair.

But I didn’t end up using either of the three. I guarantee that when you find out what I did, you will be surprised. But I guess you’ll just have to wait for the next blog to find out... STAY TUNED.

[sinclairsprivate]

Lazy Sunday

I wake up, instantly snapping out of the dream that I was having. I wake up with my mouth wide open, like I always do. A mix of last night’s dinner and toothpaste attacks my taste buds. I must not have brushed my teeth all too well. I try to remember what I was dreaming about, but all I could remember was that I was staring at a girl. Staring at her while she was talking to someone that I could not see. She was talking to someone that I could not care less about. I was too focused on looking at this girl to care about anything else, at least from what I remember.

Don’t you hate how you just snap out of dreams? You go from looking at a beautiful girl to tasting the left-over food in your mouth, without warning. I wish our bodies would at least give us a heads-up that it was planning to wake up soon. That way I could focus on memorizing all the details worth keeping in my memory. Maybe I’ll invent a dream-ending notifier one day. A sticker, that you place on your forehead before sleeping that notify’s you when your dream is about to end. That would be something. 

Anyway, I get up, shower and brush my teeth. Leaving nothing but the taste of mint and a bit of shampoo in my mouth. Not quite sure how the shampoo got there. I guess mint really hates being left alone *ba dum tss*. I remember that I had a date today. I start to feel excited. It was 10am, I was supposed to pick up Ann; short for Annie at 3pm. We planned to go to a food park today, because food is life. I have never met Ann before, but I want to start to meet new people. I thought Ann would be a good start. She’s pretty, she seems really smart and she love’s adventures. Well, at least that’s what her Instagram feed would say if it could talk. I then opened my messaging app to see if Ann had sent me any messages.

I log in and see that she had sent me a message at 6:30am. This is what it said: “I’m really sorry I have to postpone food park. My mom texted me and she wants me to go home to my province now. I’m on my way now. I hope I didn’t ruin your morning. Have a nice day. Hope to see you soon.”. After reading that I let out a sigh and realized that I had nothing to do. Then for some reason I got all positive and completely flipped my mindset. I thought: I have the whole day to do anything I want to do. So I jumped up, stretched my back and strutted towards the door. READY TO CONQUER THE WORLD. I opened the door and took few steps out of my cave into the cruel world, ready to make it my bitch. I was only a few steps out when I felt this urge to return to my warm, cozy and safe cave. So that’s exactly what I did. I walked back to the cave door, opened it and looked inside. I fell in love with the sight of the pillows on my bed and dove into them, face first. I guess I’ll conquer the world another time, I thought.

I wake up, for the second time. It was now 2pm and well into my lazy Sunday. This time I didn’t have a dream. I remember thinking that maybe me waking up the first time was a dream, so I checked my messages to see if Ann canceled and surely enough she did. I really did sleep again. That is the story of my lazy Sunday. Even though I didn’t do much today, I loved every second it. I’ve been so positive and excited for no good reason lately. I feel amazing every day. I feel that no matter what happens, everything is all good. As long I’m alive. 

As long as we are breathing, our potential is infinite.

Everybody needs a lazy Sunday every now and then right? I hope all of you had a great day. I know I did :)

[sinclairsprivate]

PUBLIC

Today I am making my blog public. Everyone can now see, enjoy, hate, love, judge and feel whatever way they want towards my blog. Hopefully they’ll just see, enjoy, love and feel positive thoughts but if they don’t, it’s alright. It will help me as a writer and as a person. Being insecure, reserved and shy has always been my problem. I’ve always been the type of guy that doesn’t go out because he’s too insecure to dance and sing. I’ve always been the guy who didn’t talk to the girl because I was too shy, even when I knew she wanted to talk to me too. I’ve always been the guy thinking about how awkward and weird I look.

I could go on and on about the opportunities I have missed out on because I was too shy, insecure and reserved. BUT. This blog isn’t about pointing out all my failures and missed opportunities. This blog is about change. This blog is a place where I can express myself. I say let the world know that I am a horrible dancer and singer with no coordination or musical talent. Let the world know that I am awkward and weird looking most of the time. Let them see all my flaws. It won’t hold me back anymore. At least that’s the plan. I’m not saying that you are going to see me dancing, singing and looking awkward in public just for the sake of defying my flaws (If you ever see me doing that I suggest you look away. It’s not going to be pretty). What I’m saying is that I will no longer let it control my thoughts to the point where I am not able to live.

I made this blog private because I didn’t want certain people seeing what I write about. I didn’t want people laughing at me and judging me. I set it to private to select and choose the people I would show myself to. I always knew that I was going to set it to public one day when I was happy with the content, but I thought it would be somewhere in the distant future. My plan was to have so many posts up that even if it was on public, the people reading just to tease me would be too lazy to read through. But ever since I started I’ve been getting nothing but positive and helpful comments. I know that the only people who have been reading have been people asking for the password, but it still made me realize that most people don’t want to tease and mock. Most people are supportive, warm-hearted and accepting. 

The people that know me really well know that I have a lot of stories where I completely screw up easy situations with girls. I always over exaggerate how easy the situation was just for the story. I love telling these stories because they are funny and in a sense show my hopeless-romantic side. I like to share what was going through my head in the moment. I like to think about every factor that played a role in my demise. That’s my style. I feel like my best stories are the one’s where I act completely hopeless; you will see a lot of posts like this in my blog and you will realize what I’m talking about. I guarantee that those stories will be your favorites. I know that I will make more stories and memories of screwing up, but I want to have a few good stories of doing everything that I should have done, where I took every opportunity and got the damn girl for once. Stories where I’m the hero. 

What I’m basically trying to say is that I want to be open with what I like doing. I like writing and I don’t want to be private about it anymore. I want people to see and appreciate my work and I don’t mind if they don’t. At least not anymore. There is no education quite like adversity and I want to learn as much as I can from it. Let the world judge me

“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself” - Mark Twain

[sinclairsprivate]

The last time I met my high-school sweetheart

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: “ugh, this blog is going to be so cheesy. high-school sweetheart? Who even uses that term anymore?”. Well, for those that are thinking that, you are right. This blog post is going to be cheesy. Here’s a joke related to cheese to prepare you for what is coming:

Q: What did the blind man say after being handed a cheese grater?

A: "That's the most violent book I've ever read."

Have you ever talked to a person on the internet, but not in person? If so, my relationship with my high-school sweetheart is similar to your relationship with that person you only talked to online. My high-school sweetheart’s name is Ashe. I basically liked Ashe from the start or the 7th year until the end of 10th year of my schooling life. In those 4 years of liking this girl, the only in-person interactions I was able to muster up the courage to do are: 1) Give her a Hi-5 after she did really well in a swimming race. 2) Hug her 3) Sit next to her on a 10 minute bus ride, saying nothing but “Hi” when I sat next to her 4) Offer her a piece of cake. I was a shy person to say the least, so was she. But online, we were totally different people. We would talk for hours on end. Sometimes literally for the whole day. From when I woke up, till I went to sleep. I know, we were really, really weird.

I have been living in the Philippines for the last 3 years and I go back to Australia for a month every Christmas break to see my family and friends. I always meet all my friends when I go back, because I only get to see them once a year. But for some reason, I didn’t get to see Ashe the first two times I went back. I only got to see her the last time I went back. The third time since I left Australia. That makes three years of not seeing each other for those who struggle with math *laugh*

It was one day before I left Manila to go to Sydney. December 19, 2016. I was watching a movie when I got a twitter dm at 3am. I remember thinking: “Who the hell would dm me at this time? My mum? Wait, she doesn’t have twitter.” I opened twitter and saw that It was Ashe. I was pretty surprised, because we hadn’t talked in about a year. But it made sense that it was her because she always slept really late. It said: “Hey!!!! When do you get to Aus?!”. She is a really upbeat person to chat with, so she uses a lot of exclamation marks and capital letters. I felt like replying “HI!!!!! TOMORROW!!!” but I can never feel upbeat enough to type like Ashe. So instead I said: “ Hey :) I get back tomorrow morning. My flight is tonight”. She then told me that we have to see each other when I get back because It’s been 3 years. She saw my tweet where I said that I’ve never been to the Opera House in my life and suggested that we go there together. I said yes. And that was that. I was finally going to see Ashe after 3 years of wanting to. Unless my plane crashed (Which it didn’t, thank God)

It was January 3. The day I would see Ashe. I was at the train station waiting for her to show up so we could catch a train to the City, then walk to the opera house from there. We were talking the night before about how bad we both were with directions, so it was going to be a real adventure. Then we somehow got on the topic of best friends. I asked about a girl named Fiora. Fiora was, when I left, Ashe’s best friend. They would ALWAYS be together. I’m talking always. They were more than two peas in a pod; They were just one pea. Basically one person, inseparable. I asked if they still talked, and I got a story of PURE betrayal. I got a whole lot of capital letters and exclamation marks explaining how Fiora was basically the worst person alive. She made it seem so bad. I mean, Brad Pitt leaving Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie bad. But that’s what I love about Ashe. She is so fun to talk to. She is the type of person that makes you smile and laugh at your phone in public until you look like a psycho. The quote “ thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.” always reminded me of us. Ashe being the hurricane. Anyway, back to the story..

I was waiting for Ashe at the train station. I got a text from her saying she was there. My stomach felt so weird when I saw that text. I felt so nervous and excited to see her. I started looking around, left, right, and I spot her around 20 meters away. Everything was in slow motion now. THERE SHE WAS. All my feelings got replaced by pure nervousness. I felt my shy high-school self coming out of me again. I shook it off and thought of a plan. I told myself: “THIS IS CRITICAL THINKING TIME”. I had thought of a plan in what seemed like half a second. Here’s what went through my mind in that half second;

SITUATION: Ashe is around 20 meters away from me. We are at the train station

GAME PLAN: THIS IS NOT A MOVIE, I REPEAT THIS IS NOT A MOVIE. You are NOT going to run to her and sweep her off her feet. You are at a train station for God’s sake. There are so many people around and you will embarrass her if you do that. THIS IS WHAT YOU’LL DO. You will act like you don’t see her and wait for her to walk in your direction. She will call you if she can’t find you. Once she’s approximately 5 meters away, you will say “Ashe!” either on the phone when she calls you or when she’s near enough to hear a miniature scream of her name. (this was all planned in half a second)

Back to real life.. It’s probably been 5 seconds since I spotted Ashe and I see her finally walking in my direction. She calls my phone. I pick up. Here’s the conversation we had on the phone:

Hello, Ashe?

Hello

Where are you. I’m waiting for you at the train station (even though I already see her)

I’m here. I can’t see you. Where are you?

Wait, I think I see you.. (she’s around 5 meters away from me by now. MY PLAN WORKED)

Back to real life.. I do a miniature scream: “Ashe!”. She see’s me. I remember putting on my brightest smile, and walking in her direction. Ready to give her a hug that would make up for 3 years of not seeing each other. A hug so damn good that she wouldn’t want me to let go. A hug so memorable that she wouldn’t forget it even if she lost her memory. I’m 3 meters away now. 2 meters..

I see something running towards me from the corner of my right eye.. That’s not Ashe I thought. Ashe is right in front of me. I turn around to face what’s coming at me from the corner of my right eye, out of pure instinct. It’s Fiora. Fiora screams out something I don’t even remember. Something like “IS THAT? OMG IS THAT?”.

Fiora had seen me walking and recognized me. She ran up to see if it was me, at the same time I was on my way to Ashe. I am not making this up. This REALLY happened. Fiora screamed at me 2 meters before I got to Ashe and totally ruined my entire game plan. It was going so perfect. Now it was ruined. I scream “OMG FIORA IS HERE, OMG FIORA IS HERE” out of pure instinct, knowing Ashe was a few meters in front of me. I honestly nearly shat myself, I was that shocked. I turn to face Fiora and greeted her before I even got to greet Ashe. I hugged fiora, then turned to see where Ashe was. Ashe by then was literally right in front of me. I turned to hug Ashe, but by then the whole setting was completely ruined. And I knew it. It was such an awkward hug. Definitely memorable, but in a bad way. After I hugged Ashe, Ashe hugged Fiora and they sort of faked like they don’t hate each other. But we all knew what was going on. Then Fiora left and I went with Ashe to buy train tickets going to the city.

That is the story of how Fiora totally messed up my first encounter with Ashe in 3 years. It is also the story of “The last time I met my high-school sweetheart.” What happened after that? What about our trip to the Opera House? I will have to tell you all in a future post. I don’t know when I’ll post it though. Stay tuned!

[sinclairsprivate]

Sinclair, you are up.

NOTE: I do not have any problems with nor do I judge homosexual people. I respect them and I also have many homosexual friends.

Speech And Oral Communication Class. Every Wednesday from 9am-12pm I am picked on. Both literally and figuratively by my teacher and my classmates. I’m not mad or annoyed, nor do I hate my teacher or my classmates, in fact I love all of them. It is by far my favorite class. I am just stating a fact. They pick on me, and I have evidence. let me explain why I feel like this is happening. O.K let me tell you how it all started.

It was 8:50 am on a Wednesday, I was walking to my first ever Speech And Oral Communication class hoping to be a little early but not too early to seem all eager and everything. But the truth was, I was eager. I thought: ‘’Speech Class huh? I bet we will be giving a lot of speeches’’ and laughed at myself for having such an obvious thought. I’m not the best at giving speeches but I’ve always wanted to improve so I was looking forward to this class. Anyway, I get to room 304 which is where the class is held. I open the door and see the class half full, with no teacher. “PERFECT” I thought. I’m not the typical extremely eager looking guy that turns up first, I’m not the guy that comes in 5 minutes after the lesson has started and comes across as being lazy and arrogant. I’m the guy that comes in under the radar and doesn’t really get noticed. Or so I thought.

I walk in and see (not discriminating just stating facts) that 70% of my classmates in this class were female and 20% were noticeably homosexual. And I really mean it when I say noticeably. I’m talking coloured long hair, loose body language and the most telltale sign of them being gay.. Shrieks and pointed fingers in my direction when I walked in the room. I’m not saying that I’m good looking or that gay people find me attractive, just stating facts. Either that really happened or I was hallucinating. The other 10% of the class were guys that weren’t noticeably homosexual. So, just to get the setting straight, we have more than half of the class either pointing and shrieking at me or staring at me as I enter the class. I tried to look like I didn’t notice. I smiled and sat down at the back of the room.

I looked around and decided to sit next to a guy that looked completely straight and started a conversation with him. I decided that I’d talk to a person within that 10% of guys that weren’t gay so it wouldn’t make a scene. Here’s what I remember from our conversation (I might be over exaggerating a little) :

Hi. I’m Josh *extends hand for a handshake*

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey. I’m Darius *shakes extended hand*

(At that moment I realized that Darius was not part of the 10%. Imagine a really high pitched voice coming out of a muscular man with thick facial hair. That’s Darius)  

Cool! Nice to meet you Darius. Do you know our professor? 

Yesss, yesss I knowww herrr. She is verryyy verrryy strictttt. 

Aw well, I hope she’ll be a good teacher.

After talking to Darius for a bit longer, I stopped asking questions and just waited for the teacher to arrive. She walked in 5 minutes late and introduced herself, the class was basically full by then. After introducing herself she gave us our first assignment. Yes, she gave us an assignment on the first day of class. We had to introduce ourselves in front of the class for at least 2 minutes. We would be graded on our voice, eye contact and connection to the audience. I was a little nervous because, you know, it was our FIRST DAY. I couldn’t believe we were even talking about grades on the first day. She said she would pick someone randomly to go first.

I had calmed down in about a minute or two. I told myself that I would be fine as long as I didn’t have to go first… sure enough my professor says: “Joshua Sinclair? You are up”. I couldn’t believe it. Why me first?! I was hiding at the back and it’s not like Joshua Sinclair is at the top or at the bottom of the list of names that she had. “Why me?” I was repeating that question through out my entire walk to the front of the class that I almost started my speech by asking “why me?” But I snapped out of it last second and started with a smile and an awkward “hi”. I finished the 2 minute speech, and did pretty well. I added some humor in it so my classmates wouldn’t be too bored. I ended up getting 9/10 which wasn’t bad. I enjoyed that day, listening to everyone introducing themselves and I was laughing at their corny jokes. The first lesson ended and I was happy that I had a class that I could look forward to.

Now that you know the setting and a bit of the back story, Here is why I think that they pick on me; They pick me to go first for basically every single oral presentation. Out of the first 5 speeches I had been chosen first 3 times and the other 2 times I had been within the first 5 to present. WHERE IS THE RANDOMNESS IN THAT? It’s not like I’m the best at giving speeches in the class. All my classmates are English Majors and some even compete in competitions. Here’s my theory; It’s because I’m white.

Today was my 6th lesson in Speech class. I never miss speech class because I love listening to everyone’s presentations. Even if it means I have to go first almost every time. Our task today was to give a 5 minute narrative on the topic “The last time” She gave us all 5 minutes to plan on what we’d talk about. I spent my 5 minutes helping the girl next to me, once again thinking as long as I wasn’t the first to be called I’d be fine. So the 5 minutes passed and I was honestly just waiting for my professor to call my name to go first. We sat in silence waiting… 

*silence breaks*

Darius, you are up!

*everyone other than Darius lets out a sigh of relief*

MAAAAAAAAAA’AAAAAM I’M NOOOOT REAAADYYYYY.

Ok. You’ll go next Darius. But you get minus 5 on your final grade.

Okaaaaay Maaaa’aaaaam.

Sinclair, you are up!

AAAAGHHHHHHHH WHAT?!?! (I actually said that out loud).

You are up.

I was honestly so ready to scream out that I wasn’t ready like Darius did but I decided last second not to. I was honestly just stunned that she chose ME to go first again. RANDOM MY ASS. I decided to give a narrative called “The last time I met my high-school sweetheart” 

TO BE CONTINUED (story on the narrative speech tomorrow)

[sinclairsprivate]

THE REASON I MADE THIS BLOG

I made this blog because I want to write. I know I could’ve just made that the title of this post and you wouldn’t have to read this crap, but, let’s just say that I like wasting your time. Reading this blog in general will probably be a waste of your time, no one is forcing you to read this so you can stop whenever. MORE ON THE TOPIC; I like writing. And after having a killer basketball career, I want to be a writer. An actual professional writer that gets paid and what not. The plan is to make so much money from basketball and business that it wouldn’t matter how much I get paid for writing. Honestly I just want to be able to say that I’m a “Professional Writer” or an ‘’Author’’. Imagine this conversation between me and a stranger:

Hi, what’s your name?

Hi. I’m Josh. What’s yours?

I’m Bella *smiles*

What do you do, Bella?

Oh, I’m a lingerie model for Victoria Secret. You?

Interesting. That explains your beauty.. I’m an Author

What’s an Author?

A sex addict. Kidding. It’s a professional writer.        

Tell me that wouldn’t be cool. Tell me you wouldn’t laugh if you were Bella. You can’t can you? But I mean, it would’t take much to make a girl that doesn’t know what an Author is laugh. BACK TO THE TOPIC; I like writing. And I think having a blog will help me improve my ability to write well. I will try to write every day. If you go 24 hours without having something to write about then you are either 1) Not bothered to write 2) Not using your 24 hours of the day right. My goal is to always have something to write about the end of the day. I know, I know! You are probably reading this thinking something like “Man people always say they’ll do things every day but don’t. 365 day Instagram accounts, daily workouts, reading… THEY NEVER STAY COMMITTED”. To the people thinking that, you are probably right. BUT, It’s better to have unrealistically hard goals than easy goals right? Aim for the stars and land on the moon RIGHT? Just trying to be positive here. Anyway, I guess all the reasons that I have talked about come second to the fact that I’m always bored at night. If you made it this far into this post, you must be really bored too. WELCOME TO MY BLOG