Happy New Year

2014 has been one hell of a year. Many positive and negative things have happened throughout the world. For me, 2014 was filled with many positives and negatives.

One of the first negative things to happen this year was the closing of NopMC. It's community may have diminished, but it was a tragedy to see a server full of many wonderful people shut down. While I have stayed in initial contact with some players, I lost connection from most.

One of the things that really affected my life happened on October 7th, 2014. My grandfather of 75 years was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. This is the worst stage as there is a 1% chance of surviving up to 5 years. Chemotherapy was the only option. So far it seemed to help him as he mostly felt good after the chem, until the weekends. He is slowly deteriorating and he eats very little. He actually was just in the hospital after falling, but he managed to visit for Christmas. Yesterday on the 31st, he went to get CAT scan to see if the cancer has diminished. There was good news and bad news. The good news: the cancer has not grown. The bad news: the cancer has not diminished. From how he is, my dad predicts that he only has a few more months. He also has begun forgetting things like his recent hospital trip. Our goal as a family is to have him survive to finish his life story via a book and videos and a longshot goal is to have him attend my graduation from high school, which is over a year away.

I also have learned that my two living great-grandmothers, aged 91 and 93 respectively, have both been doing bad as well. One I have not heard about in years so it was a surprise when I found out she was in hospital care and had dementia. The other was not a surprise as for years I have known she had Alzheimers and has been in assisted living for the longest of time.

Now to move onto the positives. I have been on many trips this year and have had many opportunities. This year I made first chair all-district band for the fourth year in a row and made all-state for again the fourth year. My band was invited to perform in Chicago Symphony hall for the Percy Grainger Wind festival. Finally just two days before Christmas, I found out I made the Honor Band of America and will be performing in Indianapolis in March.

Over the summer I attended many summer camps and even traveled with my family to Ireland and Scotland. I am currently applying to go work in a hospital in the Dominican Republic over the upcoming summer as part of a program to help me become a doctor.

I have written the Rough Draft and started the Final Draft to my book, Alpha-819, and have written a great short story, Via Vitae (Which you can find in the off-topic section of this forum).

I have seen one of my favorite movies of all time, Interstellar.

Finally, I ended off the year by creating this forum for all the old members of NopMC to be together.

Like I said at the beginning of this post, 2014 was one hell of a year, but 2015 will be better.



What was your year like?

2014, so many things. I'm going to separate the events into three different categories: Good, Bad Interesting.

Bad:
Well first off, the closing of NopMC, I was only on the server for about four months. But I grew to love the community. And I loved the community so much, here I am, on the forums to talk to members of that community. I can't really think of anything too bad, so yeah thats it.

Interesting:
I found out that my dad's dad divorced and re-married. That brings my number of grandparents to 6, yeah lot of divorce in my family (at least not for my generation but my mom and dad had divorce in their families).

Good:
First off, got into advanced band at school and chorus. All 3 concerts (2 at school and one at the local Middle School) were a success, (at least for me). This was earlier in the year, I got an awesome teacher this year. He was my teacher 2 years ago then he was made a teacher for a different grade, and I got him this year. There's probaly more things, but I can't think of anything else, but the creation of this forum.