One Hell of A Decade, Part II.

Part I: HERE

2009 (Cont'd)

It was around this time, too, that I'd won a second writing contest on the awesome Supernaturalfanwiki.wetpaint.com fansite.

I was able to meet Jared Padalecki at the fourth annual New York Comic-Con this year, too, and it was pretty cool. He even went out of his way to sign my first three seasons of the Supernatural DVDs and even took a picture with me.

Everything was going well for me at that point.

Around early February, the school let me take an early leave of absence because I'd done so well on the test, and they didn't see the need to hold me there any longer. I haven't reported back for another day of school since then. Partially, because Mia had joined the school, by chance, and I was still harboring so many negative feelings towards her at that point.

I started the rest of the majority of my year off pretty calmly. I decided to take the rest of the year off, and at that point, I'd been accepted to the New York Film Academy, but the only thing that was holding me back was their tuition: $25,000 a year. It was a setback, but I wasn't heartbroken when I figured couldn't attend the school.

That winter, right before the Watchmen movie came out, I got my first tattoo. It didn't hurt like I'd always thought it would, and in doing so, I completed a circle, in my family, to get a tattoo.

The second season finale of Burn Notice had me craving for more that March. "Lesser Evil" had since become my favorite episode of the series so far.

That spring was a busy one. My mom bought me the collector's edition of The X-Files, which collected all nine seasons of the show, and it's first movie, in April. I started the DVD process then, and it was a long way to the end, but I'll come back to that.

I won my third Supernatural writing contest which depicted the characters in a season finale-styled scripts, at Supernaturalfanwiki.wetpaint.com.

Around that time, I got the idea, somehow, to create a montage for every Supernatural character, in the form of a mini-series, and because I loved the format so much, I've since created similar mini-series for other TV shows like Journeyman, Life, The X-Files, and as of late: Burn Notice and In Plain Sight (still working on this one).

In May, I attended a rather empty Wizard World Philadelphia comic convention for the fourth time in a consecutive year. There weren't many people there this year, for some reason, but on the other hand, I was finally able to track down and buy Bird of Prey #8, a book I'd been trying to hunt down for three long and exhausting years.

Because the book had so few of them published by DC Comics, it's become an extremely rare item with only 5,000 copies existing, and only about 500 left on the open market.

Not long after, I went to see Terminator Salvation. Ironically, the Sarah Connor Chronicles had been cancelled - wrongly - right before the film debuted. But all in all, I remember having a blast watching Christian Bale portray the resistance leader incarnation of John Connor. It was memorable.

That month, my grandfather and I officially stopped doing business with Midtown Comics because of the way the employees were treating me, and talking to my grandfather, which was something that I didn't like at all, especially since we'd spent thousands of dollars ($10,000) in that store over the course of four or five years.

To be honest, I should've stopped doing business with them months before when one of the employees rudely threatened me, after one of their own appearing guests, personally, asked to sign my books - more than what the limit of the signing was set for. But that wasn't my fault, and the way I see it, the guy had no right to speak to me the way he did.

Later on that month, I went with my mom and my grandparents to Maryland, in order to see my cousin graduate from college (the same cousin we saw graduate from High School in 2005). It was a boring ceremony, as all graduations are, but when we got back to New York, and spent a few days at my grandparents house, we ended up never going back home for some reason.

There was a period over the summer, where my grandparents went on vacation to the Bahamas, and they left me in charge of their house (feeling as if both my mom and brother weren't capable of doing the task - much to the boost of my ego). 

That was a relatively fun period, where I was just starting to talk to a new girl I'd met named Jenna, and then I'd go to visit my great-grandmother in the hospital every day (the same hospital I was born in, ironically) before she came back home, and then I'd come home and watch a massive amount of X-Files episodes from my DVDs around this time.

The period around my birthday was a unique one. For the first time, I had a girlfriend (Jenna) in the summer, and as a present from my family for graduating High School and for turning eighteen, I received a thousand dollars for my birthday. 

My plans of taking a year off from school were at their highest point: I went to Staten Island to be with Jenna every other day, my montages and scripts were coming along, and I was having a good summer. Not to forget, I didn't deal with the loud music and noise pollution of my neighborhood all summer long because we were at my grandparents' house.

That summer, I had some great movie-going experiences. The most memorable two were of my brother, Rafael, and myself going to see G.I. Joe, and weeks later with Jason, I saw one of the best films I'd truly ever seen in my entire life: The Hurt Locker.

Things were good up until the period of leisure ended around late august when I met with Jenna's mom for the first time, which in effect ended the summer-long fling. The words and animosity that that women spewed towards me was like no other. 

It wasn't hard to figure out that, just like Mia's father two years before, Jenna's mother truly hated me because of the color of my skin. But after dealing with that type of ignorance since I was a kid, it didn't really bother me as much as it would've when I was younger.

Days after Jenna left me, and we lost all contact, Supernatural returned for it's fifth season. By this time, after growing up with the series, almost like an old friend, the show had become a fixture in my life. The night of the premiere was unforgettable. 

There was so much electricity in the air, generated by me, that when the opening of AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" introduced the new season of the show, I could feel tons of Goosebumps all over, and a shiver shot down my spine. It was a magical feeling because, in alot of ways, the series had become much more than just a TV show to me. By this point, it was one of the biggest parts of my life. 

That night ended very well when I finally got my brother to sit down and watch my [unofficially released to the public] Journeyman DVDs. When the final episode of the series was done, he'd become a true fan, although he'd never admit it to anyone. 

The next day, Mia and I had a very long talk about our previous falling out with each other. We became friends again, though not on the same level as before. But it's been nice to have the hostility gone.

U2 lifted my spirits a few days later when Joseph and I went to see the band play their first concert at Giants Stadium for their latest tour. Finally seeing them live was a true dream come true. They'd always been my favorite band, and it was almost surreal watching such legends play right in front of us. That night was one of the best nights of my entire life.

In October, I  created my all-time most favorite montage called "Heroes" in which all of my favorite heroes of fiction came together and converged into one story. It was an attempt to see what my theory of all of my favorite heroes living in the same universe (the way I've always viewed them as existing, no matter how many others would disagree) would look like. 

And right after that montage, I wrote my 500th blog post, a far cry from where it all began humbly, in 2006.

In November, for my mom's forty-fourth birthday, I made her a necklace with a star in between a crescent moon; the symbol of transition in the Middle East. She liked it, and inadvertently, it got her off of my back for a little while about going to college right away.

A few days later, I finally finished the entire X-Files collection. It was a beautiful series, when all was said and done. Beautifully written, acted, directed and executed. Even the ending was terrific and fitting. It took eight months to do, but I finally finished the entire series with both movies being viewed in their respective order. It was a blast.

These past few weeks have been an interesting bunch. I've continued to create my montages (I even added the respective music to each one), I've continued writing my scripts, and I've survived yet another year.

On January 1, 2010, this current decade will be a thing of the past, and a new one will begin. After all that's developed in my life these past ten years, I can only imagine what the next ten years of my story will reveal.

I'm grateful to those who've stuck by me through thick and thin, and I can only hope to make my family and friends proud of me as we march into the future together.

In some ways, I, and anyone reading this right now, are extremely special in a way that millions of others who've come to pass aren't: We're the ones who ushered in a new millenium. It all re-started with us.

It's funny to think that by this time, ten years from now, I'll be twenty-eight years old. We'll just have to see what the future holds in store for me.... and each other. Thanks for reading.