Discovery Kids - Endurance Fiji

Hannah called Jackie "RUDE"?!?!?!

Temple missions day and my least favorite team is holding the samadhi right now.  I must say i was pretty excited to tune in for this one!   Green has just given purple the handicap and now it's time to see how it is all going to play out.  The challenge today was pretty basic.  Run back and forth trying to fill your crate with enough beach debris to lift your flag and taste victory.  For all the fans who wish for nothing more than a chance to compete on endurance, this challenge would have been right up your ally.  Nothing held you back in this mission but your own physical endurance.  About three fourths of the way through the challenge jackie figured out that there was a loop hole in the rules that permitted teams to help other teams.  In a last ditch effort during the challenge she tried lofting coconuts and sticks towards Blue's crate in hopes of them recovering the items and propelling them to a quick win.  Unfortunatley for purple this idea came a little too late and orange's ox (caleb) and witty lauren pulled through.

But before the challenge, will someone please tell me where Hannah found it okay to force jackie to discuss the samadhi.  As if it wasn't weighing on jackie's mind enough, hannah decided to bring it up hours before the challenge while the kids were just hanging out in the huts enjoying themselves.  Over the course of the day the samadhi was going to be played out and at sunset two kids were going to be leaving the island forever, so where in all of that did hannah find is a good idea to bring it up and dwell?  I knew exactly how jackie felt, her wounds were open and it was as if hannah took some pleasure in pouring salt in them.  Hannah seems to get some thrill in others strife.  This is not a quality that an endurance champ should embody.  A champ should have good sportsmen ship to accompany their strength, and she seemd to ride jonathans coat tails because he has so many good qualities.  If jonathan and lauren could somehow conjoin and form a new team, i think they'd be the perfect winners, but unless a twist comes along to accomdate this, that doesn't look like an option.  So yea, hannah was rubbing it in jackies face that she had the samadhi, and leslie, once again being the good girl that she is, stayed out of it.  I respect her for that.  Leslie knows she is tough, she doesnt have to go around picking on who she takes for the weakers ones to prove this to herself.  This is a sign of a very strong player.  Her partner is also a quiet force.  When he talks he never has too much negativity spewing out of his mouth like connor or hannah.  These are a couple reasons why green would also make a good set of champs.

So orange won.  Good thing caleb could "make is dad proud."  Everyone goes on endurance to prove themselves to themselves and their family.  For him to use that as an angle as to why he felt that much more defeated floored me. 

They sent purple and blue up to temple.  In the moment that looked to be the correct move, however it does not seem to be one based on the longevitity of their gameplan.  Removing purple now is only going to leave bigger teams to deal with in the end, when there is not as much time or startegy to help bump teams out.  Red may have just escaped a very lethal week, and by doing so they need to realize that it is their time to make a stance with blue, or go to temple with blue.  This next week needs to be a two vs two week or it will be a very uneven playing field.  Orange and green are looking good for final three, but after that theres no garruntees.  An alliance can ONLY make it to the final 3 because after that you either win and stay, or go with the rest of the remaining kids to the temple... so at that point it's kill or be killed (in a very strategic game-play meaning!!)  no we do not kill on endurance, although im sure many players would tell you they have felt otherwise at some point or another, haha.  So green and orange's little partnership can function for one more week and if that happens they'll find themselves competing against eachother in the final three, trying to ensure that they are not amongst the 2/3 of the kids going to temple.  And THEN if they make it through that then it will just be a straight up head to head battle which is also not in the terms of the agreement when the alliance was arranged.  But hopefully they can make it to the end because i like both of those teams, although i woudnt mind seeing blue beat out red this up coming week...

WOW, way to get sidetracked monroe... okay so blue and purple went to temple.  Purple was probably feeling all confident because they had just been up there the other night, so this was all second nature to them.  Too bad the luck had to run out somewhere, and when it did at least they got to hug their only remaining friends goodbye.  Jackie had a little too much bitterness to continue, and connor would have been playing damage control had they returned, so it's probably best that a neutral team like blue will be back.  If blue recieves the samadhi next week i will lose a lot of respect for whoever gives it to them.  If this week did not paint everyone out for who they are, i dont know what could.  It is APPARENT that red orange and green are the strong teams, blue is a sleeper team and should get a free spot on the final three because none of these teams should be willing to get rid of them.  It is in each of these team's best interest to win the samadhi, give it to the next strongest team, alliances aside, and bank on their being no samadhi in the final three to come back and haunt them.  With no samadhi in the final three, you will have hopefully just removed the next strongest team last round in the final four and its all about win or go home.  I doubt anyone will play it that level headedly because no friendships come into the mix.  However these kids need to remeber they came into endurance alone, got lucky enough to partner up and now it is you two vs the world.  All these little friendships are distractions in disguise.  Yes, friendship is a very valuable tool in the game, however it can be just as harmful as it is useful. 

It's a woman's world... this season

Since yellow's premature departure, no one has been around to take the victimization.  Now that the easy scapegoat has been sent home, like everyone seemed to be so keen on having happen, no one is around to take the samadhi's and spots at temple.  I knew it was going to be interesting to see who was the newly hated team, however i did not think the position was going to be filled so rapidly. 

In the morning when it was time to distribute yellow's one piece and read their goodbye note, everyone seemed to think that orange was going to recieve the piece...?  I dont understand why everyone saw this as such a predictable outcome when orange was the one who chose to give up the samadhi in order to make yellow go to temple... if anything i would have been putting money on orange NOT getting the piece.  If anything they were going to get a nasty little snip in the goodbye letter and a REJECTED friend request on myspace a couple months later.  But anywho, red got the piece, it seemed to have a little something to do with briana and jonathan.  Maybe briana had fallen for jonathan's charm?  Either way red was resourceful somewhere along the line to recieve the piece, so for that reason alone i give them kudos for not only winning the temple mission and sending a team up, but ALSO recieiving the piece.  That is not a common event in endurance.

The challenge today was pretty unique.  Throwing fish from raft to raft looked kind of fun.  But the whole time it looked like it could have been done faster.  I don't know about you guys but if me and bryanah were on those rafts we would have been whipping those fish across the rafts so fast and then paddling that raft like the motor of a speed boat.  Maybe it wasn't as simple as it looked.  But green won, not too surprising, they are a pretty strong team.

I must say, this episode really showed me new sides of some of these teams.  Until this point green has been pretty blah in my opinion, but this episode made me really love leslie.  I think that is the green girl's name...  She seems to always be very positive, and although she hasn't faced much adversity yet, she has carried herself with a lot of class.  Also, the girl on the orange team is becoming quite the little spit fire.  When JD basically caught her in her alliance, her crafty way with words unsuspiciously covered up her deal with the green team and also presented herself very well.  The girl on the red team is not earning respect.  I still haven't forgotten the way she spoke to briana, and unless there is some HUGE plot line left out of the show for time reasons, i do not think speaking with such arrogance to anyone, EVER, is a quality that should be posesses by an endurance winner.  The girl on the purple team is a silent killer as well.  She is always giving backhanded comments and i love her for that.  Her partner on the other hand is not so great.  I think he is probably the least desirable partner on the island because of his transparent sneakiness, and she is not to subtle with words herself.  They might find themselves in an uphill battle if they plan on winning this thing.  Every week from here on in is going to generically start with removing them, and unless some change of events shifts the focus of this game, they will most likely find themselves at temple next week once again.  As for the blue team... where are they?  I did say how much i loved jordyn, but she has become invisible in the episodes lately.  This season does seem to have a slight bit of estrogyn dominance in the air, which is making it fiesty.  When the girls are not at peace, you know it's going to be a good episode of endurance.  For the most part the boys are usually enjoying the moment, and the girls are focused on how to prolong the moment and escape a trip to temple.  I like that social structure because it reminds me alot of my season, and i see a lot fo similarities between earlier seasons and this new one.  The last couple seasons were focused on harmony, once again we have a competitor's game and no one is okay with going home early.

So green won the challenge which went well with my new found love for leslie.  I did think is was silly of them to give the samadhi over to purple.  When a team is so unanimously hated, it never seems logical to try to further handicap them.  Giving the burden to red would have been their best bet so they could go head to head with blue and purple in a battle for power.  Now they will face red on an equal playing field and better hope that if they do not find themselves in control, that others have not tuned into their insider deals...

There goes my team...

Hey everyone!

Long time no post, I KNOW, I KNOW, i am so sorry. i am writting these posts on christmas ever out of guilt.  i thought it was time to give back in my life, give back to a program that gave me so much in my life.  So i will put in a couple extra man hours on the holiday to catch up with Endurance, i've fallen behind because as the end of the semester approaches in college, final exams come rolling around and with a part time job as well, blogging had to be put on the back burner for a little bit, as well as all t.v. watching in general.  However, its winter break and I'M BACK.

So lets start with the first temple mission of the season.  Yellow, already destined for the temple, had little hope.  The only way for them to get back in the game was to go up and win, not even a victory in the mission could change their fate.  I did not get to catch the episode where orange won the samadhi and chose to forgo using it to ensure yellow's trip, but i think that was pretty bogus.  If orange and the rest of the teams all saw yellow as such an unthreatening team, then why would they be so dead set on getting them up to the temple. if anything i would have expected orange to try to keep the harmless team around and try to remove bigger threats like purple or red.  as long as they are sticking with green, teams wil try to come after them, and taking teams out that do not pose a threat in most of the challenges seems like an... "interesting" tactic.  But as elementary as it is, it is orange's strategy so we'll see how far that outlook takes them...

So in the challenge purple was kicking some butt.  They kept sinking all the stones into the baskets and made themselves look like a stronger team than they probably actually are.  That mission had a huge element of luck involved and they seemed to also have the little bit of skill to accomodate it.  So they removed a few teams, probably annoyed a few along the way and at the end of the challenge still found themselves on the losers bench.  I found it interesting that the girl on the red team said she was good friends with purple but then still found it okay to send them?  But red, using the "strong team" excuse, sent purple up.  I do not know how true these words actually ring.  Red was foolish to not send orange, and unless i missed some insider deal cut last episode, orange looked to be the strongest team as well.  I don't know guys, Caleb look pretty tough.  I think that he is the obvious threat and needs to go, from a competitors standpoint. 

So long story short, purple and yellow are going to the temple of fate.  Connor was talking about how hurt he was, but being hurt is not the right word for it either.  He proved to be a good player, so why did he feel immune from a trip to temple?  I was really happy to hear their team called up, but in the end it was yellow who truley met their fate.  I was bummed to see them go.  Aside from them sharing the same color that i possessed, i like it when yellow teams win the temple of fate.  I dont care about all the little missions along the way, those are just a feather in your hat, but going up to temple and taking out a team single handedly is an awesome feeling, friends OR enemies.  Seeing yellow bite the bullet so early was a bummer.  Briana was very misunderstood, and i do not even remember the boy's name.  It will be interesting now that the typical go-to target is gone t hough.  Without a scapegoat people are actually going to have to make some decisions.  I see blue and purple as the outsiders.  Orange and green look very powerful and united, and red seems to be the dark horse that i would not mind seeing emerge and win.  The girl on the red team is not my favorite but i think their positioning in the game is respectable.  They do not rely on others for security and seem to be paving their own way through the game.

Gimme that MAGIC BOX!

This episode was another goodie.  Who thought so?  Once AGAIN my posts are late. It's midterms week over here in good old Wisconsin so all of us college students are juggling our busy lives and OF COURSE cramming in our weekly dose of Endurance as well.  Sorry everyone!!  Anyways, so lets just talk a little bit about the team dynamics right before the challenge.

So we all saw the orange / green alliance formed.  At first i thought orange was foolish to allign with a team such as green when there were more powerful-LOOKING teams that seemed like better choices to allign with such as red, who i've been saying would make a formidable alliance from the start, but whatever.  So nosey old Connor came stumbling in breaking up the few moments of privacy that these two teams had obviously planned out.  His unwelcomeness clearly went right over his head, because why would these two teams engaged in a secret convo want  him to come in and intrude.  He wasn't able to read between the lines, or he may have chose to break up the pow wow in order to prevent such under the table deals to be made, but none the less, these four would have plenty of opportunities down the line to pitch deals without his presence, so him being there didn't seem to have any positive effect for him, and now green and orange probably see him as an unwanted appendage that they will have to sever somewhere down the road.  At this point in the game i think purple is more doomed than even say yellow.  although yellow's stance looks grim, their position in the group is well known... OUTSIDERSSSSS, where as flying below the radar teams like purple will be caught up in this season due to the fact that there are only 6 teams thus far and no one can really go unnoticed for that many temple missions.  So all in all i thought it was pretty bogus that Connor interrupted, and his sneaky transparent ways need to be put on front street with a quick trip up to the temple, preferable against green where purple can find themselves stacked against some less than desirable odds.  Yellow also did a great job of stating the obvious.  Another insightful line from that boy on the yellow team told Briana to "make friends"...  This order lacks the aspect of possibility.  One cannot simply walk out of the huts one morning and decide they they are going to recconcile their differences wth all the teams and erase the poor reputation that looms over a player.  Kids love to exclude.  It's always alot more fun when someone is left out? isn't it? think about it, if someone is left out, the people in the "in-crowd" feel that much more secure and popular / wanted.  To let the outcasts in as an equal would only subject the well liked teams to unsure standings amongst the group.  So i think yellow is going to be the outsiders until they win a challenge and back some of these comfortable teams into a corner and force them to be nice or at least civil.

The challenge looked like a real pain!  Seriously running in sand in that hot sun must have really took some... hmmm ENDURANCE! seriously, i KNOW i would have taken about three trips and then just said skip this ALL, forget the magic box, i'll see y'all at the temple mission... But some teams did not perform as i expected.  i really expected a lot out of orange.  caleb seems like the incredible hulk amongst these boys, but surprisingly they were not one of the front runners.  red performed well like i suspected and green came out of left field with their job well done.  the girl on the red team made some slick comment about how her partner was not being supportive enough or some crazy stuff like that.  In all honesty, i think he was doing exactly what he should.  he was forcefully motivating her to push thru the pain right at the end in hopes of winning.  he sprinted in order to keep up with will.  he had to run alot faster for the boy's half of the challenge where as the girls looked to be traveling at a slightly more moderate pace.  Not to knock the girls performance in the challenge, but he was clearly busting butt to keep the team in contension to win, and i don't blame him for yelling... he wanted to have the MAGIC BOX.

so the green team got the magic box. i would have loved to see yellow win it and mess with everyone's head, and of course they might be the ones who needed it the most.  but green pulled thru in the end and deservingly claimed their prize.  The real prize was one free win at the temple. HAHAHA, i pity the fool that ends up across from green at the temple.  please for a moment invision yourself maKING that long walk up the mountain bluff thing that the tample is located on, unsure of your status as it is, and then hear that for no reason at all you are going to face a disadvantage of already being negative one in the win count.  Who ever goes against them better bring their lucky rabbit's foot, hope they have the luck peace, ask some fijian gods for help, shoot, idk... it'll look bleak for whoever that team is... CAN'T WAIT!

it was a pretty crafty strategy to tell the other teams that they're immune from the first temple.  This bold move may secure their standings thru week one, but lord help them if anyone figures out this white-lie.  i'm sure there will be some angry players on that beach lookin for some revenge if they catch wind of the truth.  Even so green will be hiking up to temple with one win as it is and a good chance to come back and get the last laugh... so i must say that this magic box has shined light on a team that i did not immediatley predict to do so well.

Jackie was showing some good critical thinking when she hypothesized that the magic box most likely contained an advantage for green and not neccessarily a disadvantage in the form of some power for the rest of the teams.  I think this girl has the brain power to call herself a champ... we'll just see what the endurance pieces have to say about that though...

Oh my gosh WHO'S MY PARTNER?!

so, this week was the infamous partner picking week.  Isn't always bum city that week.  for some reason during partner selection feelings are always hurt.  This year was especially annoying to watch because these kids have seen this procedure done how many times. They should know better than to have these little group pow-wows trying to establish things. Those little group meetings are only to make it clear who is the popular shot callers, and who are the disjointed stragglers that should be targeted after the first temple mission.  I'm okay with people being shot callers, and i'm also okay with people being labled the stragglers who don't easily partner up.  Thats part of the game.  The people that i do have a problem with are the ones who kind of creep in the background and kind of back up the stronger ones, and try to ride coat tails through the partner selection.  For example Connor.  He was extremly obnoxious prior to the competition.  Briana obviuously did not have a clear partner option because some shady happenings had went on since the right to stay challenge and the kids obviously had discussed who wanted who behind her back.  Once everything was put on the table it was pretty apparent that no one had informed her that everyone already knew who wanted who and left her out of the pre-decision making portion.  Kyle was also most likely left out and everyone was probably assuming that those two would just conform the the group consensus and just agree to be partners to make the group happy.  Once this detail became apparent to Briana it was too late and the group already had her cornered and basically said this is how it's going to go down whether you like it or not.  She then replied that she was going to wait until the game to see how things panned out, hoping that the game would somehow alter things in her favor.  This is not a selfish remark either.  she was not going to get what she wanted if she agree'd to the group's suggestive partners, so why should she give these people what they want?  She just met them like yesterday so for her to say we'll see is a reasonable response.  HOW DARE Connor tell Briana to go "talk to Kyle..."  the only reason he made that comment was to further try to manipulate her to do what he wanted.  Connor is NOT a strong player, he takes what the group wants an adjusts his preferances to match it. My friends, that is not what a Endurance champion does... and Endurance champion must lead the group.  make their priorities the groups priority, and that will take them to the end.  With a dash of luck they will find themselves with everyone's pieces and win.  I feel for Jackie beause people will grow tired of Connor's condesending ways and find that although he won the partner challenge, it clearly wasn't cut throat competition that he was up against. WHERE ARE THESE KIDS FROM, not knowing a simple 4 color combination.  i thought Caleb was going to be the threat, but it's clear that the muscles aren't going to be an adequate substiute for the mental challenges that determine much of the outcomes of everything.  in short i am 100% against purple team.  i did like Jackie, but she's linked to someone who i know i would not respect if i was competing, and if i had my choice i would send them to the temple ASAP to maintain the peace on the island.  another part of the game that i have noticed is that the boys are in the background right now.  On my season most of the alliances were determined by the boys.  they had all pretty much clicked up at that point.  right now everyone seems to be sepertate functioning teams.  i will be interested to see if orange and red team up.  they should.  they'd be a force to be reckoned with.  their only downfall would be to make their bond visibally noticable and find themselves pitted againt eachother at temple the first chance the rest of the teams get.  it's ironic that Briana ended up on the yellow team and is already facing adversity.  seems interesting because it was right about this time on my season that my partner Bryannah also found herself unwillingly placed on the yellow team with her less than desirable counterpart with girls against her from the beginning.  i am rooting for yellow 100%. i don't blame Briana for not wanting Kyle.  i mean, dang he was wearing a jester's hat, of course she isn't going to take him seriously.  but now she is linked to him, so i hope she learns that he is all she has from here on in and to make tthe best of it. he best bet would be to win a challenge ASAP and start cutting deals.

Jonathan and Connor probably won't get along and i don't see them forming any friendships.  i think the strongest team at this point is orange.  they might not be the brightest candles in the box, but these challenges also aren't mensa puzzles.  they might be able to fly by the seat of their pants when it comes to brains, and when it comes to brawn i am sure they will perform well.

sorry this was sooo late guys!  i am in college and it's midterms.  all the comments are much appreciated and i take time everyday to check my emails and read them!!!

Ok, so who loved the season premiere?!

First of all, when i heard Endurance was going down to Fiji, i was already jealous, and then once i saw that it was even more exotic than i expected... yea, i wish i was 15 again so i could try out.  Don't get me wrong, Hawaii was a great place, but the rain and jungle atmosphere doesn't hold a candle to the beaches and crystal clear water.  That alone makes me want to watch.  And i loved how the huts were right on the water.  When the challenges aren't going on i'm sure the kids are having a blast in the water and on the beach.  If y'all didn't want to be on the next season enough, i'm sure the location this year will encourage a huge bunch for next year's auditions.  by the way, i recommend any and everyone to try out, the ones who are eligible that is.  i simply mailed in a tape on a whim, thinking nothng was likely to come of it, and next thing i knew i was starting the adventure of a lifetime.

so... who likes who... haha, i must say the kids on this season are coming across as very mature.  the past couple of seasons seemed to have a younger cast, but this one feels a lot more experienced and i bet that is going to come accross in their gameplay.  Not only do the kids seem a lot more grown up than earlier seasons, for example season four, but these kids aren't rookies to the overall concept of endurance.  hopefully some of these kids have done their research, and if so they would have had access to observing 5 previous competitions of endurance and have learned from others' errors.  new strategies will now be hard to come up with, and the old stale strategies aren't a likely option anymore either. 

now that there are 14 pieces and only 12 kids remaining, it raises some serious questions... on average only one piece is distributed per week, with exceptions of course. this is endurance, the expected is usually the least probable.  but with only 6 teams worth of kids left after right to stay... i think it is a safe bet to assume something is in store to explain the lack of kids.  anyways, after everyone introduced themselves a few caught my eye.  Caleb looks really tough.  his first impression reminded me a lot of chris, on the grey team of season 3. he seems pretty straight forward but i think the game is going to pull the deceptive side out of him.  i think he might find himself making decisions and alliances that he did not expect to find, and i predict that he will do very well if the other official endurance players don't recognize the threat he poses.  Jackie also looks like a pretty desirable partner from my first impression.  She seems low maintenance and easy to agree with.  i WAS going to say that cinnamon looked like she was going to be a great character to watch.  13 year olds always seem like they are a little too young to reasonably compete with a strong 15 year old, so i always root for them.  i think cinnamon would have struggled if she had stayed though.  she seemed a little too bold too early on and might have found herself up at temple early on, but she had that fire in her that would have pulled her through the hardships.  it's a shame she didn't clutch that rope for a little longer, i was excited to see how she would have faired once the game began.  jonathan should use his charm to rope in a few of the ladies. girls fall for boys so quickly if they're living together like that.  when you're on endurance i don't think the fans realize that you actualy don't see anyone else... so of course some of these teens are going to develope crushes.  these crushes are easy to take advantage of strategically if the kids are smart enough.  i'm sure he will be in high demand when it comes to partner selection, and forming an alliance with caleb might not be such a bad idea for him.  The temple sure did look like a pretty far hike.  as if going to temple wasn't bad enough, i always dreaded the walk there.  haha, when you're going to meet your fate you kind of just want to get there and do the darn thing.  a long walk to a place of uncertainty only further churns your stomach and the feeling of doom seems to creep in with each step you take away from camp. oh well, these kids better be ready to go though, everyone does.  has anyone made it through endurance without a trip to the temple, excluding the final game?  if my knowledge doesn't fail me i think the closest anyone has come was jonna and aaron from season one.  jonna was one of my inspirations to audition, she was a rockstar that year.

like i said, i love the right to stay missions.  i would have felt confident with this game though.  it looked pretty easy, havent we all held onto a rope before?  i guess the real kicker this season was the element of time.  my challenge lasted about a minute and a half. this one was over 20 minutes. i can't imagine doing any right to stay for 20 minutes.  thats just one of those things that you want to pass or fail immediatley and move on.  I must say i was dissapointed for Becca.  being on the island obviously meant a lot to her, she was even tearing up prior to the competiton because she feared leaving. i wish that emotion could have motivated her to stay on that rope.  but, two people had to go, and fate doesn't play favorites.  as for the boys, it seemed like they all gave it their best. andres and matthew fell off. i wasn't too affected by the loss because, lets face it, we don't root for the ones who LOOK strong, we root for the ones who we associate with once we get to know them and who we see parts of ourselves in, who we think would most likely play the same game as we would if we had the oppertunity to compete.  one girl the struck me as a cool chick is jordyn.  it's hard to get a feel for who is who in these first couple episodes because no one really has to do anything other than step up and make it to official endurance player-status.  however what jordyn did have to say came accross as genuine and strong, and those are two qualitites that one MUST poses in order to even have a chances, let alone the qualities represented by 14 pieces.  i said in my last post that karma was something that i believed in, and i was pleased to see that it was the newest piece.  hopefully it will serve as a reminder to these kids that the decisions they make will have consequences, and they will have to take responsibility for their actions for better or worse.  i'm hoping to see karma come and bite someone in the butt this year.  i love when people get what they deserve in the form of incidents proceeding.  isn't it lovely to see the bully get a detention, or the villain at the temple?  we'll see who underestimates the power of karma, or if karma is in fact all a bunch of hocus pocus.

It's that time of year again!

Hey guys and girls, it's Monroe from the Yellow Team on season three - so excited to be a part of the upcoming season!

So, it time for another season of Endurance to start up again, and i cannot wait to meet the cast! Ever since i was a cast member, i've enjoyed observing the bunches of new kids each year, and this one will be no different! I'm so excited that i get to post my opinions on this season for anyone to read, and agree or disagree with! It might be interesting to see who shares the same opinions as me, and who is a complete opposite. Hey, we might be more similar than you think!

Anyways, since i was on the show my life changed dramatically. Being on the show gave me the motivation to take an active role in a more active lifestyle. I hit the gym soon after the show stopped airing, and lost a good little chunk of weight. With a newer look, and the same personality, i molded my life exactly the way i wanted it. I haven't really pursued any acting or other reality-show opportunity contrary to what some might think an ex-reality show cast member might do. I just finished up high school and am now starting my freshman year of college. College has been a lot of fun, everything i expected and more. I opted out of the dorms, i guess living in the huts was enough of a social-living environment for me. I talk to my lovely partner Bryannah every now and then, i guess the three years and thousand miles of separation would make any two people sort of grow apart.  But I have a lot of love and respect for her and still consider her the best  partner i could have ever been forced upon.  As far as the rest of the people that battled it out in Hawaii, i don't really talk to them much either. I still prefer the people i liked while on the island though, i haven't forgotten who was who by any means. I think the only person i did not speak to after the show ended was Nicole. Surprisingly enough i didn't harbor any hard feelings against her, for some odd reason i was never able to get in touch with her.  Hope she is doing well!

As far as being on the show, it was certainly one of the toughest and weirdest experiences of my life to date. When i say weird, i don't mean that in a negative way AT ALL, i just mean... what a bizarre 3 weeks. When will i ever get to chill around with 19 other kids from all across the country and then get to basically send each other home? That, my friends, is something that i would classify as weird.  HOWEVER, i do not think i've ever had a more fun three weeks. Everything was so out of the ordinary that it just made it all an eye-opening time, a time i will always value. The hardest part was probably the social aspect. The yellow team was obviously not winning the popularity contest that year, and it showed in the game. We always had bad things happening to us, day in and day out, but somehow we made it through some stormy weather. In the end we left because of a temple mission based solely on luck, and then going to the temple which is also a game of luck, so i can't really kick myself. I think we yellow kids had some other seriously lucky times, so the luck i guess had to run out somewhere. I could have gone home during the right to stay mission, which looked to be the case, but somehow i clung to that slippery metal pole for a few seconds longer until the third guy had dropped off. I swear, there MUST have been some supernatural forces that kept me out of that water, because honestly, even being in such better shape, i honestly don't think i could to that again. I must have really wanted to be there that day or something, because that water below just did not seem like an option. Once considered an official endurance player, i followed my instinct more than a pre-determined strategy.  Bryannah and I made all of our decisions together, and never let any other teams influence us. We had no real friends once green had prematurely departed, so who else would have deserved a say in our power when we had it? On our season, the qualities that it took to be an endurance champ were... wow, i do not even think i can answer that question nicely, or even politically, so i will not touch it.  (for you producers - grey team DIDNT POSSESS ANY QUALITIES - i really don't see where they could be the good guys in any sense. whatever, thats how it unfolded and no one is bitter.) Lying is a quality that the grey team definitely took advantage of, and therefore seems to indicate that lying is what it takes to win. I DO NOT CONDONE lying. Lying was something bree and i tried not to do, although lying wouldn't have done us much good that year either, seeing how no one was trying to hear the nonsense we would have fed them anyways. The game is a well designed game.  Much better than other reality show's concepts because this competition allows a lot of control over others, as well as a lot left up to fate. If it is meant for you to win, there is nothing anyone can do about it and only time will eliminate the rest. On the other hand, i do not believe much in fate, i believe in karma. The ones who deserve to go will get their turn sooner or later. Maybe it was just our time? My personal favorite moment from the first five seasons was the moment the right to stay ended on our season and i had astonished myself by not getting eliminated that day. I dont really remember if i thought i was going to lose or not, but i certainly was not overly confident, although, i think others had less faith in me, than i had in myself. I think that actually might be one of the happiest, if not THE happiest, moments of my life. It was such a pivotal time for me, where i could once and for all prove to myself that i was a capable human being, no matter who i was on the inside, and that i could hold my own against anything that came my way. The sheer pride that i felt as i climbed out of that river was remarkable. I hope that someday i will once again feel that rush of self-fulfillment. Not to say that i don't accomplish things now, but seriously, i had been bugging over that competition for months leading up to the show. I knew what was in store for me, and dreaded it. I was so worried about it, and once it was over it was like the world was lifted off my shoulders. Seeing the kids leave was sad, but i knew "better them than me"! 

I'm really excited to tune in to see the right to stay chellenge. That is definitely one of my favorite aspects of the show, so the beginning of this season is sure to deliver something that i am highly interested in! I'll be sure to post my predictions as to who i think is gonna make it, and who i think doesn't have what it takes.  Since i was so underestimated, i think i have a more keen eye as to who has the internal drive to pull them through the tough times, and who is simply the pretty face that will face some harsh reality!