The Marriage Market

Well hello! Long time no see :)

These last few weeks have been quite action packed with work, play and my raffle. I've gotten a couple new students that are quite the riot and I've also been hanging out with a new group of friends that are just a blast to hang out with. I also visited a cool weekend hot spot involving parents of unmarried children and lots and lots of bargaining... it's a great place. I also took to the streets with my guitar and put on a little concert for the masses which was quite a bit of fun. The weather has been getting a bit chillier as of late but it's still been pretty nice. I lead a couple of tours with some great guests the last couple weeks and I've made some new friends/connections with them.

Well for those of you who know about it, my last post was all about my Tony G. Travel Raffle where you can buy a ticket for a chance at a free trip out to China to hang out with me and partake in all of the awesomeness that is Shanghai! The drawing will take place in 6 days and I'm getting quite a bit of support which is great! I'm not quite at my goal yet but I hope that within this last week, the rest of the tickets will be purchased and I will have reached my goal! With that being said, if you would like to participate but haven't yet bought tickets, just refer to my last blog post and give it a read. For those of you who don't want to participate in the raffle, you're more than welcome to put forth a generous donation in someone else's name or just as a donation... and that's my sales promo for the day haha.

So I led a 7 hour tour a week or so ago with a nice few ladies from down South. These two nice women hail from Dallas, Texas and they wanted to get a good look at Shanghai. We went to quite a few places during the tour including the French Concession, the Bund, the bird and flower market (where they have FIGHTING crickets!) and one last stop they wanted to make which was the marriage market. It's exactly as it sounds. Every Sunday afternoon, they have a marriage market in a nice park where parents can come and post the resumes of their unmarried children to essentially marry them off. Well this is actually serious because many Chinese people believe that if a Chinese woman reaches 30 without marriage, she does not have much hope and if a Chinese woman is not married by 35 years old, she is doomed. I laughed at this myself the first time I heard it myself and thought that it might be a little out of proportion but while I was at the market, there were a few parents who were legitimately worried and they looked very uneasy. I took a closer look at one of the resumes that a very anxious mother had and it was for her 32 year old daughter who was still unmarried. The daughter was well educated, has a good job and is very pretty (she had a picture as well) but it's unfortunately really hard for her to meet a partner.

I have a theory about this situation but without going into too much detail I basically think that it is hard for young Chinese men and women to experience relationships at a young age. In school, they aren't allowed to have a girlfriend or boyfriend and in college they have so much pressure riding on their grades that it's pretty frowned upon to have a boyfriend or girlfriend. However, as soon as they graduate college, they're expected to get married and have a child. It's a bit baffling to be honest but there isn't much emphasis placed on relationships before the end of college. Well at this marriage market, many parents use agents sometimes to set their children up on dates and such. The agents actually pull in quite a hefty fee as well which is quite surprising. I translated a couple of these resumes for the guests and they state the age, height, degree, job, salary etc. of their children. When I was translating one of these resumes for the guests, the father of the girl on the resume came up to me and asked me if I was interested in his daughter. It was pretty surreal to me that it was indeed quite real. Many of the more contemporary Chinese find this practice quite silly now, but when I was there, there were thousands of resumes on display. Talk about a unique experience.

Well these two guests were just absolutely great and we had a blast together. One of them actually lives out here and is just about to retire so her and I exchanged information because she is very interested in learning more about the language and culture of the Chinese and she plans on doing lots of traveling throughout the country in the near future which is also my plan before I head home. Her name is Bobbie and I hope to be seeing more of her in the future. She is such a nice person and really is a lot of fun to be around. Hopefully I'll mention her in a few future posts with some more stories to boot. When we were all driving back to the beginning of the tour (she has a private driver) she stopped at a nice little egg tart place and bought me, her friend and her driver a nice little box of warm, freshly made egg tarts which were awesome! After we all got back and things were said and done, she asked me if I needed a ride back to the office. I told her that I could just walk but she insisted that her driver took me back. Wowee wow wow that was cool. I pulled up to the office in style :)

Well I've been hanging out with a nice group of friends lately, most of whom are actually British which is cool. Through these guys I actually met a few guys from CSU that grew up in Denver and the surrounding areas so that was kind of a crazy chance encounter. We hang out a bit which has been a good time and it's nice to have finally found a really solid group of friends that I can count on out here. It's weird to see how good of friends you can become in such a short period while you are all sharing a very new experience together. These friends that I am making will never be a replacement for the ones that I already have but I've always got room for new friends. It's good to know people, especially good people.

So I was missing the “big” stages back in Fort Collins and decided to go out on the streets on put on a bit of a show for the passerby's. I brought my neat little sign that says “I don't want your money, I just want to give you a listen” and posted it out next to me while I played which I must say actually drew MORE people since they knew they weren't obligated to drop a coin or to into my bag and people kind of wanted to see who it was that was out playing. I actually was wearing my hat and kind of kept the brim down low while I was rocking out because I had a little stage fright since I haven't played in front of people in awhile but people kept on ducking down and trying to get a peek under my hat so I finally just started playing with my head up which promptly brought on lots of phones and I could hear the cameras snapping photos of me which is always funny to me. One girl even came up and asked me if I could understand Chinese. I told her I could understand a bit and she told me she wanted to present me with an egg tart as a gift to which I accepted and she was so happy when I took a bite haha. I had a couple other people come up and just sit down with me for awhile which was nice because I chatted with a lot of them in between songs or when I was warming up my hands and they were all great to converse with. Lots of people saw my sign and gave me the thumbs up signal which was really good to see. I'm happy that I can make others happy with simple songs and I'm even happier that this makes ME happy. Oh man... laughter is the best medicine but happiness is the cure.

Well it's getting a bit cooler here like I mentioned but it hasn't been too bad and I've mostly been traveling with jeans and a hoodie. I hear that Colorado got a nice dusting of snow today so that's definitely something I'm going to miss/enjoy. It's a love/hate relationship with the snow to be honest but I hear that we won't even get much if any at all out here which is a bit saddening considering it's still going to be quite cold. If it's going to be cold anyway, I would definitely prefer snow hands down, it's what I grew up with! It's always funny to tell my students that “when I was a kid, they wouldn't shut down the schools unless we had three feet of snow” which for some of them is taller than they are hahaha. They can't believe that in Colorado we actually get that much snow but I tell them that we've seen our fair share indeed.

Speaking of my students, I recently got a new one who is so cute I can't even stand it. I swear this time I'm actually going to go through with it and bring her back to the states with me. She is 5 years old, her name is Dorothy (from the Wizard of Oz) and she is the most amazing little girl I've ever met in my life. She always gives me a big hug and kiss on the cheek when I get to her house and she drags me into her room to immediately read her a Clifford the big red dog book. I think my heart actually cried with tears of joy, I might need to get that checked out. Anyway, here's a photo or two of here as well as a video of her reciting a poem.

Well, that's going to do it for me on this side of the world and I know it was a bit short this time but I feel like that might be for the best every now and then. No one wants to sit down and read a novel about me every week or two. I'm getting bored of myself! Alrighty then, I appreciate you taking a peek at my blog this time around and a quick reminder about the Tony G. Travel Raffle: make sure you get your tickets! (Ok so I guess I wasn't quite done with my marketing ploy). I can't tell you how much I miss you all and I can't even believe that I've been out here for 6 months already. It seems it was just yesterday that I was laughing and chatting with all of you back in the states and now I've already spent half a year abroad. It's a good and bad feeling but I'm halfway there and I'll be home in April or May of 2012. Keep those beers cold and those smiles ready because I'm not leaving a single one of you un-hugged upon my return.

Huuuuuuuuuge shout out to my little... or I guess younger sister today as she turns 17! Wow, I don't know where all the time went but she's growing up so fast! Kick ass in your talent show Pinky and have fun with your birthday present that I contributed to. Love you!

You stay classy San Diego (or Denver, Seattle, Anchorage, Sao Paolo, Longmont, Golden, Chang Zhou, Beijing, Fort Collins, etc...)

Tony G.

The Tony G. Travel Raffle

First of all, the name credit goes to Andy Patton! What a sweet name for this contest!

Dear esteemed friends and loved ones,

I am SO happy to announce that the Tony G. Travel Raffle is a GO!

  Originally this started out as an idea formed out of loneliness because I miss you all and I wish that you could all share in my adventures in the great city of Shanghai. However, as soon as I started mentioning it, people really started to give me positive feedback and I think it turned into something more than I expected. Because of this I firstly would just like to say thank you to all who are participating in this. It's going to be a huge monument in my life organizing something this big and it's funny because again, as I often find in life, it would never happen without your support.

  So I would like to mention a couple of things about this fun-filled package that you will be receiving with the money that you all raise and I also want to point out some things that you need to be aware of before you commit to this.

First of all the things that you need to be aware of before entering the drawing:

1. You will need a valid passport (you can get one before you come out but it takes about 6 weeks so keep this in mind) to get a visa.
2. The money that I raise up to $1,500 USD will be used for round trip airfare as well as a tourist visa that is MANDATORY to come to China. This process takes a week or two so make sure you have ample time! I can help with obtaining your visa.
3. Accommodation will be provided for FREE as you will be staying with me in my apartment. I will take the couch and you will take the master bedroom so it's like a hotel anyway!
4. Meals, shopping and extra expenses unfortunately are not included in the initial $1,500 (unless there is some leftover from the airfare/visa) however, any money received on top of this will go towards us having some good times!
5. Please only enter the contest if you are serious about this. You will be able to choose the date that you wish to come out anytime between December 2011 and April 2012 but please, please, please make sure that you really want to do this because if you win and don't come out, I will be very sad and make sad faces all day and night.... then pick a new winner and you'll have missed your chance!

Ok, with all of that proper mumbo jumbo out of the way, let's get into some of the cool stuff we'll be doing once you win and get out here!

1. Number one on the list is of course eating a meal with my Chinese mother. For those of you who don't know of her legacy..... tourguidetonyg.blogspot.com Go right now.... RIGHT NOW!!!... unless you're already there...
2. You will meet my great Chinese friends and we will all have a meal together while they practice their English with you and I translate the rest.
3. I of course will guide you through some of the best sites that Shanghai has to offer and we will cover so much of the city it's unreal. Bring your camera!
4. You will come with me to a tutoring session or two to see what it's like teaching the children and or adults that are learning English.
5. You will have the opportunity to eat several different types of food that will blow your mind. Contrary to popular belief, there isn't just one type of Chinese food. In fact, “Chinese food” is different in over 12 regions of China! We will experience a few of them and I'll treat you to all you can eat Japanese hibachi! If you don't know what I'm talking about, refer to my blog... (Make sure I know if you're vegetarian, vegan or have allergies so I can plan appropriately)
6. Depending on your preference, we will either go to a nice jazz club, a crazy dancing club (or both depending on your tastes) and a nice bar near the top of the World Financial Center. During your stay you will also get to experience the awesomeness that is the diverse expat society. If you are into shopping, I will take you to the fake markets and make sure you get bottom dollar!
7. Again, depending on preference, we will throw a party at my house with guests representing over 8 countries and I will play you some sweet, sweet songs on my guitar to entertain you and my other guests.
8. You will learn about cultural differences very quickly as I throw you into the deep end and take you on the subway during rush hour, walk through a shopping center where people will devour your patience asking if you want to buy a watch or a bag and I will take you to an area where we will be the only 2 foreigners. (It's a great experience trust me!)
9. We will make a thank you video to ALL of the people who entered the raffle that will include pictures, videos and many hand-made hearts so that everyone who participated gets a gift of their own.
10. Last but not least, I will dedicate an ENTIRE blog post to you that will spare none of the juicy details. Everyone will know that even though they didn't make it out, they were directly involved with making someone experience something life-changing.

  For those of you who participate but do not win, I will write a PERSONALIZED thank you note to you for being a huge part of this whole ordeal. Don't get me wrong, a little bit of copy and paste MIGHT be used, but I'll do my best.

  So here's how this is going to work. The raffle will be between any and all participants that I know on a first-hand basis (sorry I just feel it's going to be more comfortable for the winner and I that way) and I will be selling 1 “ticket” for $10 USD. You may purchase as many as you would like and people may sponsor you as well by putting money forth in your name. For every $10 USD I receive in your name, you will get your name on a piece of paper in the bucket with all of the other ones! There is no limit to how many “tickets” you may purchase but remember, if you're putting in (exaggerating a bit) $500, you might as well just put up the other bits and get your butt out here! However, if you do decide to increase your chances and put in an obscene amount of money, that will be nice for the person who wins when they get here and I might just have to treat myself to a drink or nine on your tab. If it is the case that more than $3,000 USD is raised, this will then provide an opportunity to bring a friend along as well under the same guidelines.

  With that being said, you are welcome to use any amount that you win to help bring a friend out but then you must realize I can offer no further financial assistance and you will be responsible for any other costs that occur during the trip. On a side note, I am NOT receiving any profit whatsoever with this raffle. This is purely for all of you and although I will not turn down a meal or drink provided by the winner, I do not want any profit. Having you come out to visit me is prize enough.

  Money MUST be transferred by Paypal account so please get yourself a Paypal account (it's free!) or use a friend's. This reason is because first all of the money must be sent to one account to make sure that there will be sufficient funds and second because once I have picked a winner at random, that person will need to receive the money in full in order to purchase the tickets in their name with their proper identification.

  Ok so, I know this is a bit long winded but it is important that everyone knows this stuff before it goes ahead so that way it goes as smoothly as possible. My goal is to have all of the money accounted for no later then the 31^st of October so please send money asap as you see appropriate. I will announce the winner on November 1^st via a HUGE Skype conference call at around 7pm Colorado time. If that doesn't work out, I will film the whole process and post it on my blog and Facebook and send out a mass email announcing the winner.

  Here are the Paypal instructions: With your account, send funds to my account which is my email “munkyguitarist@gmail.com” Make sure that you select the personal tab under the amount and mark the bubble that says “personal gift.” The transfer will be free if you have your paypal setup straight to your bank account otherwise if it's coming off your credit or debit card you will have to pay an additional 2.9% + $0.30. You will have the option of having the receiver (i.e. me) pay for the transfer but honestly, I can't afford that! Sorry! Once you have sent the money to my account it is VERY IMPORTANT that you then SEND ME AN EMAIL at munkyguitarist@gmail.com from the SAME ADDRESS that is on your PAYPAL ACCOUNT that states your FULL NAME and HOW MANY “TICKETS” you purchased in the BODY of the email or the SUBJECT LINE. This way I can double check how many tickets each person has purchased and it will lead to less confusion and more convenience on my end since I will be responsible for all of the finances. With that in mind, I assure you that if this raffle does NOT receive the necessary amount of funds to select a winner, you will get your money back in full. I realize that you are all placing your trust in me to not be a dirty rotten scoundrel and take all of the money for myself, but considering you are all close friends, I hope that you can place your trust in me.

  Whew! We made it! OK everyone, let the raffle begin and best of luck to all of you. I am so excited and am going to do everything in my power to make this to work out even if I have to put up a bit of my own money. If this is super successful then you can count on more raffles in the future so don't fret if you don't win this time. Besides, you'll always be a winner in my book.

Tony G.

Just a quick question for my readers...

Hello ladies and gentlemen and thank you for taking a quick second to take a look at this.  I just simply have a question to ask my readers and I also want to say thank you for over 2,000 views on my blog! That's astounding to me and it means a lot that you guys keep coming back!


So my question is: Would you be willing to put $10-20 in a pool and then on a certain date I would pull a name of someone who has donated money toward the pool out of a hat (on video of course so you know I'm not rigging it!) and they would receive a week long paid vacation to Shanghai with me as their personal tour guide/translator?  I've already asked this question as a poll on facebook so if you're a member, please do me a favor and vote on my profile page.  If you're NOT a member on facebook, please, please, PLEASE just send me an email at munkyguitarist@gmail.com that says either yes or no to a payment and then state how much you think is reasonable for everyone to put in.  Of course you'll be able to put in more money into the pool for more chances at winning but in order for this to work, we must have a set amount.


Thank you guys SO much for your feedback and I hope that this can go ahead as planned so that one lucky winner can have an all-expense paid vacation hanging out with me!  Whoops... that's a bad marketing strategy ;)


Tony G.


I ask that you please do not respond to my poll on facebook AND send an email, either or please! Thank you!

The Debt We All Owe

  So I was thinking about what to write this week for my blog and I've got some good stories and some good tales of adventure in the good 'ol idea bank but I've been talking with a lot of people lately about what we're all doing and I think that instead of talking about me and my days in Shanghai, I thought maybe we could talk about you and all of the impact you've had on my life and all of the advice and support you've given me? Is that ok? If it's not ok, it's too bad because I'm the one doing the writing. So there.

  I was having a great conversation with my buddy Charlie Bollig today via Facebook chat and we were talking about our futures and our pasts and how they relate to the present. It's interesting to see that one year ago give or take him and I were rooming together in the dorms of our international school out here in Shanghai. During that trip, I did not have a very good time due to some circumstances that don't hold much bearing here but Charlie was taking life by the horns and going all out every day not only in exploring the city and partying but also with studying. He hit everything with so much dedication it was really great to see. He even got up almost every morning at 6am to go for a run and workout which takes discipline no doubts about it.

  He kept telling me to enjoy Shanghai for what it was and to leave everything behind and live in the now but I was so caught up in the past that I couldn't bear to do it. I remember saying things like “I'm NEVER coming back to China” or “I hate China” and when I told him that I had found work here, he rightfully gave me grief about what I had said the previous year. Well being out here now is easily one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life and the support from all of you in doing so has made it that much sweeter. I proudly wear the pride I feel when people tell me that I'm so brave to go into a whole new country almost all alone and I encourage others to experience it all just the same. Many people tell me that it must be hard to do what I'm doing when in reality it's quite easy and I want to talk today about happiness I guess. I'm honestly just free writing this without many revisions so I'll just take it where it leads me.

  Needless to say, my buddy Charlie is working on his own plan to get out here with work or studying and I'm so excited for him to start his next chapter of life. My buddy Cameron from a couple of posts ago even mentioned that having us come back out to China to live and work also most likely makes our Chinese teacher happy which is something that she deserves wholeheartedly. I still remember talking with her just about everyday in class and I've not met many people who are as kind and wise as she is. She always believed in me and helped me through classes especially when I skipped the second year of Chinese and went straight into the third year. She was always there to talk with me when times were rough and she was also there to scold me when I wasn't doing my best. Laoshi, thank you so much for your continued support even while I've been in China this time and I hope that life is treating you well.

  I constantly have flashbacks to college and the good times that were had. I keep up with two of the best friends I made as much as I can and it's really, really good to hear what they have to say. They are so full of wisdom and are yearning to find their next step and I think they are both well on the way to finding it. My friend Andy Patton always helps me get through the tough times as well because him and I have shared much of the same pain and hardships over the years but we've also experienced the beauty of life together even more so. I can always count on him for a laugh but when there are pressing matters at hand, he's always ready to get down to business. I can't tell you how much him and I used to talk and talk during college about anything and everything in between. I'll never forget those nights (although some of them I couldn't remember in the first place) and I'll always look to him for advice or when I need to enjoy life.

  Another great friend I made in college with whom I'm still very close with today is my friend Scott Flanigan from the first post I ever wrote. He has always shown me compassion and given great advice from experience. He is not one to give me false hope nor is he one to sugar coat things because if he's giving advice, he's saying it like it is which is a trait that is hard to come by these days, even in the best of friends. He is ready for a change of pace and wants to move out of the country to gain some good life experience and I'm excited to be part of it as we will be exploring the world together and it's going to be nothing less than a story I will tell all of my children and grandchildren.

  Scott and Andy are not the only ones who made an impact on me during college either and in fact there are so many people that I would love to mention but I think my posts are already long enough as they are and I can't mention everyone :(. Another really prominent figure in college was my RA in the dorms both of my years I lived in them. That's right, I'm talking about Neal Bohnen, the man himself. He, very much like my parents and family was disappointed in me when I dropped out of school. We still remained friends but I could see that I had lost status with him when he heard the news. In fact, I went and talked to him about it before I told anyone else. The best part about it was that he didn't tell me I was wrong. He didn't tell me that what I was doing was the most idiotic thing I'd ever do in my lifetime. He didn't tell me that he didn't want to be associated with me anymore. He told me that I need to do things for myself and that I had some thinking and experiencing to do. This man is wise beyond his years and is now a great husband to his beautiful wife and I can't say that he's anyone different today. If you need his email address, I'll sell it for 5 bucks a pop (sorry Neal, no money for you hehe).

  Dropping out led me to the association of another previous RA who then became my girlfriend who then became a great friend that I cherish to this day. Yes, I'm talking about the one and only Marcella Burg! Marcella and I were in the same boat as far as dropping out of school and coincidentally we also worked in the same restaurant while we were finding out what we wanted out of life. We started dating and when it came time for the spring semester to start she basically gave me an ultimatum (or at least this is how I remember it haha) and she said “I want to date someone who's in school.” Needless to say, she was honestly the person more than anyone that pushed me to enroll again and when I did oh my goodness was I welcomed to a whole new world by all of my friends and family.

  I think one of the proudest moments of my life was the day I graduated college and I got calls and letters and emails from everyone I know that were saying some of the most positive things I've ever heard or read. However, few of them knew that it was Marcella that had really given me the push I needed to start my college career again. Once I got back into school, it was easy to find out what I was passionate about and I have to say that at that point in my life, I found out SO much about myself and it definitely began to add to the identity that I have today. Thank you Marcella for being the one who got through to me and helped me get my life back on track. To this day, I still remain in contact with Marcella and in fact, I like to refer to her as my editor as she is usually the first person I send any of my writings to for a look because she herself is a great writer and she always has great advice and criticism for me. (But she better not leak any of my material!!!!! =P)

  Along with Marcella, there was a duo of friends who I'll always think of as a duo because that's how I met them and that's how I always interacted with them. Ms. Jessica Whyte and Mrs. Liz Bickel! Firstly, congratulations to Liz for the newborn baby Liam! He looks very handsome and Liz is going to make a wonderful mother. Well, these two dear friends always helped me out so much while we lived in the dorms together and they were always happy to spend some time together and have a good laugh. During my time as a college dropout they also constantly checked up on me to make sure I was doing well and to make sure I was taking care of myself. They too were also ecstatic to learn that I was going back to school and they were SO supportive of me once I was back. I still proudly wear one of my favorite Guns n' Roses T shirts that they gave me and I'll always remember their kindness.

 Another fantastic group, this time a trio of friends were my three roommates that I lived with for 2 years of my life and we had some times that were some of the best I've ever experienced. Trevor Toms, Shaun Reed and Bryan Nydegger. What a great bunch of guys. We were all SO diverse and SO different but when together, we had great conversations and even better times. I think we all did a lot of growing up during the time we lived together and I think that all of us living together was just what the doctor ordered at that time in our lives. I met so many nice people through them and I remember that they would always go out of their way for me like a family. We often found ourselves being meshed in with the dynamic duo that I mentioned just above and here is a great pic of all of us together. Brings back very fond memories and it's so cool to been able to have lived life with these guys always right by side.

 I want to briefly mention another person that was prominent in my life for quite some time but I can't really put everything I would really want to say in words. I'll just mention I have Amy MacDaniel to thank as being a huge influence in my life and leave it at that.

  I especially have to give a huge shout out to my immediate family and especially to my brother Ryan who I never thought would be one of my best friends in life. We started out being exactly like two brothers who were two years apart: mortal enemies. We did not get along at all while we lived at my parents house but right when I left for college, we got along really well. I remember one time when he came and visited me when he was a senior in high school and my friends and I took him to a party to “corrupt his mind.” I remember we were all giving him advice about college and what to expect and what is blown way out of proportion. I remember he thanked me for showing him my brotherly love and it really impacted me because before I had always seen him as just a brother because we had the same parents, not because of the bond that we shared. From that moment on, I realized that family is one of the most important things you can ever have and we CAN'T take it for granted. Ever since then, I've looked to my brother for support in the roughest of times and I've also looked to him with questions about life that I feel he has more experience with. He's been a great pal throughout the last few years and I'm honestly glad that we went to the same college. I don't know what I would've done if he didn't. I miss you like crazy man and I'm looking forward to heading back stateside so we can hang out and throw a big 'ol party. Like you said, “there isn't enough booze in the world” for the bash we'll be throwing haha.

  Ok, just a few left I promise! Seth Yoder, thank you sir for being a no bullshit kind of guy. Seth was my drummer in the previous world renowned band Tony G. and the Cure for Cancer. He was always the one wearing the masks on the drum set. Not only was he a fantastic drummer but a fantastic friend and a truly wise individual. This guy reads more than a librarian and has such a hunger for knowledge it's unreal. He always had a story in store for me whenever I asked his advice and I'll never forget great the great words that he had to say. Some of the best advice I think I've ever received was a simple thing he told me one time at band practice. He said, “if you're honest with yourself, then it'll be good.” We were talking about writing lyrics and guitar licks but I've taken it further than that and have applied it to many of life's experiences. One of the hardest things in life is to be true to yourself and he nailed it on the head. I've lived by this mantra very steadily and I've found nothing less than nirvana.

  Ok, saving best for last although to be honest I'm not picking favorites, it's just that this guy was the biggest influence on me during my younger life which helped develop the foundation of who I am today. Everything started with this guy, Chris Moore. Navy Toads, enough said haha. Ok, there are only two people in the world who will understand that but anyway, Chris and I were really close in the later years of elementary school and we remained close all the way through high school. During all of this time we hit a lot of big stages in life together and it was always easy to have someone to rely on while taking such big steps. In elementary school I remember that he and I would always walk to each others houses and would have such great times with our imaginations and with the simplest of objects. Our friendship never faltered and when entering the scary world of high school, we were always right there together hanging out and having a good time. We were both the kind of kids that never had one “clique” but rather would hang out with several different ones as neither of us really to belonged to one or the other. He was really the first person who showed me what it meant to be yourself and to have your own identity. He didn't need to act like anyone else to be somebody. He didn't need to follow the direction of others to get where he wanted to go. He always lived for himself but not selfishly. He was always the kindest of friends and I'm really sad that we didn't get to experience college together although the world would have exploded from this awesomeness haha. I really wish that we hadn't grown apart as much as we did after we both started college but that's how the world worked and that's how it was. I just want you to know that you were the first best friend I had and that you'll always have my respect and friendship. I can't wait to see you when I get back in the states. It'll be a long awaited reunion.

  Well for all of those of you that I didn't mention by name, please remember that you all have an impact on my life and that I wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for all of the love, prayers and support that you've selflessly given. I realize that the debt I owe is indeed a large one and I'm going to do my best to pay you all back in full. I also want all of you to thank the people that made you who you are and to never forget how you got to where you are now. I think we all take for granted the help and support we have received in the past and I would like to hear stories from you about others who are very prominent in your life. Have you tried to repay the debt that we all owe?

Tony G.