Calvin Higgins: And welcome back to Choice Men, everybody. Joshua, how are you? Good. How are you? Doing fantastic. Sam, how are you? A little tired? It's been while. Yeah, it's been it's been a hot minute since our last recording session, which was Ten minutes ago. Yeah. Yeah, we we had a failed first attempt on this episode where we were having some network connection issues, but we're back. Love technical issues. That's right. So our guest is a fine young man from From a place and he'll he'll tell you those places that we know him from. But what's your name and grade for the record? Yeah, state your name and grade for the record and where you go to school. I am Josh Rasar. I'm going into twelfth grade at Evangelical Classic School. Dude, that's a big deal. It's a big deal to go from, you know, eleventh grade to a senior, like you're not coming back next year as a student. Well, hypothetically, you're not coming back next year as a as a student. Yeah, hopefully. We we all we all hope you're not coming back as a student. But yeah, so yeah, we're gonna we're gonna dive into a couple different facets of summer. But this is our student summer series that we're trying to have where we interview some interview some students about their summers, about their thoughts on that, how they think it's going for themselves and how they think maybe other people could use their summers better, especially as students. But we'll we'll kind of start with your most latest. endeavor or thing you were a part of, which was the TEC youth retreat. how how was that overall for you? Overall I'd say it went really good as far as like logistically and like it was very smooth, well thought out. Good job to Mr. Kazrezov and Mr. Kulashov who did a lot of work behind that, behind the scenes and everything. Yeah. It was good. Yeah, and in terms of like if you were doing three highs and a low, what what would that be? well to start with low is probably like just some not listening or not paying attention things by some of the by some of the boys. So like if we could if we could grow in maturity and listening and paying attention, that'd be great. But as far as highs go, I mean some of the talks were really good, like Mr Mr. Higgins or Mr. Vanderbeck and Aaron or or Mr. Philip Kulashoff was also really good. And then also, yeah, just Hanging out with some of the my favorite people in the world. Yeah. And yeah. Yeah, that's that was a good time. I mean I got to be there for for some of the talks. What would you say your your favorite talk was? Yeah, so as far as like you know, I'd say probably Aaron Vanderbeckens was really good, especially for it being his first time, 'cause yeah, I I the way that he opened, he said that he did not want to do this at first, but looking back, like if someone was put in the the same position that he was when he was at Youth Retreat, he was like, I would have loved for them to do it and so he did it. And it was it was a great talk. It was forged by sharpening, I believe, news. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I again totally for that first time 'cause you could tell he was uncomfortable. It's kinda like Taylor a couple years ago when he did it for his first time, he was uncomfortable. And I mean I think Aaron had been working on this for Probably a month and a half, two months really trying to make it good. And I thought it was I thought it was great. 'Cause obviously like Philip, Sean, a a number of those guys who have talked a lot at different things, they're they're good at it and kinda know what they're doing off the rip. Yeah, I mean, we also we also generally know what they're gonna say to some extent. Obviously they they shape those those words in new ways most of the time, but it I don't know, it's fun to see. a younger guy also be be up there. So I thought I thought that was great. if you could change one thing about the youth retreat overall, not necessarily like people listening, because obviously there are people, there's always gonna be people issues, but if you could change one thing about the youth of treat, what would it be? I'd say make the memory versus more i i it was kind of like free willy type, like everybody could do X of leaders could do mem like every memory verse that was mentioned in a talk. And so I'd say do more like do five verses a day or something like that. But l like have more limitations. And this is not just coming from the team who got second to last, but like a as someone who has thought about this. Like at Called Conference, they had one verse a day and then they'd randomly choose someone from each team to present it. Which I instead of just sending in the soldier that's always good what what the verses. And I thought that was really good good because it kept everyone on their toes. Because you don't want to And everybody has to be participating on the team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good idea. I think one interesting thing would be is to like make it so each person can only do it once. So like if you do send in your best guy first, well okay now you can't do any of the others the rest of the Yeah. Or making it where everybody goes no matter what It doesn't matter what order you send them in, that's fine. Yeah, but you everybody has to go at some point. And you might get a super easy verse, you might get a really I mean you might get John eleven thirty five. Jesus wept. Jesus wept. And if you can't memorize that one, you probably shouldn't be at camp. I think you should you probably need to see somebody to get some help. But yeah, that's that's pretty funny. So you're a senior this year. Yes. which means you have one more year of going to the Euthy. What are you gonna do now? Well as as a good yeah. Because like you can't continue on. Sometimes they'll ask for you to come back. Yeah. but for for not requirement, but for I don't know what to say there. But what are you gonna do differently as a leader or as a participant next year? Yeah, so if we do teams again, find more ways to be blessings to the other teams. Like this year I brought like drinks for our team, but instead like doing it for everyone. So not just being a consumer, but also being a producer and making sure that you make this not just fun for yourself, because that's really easy, but also really good for other people. Cause a as someone who's given more responsibility this year, it's easy Yeah. No, it it's easy to understand. people getting like irritated that people for not paying attention and whatnot. And a and and so i it was I perfect, no. But like some it's something I had to grow in. Yeah. Yeah, I mean you know, there's There is the you know, there is that idea of unreasonable hospitality. and when you're camping, you know, what does that look like? Well, maybe it's bringing drinks for everybody, maybe it's for breezing your tent, you know. That was that was a game changer. I will say I do think tent it cause do you guys did tent inspections? Yeah. Was that did that go well? if there wasn't grass that was accidentally In places we hadn't checked. Sounds like there might have been some grass and some accidental places you might not have checked. You know what's funny is when we so the year after the whole Fabriz thing became really big, we found out that Mr. Kulashoff, who was the tent inspector, hated Febreze and we snapped on a dime to something else. We're like, shoot, we gotta use it. It was so funny. And so it's obvious to me. like the the Christmas Fabrizio 'cause they were the Christmas Twitter. Yeah, they got documents of it was dedication. Yeah, 'cause w 'cause Emerson was inspecting the year that we were using Febreze the first time. Yeah. And he he really liked that that touch. And then I guess I didn't have a tent for people to inspect. Because what we 'cause that was me and Basin had come right after our honeymoon and so we had the truck tent set up. So I mean people I think Max did come over there, but it was more like that was like the judge's area to to grade the scores. But I'm a fan of Fabriz. So if I'm ever inspecting your tents and you have Fabriz, that's an automatic five points right there at least. You're you're fifty percent of the way there with just that. I don't care how dirty it is. If you had if you just have Febreze in the tent, I don't even care if you sprayed it. That that shows me that you want me in your tent. A used can. Yeah, it's it's the thought that counts. I mean there's it's dented, it's been used, as you see. Yeah. It can only go up from there. Anyways, aside from for breeze and the youth retreat. Because honestly now, you know, this is discouraging to a lot of students when you say, Well, summer's almost done. I mean, summer is almost done. We've got, you know, about a month left because actually Exactly what you have is a month left because school this year for the first time in like maybe forever is starting on September first. Really? Yeah. That is the first time ever. Yeah, and then I would have hated as a I think I think September third we leave for Alaska. see, yeah. So you're barely you're barely starting school. You're faking it. You're coming back for a little bit and then go to Alaska. But you're gonna go see a bear. Hopefully we when we're not running. yeah, 'cause that's what yeah. That would be terrible. No, the the kids from Kodak have totally like they run with bear spray because they should all run with ten millimeter pistols. That would be that'd be cool. Yeah, but that's not very convenient when you're racing. Somebody told me an AK forty seven is really good against bears that like ask me how I know. Whoa. Okay, well interesting story. That's interesting. Yeah. But so again, obviously it's coming to a close. You still got, you know, the thirty days or whatever. Till we get to that point. But what how would you say your summer has gone so far in terms of one, having a good time, two, productivity, and three, getting ready for the school year. How would you say that's going and then kinda what goals do you have for the rest of the summer in terms of getting ready for the school year? Yeah, so I mean, like I I as much as I have been, I've been trying to work so I've But I've been gone most of the summer. So I was at I was in Long Beach. I was doing the play. I was helping out my grandparents. I was at CALD Conference. Yeah, but then when I have been, I've been trying to work and then also balancing that with athletics because I'm trying to grow in leadership, especially with soccer and cross country, especially, and trying to lead our team to first in state for cross country and then at at least get to districts in soccer. Where do we finish last year for not I won't ask about soccer. where did we finish last year in cross country? we finished fourth. Okay. And we have a we have the same squad as we did last year, except we're all older and faster. Whoa. What about Pope John Paul? Well, they had some kids graduate, but they still have their state champ. Ooh. And what's the time discrepancy there? Okay, so he's like, all right, let's move on. Next question. I mean he's probably sub sixteen right now. Okay, so I should be there soon, hopefully, but 'cause he he's been running longer than I have. So it's it it's taken a while to catch up. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean that's a big goal. Yeah. So well anyways, I kinda interrupted you. Yeah. yeah, but then all so then I mean I've been trying le leading captain's practice for soccer and I've been trying to do something like that for cross country just hasn't worked out so far just because people have been gone and whatnot. Yeah, and then yes, so I'm I I'm just trying to get as much done. Cause like I I've been planning this summer, just like planning things out for last couple months before summer. And so yeah and then also there's one more thing. yeah, and and then just also working around the working around the property because there's a lot to do there as well. So the the days are full. Yeah. Do you have any kind of like 'cause when when we had Xanderon, we were asking and we 'cause we had talked about this a little bit about as a student coming back for the school year, a lot of times if there's been no prep work in the summertime, it can feel really overwhelming. To come back. And then for that, for that first little chunk of school, it's like, I'm sorry, how do people do homework? Like, how is that possible? You can read. Like, I don't remember how to do that. And then obviously at some point the muscle memory kicks back in. But is there anything that you personally try to do beforehand, before coming back for the school year, where you kind of get your mind at least thinking about that again, whether or not you're practicing it, but Maybe do you practice it or do you have some kind of game plan to get prepared mentally for that school year? I mean, no, not a lot. Yeah, i i it is all just a bunch of muscle memory. So I mean, probably something I should grow in, try to make this next year la last year count, but yeah. I mean, at the same time, when I was going into the senior year, I probably wasn't doing much either. Yeah, no. 'Cause also senior year is when you realize like kinda all the pieces fit together a little more. But Yeah. Yeah, I mean there's you know, there's benefit to there's both benefit to not doing that and also there's benefit to doing some of that. 'Cause obviously it is the summer, so it is supposed to be well, you're on break. But and I mean I think this is something that Grant at least was doing for a while with the older classes. There was generally reading that was assigned for the first week of school. Do you know if that's happening this year or? No, I actually don't know. I haven't even got my books yet, so I guess that's right, yeah, 'cause it's like orientation, which is like a week. A week before school starts? Yeah. A couple weeks a couple weeks. I think it's a couple weeks. I forgot. It's actually a great question. I don't remember what day that is. I think well I know I bet it's like the twenty seventh. Either that or like the the twentieth. 'Cause I think sports start the twenty fourth and that's a Monday. It's probably the Thursday before or after that. So yes, we can about sports at Orientation. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And is there a choir retreat this year too? Did you guys have a choir retreat last year? We did. I actually don't know if there's one this year. Okay. Interesting. 'Cause I know that generally falls on the same day as Orientation. So then earlier. 'Cause I mean we've sang at Orientation before. Yeah. Which I thought we did pretty good. I mean, we learned the song that day, so It's kind of impressive. Yeah, it's funny. A few times we've done that, we've actually sounded half decent every time we've done it. Yeah. Like it's not amazing. It's not. Like we've performed at some assemblies on a day where she was like, Well, that seems good enough. We could probably just try performing that right now with the music. Everyone's like, wait a second. Yeah, I mean it's never too bad. It's never Yeah. It's never been an epic fail. We've never had to start over. We don't remember it 'cause it's bad. Can any of you remember a concert where we've had to start over a song? Yeah, we did that when Adam was soloing one time. Just because I think he came in too early. Just because yeah, there was just miscommunication. Yeah. And then that song ended up being great though. yeah, it was great. Yeah. Yeah. Because I mean Adam was singing. Yeah, Adam should have done Adam sh Adam, if you're listening to the podcast, I don't know if you are, you should have done a lot more solos. Like get over yourself, man. Your your solos were great. Yeah, he's like, no, no. He's he's got a little smile on his butt no, no, thank you. No, no. It's like, no, dude, you were Yeah, your solos were great. what are your as a senior? Do you have any particular goals for this school year? Again, not necessarily for the summer coming into the school year, but for the school year on a and obviously, I mean, you could even restate some of your athletic. Goals that that's fine, but do you have ones that are connected to also the student aspect of student athlete? I mean, personally I would love to win state in the for track a fur track and cross country, like the eight, sixteen, third tune track in the cross country, just first place. But then also just like as a team leading us there and then yeah, so same with thing with soccer, and then also like For the school, just finding ways to make it a better place and thinking less about myself and more about the greater goal, like the school, the school mission, like the commending the works of the Lord to another generation. So making that next generation better than us, making our class jealousable and still helping us grow as a school. Yeah. And in your mind, what does that look like? Fit like more More broadly. well, more played out, so more specifically. If you if you have those specifics. I I'm working those specifics out, but but y yeah, yeah, just spending time investing in other classes and not just with my friends, because that's easy to do. And so e even just like the younger secondary, that's something that our our senior classes sometimes have done well, sometimes not as well. So yeah, making making making people looking forward to being a senior not just 'cause you're gonna leave, but also because it's awesome. Yeah. Do you guys get a free period this year? I don't know. Okay. I think they started taking those away when most of the students don't use them well. Yeah. There was a time when me and Calvin were able to help out with the kindergarten class on one of our pre-periods. Yeah. This year the juniors for sixth period were just assigned a class and we're just gonna help out with our class. So like I did. Music, kindergarten, first grade, and Latin. That's fun. Nice. Well, I mean, we could probably talk about a lot of stuff, but Sam, do you have any any other questions? Hmm. No, not really. Ooh, well. Keep keep this in your hopper for later because we're not quite to that position yet. But do have any good dad advice for guys who have kids? Are you saying later or like today? it we'll do it later today during this episode. Yeah. Yeah, but think about that. Think about that advice. There's a responsibility onto him this Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Sam's like I don't want to do it. And you know what Sam doesn't know? This has to be dead. If we had if we had another camera, if we had if we had camera operators, I'd be like, camera one, look look at me, look at me right now and zoom in. What Sam doesn't know is that he is also gonna have to Yeah, no. no, but what Sam doesn't know is that he's also gonna have to give dad advice. Even though Joshua's giving that advice, Sam doesn't know this, but he will find this out. And so I'm leaving all of this in by the way. Editors, edit this out, but also keep it in. Literally two days ago, I had a good idea for dad advice. So I'm gonna drop that today. boy. But no editors, look at me. Look back at him and then look back at me. But it's coming. But also this will all still be in the video. And so some of you are probably like, I can't believe they're still talking about this. They're just trying to max out minutes. It's like it's like getting a word count for a paper in school. It's like It's like hitting the page and I was like, well, how many how many more adjectives can we use? Probably a lot. It was really fantastically, fabulously, greatly exaggerated. Yeah. Look back at me. He still doesn't know about the database. No. The So yeah, I the part of what I think is cool about the the two students we've had on, but of our student summer series is a lot of it is Excuse me, a lot of it is kind of the same stuff. A lot of it is the same idea that we should be looking ahead to the next year, especially as students, looking ahead to the next year, going, all right, how can we make it, how can we make it better? But I really do like your perspective, knowing that you're coming in as a senior, of looking at it like we don't just want people to be excited that, you know, you don't want people to be excited that you're a senior because great, they're leaving. It's It is also because you made it better. And it was better because you were you were a senior, you were able to have some more responsibility and you made that that great. you know, because I think I can't remember, was it was it Chuck Norris? Not Chuck Norris. Yeah, I think it was Chuck Weinberg, but somebody during an assembly was kind of talking ahead to the seniors and was like. You should be looking at what kind of hole are you gonna leave? What kind of dent are you gonna leave? And that that is an interesting thing to look back through all the classes that have graduated and to go, okay, what dents were left by these classes? There were some classes that left, you know, kind of just regular size dents. A spoonful. There were classes that almost left negative dent, like where they left a hump that needed to get pushed back down and then another dent. and there are also classes that made huge dents. So the it's a very and even among classes that made big dents, sometimes it was split. So like some students in those classes were making bigger dents than than others. But overall it is kind of an interesting concept. And so I like that you're thinking about, you know, what kind of dent are you gonna leave? And you know. Hopefully it's not just, well, we're glad he's gone. Hopefully it's more like, well, we're kind of actually sad that this person is leaving because they did a lot of good stuff. And also, they are trying to equip because that even right now, like this this podcast, we are still trying to do that. I mean, obviously we're a couple years removed from graduating, but we're still trying to leave resources for the younger men in particular to be able to continue to leave Big Dents in their in their areas of work. and yeah, I think I think this is great. So thanks for thanks for being on. Now I think we'll have Sam go first. So he which again he doesn't know this is coming. I'm totally I totally there's a tool in Riverside where I can just zoom right into my face. Hypothetically that's gonna work. and then that should be really funny. Or it won't be. you though You're gonna go first. You're gonna give us your dad advice. So then he has an idea of how that goes. I typically for dad advice, just so you know. before Calvin was an actual dad, I would just kind of give it like a generic dad advice kind of to the audience. but now since he is a dad, I kinda tailor it more to Calvin himself, while leaving it just generic enough that Because Sam is a dad that we just we don't know. But in in in his heart he's a dad. Which is very funny because I'm the one giving dad advice. He's the dad. And before when we actually started giving dad advice, neither of us neither of us were married. We're married. Yeah. Actually. Or dads. Or dad. Or dads. Well, I guess we could we could have been dads. Yeah, actually. Not married. Yeah. Not adopted. Anyways. When All right. When considering how best to encourage a disciple or kind of bring your kid along in the person that they need to be, consider slash watch how they hang out with their friends. Cause that can actually bring out a different side of them that they don't necessarily show all the time. but also shows you how they act even slightly differently in more of a public area. I really like that. I actually think not because we've talked about this, but that that's that's totally been a thing like at our house, not not my household now, but my my my father's household, that has totally been a thing that we we've talked about and looked into, even with all the kids, but wow, you're a you're a worse person when you hang out with when you hang out with such and such. Or, man, this other friend seems to really be beneficial for you. and you you act you act better when you're with that person, or wow, you become a psychopath when you're with these other people. so what's your what's your dead list? Those explosion marks in your room. I mean never cease from investing. Like it's it's easy just to spend time. You know, it's easy just to spend time when you're at home, but also you know, t t take them out. Just a ask how life is going and yeah, j just invest in them. You will never regret the time that you've spent outside of your house with them. Yeah. It's giving me around for my money. Yeah, that was pretty good. Honestly, we might just have you email us all of your dad advice and we'll just copy and paste that for all of our episodes. Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah. you're you're not a dad though, right? I Only a couple times though. Only a couple times. Well, that's good to know. Yeah, I know. Well, thanks again for coming on. That was great. we we'll probably have you and the senior class on. Actually. How many how many are in your class? Seven. Oof. We don't have enough mics for you, but we can figure something. We'll get more. Maybe we'll just have re representatives from your class club. we we we could fit them all in. We're we're generally pretty small. Well yeah, we would not be broadcasting. No, we we probably didn't like my dad's from Yeah, we'd be we'd be in a different room. But we'll probably have your guys' senior class on at some point or representatives from your senior class. So you're making a good case to have them all and we have them tap out. In between episodes. Yeah, we can interview all of them or you can do like the same episode. Ten minutes per per person and then like ten minutes at the end. That's that's over an hour. I know. And Ian Ian is gonna be like, I need all this footage so I don't have to interview them myself, rather. All right. Well, that'll be it for Choice Men. thank you guys for listening, and we'll catch you guys next time. Choice men and sacks off. Peace. I wanna cut to the end and just have it zoom right back into Sam's face. He doesn't know. Yeah. Look back at me. He still doesn't know about the database. No.