Beauty and the Beast

Me, Janice and Jamel went to the third annual Beauty and the Beast gymnastic & wrestling event at the Hearnes Center tonight at Mizzou. It was an interesting event as there were gymnastic events and wrestling matches going on at the same time. It was hard on deciding what to watch. Unfortunately, our wrestling team didn't do so well tonight.

Jamel had a great time and he was excited that he got to take a Mizzou wrestling poster home with him.

The most interesting thing that happened was a conversation Jamel and I had on our way to pick up Janice. Somehow the subject of Michael Phelps came up. He asked me why someone who was a world record holder and a great swimmer would smoke marijuana. I had the chance to talk to Jamel about how we all will be faced with choices. Sometimes the choices will be easy and some will be hard, and at some point we will all make the wrong choice. The important thing is to learn from those mistakes and to take responsibility for them. We talked about how Phelps didn't make excuses, he took responsibility, he didn't whine about consequences, he took his medicine. It has probably been a difficult couple of weeks for him, but he did the right thing. 

Jamel really seemed like he understood, and he even said it was like when he took responsibility for his dog chewing up his library book. I think he got it. He is a smart kid.

He told me on the drive home that he likes hanging out with me and he is glad I'm his Big Brother. Our relationship continues to grow and the conversations continue to get deeper. Not bad for only 2 months.