NOTE: I am talking about my relationship with my brother, despite the fact that part of the title suggests otherwise. Please see my previous post to find out why the title is the way it is.

I have a fantastic relationship with my brother. Not to sound corny nor egotistical, but he truly looks up to me. Since I know that I am a major influence in his behavioral life, I try my best to always set a good example for him, rather than saying that he should stop "copying me."

We also enjoy each other's company very much. Our relationship consists mostly of good humor, which includes various in-jokes and other silliness. As such, we express ourselves in ways that we don't do so with other people. In short, we are quite comfortable acting "unrefined" near each other.

However, I am not trying to say that my relationship with him is flawless. Each of us contributes to the various points of rockiness in our relationship. For instance, I am an A and high B student in high school who is currently taking three AP courses. My brother takes various mid- and low-level courses, in which he attains B's and C's. How does that relate? Well, I frequently get pissed off at him whenever he intentionally screws up in school, such as when he purposely does not do a project until the last minute (or at all). This makes him reluctant to tell me about his work in school, as he does not want me to catch him dodging work.

On a different note, I sometimes act like a general ass toward him, usually because I am being moody. For instance, whenever I have no homework left or am taking a break, and want to be by myself, he usually asks me if he could show me something or if we could hang out together. However, my mood is aggravated by my general tiredness, which leads me to sometimes raising my voice whenever I dismiss him. I don't like doing that to him, as he is only 11 and he means well.

In short, he is one of my closest friends, and I am one of his. It bothers me deeply that I have to go live in a dormitory in college, as I am not comfortable with leaving him. Our house is not necessarily the best environment for him, for reasons that I will not specify. But, on the bright side, my college is only about an hour away from my house, so I can visit frequently. Still, that is not the same as living with him and making sure that nothing undesirable happens involving him. I know that I'm going to worry like mad about him once August rolls around.

Starting today, whenever I make particularly large posts in the BBS, I'm going to make one of these "Post Logs." The sole purpose of doing this is to allow anyone who missed my original post to read it on my profile, without the need to comb through the entire BBS. I think this definitely serves as a convenience for my possibly-nonexistent readers. Also, for the record, here's the format of the "Subject" area of my "Post Log" posts:

Post Log #x: "BBS Topic Title"

Okay, finally, here's the first actual post log:

I take AP Italian, and our biggest field trip of the year is to go to Italy. In fact, my classmates and my teacher just left last Thursday. Wait, so why didn't I go?

Well, the trip is more like a staggered student exchange program. Basically, this is what it means: Earlier in the school year, during the end of October, a large group of students from Italy (along with 2 teachers) came to America for about 2 weeks. However, in order for them to stay, they had to board with one of us American students for the duration. I, for multiple reasons, ranging from my house's lack of space to my mother's general refusal, could not take in a student. Well, that would not have been much of a problem, as one of my classmates has a huge house and could have taken in an extra kid. Still, my mother (again) did not want me to stay in some other stranger's house, for when the time would come for us Americans to go to Italy. She just did not feel comfortable with that, and I respect her decision.

To tell you the truth, I wasn't too excited at the possibility of going to Italy with my classmates, as I am not particularly comfortable around them. I would much rather go to Italy with my cousin, Chris, when we're both old enough to be trusted. In addition to Italy, we'd probably try to visit multiple parts of Europe. We'd take 1000s of pictures and 100s of videos. It'd be so much fun.

There is no TL;DR, so just read the paragraphs.

Although it occurred over three years ago, I only typed about it back in September, as a school assignment. As I promised on the forum, here is my free-write of the incident. Keep in mind that since it is a free-write, it is not organized into paragraphs like an essay. But, it's still coherent; just picture me reciting it to you. Anyway, here it is:

One of the scariest days of my life occurred on January 1, 2006. That was the morning of my family's near-death experience. Earlier that day, in the early AM hours, everything was normal. My family, which consists of my parents, my brother David, and my visiting cousin Korinne, were just relaxing like usual on New Year's Day. I, along with the rest of them, went to bed at about 2:30 AM. I slept fine and eventually woke up at 10:30 AM. I noticed that no one else was awake. But, that was normal, because all of them were probably tired from the earlier celebration. So, I went downstairs from my room to the common room where I watched some TV. I noticed that I was tired, but that felt normal, since I slept only 8 hours. So, I thought nothing of it when I dozed off and woke up 30 minutes later still in front of the TV. I noticed that only my dad was up, since I heard him stumble down a small flight of stairs in my house. Strangely, I thought this was normal, so I kept watching TV. This was until I heard the scream. That scream came from my mother's mouth in my brother's room. She kept screaming that she could not wake him up. I was now concerned, so I ran as fast as I could up to my brother's room, passing by Korinne who was strangely sleeping on the floor near the stairs. I shook her briefly and told her to wake up, but she did not respond. So, I entered my brother's room, where she was shaking David and begging him to wake up. I watched her do this in horror, and tried to help. I slapped him around a bit and screamed at him, but he did not answer. My heart was racing because I thought he and my cousin were going to die. Suddenly, my legs felt weak. They gave way, and down I went near my brother's bed. I passed out for an unknown amount of time, and woke up with my mother still screaming at David. I noticed two oddities: The first was that I could not stand up, and the second was that I urinated my pants while I was unconscious. I felt disgusting and scared, but could do nothing. I passed out again. I do not know how long I was out the second time either, but I eventually woke up to two firemen carrying my arms and legs like a hammock. They carried me down the stairs and outside of my house, where they put me on a stretcher. The rush of cold January air, combined with my strange condition, made all of this feel like a dream. I don't know for sure why I did this, but I started to shout horrible expletives at the firefighters and police officers that were helping me. My curses were mostly sexual, and I would rather not repeat them. Regardless, they laughed them off, somehow knowing that I was not acting like I did normally. They continued to carry me into an ambulance, where I met my cousin Korinne a few minutes after they put her in it. We greeted each other and asked how we felt. Both of us felt fine, until I realized that I had not seen neither my brother nor my parents in a seemingly long time. I asked one of the paramedics if she knew where my parents were. She said that my mother and brother were in a different ambulance, and that my dad was in yet another ambulance by himself. I asked her if she knew if they would be okay. She said that she was not sure. Then, she began to ask us questions. She asked Korinne her full name three times in a row (each time Korinne replied fully), which bothered me because it seemed like the paramedic was just being annoying. I yelled at her, but realized later that she was just trying to see how well our brains were functioning. After a while, we eventually arrived in a hospital, where I eventually learned everything. Firstly, I found out that all of us were suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning, which is capable of killing people, due to some blockage in the vents of our house. Secondly, I found out that all of us were going to recover eventually, including my brother who eventually woke up in his ambulance. Lastly, I learned that it was my father, who, despite falling down stairs, managed to still muster of the strength and wit to call 911. He is the reason why all of us are still alive today. It took a couple of days in the hospital, but all of us eventually fully-recovered. Needless to say, we had our gutters cleaned as soon as we were allowed back in the house. Ever since that day, Korinne has yet to return to my house for a sleep-over. I don't blame her for it.