8:38 p.m. Just when I thought that maybe my family was starting to completely shape up and that everyone was getting, the one person who I least expected is the one to bring it crashing down. After dinner tonight, as I was preparing a bowl of ice cream, my dad starts to yell at me telling me how lazy I am, and how I never ever help around the house. He mumbles to himself "he never takes out the trashes, feeds the animals, looks after the animals, does his homework," and well I honestly believe that my father was talking about my brother, since I know that my brother has not been doing his homework lately. Well, as it turns out, I guess my dad is really angry with me. He feels that since I am now the oldest child that I should be doing a lot more. I really don't understand my father. He will say, hey I am really proud of you, like he did a couple days when I made regionals and now he has completely flipped 180 degrees and is saying that he wishes that I helped more around the house. He told me that my attitude about everything is really crappy and that I need to shape up at school and at home. I just don't understand why he thinks that I am such a terrible person. I try really hard to always make him proud of me. I always feel proud to just be his son, but I think that I am going to be kind of happy being away from my family next year. It was weird because at the beginning of this year, everything changed for me; I moved houses (which was really weird because I have lived in PV forever, but then all of the sudden I am living in Scottsdale), my sister now has a husband, so I hardly see her anymore, my aunt went through her chemo, my grandma doesn't actually live with us anymore, good and bad, and something with my brother is seriously wrong, because he now acts so differently than he always has. I am just a complete loss as to where to even go to do anything right for my family. It always just seems that whenever I do what I feel is right or good for my family, my dad looks at me with almost shameful eyes. All I really want to do is make my dad proud of me. I am almost afraid that I will lose my father the same way my father lost his dad. Hopefully I will be able to show my dad one day what he can truly be proud of. -Clark King