Chapter 4: Possessing the Fire

Continued from Chapter 3: Finding the Fire...


As I said, "The Furnace" only started taking on his true fiery identity after stepping up for himself in that one past moment in U.S. History class. Little did I know this act would affect my life, again, taking it into a new stage of fiery excellence and one step closer to Furnace Level. This moment, like my previous big moment in which I first received the name, is another reason why I believe that your life can change any day, at any time, and you have to be ready to catch it when the opportunity comes. You have to be attentive and still driving yourself forward because one day your break will come. I'm 100% positive. Just don't give up, never.


Following that first day of history class, "The Furnace" would make his daily diagram of how "hot" (as in energy and motivation) he was feeling that day. It was a special 5 minutes dedicated at the beginning of class where the whole room watched as "The Furnace" was going to make his diagram of his "Furnace Level". These diagrams started off just being thermometers, but over time, "The Furnace" started to become more creative with his sketches and they eventually evolved into large drawings with several colors. There was even a special color given to the "heat-range" that "The Furnace" was burning in. The list went (from coldest to hottest): Green, Blue, Yellow, Orange, Red, then later added were Purple, White, Silver, and Gold. One day the "Furnace Level" would be a dartboard sketch with the hotness meter extending from the outer rings to the center! Another would be a rocket shot up into different levels of the atmosphere with the hotness meter extending from the Earth's surface to outer space! A third would be a sketch of an erupting volcano, a fourth of a marathon race, a fifth a fire volcano (one of my favorites), and some were even linked to current events such as when the swine flu was going around! Nevertheless, the "Furnace Level" was always something for me and my peers to look forward to and to comment on every day, and it went on for that whole entire school year!


It was with the Furnace Levels that year that the name "The Furnace" really stuck to me. One of the reasons was that I had a way to express my Furnace side outside of the realm of basketball, and therefore, many of my peers were becoming more aware and understanding of my fiery identity and being more open to addressing me as "The Furnace". Also, many of the people in the classes below me had siblings in my class, and therfore heard stories about my Furnace Levels. Therefore, some of  the younger ones only knew me as "The Furnace" because they only really knew me by the rumors going around at my school. Moreover, during the basketball games that season, it was fun to see that I started to get a bit of a fan base going. One of the things that a few of them would do, if I started to play really well, would be to imitate shoveling and stocking up a furnace with coal and then saying, "The Furnace is heating up!"


This time was also a great time in the development of my self-confidence. I believe that at that stage of my life, I was really happy with the reality that I was creating around me. I felt more in charge of it, more comfortable in social settings, and most of all, enjoying every moment that was around me. It was also at this time that I started realizing the power of my true potential and the impact I was having on others around me. But you know, as they say, with great power comes great responsibility, and that, I would soon come to find as I headed into the summer before my senior year. When one of my classmates expressed their sadness for the school year ending, thereby not being able to see the Furnace Level for the summer, I knew I had to do something, and I decided to make it a huge surprise for all my classmates. At our senior final presentations, I slipped into the slideshow an  announcement of a way that the Furnace Level would always be with my classmates and also with the rest of the world. A way that would be accessible twenty four hours a day and seven days a week. A way that was so simple, yet so out of the box, only with a vision could it be created. What would this annoucement be you ask? It was...

To be continued...



The Furnace