The Pope always wears a funny hat, even when showering.
Well, the life of Toblan, born Chris Stanton, begins on January 10th, 1985, in the city of Painesville, OH, which is in the Cleveland area. My birth was fairly normal, except that I was born a twin!
I was born 1 minute before my brother, Jon. However, I’ve always been the “runt†of the family, with him always being a little heavier/a little taller than me. After living in Painesville for only a year, we moved down to the Columbus area after both my mom and dad found jobs in the area. Oh yea, a little about my parents, they were high school sweethearts, met in their freshman year of high school, and have been together ever since. Never seen two people who have loved each other more. My Dad is an engineer, mom is an accountant. We lived in Columbus for only a short time before moving to Delaware, which is just a little north of Columbus. But, right now I’m in Oxford, OH, for school.
We have been there ever since, and have lived in the same house since I was in the 1st grade. My youngest brother, Alex, was born the summer before I entered the second grade. He is 13 now, and in the 7th grade, and when people see him with Jon and I, they think we are triplets! He is almost 6’0’’ tall, and already weighs more than I do.
He’s in love with basketball, which is good, considering he should be a pretty tall kid once he finally stops growing.
He’s one of my best friends, as is Jon, we get a long great, and I’m sure I will stay close to both of them wherever life might lead me.
My childhood years were absolutely perfect, in my opinion. Very stable household, great neighborhood, lots of freedom, couldn’t have asked for anything more. My brother and I were very close growing up, and we did everything together. We were both really big into soccer, and pretty much played it are whole lives. The summers were really what made my childhood great, however. We were left home alone from 5th grade onward in the summer, so my brother and I could do whatever we wanted from 8:00-5:00 everyday of the week.
We spent most of that time outdoors, we were lucky enough to have a nice wooded area right beside our neighborhood, where we spent more of our time doing typical things: building tree houses, camping, burning things, building forts, etc. It was a great time, and I’ll always look back on those years fondly.
My high school years were mostly without incident, my brother and I were still close, and I had a pretty good 4 years in high school. I was one of those kids who seemed to get along with everyone, didn’t belong to any one group in particular, and just didn’t get involved in a lot of the drama that goes along with high school. I played soccer and ran track, and was captain of both those teams my senior year. However, I was also part of the “fantasy†club, which played Magic and D&D at lunch and after school sometimes.
But, I was never made fun of by the more “popular†kids who I played sports with and grown up with. I honestly enjoyed high school a great deal, and wouldn’t mind going back and doing it all over again.
As most of you know, I now attend Miami(OH) University, where I am majoring in History and Classics. It was a pretty easy decision to decide to come here, even though now, looking back on it, I wish I had looked more closely at my options before deciding on Miami. I only applied to here and OSU, and never even considered anywhere else. Probably should have looked at some smaller schools, or out-of-state schools, but oh well, I’m happy here, and I’ll always have the chance to get out of Ohio for grad school.
As far as hobbies are concerned…I enjoy running A LOT, as most of you know.
Planning on walking-on to the cross country team here next year. If I don’t make it, oh well, I just want to know that I gave it a shot. I got into running back in 7th grade, after a family friend/coach convinced me to get out of the woods for part of the summer and go run on the team. That started was has become one of my true loves in life. I’ve met tons of great people, had a lot of great experiences, and I honestly credit running with a lot of my successes in life. It teaches you so much, its a great sport to get into, I recommend it to everyone.
It has soooo many benefits. The other sport I really, really enjoy is soccer, been playing it basically my whole life. College is the first time since I was 5 or 6 when I wasn’t playing on a team. My bro plays for Baldwin-Wallace College, in Berea, OH, a pretty successful Division 3 program. Soccer took me a lot of places growing up, including Florida a couple times, and England once. Club soccer is expensive, but it has its benefits.
I’m very, very big into reading, you wont see me go anywhere without a book. Back in middle/high school, I was one of those geeks would take books to sporting events to read during timeouts or breaks.
Favorite book of all time is probably A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole. READ IT!!! Toblan highly recommends it.
I love fantasy, sci-fi, history, and just about anything that doesn’t suck.
As you can probably guess, I like to play PC games as well, even though that has calmed down a little in recent years. I really got addicted with AC, which seriously changed my life back in high school. I was hopelessly addicted, and I’m glad I didn’t totally screw up my life during that time.
And, the outdoors….What can I say about it!!! I love being outside, despite what my postcount says to the contrary.
In particular, I love backpacking and trail running, cant get any better than that!!! My parents are in love with New England, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, etc., so I’ve spent a bunch of time up there. I just recently made my way out west for some backpacking over Spring Break, and, needless to say, I will definitely be back there soon.
Hopefully I can make it up to Canada over the summer to do some hiking with Axeon and KotM.
I’m a Cleveland sports fan, I hate Cinci sports with a passion.
Also, I’m a big supporter of OSU football and basketball, as well the Columbus Crew.
Havent had very many SO’s during my life, but I am getting over a recent break up with my GF of 6 months. Broke up with her on February 1st. Wasted tons of time/money on her, and, looking back on it, she wasn’t worth it at all. She treated me like ****, and I took it for the whole 6 months. Don’t know what I was thinking, I basically wasted 6 months of my life on her, and money that could have been spent on a million better things!!!!
So, I’m currently single, but not really looking. Just enjoying not being tied down by anything right now, but if the right person comes alone…you never know….
So, I kinda just put this together real quick, but if you want to know more, or want me to clarify some things, just let me know!!!! Enjoy!!!
Oh yea, here is a picture of me, and then a picture of my twin brother, so you can compare the two of us if you'd like!
Toblan