Tennis Game vs. Mashpee

Today I played my first official match against Mashpee High School. Team AMERAZIL (Aidan and I) ended up winning 6-4, 7-5 in a match that was surprisingly challenging. We had been without practice for a couple of days and so we weren't as ready to play and I believe we should have done much better even though we won.

Throughout the match, I realized I was already achieving my personal goals. One of them was serving better, and I have always been a consistent server, but my serves haven't been as challenging for the opponent and today my serves were low, fast, and at an angle as opposed to a parabola. I also get close to achieving my other goal of being better at volleying (being at the net). I took some chances and although I didn't get every ball in, almost all of my balls were well placed on the opponent's court and we usually won the point. This showed me that I need to be more aggressive at the net and that it could pay off. I also achieved Learning Outcome 1 because I realized what I need to work on to improve which is just rallying. Sometimes by ball goes out or takes a parabolic shape and makes it easy for the opponent and so during future practices I will try to get more practice hitting the ball back and forth.

First Week of Tennis

Last week was my first week of tennis at for the Sturgis Tennis Team. I had missed the first two practices so I was kind of at a disadvantage since our coach was going to start ranking the players to figure out who were the top 7. In previous I had ranked 6th and 5th respectively, but this year I had some new competition. I was scared that I would lose my place as first doubles and that I might have to drop to second doubles or exhibition matches (non-official). So I realized I had to work really hard and play harder and better. When it came time for the challenge matches, I was really worried but I played my best and in the end I found out that my best was enough and I was ranked 5th and maintained my spot in first doubles.

7th Annual Children, Youth and Families Summit

On March 20, I went to the 7th Annual Children, Youth and Families Summit, in Harwich with some students from Student Council. This was a conference to raise awareness of issues relating to children, youth and families. There were several seminars which we could attend but we could only choose two. I chose the dating violence and abuse seminar and the social networking security seminar. In the former we talked about signs of relationship abuse and how to recognize and how to identify what is dating abuse and what is not. In the latter we talked about security and privacy issues on the Internet, more specifically on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace.

When I chose those seminars I had originally thought I would learn more from the dating violence seminar than the social networking seminar. At the end of the dating abuse seminar, I realized I knew everything and more than they talked about and so, to me, it was a waste of time. But I did feel rather proud and satisfied with myself that I was knowledgeable in such a widespread issue that affects more people than anyone could realize. However I thought I knew everything when walking into the social networking seminar, but not five minutes had gone by when I realized I knew almost nothing. I had so different feelings going through me as I learned new information about the privacy and security on the internet. At first I was shocked because I learned that there were 90,000 registered sex offenders on MySpace who were dumb enough to use their real name (this does not include those who did not use their real name and those who haven't been caught and registered). And then I felt fear and a little bit of horror when one chaperone shared that she did a background check on herself on an website for $5 and she found that for a small fee anyone could find her address, her telephone number, directions to her house, how much her house cost, how many bedrooms and bathrooms, and other personal and private informations. What I learned that day changed my perspective on my life and what I say about myself on the internet. I learned to be more conscious of what I do.

As I reflected over what I had learned I realize the value of the information I gained and how just by being aware of such things, it can actually save yor life. And although this does not relate to my personal goal for student council, I feel that what I learned is more important than what I could do for the school because it goes beyond the walls of the school and it will still be relevant to my life after high school.

Sturgis Strings (1/11-3/16)

The last few weeks of string rehearsal have been a little difficult for me since two of the songs we are doing are rather difficult but I believe that by the time the concert comes I will be prepared. I know that I have to practice more in order for me to be 100%. This second half of Sturgis Strings has come with an interesting surprise. For the next concert I will be playing a very difficult piece (not one of the two mentioned above) that I played when I was seventh grade at the Strings Jamboree (Advanced Level). At that time I had really challenged myself to play very difficult pieces at the advanced level. Now I have been given the opportunity to play that same piece, "Dance of the Tumblers", again. As a result I made a personal goal specificallt for this piece, and it's to play it better, more accurately and more importantly more confidently. Thus far, I believe that I am doing very well and out of all the pieces that we have played this piece has been my strongest and I feel really good about that achievement.