Driver's Ed: The Classroom

Over the two weeks, I took the driving education course required for me to obtain my driver's license.

One might wonder, what have I learned in the learning environment concerned with the knowledge of operating a motor vehicle?  Here are a few things:

•In Alabama, putting salt on a railroad track may be punishable by death.

•If 7Eleven is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, why is there a lock on the door? (see bottom)

•In Natoma Kansas, it's illegal to throw knives at men wearing striped suits.

•More Monopoly money is printed in a year than regular money.

Pretty useful stuff, right?  If you want to read more strange laws, click here.

Anyway, I kind of enjoyed the class.  Well, more than I thought I would.  When I first flipped through the driver's handbook, I was like Ugggg! I have to read ALL of this?  Even though it was only sixty pages, the print filled up the entire page and the context...well let's just say it's fabulous sleeping material.  So when I stepped into the classroom, I was a little nervous (being one of the youngest), and I did not know what to expect though expecting the worst at the same time.  The teacher, Dan, turned out to be pretty cool.  I liked how he began each lesson with strange pieces of info that you would never learn in school. ;)  I absorbed so much more by listening and conversing with him along with watching videos.  He is super knowledgable about the local roads and the "speed traps" in town or what the testers might try and "trick" us on.  He also had these really great stories about when he was a kid that are pretty comical.  Unfortunately, in the end it was still a long two hours each night.  So now I advance onto three, two hour observation sessions.

My favorite lesson so far has been about road signs.  Take a look at some of these ones I found.

Because of its yellow color and diamond shape, this would be considered a warning sign.
Image Courtesy of Quad Graphics

Being a white rectangle, this is a regulatory sign, which means it states the law.
Image Courtesy of Flicker

Isn't this great?
Image courtesy of Dan Piraro

I also liked a video we watched about road rage.  It reminded me of this one road rage video that was in the news a year ago.

Why do 7Eleven doors have locks? Answer: That's how doors are made. =D

Book Withdrawal

The brain shrivels up from lack of fantasy and a world one’s never dreamed of, people and places of wonder.  The fingers itch to graze the imprinted grooves that run along the spine and to gently turn untouched sheets of paper.  The eyes yearn to gaze among individual black symbols, variously strung together to make words, which come alive and leap off the crisp, white parchment, to tell a story.  The ears strain, listening for the unique rustle of pages.  The heart grows cold from lack of joy and sorrow, rage and love, sensationally described in these tales.

The House of Hades book cover.
Image curtesy of Wiki

That is how I portray book withdrawal, what it feels like to not read the books I so desperately want to.

For example, The House of Hades by Rick Riordan is one novel that I have been wanting to read since it came out on October 8.  This book is the fourth installment in one of my favorite series.  I never was into the whole Greek Gods thing until I started reading these books; now I love learning about major gods, minor gods, and old Greek stories.  I don’t know if it’s the subject of mythology, the author’s acumen in writing or a combination of both, but I sure do love the novels.  The sad part about this is that The House of Hades came out on October 8th, here it is November 16, and I’m only halfway through it (I started it a week ago).  To put it simply, I DIDN’T READ THIS AWESOME NEW BOOK UNTIL A WHOLE MONTH AFTER IT CAME OUT!  I guess I’ve just been so busy with school and soccer that I’ve had to put off the free choice reading.  It’s quite sad really, but now that I’m getting into the book, I’m struggling to make time to read now because I don’t want to set it down.

Some of you may be thinking “So what? How is that such a big deal?”  However, the past two years I have gotten the new book in the series near, if not on, the release date, then I proceeded to finishing an approximately five hundred page book within a week.  So yeah, I’m a pretty fast reader when I want to be, but this year, school takes a lot more work.  Don’t get me wrong, I love learning about biology, matrices, new vocabulary, and how to find the theme of a novel, but it can be draining.  My precious, free choice reading has been minimized greatly.  I can only hope that as the year goes on, I can manage and organize my time to fit in more reading.

Now, about the book.  I am really enjoying it so far (no surprise).  There is a lot of action/adventure along with a good amount of humor.  A sprinkle of romance and a bunch of heart-pounding obstacles.  Over the series, it’s awesome to see development in each of the characters.

Find The House of Hades on Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Alas, It Has Come to a Sorrowful End

If you've read the last few posts, you're probably wondering the position of the Varsity soccer team (or when I am going to write about something other than soccer: other topics will arise, soccer is slowing down).  I am extremely sad to say that Varsity lost to Dixie in the semi-finals of the State Championship.  The final score was 1-1, but we were defeated in penalty kicks (PKs), which is arguably the worst way to lose.  After 100 minutes of game time, Dixie outscored us in 4-1 the PK round.  The only thing I can give them credit for is that their shots were on-target and hard.  No one could blame our keeper for missing them.

However, we outplayed them during the actual game.  To prove it, we scored the first goal in the first half.  Midfielder Reese made a beautiful shot into the far right side of the goal from 6-8 yards out.  Then Dixie got a lucky goal in the second half, tying up the game 1-1, when a girl made a chip that was just hard enough to tip through the hands of our goal keeper.

In overtime, a Park City player crossed the ball in the air in front of the other team's goal.  One of our forwards jumped to head it as the goalie went for it too.  They collided, and the ball bounced off them, away from the goal.  Luckily, another one of our players followed up and passed the ball into the back of the net.  Park City was ecstatic!  Then ref blew the whistle, signaling there was no goal.  What?  The referee was calling a foul.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  He alleged that our 5'4 player just so happened to foul the 5'11 goalie.

Overtime ended in a tie; we went into PKs.

As the last Dixie shot landed in the goal and the team rushed the field, jumping in a euphoric circle, our valiant goalie dropped to the ground.  Tears flowed from Park City faces.  Some of us stood in shock and others ran to comfort the keeper.

How could this happen?  We played with so much heart, we wanted this so badly.

The worst part for me was witnessing the seniors.  I saw faces contorted in anguish, tears being silently shed, and heard tragic sobs ringing out.  My heart went out to them, knowing how much this championship meant.  That senior class had seen two finals and a semi-final over the last three years.  This year they were almost expected to succeed after being so close in the past, but we didn't win, we didn't move on to finals.  It just didn't seem fair to see such a talented, inspirational, and enjoyable group of girls would never get the State Cup they so deserved.


In case you were wondering, Dixie went on to win against Juan Diego in the finals.

One Down, Three to Go

One of Varsity's seniors
against a Morgan defender.
Image courtesy of:
 Christopher Reeves/The Park Record

High school soccer season has come to an end, and Junior Varsity (JV) went undefeated!  Our last two games were not exactly our best (one was a tie), but we didn’t lose.  Also, a shout out to my bud, Emily, who scored a goal on her first time playing with JV!


Though Region is done, playoffs for State Championship have begun (click here for the bracket we're in).  Five JV players, including me, were asked to play up with Varsity during playoffs!  Before I go back to club soccer, I get two more weeks of the high school experience!  I am super excited!  During our first playoffs game, I got to play for ten minutes!  I know that doesn’t sound very impressive, but when you’re at the bottom of the pack, you take what you can get.  I played okay, though I wasn’t extremely happy with myself.  Anyway, we won that game 8-0, so now we move on to quarter finals.  Our next game is a two hour bus ride one away, but Coach has planned it so we can stop for restroom breaks and still have an hour to warm up before the game.

Varsity celebrating.
Image courtesy of:
The Salt Lake Tribune

Practicing with Varsity is also a nerve-racking experience.  Even though it’s not a game and there aren’t other people watching me, I still get timid, fearful and feel like everything I do isn’t quite good enough.  I am always looking for a way to prove myself, but alas, those moments are rare.  Whenever we scrimmage, my first touch is either bad or too slow and I can’t seem to position myself in the right places (the formation is different from JV).  One thing I work on with Varsity is quicker, firmer passes.

Fortunately, I’m decent at penalty kicks (PK) and my fitness is average.  At the end of every practice, the top ten PK shooters practice their shots.  One practice, the rest of us or non-PK takers had the opportunity to shoot as well.  I am proud to say that I have not yet missed a practice PK.  Although, there was the time I missed a PK in an actual game...I haven’t taken a game one since.  But that’s what practice is for, right?  Building up one’s skill and confidence.  On the topic of conditioning, we had a fitness practice the other day (no soccer balls, all running) where we did some exhausting relay sprints in groups of three.  My group, consisting of the youngest players on Varsity, came in the top three every time. :)

Junior Varsity Annihilation (After a Rocky Start)

In my high school soccer, there are two soccer seasons: region and pre-region (season and pre-season).  Tryouts were held at the beginning of August; pre-season started on the 13.  But that’s beside the point.  (By the way, I made Junior Varsity.  Woohoo!)  In my opinion, we had a rockin’ team.  I knew some of the older girls and was extremely excited and honored to be playing with them.  Unfortunately, our “great skill” didn’t get across to anyone looking at our game results.

We lost our first three games.

One of them was against Judge Memorial.  It was an away game.  We played on artificial grass.  In the middle of August.  At 5:00 in the afternoon.  Now I know that Utah is not as hot as, for instance, Texas or Florida, but that turf had been baking in the unobstructed sunlight all day.  The temperature was above 90ºF and the field was close to 110 degrees.

In short, it was scorching like the heat from a thousand suns (well, maybe not that hot).

It was awful.

And we lost.

Not our best day.  The next five games weren’t great either.  Sure, we won some, we tied some, though in the end, we didn’t get the results we wanted.In all, we did not look very impressive.  We were in a grim mood; our pre-season results were 2-1-5.  We kept on practicing, preparing for region games.

On the bright side, Varsity did pretty well in pre-season.  They finished pre-region with a 2-5-1 record and are currently 6-6-2 (both seasons).  In region, they have only lost and tied one game (both against Juan Diego) out of six.  No big deal.  If they win the rest of their games, they’ll be headed to playoffs and hopefully on to the State Championship.

Me
Image courtesy of Mel Oltra & MaxPreps

Then finally something clicked.  We started winning game after game.  Our passing was good, our shots went in just enough times to get us ahead, and we were all in high spirits.  We even gained a few memorable moments along the way (but those are stories for another day).  However, the best part is WE (JV) ARE UNDEFEATED in region!  No losses, no ties.  Not to mention, the past three games have been shut-outs!  Now, we won’t get anything if we go undefeated throughout the rest of the season, but there are other rewards.
1) it would sure feel nice compared to our horrific start
2) it would tremendously boost our self confidence
3) we would get bragging rights ;)

There are only two games remaining; JV plans to go out with a bang.  So wish us luck!

Me against a Juan Diego defender
Image courtesy of Mel Oltra & MaxPreps

Immersed in Autumn

One of my favorite times of the year is fall.  Oh, that lovely season between late August and early November.  There is my birthday, school starting up (which I usually regret being excited for after the first three weeks), intense soccer season, along with an abundant release of new books.  Not to mention the beautiful foliage, and the cool, crisp air.  Perhaps, the most popular aspect (of the three that I focus on in my blog) is the numerous premiers of TV series.

It is also the busiest time.

With all this new material, I have a hard time keeping up with what’s new along with watching/reading the various shows and novels.  For simplicity’s sake, let’s begin with my favorite television series I’ll be following throughout the school year.  I am a huge fan of investigative shows such as NCIS and Hawaii Five-0.  These are the top two programs where I am exceptionally dedicated.  I just love them.  For teen shows I’ve taken a liking to animation.  Legend of Korra and Total Drama: All Stars are the comical dramas I will be watching and reviewing.

You’re probably wondering about my other topics, so here they are.  Soccer entries will likely be short, including the result of our games, how we played, and if anything interesting happened like a card.  I will post the opposing team’s name and whether the game was home or away.  If I remember, I’ll add who scored.  Book updates will come as long as I am reading.  I must admit that I LOVE to read, but school and soccer can sometimes be overwhelming.  As a result, free choice reading is low on my priority list.  Just a heads-up, my favorite genre is science-fiction/fantasy so much of what I read will fit into this category.  However, other genres will occasionally pop up.

Whew, now that the prelude is all taken care of, I can get on to the good stuff (in later posts of course).

An Introduction

Before I embarked on the adventure of blogging, I busied myself some with some research.  I looked at some blogs which focused on topics of my liking.  Most of the blogs I encountered were too cluttered or unable to be reached through the filter.  Instead, I  searched for people like authors and friends. So far, I’ve found three of which I am currently sticking with and have been inspired by.

First, Vero You Going is composed by my best friend, Sarah, who recently moved away.  Though I didn’t just pick this blog because of personal reasons.  The title is clever and unique.  She moved to a place called Vera Beach, hence, Vero You Going.  The voice in her writing is enjoyable and similar to her blog title, her post titles are creative and describe the blog entries perfectly.  Lastly she always includes at least one picture in every post.  This added appeal has inspired me to attempt to do the same with my blog.  Sarah may not post regularly, but when she does it is worth reading.

Second, Kiersten Writes is by the author: Kiersten White.  The beautiful style and color choice (in my opinion) immediately caught my eye.  I read her tag line “Giver of the world’s most awkward hugs” and I knew that this was a keeper.  As I dove deeper into her posts, the same humor was very apparent and greatly appreciated.  It just made the reading that much more amusing.  I doubt I’ll achieve even half of the comedy, but at least I can work on the visual aid in my blog.  Although I have yet to read one of her books, I am excited to see more of Kiersten’s writing.

 Third, I chose to follow one of my favorite youth authors, Rick Riordan on his blog Myth & Mystery.   I fell in love with “The Lightning Thief” years ago and have since been a huge fan of all his mythology books.  His blog’s style is pretty simple and plain.  Some might describe it as boring, but what I like about Rick’s posts are the frequent updates about events and book progress (being the book worm that I am.)  One of my goals is to provide regular posts whether it be updates, evaluations, or reviews on my topics.

Of course, I’ve listed other blogs (written by friends) such as Just Sayin’ and Pics, Flicks, and Books, but those are just like mine in that there’s not much to them yet.  Over time, I’m sure they’ll turn out fabulous.

The one thing I do like about these blogs, and one of the main reasons I chose them, is that they are super easy to navigate and I love how they are organized.  This is predominantly due to the fact that each of these people used Google’s Blogger.  I don’t know about you, but I really love the simplicity of Blogger and how one can easily customize their blog to fit their personality.