Basketball season started this Tuesday. The new coach has started the season with meetings and talks about his past coaching career and what we are going to be working on in the future to be a better team. Last year we gave up too many points because of defensive breakdowns and miscommunication. We gave up around 20-30 points in the first half last year. During the practices this week we have been working on conditioning and defensive game plans. We have been introduced to new gameplays such as 23-jump, 3-2 zone, and 2-3zone. They are all zone defense that we will be using in future games. The new coach seems to have more coaching experience and knows what he is doing. I hope this season we can go undefeated and get back to the CIF playoffs again. Since there is not that much time left too because as a junior in high school there are only 2 years left.
At the end of my sophomore year, I had to choose my classes for junior year and I had 2 options. I could take normal classes probably have more free time and be less stressed or I could challenge myself to do AP classes, have barely any free time and a lot of stress. Me being the great decision-maker I am I choose to sign up for 5 AP classes. During the summer while I was working on summer assignments I quickly realized 5 APs would simply be to much. Knowing I would have my license and more freedom I didn’t want to spend all my time doing school work, so I dropped one. It is now the end of the first quarter and I’m doing great my social life is thriving and so is my academic life. There is a lingering fear in the back of my head that I will fall behind and my grades will drop but this hasn’t happened yet. I’ve been consistent in all my classes and I really do hope this continues. I have learned to have a positive attitude, even if I feel everything but positive. Changing my outlook on school has made doing my homework and studying so much easier. Today is Halloween and the first day of school I’ve missed all year which is very impressive as last year I missed way to much school.
I think a girl’s Pinterest page is a direct representation of who she is as a person. I feel like Pintrest understands me more than anybody in the world. I know that sounds dumb because of the “Pintrest girl” stereotype, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the way that when you scroll through the pictures, you see something that represents every single part of you. I can stop at any point in my feed and on the screen there will be my dream nails, a heart-wrenching quote, an angel wing tattoo, outfit inspiration in my ideal style, and art. It is the most aesthetic and calming thing to scroll and just feel so understood.
It must be so boring to be a boy. I just can’t imagine what they even do for fun. And like what do they spend their money on? I have so much makeup and little girly things that must have cost me so much money. I also love getting ready in the morning. Imagine waking up and just showering and getting dressed.
This weekend is my first riding competition of the season. I’ve moved up a level since last season and I am a little nervous. I’ve only actually done my whole dressage test like .75 times because I never got to finish it since Cara started getting spooky at the end. I think i have it memorized but to be honest i’m not totally sure that the test I have memorized is the actual test… Okay update while writing this I decided to look at the test and I do have it correctly memorized. But I don’t have much time to practice because I’m only officially scheduled to ride twice this week but I think I’m going to be able to get some extra time in. i really like the new trainer Katrine, she’s pretty easy to schedule with and gives very in depth instructions. The only hard thing is that her and the old trainer George have some different teaching styles so sometimes one will ask you to do something while the other asks for the complete opposite. it can get confusing sometimes. Well that’s all, wish me luck!
Everyone always has at least one moment in which they make a decision that completely upturns their life. What makes them notable, normally, is that they begin completely innocuously, like the decision to switch a class, to make small talk with a specific person, however you respond to them, and only later can that decision maker realize how a radical change to their life hinged on that one choice they didn’t see.
I may be able to call what I did around 3 years ago that sort of choice, but its payoff seems just as innocuously debilitating as its trigger. I saw a playlist on youtube, clicked on it, and listened to it while doing homework.
You might be compelled to laugh, but yes, it can be debilitating! Work moves like molasses if I’m not hearing sick beats, and hearing sick beats can make me less able to focus on what I need to. I’m not sure at this point if my habit slows me down or is the only way I can set my mind to anything vaguely smelling of labor. During regular classes it feels like I have to do anything else just to not lose my mind to the clouds, but nearly all teachers seem to misinterpret multitasking as a character flaw of the youth. I’ve become a Gen Z stereotype, technology has completely divorced my attention span from what organized society finds acceptable.
This weekend was a long weekend with 4 days off because of family weekend. I started each day with running pie everyday to get in shape with an average pace of 8 minutes per mile and the total time of 22 minutes. There weren’t that many trips this weekend besides the collection on Saturday night and Universal Studios on Monday. On Friday I watched the World Series with a few friends. Freddie Freeman’s walk-off was crazy. It was a really relaxing weekend. I finally got a good rest and am getting ready for the school next week. On Saturday we went to Dick’s sporting goods to get some basketball equipment such as compression shorts and KT tape for my knee. We also got some golf stuff like the new released Taylor-made golf balls, TP5X. We went to get food at the Korean barbecue place for dinner afterwards. Today we went to Universal Studios, we went on most of the main rides except Jurassic park because it was closed. However, It was a fun trip especially with all my friends together too.
I’ve been thinking about starting soccer. I played pretty much my whole life and I miss it. The whole reason I quit gymnastics is because I didn’t think I would have time or energy to do two sports. Especially after school games and leaving class early for games I’m a little worried I wont be able to keep up. Don’t get me wrong I love soccer and I love riding but I think it will also feel like i’m not a whole part of the team either because I will have to miss some practices and maybe even games for riding because that will be my priority. I think I’m still going to do it anyways though because cross training has always helped me in riding and gymnastics. I also heard that we have 3 games our second week of practice which sucks because I won’t even be there for our first week of practice which is this week. So I might die but wish me luck.
We finished the football season with a bad loss to the first seed team in our league. Due to my injury, I finally recovered the day before the game. I was not able to be in the starting lineup because I missed 2 weeks of practice. Anyways, I got back in the game during the first half, at 4 minutes. I then played the rest of the game as the cornerback. I had multiple tackles but no picks or interceptions. After the first half the score was already 35-0. I tried to keep working with a few teammates, but I could tell most of the people already gave up after the first half. It seems like they do not care about the game at all. I cared about this particular game not just because I had a great performance during the first half, but also because It is the last game for the seniors. The last game to play with them. However, it was a great season overall. Although we didn’t finish the season with a good record, I did have lots of fun with the team in these 2 months.
Along with a nice and accurate, but short, explanation of the tiers. The works listed early are the ones I favor relative to the others in the same tier.
It Does Not Deserve Rights: Ishmael (sorry Alvarez, but the gorilla gave me Neil DeGrasse Tyson vibes. Say that I’m privileging humanity all I want, but I will stand by my fervent hatred of this book. I rank John Steinbeck’s pro-euthanasia fantasy over this dribble).
I Respectfully Tolerate Them: The Crucible, The Things They Carried, Of Mice and Men, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. (I feel like this is the unofficial “problematic faves” tier. It doesn’t mean that these works weren’t impactful in their own time or can’t still be enjoyed today, but reading them I felt that essential parts of the narrative’s worldview aged poorly, i.e. John Steinbeck’s pro-euthanasia fantasy. And since the worldview of a book is the basis for its themes and who the story is willing to develop, it means that these works, in my opinion, really suffer on their own merits).
Makes Sense They’re Classics: Julius Caesar, Siddartha, The Odyssey. (I find these to be the true neutral, and regard them in the way non-English people regard classic novels. Parts are genuinely moving, parts seem so divorced from contemporary standards for art that they are hard to engage with as a modern audience. A British actress I follow once said that Julius Caesar was her favorite Shakespeare play, which I found interesting because, though I’ve only read three of his plays, I think Julius Caesar is a bit bland by the Bard’s standards).
Uniquely Excellent: The Haunting of Hill House, Twelfth Night, The Importance of Being Earnest, Wuthering Heights, Brave New World, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, Cannery Row. (It’s my unofficial Whipple tier, I don’t know how she keeps doing this. I usually love these books because they have themes that I really resonate with, because they present interesting questions and tensions, or even because their words are written so wonderfully. But I also feel that these works are very much “favorites” in that I believe they stick in my mind because they have a lot of elements that I personally favor, and might not be universally applicable or endlessly nuanced.)
Actual Masterpieces: Romeo and Juliet, Invisible Man, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye. (These books are like the ones from the previous tier, but they are endlessly nuanced and readers can appreciate them even if they have wildly different interpretations of the text. Ambiguity is always the best thing about art, as arriving at a conclusion can make one feel like they’re part of the artistic process itself. To qualify for this rank, it also helps if every word in the work feels like it was written like magic, i.e. Romeo and Juliet and Invisible Man).
It’s almost 2025. That’s the year I’ve been looking forward to all my life. I’m not so sure I’m excited anymore. Yeah, college is exciting, but I’m not ready to finish high school. Anyway, I’ve finished and submitted all my college applications. It’s a funny feeling because everyone around me is so ready to graduate, and they all have something to work towards. I don’t have a career I’m excited about or a dream college. The only thing I have been working towards is a D1 team and now I know I won’t be on one. I’m afraid because when I don’t have something to work towards I start to wander again. I feel like a zombie. I don’t want to lose my focus. Everything is moving so fast and I can’t believe it’s almost 2025. There are so many things I would do if I had more time. I better fit it all in quickly because there are 78 more days until 2025.
OVS Journalism Blog 
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