Tag: school

Pilgrim Game

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Yesterday, we had our second volleyball game against the Pilgrim School. The first time we played them it was at their court which was nice cause it was indoor and stuff, but this time it was a home game. Having it as a home game definitely makes a difference too. We have an outdoor grass court which is far different from an indoor court, you lose a lot of energy jumping on grass compared to jumping on a court, as the grass absorbs a ton of the power you put into the jump to go for a block or spike. Anyway, we did a lot better this time around than when we played them a month or two ago. We were playing our best then but our best was not very good, now we played our best and we held our own. The first time we played them we lost every set and only scored around 12 or 15 points in the three sets, but this time we were able to win two sets which were just awesome. We have never played like that before and we might not again, but honestly, I’m proud of what we did. This is the first year that our school has even had a boys volleyball team ever, and not a single one of us has ever played competitive volleyball in our entire lives. But man do we love it. I think it might be the favorite sports season we’ve had for most if not all of us even though we are probably not going to win the league like we have for the other two sports seasons. Despite our complete lack of experience, we have some incredible players that have held it down for the team in quite a few games. Anyway, next year we are going to beat Pilgrim for sure, we will all have more experience and since none of us are seniors, we will be playing with the same group of guys we have been playing with this year which means we won’t have to relearn the game and how we play with one another. Anyway, I love volleyball and I think our game against Pilgrim only reinforced that love for the sport.

BYU men's volleyball one win away from national title
Photo Credit- Salt Lake Tribune https://www.sltrib.com/sports/byu-cougars/2021/05/06/byu-mens-volleyball-one/

4 Square Diaries

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Some say soccer is a beautiful game, but I beg to differ. For me, it’s four square.

This quarter, four square has taken our high school by storm. Yeah, you read that right, four square and high school in the same sentence. It is mainly played by the freshman, who isn’t the most mature bunch (ask anyone), but a small contingency of senior boys, myself included, also are driven to play. It’s probably because, like the freshman, we are not the most mature bunch.

We have created all types of rule sets: feet only, west coast no feet, and many more. Most of which came from one of the most magnificent minds of all time, (can’t say the name but it’s pretty great).

Each player uses their own rule set when they are king. The power of tailoring the rules to your strengths is intoxicating and keeps the players coming back. This forms them for square identity, with the only other factor being how much they argue and whine.

There is so much whining and arguing that goes on, it is plain to see how much these people care, even though most act like they don’t. When two players disagree on a call, it becomes a screaming match, with the mob of players itching to get back to the king square serving as a jury. If the jury grants it, a 1 v 1 starts, in which two players face off. The winner is usually the person who throws it at the other person’s shins first.

On April 1st, Mr. Floyd pranked the players, sending freshmen into what I can only explain as identity crises.

“This isn’t FAIR!” whined nearly all of them.

That dark day demonstrated how reliant these students are on four square. They truly care about a children’s game, as if it is the NBA. I have been punched, insulted, and jeered over it, and I am fine with it, it’s in the game.

PC: Playworks

Cold

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I got a cold. It came on last week Thursday, with a dry throat. I suffered through two days of school, then went home, where it got much worse. I tried to hang out with a friend on Saturday and just felt horrible and fell asleep. I was in bed from then until Friday morning.

Being in bed all week actually gave me some much-needed rest and relaxation, but the looming stress of schoolwork hung over me, making it less enjoyable. I managed to get my work done, but I couldn’t turn a corner on my cold. I was, and still am stuffed up, even though I feel better now (Sunday).

I pushed myself to drive to school on Friday, an hour and forty-five-minute drive both ways which in retrospect I should not have attempted. I was still sick, so I woke up late, got to school late, went to two classes, and halfway through the third, decided to go home. I did take my important stats test and finalized a journalism story, but it wasn’t great.

photo credit: today

In addition to my fatigue, I got denied from my top school, which sucked. I spent the weekend resting, which was great, and I hope to catch up on my work this week, slowly climbing up a mountain of papers, tests, and materials. 9 more weeks soldiers.

Artemis

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So NASA has a moon landing program called Artemis. This program is going to take the next group of Americans to the moon, including the first woman and person of color to ever go to the moon. Today, the Artemis rocket was rolled out onto the launchpad from the vehicle assembly building. In the coming days, the crew will practice loading and unloading fuel from the rocket and go through a full launch procedure known as the “wet rehearsal”. The first launch of this rocket will be uncrewed ahead of the crewed launch to the moon to bring the first astronauts to the moon since the 1960’s. When Artemis I launches in 2024 it will go farther than any human-rated spacecraft ever. It will go 40,000 miles past the moon carrying testing equipment and data measuring devices to see how humans will fare in the Artemis spacecraft. Once Artemis II launches it will carry humans on a 4-6 week journey to the moon and back.

Artemis I Undergoing Final Rounds of Testing | APPEL Knowledge Services

Photo cred- NASA

A Sky Full of Stars

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I have two other brothers, and they always did everything better than me; which I always feel so much pressure doing something with them. I always doubt my ability to do anything, like anything. I began the thought of I just can’t do it right. This year, I become a senior, ready for college. You have no idea how much pressure I have on myself. I don’t want to give up and go to random college, meantime, I still keep believing that there is a 1 percent possibility I can make something beautiful. A couple of weeks ago, Penn State needs a requirement of 120 scores for the English Language Proficiency. I spent my own money and took it almost twenty times, my highest score is 115 still couldn’t reach 120. Penn State can be an easy school that most everyone can get into. However, I’m still stuck in that dumb English test and couldn’t think of any way to improve it. Recently, most of the decisions came out, I got rejected by UIUC and LMU. I am not surprised at all because I know those types of good schools won’t accept me. Until this Tuesday, I got an email from Syracuse University. I just want to say, I think I’m dreaming right now. I got accepted! At that time, I told myself that I’m not that bad, not bad. Meanwhile, I’m so thankful that my brother and friends are there always supporting me. I just can’t believe it, really can’t. I can say I am really proud of myself, and I should love myself more.

Photo Credit: Stars

Volleyball

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So we started boys volleyball recently. It first boys team at the school in like 20 years which is pretty cool. But honestly, I’m loving it. It’s so fun like genuinely and the games just don’t seem long enough. I’m a starter too which is really cool. We had two games this week, one against SCVI and one against Pilgrim school. We beat SCVI which is pretty cool because I don’t think we were really expecting to. But we played Pilgrim today and we definitely knew we would lose but we put up a good fight. It was honestly some of the best volleyball we’ve played ever. Which I guess isn’t saying a whole lot seeing as we’ve only been playing for a couple weeks but that’s beside the point. I got home and took my shoes off and my toes are literally bleeding from playing, that’s how hard we were trying. Pilgrim was definitely the better team though, but they have had a boys team for a long time. We genuinely were improving as we played the game and it was frickin awesome. We have two more games next week and I can’t wait to see how we do.

Hawaii vs. BYU: 2021 NCAA men's volleyball national championship highlights - YouTube
Photo Credit- NCAA Championships, Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0gpwY1xh-Y

Baseball is not my sport?

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I have discussed this with my friends and feel confident to be on the baseball team. However, after two weeks of practice, my baseball career ends right away. I didn’t practice a lot because I was on a camping trip and then the winter break happened, so I’ve been sitting on the bench for the first couple of games. I started to think about if I should switch my sport to weight lifting instead of sitting on the bench while not practicing for baseball. The game is happening almost every day. I decided to quit baseball because, during the last game, the coach came to me and said: “You will be the pitcher for the next game.” It sounds pretty good, right? The coach is so nice that he is thinking of giving me a chance to play, but do you know it’s impossible for me to be the pitcher. I, as a beginner, can’t even throw a baseball that far or fast and couldn’t catch every ball they throw. Then how do I become a pitcher? Plus, there are only a few practices I will be able to hit and throw. With this short amount of time, it was just impossible for me to be the pitcher. It is kind of him that he gave me hope to push myself more, so I might play in the future. I pretty much enjoy playing baseball and I love it, but I just don’t want to spend the rest of the time sitting on the bench.

Photo Credit: MLB

Snowboarding

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So, personally, I love snowboarding, I’ve been doing it for like 9 or 10 years I think. I learned at Mt Bachelor in Oregon which, is a pretty cool mountain if you ask me. It’s got some pretty sick runs and the summit is super sick. Honestly, the best mountain to snowboard on, way better than Mammoth. Mammoth is pretty solid though, I gotta say. Snowboarding is one of the best sports out there, everyone should try it, except maybe Ella, she’d be horrible. Anyway, there’s a lot you can do too. Like the jumps and stuff, so sick. And when there’s a lot of powder it’s like floating in the air. It’s so cool, you like don’t even feel the snow. Anyway go try it, except Ella, she’d be bad.

Mt. Bachelor Ski Area, Terrain, Snow, Ratings
Photo Credit- powderhounds.com

I’m tired. Like really tired.

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I’ve been really tired recently. With the stress of applying to colleges and school, I really need a break. There are a lot of tests and I did pretty bad at them while I needed to finish my college application. There is just too much stuff I need to do, and I really don’t have time for myself to review for all the tests. One of the most annoying things recently is that I need to retake the test for English Language Proficiency. I’ve taken this test more than ten times, and I just couldn’t get to the minimum score. I’m really tired of this. At the same time, every senior already gets into some good college except me. I haven’t got any acceptance and I’m so worried about whether I am able to get accepted by any college. Every day started to feel the same and I’m tired of it. Wake up, breakfast, school, and sleep. It’s just so boring that I couldn’t do anything more than that. I just don’t know how people wake up and get so excited for their day or have so much fun in school. I just don’t know-how. I only eat less, even skip lunch or dinner, and get tired every other day. How can people look so normal, and be happy every day?

Photo Credit: HuffPost UK

Why America sucks

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So, I know what you’re thinking, here we go some privileged American white kid is gonna complain about the small inconveniences he experiences in his country. But no, that’s not what this is. I’m talking about the real problems. The massive amount of poverty and homelessness, gun violence, crime rates, education, healthcare, all that bad stuff. So many people in this country think its the best country in the world, but in reality we are not in even in the top ten in education, over 40 million Americans are living in poverty, and recently more and more books on historical tragedies are being banned every year. Our healthcare system is probably the most corrupt industry in our country. The first thing you do when going to the hospital is fill out some personal information and then show them your insurance card, that insurance decides what level of care you get. You have a sprained knee? If your insurance is good you’ll get an x-ray, maybe even an MRI (which really isn’t necessary they just want the money). If your insurance is bad, you get ice, Advil, and an ace bandage. This disparity in levels of care goes all the way up, if you’re rich with cancer you have a much higher chance of surviving, if you’re poor, you might not even know you have cancer till you’re already dead. People get turned away at hospitals for not having health insurance or means to pay a hospital bill. Then there’s our actual government system, and the corruption within it. All senators are paid a maximum of $174,000 yet the average net worth of a senator is $14,000,000. Nothing goes through without the support of corporations. This government is supposed to be by the people, for the people, and of the people, but it has become a massive oligarchy in which the poor get poorer while the rich get richer. Corporations have blocked laws to make the government essentially calculate your taxes for you, from there they send a check or a bill to your house, but companies like TurboTax have paid senators off to keep it from passing, allowing them to keep their profits. “Healthcare” companies have paid senators and house members to keep universal healthcare bills from going through, as well as running smear campaigns calling universal healthcare socialism and saying this like the government would have access to your medical records. This is just straight-up false. This country is probably among the most corrupt in the world, and we are doing nothing to stop it. The media has turned us against each other so we don’t see what’s going on behind the scenes. The worst part is nothing will ever change, people are far too greedy to allow anything to change. For now, we’re just gonna have to deal.

American Flag Etiquette - Displaying the American Flag

PC: Country Living