Win or Lose

Tournaments: long twelve hour days where you either lower your ranking, or you win. To win you need many things. There are many reasons why you can lose. You beat a team in your second game, but then you lose to someone way worse in the afternoon. Life is hard on the court.

When you win it feels great. everyone wants to win, and when you do it really boosts your spirit. It’s easier to win a game if you win the game before that. The winner is hugely dependant on skill, but you can beat a team that is better than you, if you are in the right situation. Volleyball is truly a team sport, where the winner is the louder, more excited team with the better mindset. You have to have talent to win, but talent can only take you so far. My team does best in these situations because when your energy level is up, you have more of a reason to win.

Losing is frustrating. But it happens. For some teams it’s a lot. Others (very rarely) it’s quite the opposite. But the most frustrating thing is when you lose in the game that counts. At some earlier tournaments, if you lose a certain game, you will have to stay and play a lot more because you lost. It happens, but it’s equally irritating every time.

Then there’s the time off court. There are many different things you have to do, depending on what you need at that moment. During some of your breaks, you have to ref, which is always dull. And a lot of people are involved in reffing. Not just the coaches, but the players (depending on the situation) will have to be the second referee (or as it is more familiarly called down ref), use the score sheet, score board, libero tracking, and flags. The other people on the team get a quick break, just to come back and ref the next set.

Some tournaments can be really hard… but they really help you become a team. Obviously, you improve on your skills. But it’s also a team bonding thing. For some big tournaments, you have to drive somewhere for hours, and then stay in a hotel for a night (or more if it’s a long tournament). Some of it is fun, some of it isn’t. Overall, the tournament is a thing of wonder. Excitement, happiness, disappointment, tiredness, and frustration. But in good times and bad, win or lose, we’re a team.

Image Sources

http://www.kellogg.edu/daily/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/KCC-volleyball-vs.-LCC.jpg

http://www.volleyballadvisors.com/image-files/volleyball-quotes-2.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/15ec3c2d9c07139ef7486eb314b5a614/tumblr_mgjdttzhZ61r9nl9to1_500.png

Running

I started running when I was six. I originally got into it because I was becoming good at soccer and I needed to be able to run faster and farther. At first, running wasn’t a usual thing, I would run on and off. The amount I was running was good enough to get me through soccer, but I started running more because I could. It was like a personal challenge to see how far I could go.

When I was 8, I debated quitting running. I had started lacrosse and I was very active anyway so I no longer needed it for soccer. For about 3 months I didn’t run, and I had no intentions of doing so ever again.

Around that time, my mom started running. Although when she started she wasn’t very fast, her persistence and determination was amazing. She would go out every morning for hours. After seeing her determination to be a runner, I got inspired to continue running. Instead of continuing short distance running,  I started doing long distance. At first, I hated it. It was boring and hard, and I hurt after doing it. But after seeing my mom’s effort, I was determined to keep doing it. I started running very frequently, and soon I started really enjoying it.

I thank my mom now for getting me into running, without her, I would have never succeeded without her, she inspired me to keep going no matter how much I didn’t want to run. I realize now how important running has been for me. It has taught me to never give up. I also really love doing it, it was a chance for me to clear my mind and really think about things.

Homework, The Controller of Our Life

What do you do in the morning? I wake up, brush my teeth, shower, eat breakfast and then drive to school. I double check my homework, because if I have missing homework, my teachers will make me write a email home, and I will get in trouble by my parents. Why should I care? Isn’t school the place to learn, and outside of school is free time to do what I want? Well, if I don’t do my homework then my parents don’t let me do Sports, which is what I want to do with my free time. I want to do good in school and please my parents, but I only want to do good in school, literally. Shouldn’t I spend my free time doing what I want, and not trying to do homework just to please my parents? Welcome to my world.

The point I am trying to get at, if you can’t already see is that our life is being controlled by school all day. There are two different sides to the story. When you ask your middle school head, she will say that school takes seven of the fourteen hours of your day that you are awake. That’s half the time you are awake. When you ask Logan LaPlante, who was in this TED talks video, he would strongly disagree. I believe in the latter. It is true that you are in school seven hours a day, but you are driving to and from school for a hour of your seven hours of free time. So now you are down to six. You have two hours of homework, or the average teen does. So now we are down to four hours of free time. If you participate in any other school club/activity/sport then you have about one hour a day doing that. So quickly we have whittled ourselves down to three hours. We all need to eat, so breakfast and dinner amount to about an hour and a hlaf of homework a night. So now I have one and a half hours of free time. Now if your parents make you do chores that’s another half an hour. So the average kid has about one hour of free time, of the fourteen waking hours. 

Now why would anyone do this? Well for me, it is because I want to impress the people I care about. I want free time to do what I choose, but I want to impress the people I care for. I need to find balance, but how. The only way to do it is to do my homework, but then I don’t get to pursue what I love, lacrosse. I like the idea of Logan’s to hack my learning, or even better, hack the system. 

I don’t mean to hack it by using a computer,  I want it to be hacked by words. The teachers blame the homework load of having too little class time, but to me they are just taking the easy way out. Instead of giving us hours of homework, why don’t they just make their teaching more efficient? This way, we can get more done in a class period. Also, if they need to teach us so much in a year, why don’t the teachers lower their expectations? How about we shoot to be done with Trigonometry by the end of highschool, not Calculus, then in College you could take Calculus. 

What I am trying to get at is the teachers could improve, so the balance is easier for us kids. Now, the reason I think that learning should be changed is when I had a conversation with a high schooler, he said that very few people actually do homework, and he spends his weekends catching up on sleep. This made me realize that their is no balance, you can’t have it both ways, which is why I choose to attack learning in a different way. If there was no homework, then we colleges would have a better look into our personalities, and who we actually are, because we would be doing things we love, not homework. 

 School takes up much more than the seven hours it tells you, as I just showed. I have shown that it is nearly impossible to keep balance in our lives as we know them right now, and that the reason homework is a big deal is because our teachers haven’t adapted but made us adapt. I don’t think that we need to reform our learning, we just need to make it better.

Sources: http://www.easybib.com/cite/view/list/1383078625_52701ae19f7d82.64119068/style/mla7

The Start Of Swimming

The Start of Swimming

I started swimming when I was about 18 months old.  I swam at children of the sea, a program that helps kids learn the basics of all four strokes.  My first experience in the water was the mommy and me classes.  My mom tells me that I didn’t like to get in the water at first, but once I was in it, it was hard to get me out.  

Later when I was about 7 years young, I had an amazing instructor who I loved very much.  Her name was Claire.  She decided that being a swimming instructor wasn’t the job for her and decided to leave.  My mom tells me that when Claire left, I would loathe swim practice.  I would spend half of the practice time crying my eyes out on the side of the pool not wanting to get in.  My mom would have to come and calm me down, but 

I insisted that I would not get in unless Claire was there.  

I finally got over that Claire wasn’t coming back.  I continued with my lessons at Children of The Sea for a few years.  During the summer, I would participate in a swim team that was at our local health club.  Ever so often I go to the health club with my family to do certain activities and in the summer, we are sometimes there when the swim team is practicing.  Now, I wouldn’t even consider that a swim team, its more of a time to play, with a few laps of swimming sprinkled in.  This swim team was the birthplace of my swimming career.  

My mom enrolled me into the Tualatin Hills Swim Team when I turned nine.  I have been on the team ever since and I greatly thank her for signing me up for it.  It has filled my life with joy and I have found that if I am ever stressed or feeling depressed or angry, that I can go to practice and all of those feeling will go away.

Swimming teaches me new things about myself as well as life lessons everyday.  It has taught me to be disciplined.  If I want to get better I have to work on the little things like my underwaters and technique of the stroke instead of being able to be so big that I can just power myself through the water.  If I want to make those things a habit then I have to be disciplined about them. I have to do them every time an opportunity arrives.  

Gentle Giants

Slowly and silently gliding through the water, the majestic creatures hypnotized me.  My hands and face pressed up against the glass of the aquarium tank, and my gaze fixed on the gentle giants.  I was just three months old, when my mother and grandparents took me to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.  Swaddled in my mother’s baby bjorn, I kicked my legs with excitement as I watched the manatees swimming in their enclosure.  Every time my mother attempted to walk away, I would scream until I could see the manatees once again.  Little did they know, this would be the beginning of a life-long passion of mine.  My grandfather bought me a stuffed manatee from the zoo gift shop.  Once I got home from the zoo, my mother laid the manatee on the ground next to me, and I immediately rolled over, grabbed it, and fell asleep.  From that moment on, she has been by my side.  My parents thought I would lose interest in the manatee after a couple of hours, just like all of my other stuffed animals; however I did not. In fact, from that day, I haven’t gone to sleep without her.  Too many times in the washing machine caused her eye to fall out.  A little superglue did the trick, and it remains in tact to this day.  After two years, the manatee’s fur began to wear thin from too many hugs, and my parents feared that it would be destroyed, so they asked my grandfather to buy me a backup manatee, just in case.  My parents hid it in the closet, but one day, I bounded down the stairs beaming with excitement with one stuffed manatee in each arm and I shouted “TWO manatees!”   My parents sighed and shook their heads, but could only smile.  When I was old enough to walk, I would carry her around on my head, like a coonskin cap.  Ultimately, when it was time for me to start preschool, my parents convinced me that she was agoraphobic, so I wouldn’t insist on bringing her to school.  Since then, I have added twelve more stuffed manatees to my collection.  I have been fortunate enough to experience real-life encounters with the manatees.  When I was seven years old, I had the opportunity to swim with the manatees in the Crystal River.  Although it took almost two hours to find one, it was worth the wait because I swam with a mother and her calf-- a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  I returned to the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium when I was ten years old, and stood in the very spot I stood when I first saw a manatee.   When I was eleven years old I had the privilege of participating in a behind-the-scenes encounter at Tampa’s Lowry Park Zoo, and saw the manatee rescue and rehabilitation tanks.  I fed the manatees lettuce and cabbage and watched one of the employees feed a baby by a bottle.  Every year, I visit my grandfather in Florida, and I wait in anticipation for another opportunity to be reunited with my beloved manatees.

As some of you may know, I have been sick the past few days and have had almost no interaction with people outside my house, therefore I was not able to not post.  My post will be Thursday, January 30, 2014.

Time Management, Procrastination, and Homework

By Katie Wei
Time management is very important when you get higher and higher in your grade levels. The older you get, the harder the work becomes, and the more work you get.  When we were younger, without a care in the world, and frolicking in the grass, we didn't care about homework. We did it when we came home, then went out to play. It was great! Until now.
After school, we all have activities to go to. Dance, soccer, piano, you name it. When you procrastinate after these long, exhausting activities, it all just drags, and then the next thing you know, you're doing all your homework at midnight. This is when time management comes in. Your agenda is like your best friend. You should always write down when you have time to do homework, and when you don't. It is also helpful to write down what obligations you have, like your after school activities. 
I remember one day, I was feeling lazy. So I procrastinated. That was a very stupid thing to do on my part. First, I got in trouble when I told my parents that I had to do all of my homework on sunday night. It was nice during the weekend when I didn't have to do anything at all, but when sunday night came, I regretted everything I had done.
Overall, just be smart with this, and don't do things at the last minute. If you have a long period of time to do a project, be smart and space things out. Unlike what I did. 

Lifelong Learning

"Being ignorant is not so much a shame 

as being unwilling to learn."

-Benjamin Franklin

From when you're in the first grade to beyond graduating high school, you will never stop learning. I am not talking about learning in school or by searching something on the internet. I am talking about learning from experiences, tiny things that you catch when you’re talking to another person, doing your job, or even walking in a hallway. You will always be learning.

Benjamin Franklin, a politician, musician, scientist and author. The list goes on and on. He was a smart man, and whenever he asked a question, he would do everything in his power to answer it. Take for example one night, he was sitting outside in Philadelphia. He was waiting to see lunar eclipse, but a storm had moved over to his location. Most people would just call it bad luck, but Benjamin Franklin asked “Why did I not see the lunar eclipse?” He found that there were strong winds from the Northeast, but when he talked to his brother in Boston, he was told that the storm had come after the lunar eclipse which was strange because, Boston is Northeast of Philadelphia. Benjamin concluded that clouds and storms do not always follow the strong winds. This theory is one that majorly influenced modernday meteorology.

Benjamin Franklin was a learner. His discoveries were made, because he learned from the little things. Like a cloudy day and a talk with his brother. Without Benjamin’s love for learning, a lot of the things we take for granted would not be here.So how can you be Benjamin Franklin? Well you can’t, but you can atleast do what he did best. Learn.

Donald Kausler’s book, “Learning and Memory in Normal Aging”, suggests that people who are actively learning throughout their lives have a longer lifespan and have less effects of aging than that of a person who did not actively learn on a regular basis. So not only is learning teaching you, preparing you for events, and helping you through your life, but it is also healthy for you.

An old Albert Einstein told others,

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling, but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”

From when you are first born to when you are at your final breath, your brain is always ready to learn new things. So next time you see your grandfather, or you look up at the sky, remember to learn from it, and you will grow wiser and wiser.

Sources Cited:

• http://www.quotesforthemind.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/People-grow-through-experience-if-they-meet-life-honestly-and-courageously.-This-is-how-character-is-built.-Eleanor-Roosevelt-Famous-Experience-Quotes-with-Images-%E2%80%93-Learning-from-your-Experiences-in-Life.png

• http://cdn-4.lifehack.org/wp-content/files/2013/07/Wisdom-is-not-a-product-of-schooling-but-of-the-lifelong-attempt-to-acquire-it..jpg

• http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Learning-and-Memory-Normal-Aging-Donald-H-Kausler-1994-Hardcover/00/$T2eC16dHJH!FFmE6I0mZBRsK8oBy5g~~_35.JPG 

The Rubik Cube

This is a video of me solving a 4x4x4 Rubik cube in fast forward:

The main reason why solving Rubik cubes for me are fun and challenging is because of its massive number of permutations and the strategy aspect of it. When I got introduced to the 3x3x3 version in 1st grade, I was awed by it, and wondered if it was even possible to solve it. I finally solved my first cube during the summer of 2010. It took me 2 days, even with the instructions. In fourth grade, I began to cut down my time to 5 minutes. The algorithms took a while to memorize, but I got them down. Over the next 2 years, I gradually cut down my time. Sometime in 2013, I came up with a bypass to cut about 30 seconds down on my time, reducing it to my current time of 90 seconds. My all time record is 57 seconds.

Solving a Rubik cube is very related to solving a math problem. When it is scrambled, it looks complex with the only way to solve it being with trail and error. Same with math. When you get a large, bulky equation, like (43.85x-67.3536y)(34.998z-87.110022)=0 and 43.85x-43.85y+z= 1032.3501, you think that only by substituting random values you will solve it. With the correct algorithms, though, you can solve a 3x3x3 Rubik in around 90 seconds, or a 4x4x4 in 5 minutes. In the math problem, you note that either 34.998y-87.110022=0 or 43.85x+67.336a=0, by solving that you get x=4.02432, y=2.62, and z=2.489. Are you following me? If not, that's OK, just keep reading. These puzzles require logic, reasoning and practice. When solving a cube, you use a series of logical steps most of the time, and innovate new algorithms. In math, you also have to reach a goal with logical steps. When you see a shortcut, you don't have to stick with the procedure, you could use that shortcut. As with anything, practice makes perfect. If you keep practicing, you will get better.

Soccer

Soccer is a huge aspect of my life. I play it a ton, and really enjoy it. Soccer also makes me a better student and teaches me important skills. Soccer relates to school in a lot of ways.

It teaches me time management because I play on a club team. I have practice 3 days a week, and games 1 to 3 days a week. I have had to learn to manage my time so I can do my homework, go to my practices, go to my games, and still have time to myself or to spend time with my friends and family.

Being physically active makes me a stronger student because it teaches me patience. It also teaches me that some skills don’t come naturally, and you have to work to excel, and overall, it all comes down to how hard you want to work. If you want more playing time, you have to work hard in practice and show the coach that you deserve it. If you want to do well in school you have to study and do your homework consistently.

Soccer teaches me teamwork, and how to deal with people that you don’t like. If you try to dribble the ball the entire way up the field without the help from any of your teammates the ball is going to get stolen. But just a few passes can get you much further than dribbling can. If there are people on your team you don't like, you kind of have to learn to like them, or put up with them because they're on your team, and teammates take care of each other. And because we work together so much, you often become pretty good friends with your teammates, like you are with friends that you have a lot of classes with.

You also have your solo moments in soccer. When you dribble the ball up the field and score, the credit goes to you, and all of your teammates are high-fiving you, and the parents are applauding you. It feels really good, like when you do the best in the class on a test, or are the only one to turn in your homework. Soccer relates to school in a lot of ways.

Soccer teaches you respect, too. If you aren't respectful to your coaches, you probably won't get as much playing time. If you are disrespectful to your teachers, they won't think as highly of you, and your class might get extra homework.

I think soccer is just important as school, because it teaches me some things maybe better than school can.

Cites:

• http://sabisathletics.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/soccer-

Being the Middle Kid at the Ellis’ is not as Easy as it Seems

Let me tell you about my family, the Ellis’. There is my older sister; Lauren, my younger sister; Hannah, my mom, dad, and then there’s me. I’m the middle one that has a harder job than Lauren, but easier than Hannah. I don’t have to do the dishes yet because I never do the dishes when I’m asked, oops, because I always forget. That’s who I am, I forget a lot, of everything. Lauren is at Duke now and isn’t home hardly ever. Hannah, when I’m frustrated or mad at her I call her Haggis, is in 5th grade at Catlin, watch out Paul, she’s headed your way!

The reason that I have a harder job than Hannah, is because I have to be a good role model, and everything I do influences Hannah. I have an easier job than Lauren, but only sometimes. I had an easier job than Lauren did when I was 6 rather than when she was 6 because Lauren basically started taking care of herself right when I was born, when Lauren was 6. I started taking care of myself at the end of last year and I’m still learning how. I didn’t have to start off when I was 6 because I still needed someone to take care of me when Hannah was born, I was 2 at the time. I have a harder job than Lauren did, and still does as a matter of fact, because I am different than she was and still is. I started at Catlin in Kindergarten and she started in 7th grade. The grade I’m in right now. I was a super easy baby and waited for my parents to pick me out of the crib. I could have been in the crib all day if they didn’t come wake me up, whereas Lauren would start screaming and then get pulled out of the crib. Also, I don’t talk much at the dinner table because my sisters have too much to say sometimes but there are days when its my turn to talk at dinner.

I am almost never the center of attention. I am in the center of the sisters yes, but my sisters are usually the center of attention because most the time I am quiet in public and I don’t like to talk to people I don’t know because I was taught, “Stranger Danger!” Hahaha, but even when I am in public I become the center of attention because of my hair, I can’t help it, all the time I have random people come up to me and start touching my hair. It’s crazy and I don’t like it usually because I don’t know the people that touch my hair. When I was little my first sentence was, “Don’t touch me.” I loved being little, those were the days. I could tell people what to do.

The new movie Frozen, me being Anna, I would do anything to help my sisters like Anna did going up the mountain to find her sister, and wanting to play with her even though she knows that her sister will probably say no. In other ways I also feel like I have friends that would say, “Some people are worth melting for.” ~ Olaf (from Frozen)

Being the middle kid in the Ellis’ family isn’t as easy as it looks and sometimes you get way too much attention. My family definitely has influenced my life, by a lot.  I like who I am, and would definitely be a completely different person if I weren’t the middle kid.

Sources:
My brain and my mom's camera pictures

Urbanization Reflection

This response should be your longest so far.....and will be your longest of the project.

Mentally go through your typical day and think of all the ways you use energy and how your life would be affected if you no longer had access to energy.  Specifically, how would your life change without access to energy?

Now, think about the population in your neighborhood.  What problems will increase if more people move into the Portland Metro area?  

Finally, think about the urbanization and population articles.  You read three and learned about one more.  Were there parts that surprised you?  Were there parts you didn't understand?  By 2050, the world is projected to have 10 billion people.  You will be approximately 50 years old (scary, I know)  What problems do you think the world will be facing with that many  people?

Your response should be around 2 paragraphs (10 or so sentences.)  Use standard Geography and the Human Experience labels.  Yes, an image would be nice....

http://www.geography.learnontheinternet.co.uk/images/popn/world_pop.gif
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYXiPbUPw8wrx8vR7y30BW6vVPMGQSfXDGErv74xpd8Y-JumTSVjyv8G_M-M0fbvjAybSpG5GgodiJRrxY2Kn6Z9zLHntQCzTk7ExpMEv59-GkBibYdf_wRO8o4o6ahV1vqSBO1unHxB-N/s1600/images.jpg

What Shutdown?

While I normally don't post to this blog, this topic is directly related to the primary users of the blog, World Cultures students, and they deserve to read what is being written and commented about them.  We are currently studying natural disasters as they relate to humans and geography.  Using primary data sources, students often access USGS sites.  They are, quite honestly, the most accurate in the world.  Since the Republican-led Congress decided to shut down the Federal Government, USGS sites have been inaccessible to students.  As a class, we brainstormed what to do, decided we would just move on, and return to USGS sites once the Government was funded and running again.  For a couple of seventh graders this was not an ideal solution.  In less than three hours, they were running up to me eagerly let me know they had found not one, but two workarounds that would allow them to continue accessing most USGS data.  Using Google's cache link, they were able to access most of the NationalAtlas site.  Also, a couple of students showed me the WayBack machine at web.archive.org.

Between the two sites, students could access enough information that our discussions, presentations, and curriculum could continue.  I'm sure there are bloggers, among them Will Richardson, who would smile at this post.  I'm humbled that my students wanted to continue learning even though their Republican adult role models are doing their best to insure the students would have to dig extra hard for the information they needed.  I wonder which party my students will be more sympathetic towards in the next Mock Election?