Success

When looking back on this school year, I can think of so many things I can call a success. For starters, I have managed to maintain good grades which is very important to me. I played on the PCHS girls soccer team as well as a club team, and I increased my fitness level by attending CrossFit Club each week. I took the ACT for the first time and survived AP Geography and blogging every week! I have also made so many friends and grown closer to many others, and none of this would have been possible without them! This year has been a blast, but I am definitely ready for summer. 

My amazing soccer team after our game today

A recent success was my soccer season that just ended. When it first started, things didn't look very good for our team; we didn't have a goalie and we had never played together before. Each game the score got better and better until we finally started winning! Our last game was today and we ended the season with another win, meaning we had five wins and five losses. This is a lot better than we were expecting. I consider this a major success because we had a lot of fun and definitely improved over the course of the season. 

Believe it or not, I consider my blogging experience to be a success as well. I have enjoyed writing about anything and everything, as well as reading what my friends post. Without blogging, I would never have found my favorite food blog, spent hours reading about the funny experiences my friends have, or taken pictures of almost everything incase I decided to blog about it. I think blogging has helped me include more voice in my writing and has been a positive experience overall. I'd like to say that I will keep doing it after this school year, but, let's face it, I probably won't. 

Summer isn't quite here yet, so we all need to stay focussed and finish the school year strong!

The Season is Here

I'm sure some of you may have noticed that I almost completely stopped talking about soccer, and you're probably wondering why. We thought that the season would start in the middle of March, but our coach kept telling us the wrong dates since the schedule wasn't finalized at that point. Then, in early April, the season was supposed to start, but our first three games were cancelled and rescheduled due to bad weather. We finally got to a really late start at the end of April.

The season didn't start out the way we would have liked, but there are many contributing factors. The fact that we don't have a goalie or enough girls on our team is our biggest problem. To make up for our lack of players, a couple girls from the U13 team are playing up. They are pretty good and help a lot, but they are a lot smaller than fifteen year-olds and they have to play their own games in addition to ours.

Our last game was particularly hard because we played with only ten players half the time (there are usually 11 on the field, plus multiple subs). The U13 girls had a game at the same time as us, so they couldn't help us out and our coach had to coach them. Our old coach, Bob, coached us instead. Everyone was super excited for him to coach us again. We started the game without subs and then a girl twisted her ankle in the middle of the game. As expected, we didn't win that game, but we played well and had a lot of fun with Bob coaching us.

So far we haven't won any of our games, but we are getting better at playing as a unit and I am excited to see how we get better throughout the season. Considering all the disadvantages our team faces, we are doing pretty well and have improved a lot.

Gracie's soccer ball with mine.
Gracie has had a headache for about 6 weeks, pray for her to get better!

Disappointment & Frustration

Spring in most places is an exciting time because the weather gradually gets warmer and summer is approaching quickly. However, spring in Park City is frustrating and disappointing. I say this because the weather just can't seem to make up its mind about what season it is. One week the temperature will reach the sixties and then it will plummet to the thirties two days later. The snow melts when it's warm and then starts dumping again when it's cold.

This year has been especially messed up (I can't think of any other way to put it). Park City had an awful snow year, so everyone was excited when temperatures started rising and snow started melting. Then, out of nowhere, a giant snowstorm came and destroyed all hope of warm weather. We would be grateful for the snow at any other time, but it's a little harsh when the weather taunts us. The past week was a perfect example of this.

Here are some pictures I took on four consecutive white days on my way back from seminary:

Last Tuesday
4/2/13

Last Thursday
4/4/13

Monday
4/8/13

Wednesday
4/10/13

The delay of spring isn't the only thing making me disappointed and frustrated. My first soccer game was supposed to be on Monday, but it was rescheduled due to an unexpected snowstorm. Also, in my last post, I talked about my elbow hurting and making it hard to workout. It has been a few weeks since it has bothered me, but for some reason the pain came back on Tuesday at CrossFit Club. I still don't know what I did to hurt it, but it feels very unstable. Hopefully I'll be able to see a doctor and get it figured out soon!

Orchestra Tour in California!

Before telling you about the orchestra trip to California, I would like to say that my coach gave us some false information about the upcoming season. He told us that the season would start in March, but it turns out that our first game isn't until April. Just thought I would clear that up.

Anyway, back to orchestra business. Thursday was our day of driving. It took us over thirteen hours to get from Park City to Anaheim because we were in a bus with over forty people, which meant that every stop we made took a really long time. I was originally planning on using this time to do homework, but I should have known that it would be nearly impossible to get anything done while in the presence of my energetic class. The ride was smooth, except when the air conditioning broke and the bus overheated. Resulting in an unexpected stop at Target and an even longer bus ride.

Martina, Caitlin, and me on the way to California!

We spent the day on Friday in Disneyland! Our workshop wasn't until five o'clock pm, so we got before and after to do whatever we wanted to in Disneyland and California Adventure. I hadn't been there for about seven years, so it was fun for me to ride the rides I was too afraid to back then. My favorite part though was the workshop. We got to go in the recording studios to learn how the music in movies is recorded and record some ourselves! It was super fun and challenging because we were sight-reading everything. We were all thoroughly exhausted by the end of the day.

We all really liked the pictures from the rides we rode so we started planning them.

Thankfully Saturday had a little bit more time to relax. We started the day off with the workshop at University of San Diego. I liked this one a lot too because I got to listen to the chamber orchestra perform and improve with the help of the conductor at the university. Symphony also got to perform with them, but I didn't think we played nearly as well as chamber.

Afterwards, we went to Mission Beach and Balboa Park. I really enjoyed this time because I got to relax in the warm California weather with my friends.

Me doing a handstand on the beach

Right before leaving, we saw Academy of St. Martin in the Fields perform. They were amazing. Everyone was perfectly together and they didn't even have a conductor. We were all really tired during the concert because of our long weekend, so many people fell asleep. I somehow managed to stay awake the whole time and I'm really glad I did.

We drove home through the night to arrive back in Park City in the early afternoon. The weekend was very long and tiring, but it was definitely worth it.

Upcoming Season

I can't believe that the spring club soccer season is almost starting. It seems crazy that the season would start when there's still snow on the ground. I have so many questions about where we will play and how it will workout with the snow, but those questions are just going to have to wait until the schedule is out.

My old team

I am super excited for the season, but I am also a little worried. What worries me is that we have very few players, girls from the U13 team are playing up with us, and I have never seen our keeper play. At tryouts last June, we lost three players, including our keeper, to Black Diamond. I am happy for them because they are my friends and will probably be very successful this season, but I am also sad that they left because it resulted in Park City Soccer Club not having enough girls for a full GU15 team. To accommodate for losing those players, a few U13 and U14 players have been added to our roster. I feel like they set us back a little, and we are now approaching where we were before they joined. This means that they have improved, which is good. Our keeper just recently started playing soccer, which worries me a lot. However I have never seen her play and she has been attending goalie training for the past couple of months, so she could be much better than I anticipate. We'll just have to wait and see how it turns out.

I'm excited for the season because our team is made up of a really fun group of girls. Each girl has a very unique personality and they're super fun to play with. Seasons in the past have been really fun, so I assume this one will be the same. Even if our team isn't very successful, I think it will still be fun. That is the real reason for doing sports, right? The reason for playing sports should be to have fun, instead of just to win. After all, we will never know the true joy of victory until you know the sorrows of defeat.