29 Degrees and Sunny

It was early. The majority of my blankets were off; I was shaking-although I wasn't sure whether it was due to being cold or nervousness before the track meet I'd be running in later that morning. Glancing at my alarm clock-which read 5:46 am- I pulled my covers over my head in attempt to get back to sleep. However, the only thing that I could think of now was the meet. I had to be there by 8:30, and I was running the mile at 9:30. Nerves are a normal thing for me before track meets, I've been running track since 7th grade and I have always, always ran the two mile, nothing more, nothing less; this mile was going to be something completely new. I continued waking up, shaking and checking the clock about every twenty minutes until around 6:40 so I could eat something before, but far enough away from the race so that I wouldn't feel like puking after. I stumbled down the stairs and into the kitchen I went to start a good, pre-race breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast with peanut butter. As soon as I finished, I went back up stairs, brushed my teeth, and got dressed in my light and navy blue track uniform-along with sweats and my varsity jacket because it was only 29 degrees- I then threw my iPod, my spikes and a couple granola bars into my bag and walked out the door.
After my dad dropped me off at Franklin (where the meet was taking place) I walked up to the track to find that only a couple of my teammates were there yet, so we just stood around for a minute until more of our team arrived and we set all our things down behind one of the field goals. By 8:40, anyone running the mile had arrived and we started to warm up: two laps around the track, drills and stretching. From there, you just have to stay loose until the race. At 9:30 exactly, boys and girls running the 1600m(a mile) were called to the starting line; I was thankful that the guys ran first. As soon as they finished, we were told to take off our clothes-meaning out sweats-and get to the starting line. The most nerve-racking moment of the day had finally arrived: the wait, which seems to last years, for the gunshot. “Runners, take your marks...” BANG!! And we were off. I wanted a good start, I believe I got one. I got out fast and really tried to keep my pace steady, and quick, keeping my stride nice and long. I would finish in the top ten, for this was the mile and more than twenty girls were running it. I felt good, I keep a good pace and the time I was trying for was 6:10. At the end, I did not make that time, I finished 8th, with a time of 6:27. Not bad for my first competitive mile ever, and with more practice that time will decrease. Running is a mind game, if you believe you can and tell yourself that you've got this, you can easily accomplish anything. Easy as that seems, its not. It is so easy to tell yourself, “She's just faster than me” because most of the time, all you want to do is stop when you know you can't. I think I can do it...I've just got to get past all the nervousness.

Snowboarding Lessons

Snowboarding is a very challenging sport. One which involves good balance and control; I learned that this Sunday when a few friends and I decided to learn how to snowboard at Mt. Brighton.
It was Kelly Glynn, her sister Katie, Taylor Cieslak and I who had made plans to get up early Sunday morning, meet at Kelly and Katie's house and get out to Mt. Brighton around the time it opened, which was around 9:00. And that is pretty much what happened. I woke up at 6:30 (we had to be at Kelly's by 8:00), ate some breakfast and rushed around getting ready and gathering all my snow gear. I threw my hair into two braids and put on some comfy/warm clothes: yoga pants, a tee-shirt and my fleece North Face jacket.
I was at Kelly's house right on time and we arrived at Mt. Brighton a little after nine. Kelly, Katie and I all had to rent boards and boots; they also had to rent helmets, I did not because 1.) I don't exactly like to put items on my head that have been worn by many others and 2.) I was borrowing a spare and slightly too small, too tight helmet from Tay, but it worked nonetheless. I found the boots to be a tad funny looking though, they made your feet look short and stubby; I bet Shaq's feet would even look small in them! The boards we got were very simple, wither black or white with an unknown logo stamped in the middle of the board.
Soon, it was ten o'clock and time for our lesson. The first thing we learned how to do was “glide” or “skate”, which is how you get around while you're not speeding downhill. I learned that you always keep your front foot locked in the bindings and the other foot can either be placed in front of or behind the board and then you just use the loose foot to push yourself along, almost like on a scooter or a skateboard. First I was really slow at this, but I got the hang of it after a while. We then proceeded onto riding in a straight line down the bunny hill. Now, these straight lines, I could do. However, stopping and turning not so much. Those are probably the most important or useful areas, and I thought they were the hardest. This was because to turn you had to either slightly lift your toes or your heels, and almost always I didn't lift them enough, or I lifted them too much and lost balance. Stopping was the same thing. If you stop on your toes, you can lean too far forward and fall head first into the snow and if you stop on your heels, lose balance and fall backwards, you take a hard fall on your bottom. I've experienced both and I can tell you falling face first is the way to go...because my tail bone still kills to sit on.
After the lesson and a couple practice runs on the bunny hill we all moved onto the intermediate hill; much bigger than the bunny hill. And the tow rope was much longer! We also had to go up “backwards” because the left side was not working. And I actually found that to be more comfortable than the normal way. We all took many falls on this, but I did have a few smooth runs....after I made sure there would be no one in the way. I had a very good time and definitely want to go back again!

Centerline Invitational

I awoke that with to morning smell of toast and scrambled eggs as it drifted into my room from the kitchen downstairs. I stumbled down the stairs soon remembering what day it was: our cross country invitational meet at Centerline. I knew that if I couldn't earn my varsity letter today, it was most likely that I would not earn my letter this season. Or at least that was the attitude I went in with, hoping it would force me to push my self harder than ever before to get my time below 22:30 for a 5k race. So I ate my eggs and toast, hoping they would give me that energy boost when I needed it most.
When I arrived with my father at the meet, the weather didn't look too good, cold, windy and the sky looked as if a storm was on its way. We looked high and low for the rest of my cross country team, but eventually found them on the side of the school. As a team we proceeded to do our pre-race routines, a few laps around the school and into the surrounding neighborhood, stretching and agilities. Once we finished we just relaxed and kept loose until about twenty minutes before the race. From there, time passes in a blur as we get our spikes on, do some more agilities, more stretching and head towards the starting line. Once we got to the starting line we did some run-outs and huddled to give words of advice and encouragement to our teammates. Once back at the starting line runners wait until the last possible minute to take off our sweats, line up with the fastest runners in the front and that included me. I was nervous, so nervous I was shaking in my shoes! As I tried to focus on my race I took my spot at the line, put my right foot forward and waited for the gun to sound.
“Runners, take your marks..” BANG!!
And all the runners sprint forward! Racing to the front and trying to get to the inside before the first turn. The sky had opened up and rain was pouring down on us as the winds blew against us. I found myself in a good spot and soon found my pace as I passed the girls ahead of me as I continued on my 3.1 mile trek. The first mile was good, 6:45 I believe, but the second mile always seems to be the longest as well as the hardest and looking back you always wish that you had done better during your second mile. As I started my third mile, I came upon a straight away in which I found myself slowing down simply because the straight aways can often put a runner to sleep. I sped up as soon as I noticed it and as I came around the last corner where absolutely EVRYONE was waiting for their daughter, teammate or friend to finish the race. I saw my dad as he yelled that I had around ten seconds to left in order to get a varsity time and earn my letter. From that point I sprinted, faster than ever before and crossed the finish line with a time of 22:26. I had done it. I had earned my varsity letter and on top of that I finished 15th out of a hundred and some girls. It was the JV race, but hey, I'm only a freshman. As soon as I got through the crowds at the finish I ran to my dad and collapsed into him, giving him a big hug as I breathed, “I did it.” to him. He had tears in his eyes and I had just earned my varsity letter...as a FRESHMAN! Not many get to do that. I was sopping wet and freezing but nothing mattered to me more then earning my letter.

US missionaries in Haiti charged with child abduction

The missionaries should be tried in Haiti.

“It was Haitian law that has been violated, it is up to the Haitian authorities to hear and judge the case,” said Paul Denis, Haiti's Justice Minister(US missionaries charged in Haiti). Some have suggested the missionaries be tried in the United States, but this would be unfair to the Haitian government since the crime was committed against them. The man who came through Amsterdam to Detroit with a bomb in his pants was tried in the U.S., the country which the crime was committed against, why should this be treated any different? Because that was an act of terrorism? And this seems to be an act of kindness? A crime is a crime, and on any level it should be tried in the city, state or country whose laws the crime had broken.
“I feel good,” the missionary group leader, Laura Silsby, told reporters. “I trust in God”
If she is so comfortable with what will happen, then it really shouldn't matter whether they are tried in the U.S. or not. Much has also been said lately that many parents had willingly gave their children to the group because they were injured badly and would simply not be able to provide for their kids. If this is the case, then the court should acknowledge this fact and maybe even find some of the newly disabled parents and make sure this is all true.

First Semester Review

I feel I have learned a lot during my first semester in the Stevenson Global Education program; especially in the English portion of it. I have always liked writing, but I feel this year I was introduced to a completely new type of writing. This had to do with writing about event s that were either taking place currently in the world or in history. Never before was I given a news article to read, margin note and then write a one or two paragraph essay to state my opinion on the situation. Did I support what was happening or not? What did I think they should be doing? Well, to be honest, I had no clue. Sometimes I didn’t even know what I thought of the situation because it didn’t seem to affect me in any way. And I often asked myself why we had to do this, because I am no expert on these sort of cases. I had to think really hard about what I thought. Once I had my stand, I needed to support it, which was probably the hardest part. Of course I had reasons for my thoughts, but I wasn’t exactly sure of how to make them into two whole paragraphs. And as the year progressed, I felt much more comfortable with these assignments.
Margin notes were another thing I learned to do this year. Before, it was always just highlighting, but now I had to write down my thoughts and ask questions and summarize the articles. At first I wasn’t really sure what to note on, or what to do, but now it’s all very easy to me and when I’m given an article, in any class, I feel like I should be margin noting.
The movies we watched in class like the Rabbit Proof Fence and The Power of One really seemed to help me understand what was happening in the countries we were learning about. I also went to see Invictus over winter break and I found that some events I was reading about in the articles were the ones I saw in the movie and it really helped me connect better to the history of South Africa and the Apartheid.
In class we went over grammar and the usage of capitalization and apostrophes. I was surprised to find the mistakes I made sometimes and I also had some questions answered. Like, I always wondered if “it” was used in showing possession, as in saying,”There was a long, red dress and on its skirt …” I came to find out that “its” would not have an apostrophe, once and for all. The apostrophe in “it’s” is only to be used if you are to be combining the words “it” and “is”.
This was the first year I was in a class where we actually had a debate, and it was on the topic of the Rwandan genocide. I found that I don’t have much of a voice when it comes to this, but then again it didn’t seem like many complaints were thrown at my group’s part and Paul Kagame. Although looking back I feel there could have been times where we should have spoken and did not.
All in all, this semester has been pretty challenging, but when I received the letter we had to write from Paul Rusesabagina to the U.N. and realized I had gotten an A, I was realized that all my hard work had definitely paid off!

If I Were a Native...

I would want to be an Aborigine from Australia.

I believe out of all the natives we talked about in class, the Aborigines more peacefully than any other native tribes. They experienced the least amount of violence and were simply pushed aside by the white settlers. A fence was built to separate them, and sometimes a young Aborigines would be taken from its family or tribe. However, they never went through murders like those in Rwanda, nor have they gone through times as rough as the natives of South Africa.

Also, the Aborigines were able to uphold their culture through it all. A culture that has been present at least 50,000 years on Earth. It's amazing to think that a culture started so long ago has not been changed by man and that the people continue to uphold the traditions the ancestors began thousands of years before them. They literally live day to day and I cannot help but wonder what that must be like.

Christmas Break!!

I had quite an eventful Christmas break. Starting Friday night I went to Gabe Baugher’s sister and brother-in-law’s reception party at Genetti’s in Northville. They were having the party because they were married over the summer in Oregon and many family members were not able to fly out there for the wedding. Gabe and I were ordered to take pictures of the party all night long, and I’d say we took some pretty good shots. Taylor Cieslak was also there and when Gabe and I took a break from picture taking, we danced and ate and had a great time with Taylor. My favorite part was definitely the dancing! They had a DJ and as the night went on, the space clearing for dancing was soon filled…with some adults who might have had a few drinks… Gabe, Tay and I found it quite entertaining. It was a great night and I even got paid for taking the pictures.
Christmas is most definitely my favorite holiday. Every year, my dad’s family comes over for Christmas Eve. So, on Christmas Eve I often find myself cooking or baking and cleaning; helping my mom to prepare for the night. We usually make Christmas cookies, some sort of cake and cheese cake. I made the cookies and I chose to make a coffee cake this year. Now, I would consider myself a good baker, however sometimes I do make the mistake of not reading all the directions…I was supposed to put a ½pint(or one container) of sour cream into the cake and I had mistaken the pint for cup. So I put half a cup in, which was about half the container instead of the whole thing. And when I tasted the batter, it was fine, it didn’t taste weird or anything..it was kind of thick but it was supposed to be thicker. So I put it in and it turned out fine, until I had a piece of it and it was dry. So, the cake was a fail but the cookies were good!
Christmas morning we got up early and opened presents! This year, I really wanted a new digital camera, one that was better than the one I had and I got one! I also got clothes, an iPod shuffle for running along with other stuff. One of my favorite things about Christmas morning is opening the presents with the glowing tree as your only light source. Then when my brother and I finished opening presents, my mom started breakfast. We always, always, always have cinnamon rolls for breakfast on Christmas morning! And they were delicious!! Later we went to my grandparents (my mom’s parents) house for dinner and more presents with my uncle, aunt cousins and grandparents. I’d say I had an excellent Christmas this year!