How I've Grown this Year

Regarding my blog, I think I've gotten much better on planning out what I'm going to write. On the night of the very first blog assignment, I turned it it at exactly 10:30, not because I wanted it to be perfect but because I had invited my friend over after volleyball to write our blogs together. Bad idea. We ended up by saying we had "writers block" and need to go to the park. This was all at about 6:30. So we went to the park, attempted to play some more volleyball then saw my other friend, Sophia. She goes to the Winter Sports School but played volleyball with me on the high school team this year and in 7th grade. We ended up by talking to her for way too long and didn't get home until about 9:30ish. This little excursion did not cure our writers block, instead stressed us out even more because we didn't have topics for our blogs.

I've also gotten way more comfortable writing blogs and thinking of topics is easier for me. I don't know if getting more comfortable is a good thing or not! I changed my background to fit the blogs theme more and the pictures fit in better too. They are bigger now.

Regarding my life outside of school, a.k.a, volleyball. As you may know, in high school, volleyball is a fall sport but it doesn't last for only one season. Club starts a week or two after high school ends and goes on for about 7 months, starting at the end of fall and going until the middle of May. 

During high school volleyball, we had practice every weekday and games about once a week. Getting in the reps was nice but you would think I would get a lot better but I didn't. I might have even gotten worse. My coach wasn't every strict and never paid that much attention to detail. She wouldn't tell us what we were doing wrong so I was kinda just on my own. I developed some "lazy" habits because she wouldn't discipline us. After high school, we went straight into club, and practiced less times per week but it was much more intense and the coaches were stricter. We had a dress code that everyone had to follow at practice which consisted of, a grey, red or black Club V t-shirt, depending on what day it was (Friday-grey, Wednesday- black, Monday- red), black spandex and black socks. They said if you didn't follow the uniform you wren't allowed to practice but that never happened to anyone on my team. As far as real volleyball goes, I think that I've really improved.

This is not me or anyone else on my club but it is a really good hit and she is playing my position. AND the lady who is hitting, plays for the school my sister goes too :)
Photo courtesy of Kansan

The Last Hurrah

Yesterday was our final tournament. It was Friday/ Saturday tournament at Club V but since we haven't talked about volleyball in a while I'll catch you up. We had a tournament at the LA Convention Center right in downtown Los Angeles. Going into the first game, I thought we weren't going to do very well because a lot of the teams their were local which means they were really good. We ended up by taking 15th out of around 150 which is good, especially for our team. But volleyball is pretty boring to listen to if you don't play so I'll tell you something actually interesting about our tournament. The convention center was right next to the Staples center so walking to our car we got to see all the fun things happening every night. Most of the time it was basketball games or something like that but one of the nights was the MTV Moive awards. After a game, me and three other teammates walked to a restaurant. On the way, we were right next to a HUGE line of people and a bunch of security guards. It was really cool!

Photo courtesy of: VolleyballMag

Our next tournament, the Triple Crown Sports Salt Lake one, we took second. It was a pretty small tournament at the Salt Palace but I was fun to win-ish. Not a lot of teams traveled to this tournament especially not in my division but there was some really good teams who came from California and Texas. When my team wasn't playing, some girls and I watched this really good club, T-Street, play. Their 18s one team had a 6'6 setter who was amazing! She's on the USA youth national volleyball team and she's only a junior. Back to my team, we were the runner ups and got a really cool trophy. They even wrote an article about my team! Read it here.

This past tournament, the AAU power league championship, wasn't a great one but we did okay. We took first in our pool the first day then second the second day. During single elimination play, we took third over all.

I'll miss my team and it will be really weird not driving down to Club V three or more times a week. However for some of my team, we will be together by doing Project V. Project V is a three hour session everyday starting this Monday and going until the end of summer. I would do it too but that would mean I'd have to leave right when I got home and wouldn't get back home at about 8:00.

It was a good season and I''l miss playing with my teammates.

Happy Earth Day Everybody!

Happy Earth Day to my fellow bloggers!

Photo courtesy of 7-Themes

Since my blog is about Park City (or supposed to be....) I thought, why don't we appreciate this beautiful small town we get to live in. Lately I've been feeling very grateful for this little place we call home.

This week there has been a bear spotted in numerous neighborhoods around here. Now this was a big deal in our small town. We even went into lowdown at school. I think there is more than one bear because it would be hard for a huge bear to cross a highway and get from one end of town to the other.

Another earthy thing that has been on my mind lately is "glamping". If you are unfamiliar with the term glamping, it means glam-camping. I really like nature but i'm not a huge fan of roughing it in the woods so this would be a perfect balance for me.

This is "glamping"!
Photo courtesy of Your Fancy Fox

It's a wednesday so you know what that means, the (almost) daily trip down to Woods Cross. Now if you've ever driven though the canyon, it's not too bad. It, in my opinion, is a pretty drive up until you pass downtown. At that point, you're in North Salt Lake and you are surrounded by very unattractive, boring land and a huge oil refinery. I think that this small part of Utah is possibly the ugliest town in the whole state. It makes me sad to see all this going on, especially on Earth Day when the flame was on and they were burring all the excess oil. Not to mention but it always smells AWFUL!

One of the oil refineries in Salt Lake.
Photo courtesy of Utah Sierran

On a happier, more cheerful note, in the town right next to this, which usually, as you would guess, not to be very pretty, it was this time of year. The rain had made the grass grow and be green.

The rain is working wonders all around Utah because, first of all, we're in a drought and second of all, it's making everything pretty. And there's a bonus.... we're getting bears!