EFA- Pies and Crepes

I joined EFA last month and so far I feel that we are doing great. We did a pie sale for the week before Thanksgiving break and it was very sucessful. I made a chocolate creme pie and the entire thing sold. I am glad that I was part of something that helped raise so much money. Next we are having a crepe sale and I am in charge of bringing peanut butter and cinniomon. I hope that I can help make this one as succesful as the last sale.

We also want to work on spreading the news of what our mission is because it is not only important to the club to raise money but to all tell people why we are raising money and to help raise awareness of the problems of education in the Middle East and the importance of it. I am reasponible with another group member to make information phanphlets that tell about the project. Its a big reasponsiblity because they have to be good if we ant to really get the word out. I will try my hardest to create a very infomative and understandable panphlet.

MUN- Comitties

We have now chosen our own committees that we will be working on in our country this year in MUN. Last year I chose to be one legal commitee where we mostly focused on the problems of patents and third world countries. This year I wanted to try something new and so I chose military weapons. I chose it because one of the topis will be landmines and the problems surround old undiscovered ones. This is something new and it seems very interesting so I wanted to work on it. I have heard of undiscovered landmines leftover from wars blowing up inocent civilians that happen to tred unknowingly on them and either suffer major injuries or die. This is horrible and I want to know more about it so that I will have a better understanding of this problem our world faces and a better understanding on how to fix such a problem.

One thing that is new this year is that I am working in my committe with a freshman who is new to MUN. This is different because last year a was on a committee with two other people and both of them had been on MUN before and I was the new one. This year I will try to help her because I am more experienced and I know that I appreciated having help when I was new last year. I am excited about being able to help more people in the group because we have a lot of new members this year.

MUN- Countries!

Today we had our first meeting for MUN that wasn't about money or when we would be meeting. This week we were assigned our countries. We got very good countries this year including Syria, Turkey, and Macedonia. After reading the t, I knew topics that each committee would be covering, I knew I wanted to do Desec because it was covering land mines and critical matters or war technology and I found that problem very engaging. I wanted to to Syria but the spots for that were already taken so I had to choose Desec for Macedonia. I am still very excited because even though I did not get my first choice country, I got my first choice topic, which I think is more important. I am glad that I now know what I will be researching and it is something that is very improtant matter in this world.

Volleyball- Falculty Game

This was my last game ever a a Sturgis Storm volleyball member. It was different then most other games because the B and A teams played together and the B and A teams all played every position instead of just our normal positions. It was fun but because there was so many people I didn't get to play the often and when I did play it was in a position that I was not used to play in a game like back row or server. During the game I missed all three of my serves which was disappointing because my serves had been so much better in practice but I never had served in a game before and I just wasn't used to it. I did make some good receives and hit the ball over the net which made me happy. What I loved about this game was that I got to see just how far all the players had come. We may have lost but most of the girls playing had never played in a game before and now were playing much better. I have seen improvement in them and in myself and I am sad to let this team go. I hope to continue playing this great sport in some form at college.

Volleyball- Barnstable game

Yesterday we had a game agaist barnstable and our team played so well. Well lost two matchs and won one. I got to play in two of the matches and I was very proud of how I played. This game tough I didn't outside hot a lot but I was doing so well with my passing and serve recive.

This was the first time during the game that I felt like every pass that I made when recviving a ball went exactly where I wanted it to. What I did was basically I just relaxed. When that happens and you clam yourself down when you see the ball coming at you it isen't as scary and you just pass it. before I would be nervous and so I would hit the ball it the wrong way. I decided to calm down because this was my last game and i wanted to relaxe and have fun.

Also during this my positioning was on. I have been practicing so long in my one position that I now know how to switch go to my base and be in defense position with out even thinking about it. When I was knew to the game I would have to think 'go here. now" and that would slow me down. During this game I relized I was going to every poistion immidiatly once I read the other team and how they were going to send it over. This is other reason my passing was going so well. Before there was hesitation in getting to my next position but now I could be there 1005 percent and ready for anything.

Volleyball- Missed Hits

During my last practice I focused a lot on my outside hitting. In my last game I had a couple of outside hits and now that i have the confidence to hit during games I want to work on improving and making them even better. My hitting during practice start off a bit slow. I was a little bit off becasue this was my last practice and I was feeling a little bit sad. I continued to work though and one of my teammates even helped me. He told me that my shoulders when I went to hit the play would ratate to much and then send the ball outside. I worked with my teammate and he showed me the way to angle my sholders to get a good shot. It was difficult because it felt natural to me to completly rotate my sholders when hitting put the practice really helped. We also worked on our defensive foot work so when the other team sets up there attack for sending the ball over I know where to be to revive the ball. I felt that my transitions from resiving middle hits, back hits, right hits, outside hits, and free balls were going very smooth.

That practice I even stayed after for a little bit to work one on one. After I left my last practice ready for the next two games.

Volleyball- Excellet game

This Friday I played in one of my most exciting and well played volleyball games to date against Nauset. This was there homecoming game and from the beginning you could tell that it was going to be special. There were more people there then and there was so much excitement everywhere.

The first match I played okay and just played my normal rotation. We lost the first two games and so on the third game coach put me back in. This game I made the most plays I ever had. I recived several balls and was hussling all over the place. Then in the game I madde my first ever spike during a game. I have spiked many times in controled practice seeting but this was different. When I hit it over so perfectly I just felt so great and so powerful.

We won this game match and it felt great to be a part of that. I know that I was playing well because of instead of having me sit out the next match like I normally due every rotation, coach had me go in again. This made me feel so happy and proud. The next game I was so proud of my team. The score was tied almost the entire time. I felt like I played well again and even blocked a ball and made another strike.

I have never played this aggressively in a game before. I loved it. Before I was mostly just a receiver or a passer but now I was attacking balls. I was happy to know that coach was proud of my playing and I was becoming a better player. Especially with volleyball coming to a end in the next. I wanted to have a game to remember playing in and be proud of forever.

SOI

So far in advisory we are working on two major things at the moment and thats a organic tea sale in the morning and getting votes to try and win a grant. So far I have mostly just helped with getting the news out about the fund. I have voted and I have gotten everyone in my family to vote as well. Also I have walked around the school handing out papers to show people how to vote and encourage them to vote. I want to get more involved in the tea sales though because that would be a even more active approch to helping SOI earn money incase we don't get the grant.

Volleyball- So Much News!

So the volleyball team has been making incredible improvements in the last weeks. This week we faced upper cape tech in a match and one 3-1. This means that we lost our first match but were able to comeback and win three in a row to beat them in a best of five match. In the first game I didn't play as well and I sent the ball into the net twice which is a horrible move. This just shows me that this is something that I really need to work on. I am going to talk to my coach about doing net drills because sending the ball to the net is pretty much a fatal move in volleyball for losing a point. I then played in the third game and played much better. My momentum was up and I made good passes that did not land in the net and sent the ball over a couple times. I am very pround to be one Sturgis Storm Volleyball and am pround of my team for playing a great game and winning our first match ever.

In practices I have been playing okay. One thing I have seen improvement in is that I have found my serve. I have stoped serving over hand but am not serveing underhand either. I learned a side derve which just works for me. It gives my serve more power and is more intiminating then a underhand serve. My serve is still not perfect but so much more improved. I would say that during free serve drill I now get the ball over 80% of the time which is such an improvement over the 20% I was serving at the begining of the season. Now that I alsomost have serving down I want to work on saving the ball when it lands in the net.

Volleyball- Improvemnt

I have sen improvment into things so far sence the begining of the season. First I have started to serve under hand instead of overhand because it is easier for me to get moentum for serving that way and so my serves are better. Though they are still far from perfect they are getting better. Now I get about 60 percent of my serves over when before it was only about 20 percent. Also I am getting much better at following the rotations. In volleyball you don't just get out on the court, you have base positions you always have to switch to and the poistion that you are in the rotaton and you have to always remember to be a the right one be base or rotation poistion at the right time. In games teammates used to have to help me out and tell me where to go which made our team look less put together. Now I am really getting the hang of it my self and rotate without having to give to much thought.

Next week I have two things I really want to work on. First is my serve, it needs to be more constant. I want to move up to getting the ballover the net nearly everytime by the end of the season. Also I want to work on making sure that I move out of the way for the settter. The second ball in a volleyball game is supposed to always go to the setter but sometimes I space and I see the ball and I just go for it not thinking about the setters role. I need to be more aware because it is very important for the setter to get the ball so that they can set it up to be hit over by the front hitters. This makes for better playing and makes are team look and feel more put together which is very important.

Volleyball- Practice

So far this season we have been practicing a lot. We do many things to help improve our playing like drills and scrimages. So far I have been playing okay. There are two teams, one that is more advanced and one that spends more time working on smallers drills. So far I have been put into both groups. In scrimages I mostly play in the advanced group but when we are working on serving I get put in the other group. This shows me that I am a good team player and good at passing but I still have a lot of trouble serving. This is something that I really need to work on if I am going to get more time playing and games and be a strong asset to my team

Tennis Reflection

When I joined tennis I had played very little before. I wanted to learn new skills that would make me a better player. I new that because I was pretty much new to the scene that it would not come easy to me and so I made one of my learning outcomes and goals to show commitment to my activity and to stick it through until I saw that improvement that I wanted even if it did not show up right away.

I practiced very hard. I never got to play in any of the actual games because toughs were for the top most experience players but this did not stop me from coming to practice for weeks and work on my serve, my swings, and other things that needed to be worked on. I went to many practices and I worked on these things with drills, workshops, and practice games.

What were the outcomes, for me, the team I was working with, and others?
For me I just wanted to learn how to be a better player and to actually learn how to play a good game of tennis even if it meant having to to struggle. For the team the goal was to make it the best season ever and to make it to states for the first time in tennis history. I wanted this to happen as well but the main players were the ones that had to make it happen in terms of wins. I got to help cheer them on though and encourage them to reach there goal which they did!

I felt many things over the course of the tennis season. I felt frustration like on April 5, "So far I am lucky if I get even two serves over the net during a practice game" and I also felt happiness and accomplishment, " First of all I have finelly started to notice some improvment in my serving". It was a season of feeling both up and down but in the end I felt much happiness with what I had accomplished.


Like all team sports you have to be good at interacting with others and being part of a team. I interacted with team mates in many different ways. I either got to learn from my team mates and coach or cheer them on.

I perceived my improvement through out the season in the small things. Even if I got one serve over I would take this as a small win and a small improvement that was leading me on the path to get even better at tennis. I could not perceive improvement in actually counting games but thats okay because I had to start small and notice the small things that counted as improvement.

This was my most frustrating activity that I did this year but I still enjoyed it. I say it was the most frustrating because it was the one that took the most time for me to see improvement in myself and even after I did see improvement I still new I had miles to go. This showed on April 15 that even after weeks of practice, "I am getting better but I still have a long way to go". In the end I realized that I was far from the best on the team but it meant a lot to me personally that I was a much better player at the end then at the beginning.

That is what this activity meant to me, that I should be proud of improvement even if it is slow and small. I don't regret joining this team because it meant that I got to be part of a great team and learn skills from some wonderfully good players.

The value of this activity is that it a helps people learn new skills and gives them a chance to get exercise. It always made me feel to get out there and get some fresh air and learn a new skills. It made me feel stronger and healthier and accomplished which are such great things and so this activity has a lot of value to it.

This activity benifits others because we are a team and so we are all in it together and helping each other out. I received benefits from people who were helping me and maybe one day if I become a much better player I will be able to help others who are new to the game just like I was.

The learning out come that I meet the most was showing commitment to an activity. This is because tennis was not something I am a natural at and I started out honestly being a pretty poor player. It is very easy to get frustrated when you are not good at something and want to quit but I though I did get frustrated I never quit and only got better. I stuck it out by noticing the small things I was getting better at and picking little things to improve on like on April 28, "I am now able to get the ball completely over the net, I just need to learn to get it into the fight diagonal box and then my serve will be very good." Focusing on it piece by piece helped me commit to the activity better because it showed me that improvement, no matter how little, was indeed happening. I also meet the learning new skills one because even though I never became a all star serve I deffinatly developed a respectable serve. It was a long process but it did happen and it made me very happy like on May 5, "I am starting to think that my serves are really starting to come along now. I am far from perfect when it comes from serving but I played a practice game and I got over half my serves over."

I think that goal of getting five serves over was not I good one to make because it tennis it is less important if you get the serves over in a row and more important to look at the big picture of how many serves you got over in the game. I never reached the goal of five serves over at a time but it does not mean that my serve did not improve. I realized this on May 5 when I noticed, " I never got 5 over in a row like I want to but I did get way over 5 good serves in the course of the entire game." Doing that was more important than my original goal.

The most important lesson that I learned from tennis and that I can apply to the real world is that you may never become the best or great at something but this does not mean that you did not work hard and improve. I may never be a great tennis player, it is something that I am not natural good at but it is something I enjoy. I have learned that I don't have to be great at this activity to have fun and that just because I was never great enough to play in any games does not mean I did not improve because I did! People will never be the best at everything they do, you will have strengths and weakness' and this lesson is a very important and humbling one to learn and I am glad I have learned it.

Yearbook Reflection

When I join yearbook I planed to improve my skills with the computer programs and work together as a group to put together the best yearbook that the school has had so far. Last year I always had trouble with the software and was making a lot of mistakes and this year I wanted to become better at it. This way I would be able to help others because in yearbook we are all working as part of a group to get things done.

At the begining of yearbook I first started out helping brainstyorm ideas as a group. Then we were ssigned pages. I worked on picking out layouts for the junior pages, creating the juinior candid page, taking pictures, and editing pages like the sophomore candid page that needed a lot of work done to fix it up.

For me I felt that I worked so much better this year then I did the last year. I got good at the software and was even able to help others out and solve problems. I remember once Ms. Todorff was having a problem with the layout and I was able to fix it which made me very proud and showed my improvment. As a group we worked together to put together the best yearbook yet and I really think that it is. I looked through the pages when it came out and it seemed like we all halped each other to do a very good job.

I feel accomplished. I feel like I am ready for next year. The seniors always have the most responisblity when it comes to putting the yearbook together and so when I am a senior next year I have to be able to be ready to take on this responsibblity. The seniors have to know the most about the software and putting things together so they can help the underclassmen who are just joining. I felt many accomplishment many times over the year like when I was put in charge of heading design, "I found something that looked nice and fit well with the themes of the yearbook. In the end I showed my design to everybody on the committ and they all liked it a lot and decided to use it. It felt nice to do something creative and independent for the yearbook and then have everybody like it and what to use it." I felt acomplished like that many times over the year. I set out to learn new skills of the software and that I did learn them and now can help others.

I interacted with people in two different ways during the course of yearbook, either they helped me or I helped them. I think that this shows that yearbook is a group where we all have to work together to get things done. If people had a question I would always try to help and if I was struggling people would try to help me.

I percived growth in myself and a greater ease using computers. I was first nervous about being a senior next year and being in charge but now I have percived a growth in understanding of how to run the yearbook and so I am ready for next year.

I like this activity. I think that its a great way to be creative and learn how to organize and set things uop using computers. Computers are only going to become greater parts of are lives and so it is great to have a oppritunity to learn to use them better. I also just loving being able to put to getter something that everybody can look at and enjoy.

This activity ment to me that I could learn new things that I was struggling with. I remember last year how people had to completly re do my pages because I had messed them up do badly that they could not be saved. This year I needed much less help which made me proud that I could improve and I was also helping others. This showed me that I just had to stick with it to get better.

This was a valuable activity because it is a fun way to work on a big project that the who school gets to see. The value of this activity is that it benifits so many people who are not in yearbook. We are making something that has to be good because the gets to see it. People like yearbooks because they help people keep memories of the year that has gone by so it is iomportant to make sure they get the best yearbook possible.

I think I deffinatly did measure up to the eight learniong outcomes. I was able to develop many new skills which is showed throughout the journal entries. At first I was lost when it came to computers and designing things but by the end I felt that I could do it and even help other like on the meeting on January 23, "Then we relized that there was a mistake in one of my pages because one of the pictures was a double and it needed to be taken out. The yearbook leader could not figure out how to fix it and so it seemed as if we would have to delete these pages and I would have to start all over again. Then after i worked on it for awhile I was able to figure out how to delete the doubled picture and save these pages" Also I think that yearbook is all about working together to make the best yearbook possible and so I deffinatly met this outcome as well, like on the meeting of March 28 where I was helping others on my team to make a page better, "After that I helped other student with the MUN page because I was on the trip and could offer ideas on what to do to make the page better."

My goals were perfect for this activity. This is because with one meeting a week and the possibility to do work from home it made it gave me a lot of time to improve. Also with so many people in yearbook there is many people to ask for help and so that also makes arriving at my goals tangible.

In yearbook I ended up learning thing that can be applied in real life. One major thing is that I learned that though I am bad at something this will not always stay thins way and that I will get better. Especially because it is computers I am getting better with and the bloom of technology it will be very helpful to have computer skills in real life. I am glad that I got the time this year to work on the yearbook and learn all these things.

Tennis-Last Day

Today was the last day of Tennis. We lost the States game but I am so proud of my team for making Sturgis Tennis history and making states! I am so glad that I got to be part of the team this year. Today we had a practice where we got to scrimmage with the boys and just have one big goodbye to the season and though my team did not win I was proud of how I played in the game. I had my best severing game of the whole season! I got all my serves in except for maybe three or four of them and so I was very happy. I have been learning that if I throw the ball slightly away from my body that I will have to step into the serve which will give the serve more power and control instead of just whacking at it. I am glad that I was able to see a final improvement because it was something that I never thought that I would be able to accomplish. It feels great and I am very excited to play Tennis again next year and continue to improve on my serve and all the other things that I can improve on.

Tennis-Going to states!

I am very proud to be part of the Sturgis girls tennie team. This week we are practicing and working hard to get ready to go to states. Though I will not be playing in these games because we want to play are best and most experienced players, I am happy to even be part of the team. I will get to see my team mates play and I think that it will help me learn more about tennis just by watching them. I can learn a lot by seeing their serves and other moves because they are the best of are team and so I will one day want to play like them. I am very proud that are team has made it to states and will continue to sport our team and learn!

Tennis-Improved serve

I played a match with my team and during the first half my serving went very well. As the game went on I missed some serves but I was seeing improvment. One thing that helped me achive this was that a team member showed me a different way to throw the ball so that the ball is more in front of you so you have to take a step and follow through to hit the ball. This way the step would allow me to provide more power and control over my serves which really helped. It was nice to have another team member helping me out because it helped me improve and it also made me feel conncected to my team.

I had also recived adivice from the other team on my serve which surprised me. I was playing a practice doubles match with two girls from another schools team. I was struggling with my serve and so they offered me some advice. She told me that if a stood more to the side it would help with my angles which would make it easier to get the ball in the box that it needed to be in. This advice helped me and it also gave me more confidence that the other team were just girls willing to help me and not out to make fun of my poor serving skills. after this advice and with the new way to toss the ball I have improved my serve even more.

yearbook-Arrival of yearbooks!

The final product is here! After much hard work today I finaly got to see the actual yearbooks that we work so hard on all year. I was able to get the chance to look at all the hardwork I had done and also look at all the others students enjoying something that I had helped create. I enjoyed going through the book and picking out what I had done; the pictures I had added and the layouts I created. I felt that this was the best yearbook I had seen so far at my time at sturgis and that it was colorful and well put together. This was something that the yearbook team had to work hard on to make it so. I also felt my work on it was much improved over last years. I liked the layouts I had created and it was great to see it on the final product. Yearbook is now offically over for this year but I have learned a lot that will help me next year.

yearbook- update

I just talked to Ms. Todoroff about what is happening with yearbook because we were supposed to have a couple more meetings and then never did. She informed me that because there will be a new yearbook leader next year she does not want to hold anymore meetings expect one. This will be a meeting that happenes when the final yearbooks come in and we look through the final product and see what we like and what we would have changed and also celabrate for completing the task. After that meeting yearbook will finally be overwith. I am looking forward to this meeting and seeing the final product I worked so hard on.