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.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, June 1, 2009
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.
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