The shed

Champions

Sorry I have said anything in a while but with school and tennis I can hardly find the time to do anything.

Today was amazing. We had a tennis tournament in Champaign and it's the first and one of the hardest of the year. There are 16 teams, mainly from the Chicago area, and each team as 2 doubles teams and 2 singles players. I played #1 doubles with my partner that I picked last Sunday. It was the same one I played with last year when we took 2nd. Well, this year we did one better and took home the first place trophy. In order to win, we played 4 matches, three of which were against the most annoying teams in the history of high school tennis.

The first team was unique. After every single shot that we hit they would compliment us, and they would be having a conversation with each other while we were playing a point. The funniest part was when they asked us where we were from I told them, then said they probably didn't know where that was. She then said, "Oh yeah, I know where that is. We make fun of it's name all the time."

The next girls we played were mean, not to us, to each other. They were sisters and you could tell. I have never seen partners be so mean to each others. They were cursing at each other and calling each other names. It was terrible. One of the girls even started to cry.

The next girls were the worst. They were really good players and I personally thought we were going to lose the match after watching them play their first matches. When they played us they didn't try at all. They could have cared less what happened during our match. Then they got hot, I guess, so they tucked their shirts into their bras and showed off their stomachs. At first, we thought they were mocking us because they were a lot smaller than my partner and me, but then we just realized they were idiots.

I was very impressed with how everyone on our team played. After our #1 and #3 graduated last year no one expected us to do as well as we did last year. We proved them wrong and won the tournament as a team. The best part was making fun of our coach all the whole way home though.

Psychology

Well, I figured it out. I am going to drop conceptual physics tomorrow and take psychology for the first semester. This way I will also get my second semester study hall that I wanted.

Physic and Conceptual Physics?

Many of my fellow classmates think I am crazy because of my schedule this year. Taking 3 science classes and calculus with no study hall and an early bird. The thing is I can't decide is if that's really what I want to do.

I am currently in conceptual physics and regular physics, both being year long classes. I wanted to do this so I could learn the material in conceptual and apply it with more math in regular. Until today I was planning on dropping conceptual at the end of the semester so I can have a study hall to do scholarships 2nd semester. Today they informed me that in order to drop a year long class at the semester I would have to fail the first semester or take an F for the second semester.

This is where I need some advice. Should I stay in conceptual all year. This way I could also help others in that class and have a better overall understanding of physics. Or, should I drop it now and take a study hall. It is my senior year and I have never had a study hall before.

I don't know which one to chose and I have to decide before the end of the week. Please help

Glasses

It has been one of those weeks. The kind where very few things seem to be going right. Well, mine started on Saturday when I found out I have an ulcer on my eye. I still have no idea how it happened or even what it really is. They said I can't wear my contacts for a full week. It wouldn't be that bad if I had a good pair of glasses to wear, but the best glasses I have are from 6th grade. Besides the fact that they are ugly, they also are not near strong enough for my eyes.

Yesterday at tennis I completely embarrassed myself. I was wearing a contact only in my good eye. Let's just say it didn't work to well. So today I tried to wear my old glasses. I played with them in the morning and they worked a ton better.

As I was riding my bike to the tennis, I embarrassed myself again. I was riding along and saw that there was a electrical wire down. It was crossing the sidewalk in a way that I would have clotheslined myself if I kept going straight. In attempt to dodge the line my bike ran right into the electrical pole. Then as my bike hits the pole I go flying over the handlebars. I got scraped up pretty badly but no severe damage, except my pride.

I have a feeling the next couple days will be very annoying having to explain why I'm wearing glasses to the whole school. I can't wait until Saturday.

Shed Update

It still isn't very far, but it's getting there.

The longest wait was for the concrete, so now that the concrete is done it will move a little faster.

New Shoes

New Shoes!!!! I have been wanting these shoes since they came on the market and finally got them. They are the new Reebok KFS Pump Advantage. I have had Reebok Pumps ever since freshman year and they are the best shoe series ever made.

If you're looking for a good tennis tennis shoe, these are what I would recommend.

Decisions

Isn't it amazing how there are decisions that seem so important to us now but we know that they don't matter in the long run. For some of us it's as simple as what to wear or how to style your hair for a picture. For me it's a little different, I have to pick a doubles partner to play with. I have been making this decision for the last three years and it has never been as difficult as it is this year.

My freshman and sophomore year, I played with a 6 foot giant who is two years older than me. We won a lot of matches and surprised a lot of people with the matches we won at state. She played under me in singles but when we played together we both played better than usual. Something about her made me play extra awesome. It didn't hurt that she was hilarious and we had so much fun on and off the court.

Last year I played with my sister. We have been partners since we started playing tournaments at 10 years old. I didn't necessarily think I played extremely well with her but the fact that we played so long together made us a good team. We always knew where the other was and what she was going to do. We also did well at state (not as well as hoped) finishing 9th.

So back to this year, I have no idea who to pick. I have it narrowed down to two girls, but it's a tossup. Both of the girls are very talented, and I have had success with both before. I don't feel inspired with either of them as I did in the past years. That is what makes it so difficult. I can't just pick the girl who is the best at singles and or doubles. I have to pick the girl that plays the best with me and I play the best with her. Hopefully the next couple days of practice will help me with my decision.

Practice

Fall sports practices started today. For tennis, we had practice from 11-2 and 5-7. It didn't seem like that long. I am super tired though.

My sister also left for college today. I had tennis, so I couldn't help move her in. Hopefully everything went well.

School Already

The church picnic wrapped up last night, which means summer is over and it's time for school. This morning we had registration. I went in picked up my packet and yearbook, got my picture taken for the yearbook(it looks terrible), and paid for my parking pass. It's hard to believe that in little over a week I will be in school and be a senior.

The "exciting" part of the day was getting the yearbooks. Overall I wasn't impressed with them. I thought that a lot of the pictures they picked were bad pictures. The one of me on the softball page is hideous and its the biggest picture on the page. There is a bad one of Emily on the musical page. She isn't smiling at all. I also didn't like how they put the people's names on some pictures and on some they didn't put names. It was very inconsistent in my opinion.

Well after that I went to my mom's softball practice. The team scrimmaged and I was the all time catcher. I love catching. I wish I would have been a catcher instead on a first baseman. Anyway, I got nailed on my inner thigh by one of the balls. It was a dimple ball(looks like a huge golf ball), so I hope I get a sweet bruise.

I went home and started reading the mountain of paper work. The one thing I noticed is that our fall sports pictures are being taken on the second day of school. That day is a half day of school and the picture are in the afternoon. For one, I haven't ordered uniforms for our freshman yet. We also are going to have practice. The school doesn't realize that our coach thinks tennis comes before everything.

My schedule is as follows.
EB Religion 4
American Government/Consumers Ed
Physics
AP Calculus
English 4
Anatomy
Conceptual Physics(probably will change to a study hall)
Band(my favorite class)

5th Place

We got 5th place out of 13 teams at the tourney this weekend. We won both of our matches easily today for our finish. We had to play at 8 in the morning and didn't play again until 5. What a long day.

The highlight of the trip was how clumsy our team was. In the first match this morning my partner had to run all the way to the middle of the court next to us to get a ball. He hits it back then fall in the middle of their court during one of their pionts. I was then left to defend the court all by myself and we won the piont. In that same match I also fell. My partner was having a really good rally and the first ball they hit to me, my feet got tangled. I fell right after I hit it. It hurt. We won the piont though. Then in the next match my brother face planted after he hit a ball. He was on his tiptoes of both feet, lost balance, and falls forward on his face. It looked like he was trying to do the worm.

We had a blast. This was the best finish my team has had since we got first back to back years in the 12's.

Team Tennis Championships

Yesterday, after band camp, I left for the Team Tennis Championships in Indianapolis. It is unlike any other tournament I play in the summer and is also my last summer tournament. We play a girls and boys doubles, girl and boy singles, and two mixed doubles matches. We also play two out of three 4 game sets with a 12 point tiebreaker at 3-3 and a super tiebreaker for the third set. Another weird part is that who wins the match is determined by the number of games won, not matches won. Yeah, it's a little confusing.


We started at 9 o'clock this morning playing a team from Western Michigan. I played mixed doubles and we won 4-3, 4-1. As a team, however, we lost by 3 games. After lunch, we played a team from Ohio Vally. I play mixed again but lost this time 4-2,4-2. The boy we played was an amazing lefty. He also beamed me in the stomach on an overhead and didn't even apologize. As a team we ended up losing that one by 4 games. Hopefully we will be able to win our 2 matches tomorrow and I can be home in time for our parish picnic.

"I have good news and bad news"

Well, how to describe today. I don't know where to begin so I guess the morning is a good start. I wake up and go to tennis at 8 with my team for the tourney this weekend. My team consists of 3 boys and 4 girls.(4 of the 7 beings Eskers) We found out that this weekend we have to play 4 game sets and couldn't figure out why.

That ended at 9 when I had to go to band camp. That's right, I am a band nerd. Anyway, camp was a lot of fun. We got more good music including "Iron Man" which is impossible for me to play. We left camp ten minutes early so we could go home before tennis at 12:30.

This is where the day starts to do downhill and fast. My brother and I pull into the driveway and my sister is standing next to her car. She then says that she thinks she ran over Snow. At first I thought she was joking but then I saw her looking for the cat. Snow is one of my cats. He also is called anything with snow in front of it like snowflake, snowbird, etc. He is a white, short haired cat and is deaf.

At this time I am super confused as to what is going on and everyone is looking for Snow. He was not under the car so we looked around the house. I was the first one to find him laying under a bush and gasping at his last breathes. It was obvious that there was nothing we could do to help him. I was still confused because he looked perfectly fine, no blood or visible injuries. He just looked like he was laying is the shade. I still can't believe he's gone.

So, we had to leave for tennis and on the way I was going to get some answers on how this happened. Apparently my sister was backing up and Snow was laying behind one of her tires. She hears him meow after she hits him so she quickly goes forward. Then Snow ran to the bush where we found him.

Then all of tennis was miserable. We agreed not to tell anyone at tennis about it. However I was still sad/angry the whole time and when I am pissed Yale gets pissed. Yale thought it was about my knee though. Those were the longest 2 1/2 hours of my life.

P.S. There really is no good news to this story, but that is what the Vet said when he told us our other cat died a couple years ago.

I'll miss you, Snow.

Drama at the CC

Yesterday was the first day in a month that I worked at the CC. The CC is the local convention center that I work at and I love it. It is a perfect job because they work around my busy schedule and I don't have to work a lot during the school week. The people I work with are awesome. They range from 16 years old to 57(my mom) and you can't beat the uniform, black pants, white tux shirt, vest, and bow tie.

Yesterday I went in at noon for a wedding. It was gorgeous. There was brown chair backs with orange sashes, gold runners on every table, and simple center pieces. The best thing about it was the wedding party set it all up and was going to take it all down. We started setting the tables and everything else we had to do. When we were done setting up that room, we had to start setting up the room across the hall. It was here that we got to hear about the drama.

My boss/manager/aunt got told by her boss that she was working to many hours. They said she either has to cut her hours or they would have to hire someone else to do the scheduling and tips. They obviously don't know how amazing she is at her job and how many hours it requires for her to be that way. They also don't realize that if someone else does the scheduling over half the workers would quit. Almost all of the older ladies(5 of them being my aunts) would quit because they only work because she asks them to when we need more help. And a ton of the highschoolers would have to quit because no one would work around a schedule like she does.

Yes 70-90 hours a week is a lot but she isn't the only one working that many hours, they just don't realize it. The maintenance guys work the same amount of hours but don't get in trouble because they clock in on two separate time cards. So why can't she do that. Maybe I'm biased because she's my aunt but it is a bit ridiculous how they treat her. That place would not run without her there.

Anyway back to the wedding. When it came time to serve, I was the only one out of the 15 servers that had 4 tables. At the same time, I was suppose to be helping the two new guys. It was difficult because I had never had four 8 tops before. Plus I was right next to the kegs so I had to dodge people the whole time. Oh well, I didn't spill anything and I still wasn't the last one done so I did fairly good/well.

I got home at 12:30 that night and woke up to go back to work at 9. This morning wasn't as exciting except for when the two boys called in sick. They were suppose to come in at 5:30 in the morning, but they called at 4:45 and said they were throwing up sick and couldn't make it. My boss was so angry she called their parents wanting to know if they were sick or if they were hungover. It turns out that the latter was correct. One of the boys called her back after she spoke with his mother begging to come in and work(it was already 9). She said, "No Heather asked if you wanted to switch her yesterday and you didn't want to(which was true), am I suppose to let everyone who doesn't want to come in early call and then come in whenever they want." Let's just say they won't be put on the schedule in a while.

Like I said I love my work. It wouldn't be the same without the drama. One of the janitors said he was going to write a book about the CC. He said, "You thought that book War and Peace was long, that would have to be the length of one of the chapters in a book about the CC."