Waimanalo Beach

In March our softball team traveled to play in a tournament at the University of Hawaii. On our off day we had the amazing opportunity to visit Waimanalo Beach. The waves were perfect for boogie boarding and the weather was beautiful. It was definitely a day that I will never forget. 

Distance

Distance is physical. It can mean thousands of miles away like we are now, or the centimeters between us before our lips touch. Distance is time, time spent apart. Lover's greatest battle, one minute, one day, one month. The pain of being separated is all the same. Distance is a feeling. The feeling of not being connected. The feeling of constantly wondering what they are doing, whether or not they are thinking of you like you are them. Its the feeling of acting like something doesn't matter as much or something else is more important. Distance is a trick that we play on our own minds. It is the hardest thing that I will do, but every day I thank God that I have you.

Challenge

I have faced many challenges in my life but none have been greater than two years ago when I was injured. During a game I slid into second base and shattered several bones in the middle of my foot. I had to have major reconstructive surgery and have several plates and screws inserted. I had to go through about eight months of rehab to start walking and at about a year I was cleared to run. Not being able to participate in sports, workout, or do anything active was a huge lifestyle change for me. I learned to do other things with my time and found that sports weren't everything that my life should revolve around. Getting hurt was also one of the hardest times in my life. The doctors were unsure if the surgery was going to work or if I was ever going to be able to play again. It was devastating but it helped pushed me through my rehab and make me even more determined to not only play but be even better than I was before. It was a very slow process. It was six months until I could walk on my own without crutches or having to wear a boot. One of the worst parts that was after 4 months of healing and working so that I was just in a boot I had to have surgery a second time to remove some of the hardware that they had put in the first surgery. Mentally it was so hard to restart and be placed backwards after so much hard work in rehab. Even once I was fully cleared I could not start playing right away. Yes, I was cleared to run, but only in a straight line. This was frustrating because I was so close yet so far away. The best feeling was when I finally got to get back out on the field after all of the hard work that I had done to get healthy again.

Commentary Paper Topic - Concussions

One of the biggest concerns of coaches and parents in sports is their player’s safety. Concussions have been one of the hottest and most controversial topics to arise in the past few years. On one side, people do not think that concussions are being taken seriously. They believe that there needs to be more rules and regulations in clearing players to return to sport as well as more training for the people observing and caring for athletes. On the other hand, many believe that concussions are not a serious problem. They believe that the precautions taken after an athlete takes a blow to the head are not needed. In their view this is the public becoming soft and babying athletes. Both believe that their views are best for the athletes they are taking care of, but which side is correct?

I believe that concussions are a serious problem if ignored. Injuries to the brain are very dangerous and undiagnosed a severe concussion can have alarming effects. I played with a girl that now has a speech impediment as well as problems with feinting as a result of multiple concussions. I think that the public needs to know how dangerous concussions can be and that sitting out is a very worthy precaution in comparison to the possible damage that may result from ignoring the injury.

Like A Girl

I will be doing my rhetorical analysis on this video Like A Girl. I am really excited about this topic as I am a female athlete that is constantly being told, "you throw like a girl."It is very inspirational and I think will make for some great research.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjJQBjWYDTs

Adventure

I am one of those people that can never sit still or be cooped up indoors. I usually go crazy during the winter if I don't go and do things outside or go to work out. I love adventure. I am a thrill seeker and I love adrenaline rushes. Anything from white water rafting, to amusement parks, I absolutely love. I have been to the roller coaster capital of the world in Cedar Point, Ohio. It is an amusement park called Cedar Point. It is home to some of the fastest and highest rollercoasters in the world. The biggest is the Top Thrill Dragster. It takes off at speeds of over 120 miles per hour and goes over 300 feet in the air. We waited in line for two hours to experience ten seconds of gut clenching thrill. It went so fast that my started watering and it looked like I was crying. It is still one of the best rollercoasters I have ever been on. In Hawaii we went zip lining when we were on one of our cruises. The course  weaved its way through the rainforest and spanned huge cliff drop offs. Several of the lines were over 1000 feet long. It is also home to one of the longest zips in the world and one of the only water zip lines. There were single and tandem lines meaning you could go side by side. On the long zips you had enough time that you could flip and hang upside down. At the water zip you held onto a bar that went off over a cliff and dropped you into a natural waterfall. You could also jump straight off the cliff if you wanted to. I have went cliff jumping in several places. There are a few spots that are around 30 feet high around my home and then I have gone on several vacations. Whitewater rafting in West Virginia had up to level three rapids and a rock at about 40 feet that you could jump from. I think it would be so much fun to go sky diving or bungee jumping. I couldn't imagine how much your stomach would roll as you free fell through the air. I don't always do crazy things. I love to go hiking in the mountains and in the desert. Usually anything outside that is active I would want to try. At my grandparents house we go tubing on their lake when it is warm and go ice tubing behind a snowmobile during the winter. I am terrible at skiing and snowboarding but I think it is a lot of fun and have tried several times. Most of my fun usually revolves around some kind of water. Swimming is one of my favorite things to do and I also would way rather be in the warmth than the cold. I love adrenaline and will never turn down a challenge or opportunity to have some crazy fun. Traveling all of the country and to different parts of the world has exposed me to so many amazing things that you can do. I know for sure as I get older I will continue to travel to try and quench my thirst for adventure.

Music

One thing about me that people quickly find out is that I love music. I listen to many different kinds and in general will listen to anything. My favorite type of music is alternative rock. Now this isn't the hard metal head banging rock that people usually think of or the goth punks. It is kind of the middle ground. It has some rock and grunge but mostly it is kind of hipster. Speaking of hipster another one of my favorite types of music is reggae. I love the Dirty Heads. I listen to them a lot when I am studying or going to bed because it is so mellow. I used to absolutely hate country until about a year ago when I started hearing it more around one of my friends. Then I moved here and our team listens to a lot of country and now it has grown on me a ton and I listen to it the most when I am studying. I always go through phases where I will be obsessed with a type of music and then move on after a couple months. In high school I loved 2000s rap and hip hop from Nelly to 50 Cent. I still love to listen to them when I am working out and doing anything active. When I was a freshman I asked my dad for tickets to a concert for my birthday. It was just a small concert but it was so much fun and I was hooked. For my 17th birthday I got to see Justin Timberlake. I loved him in his boy band, to say the least I was a fan girl and then saw him perform his Smoke and Mirrors tour. It was such an amazing concert. He had a stage that moved all around the Excel Energy Center in Minneapolis. I went to several smaller bands at a venue called First Avenue in Minneapolis. I have seen New Found Glory, Smallpools, and Neon Trees there. Usual concerts have two smaller opening bands that warm the crowds up for the headliners. These concerts are fun but nothing compares to going to a festival. I went to my first festival this past summer in Grant Park Chicago. Lollapalooza is one of the original festivals and is also one of the biggest and best that you can go to. It is three days of straight music and bands playing. Bands usually would start around 12 in the afternoon and changed every hour until ending around 12pm when the park closed. I saw over thirty different bands play in three days. My favorite had to be my favorite band Twenty-One Pilots. They have all kinds of alternative bands but also have hip hop, some rap, and even current pop music. The biggest headliners that we saw were Metallica, Florence and the Machine, The Weekend, and Paul McCartney. There were thousands of people there and it filled the entire park. There were two main stages that were about a mile apart with five other smaller stages surrounding the walk back and forth. There was a huge DJ stage, the Samsung Galaxy stage, the Bud Light Stage, and four smaller ones spread through some smaller groups of trees. This was one of the coolest experiences of my life and I get to go to another one this summer! For Christmas my parents gave me tickets to a festival in Tennessee called Bonaroo. It is a huge festival just like Lollapalooza but instead of the park closing and staying in a hotel you camp at the grounds. It is a four day festival and I am so so excited to go and see so many more amazing bands play.