Personal Odyssey Stuff

As a celebration of my making the volleyball team, I thought I'd post the summary I wrote about my Personal Odyssey from the Personal Odyssey Celebration and the video I made for it.

"My Personal Odyssey is volleyball. In 6^th grade, I realized that I actually really liked volleyball even though I hadn't before. In 7^th grade I played on the GMS VA team and fell even more in love with the sport. I did a bunch of camps and practicing the summer before 8^th grade. I joined a volleyball program called SillY Volleyball through DeAnza college that meets every Saturday morning so I could get more practice and training. I played with my dad and mom at home. Then, once volleyball season started at GMS, I made the VA team again. For my odyssey I've been practicing and playing at all opportunities, making goals, blogging about what I've been doing, and growing as a volleyball player!

Along with my newfound love of volleyball, one of the main reasons for me choosing this odyssey was high school. This is our last year of middle school, and in high school there are tryouts for the volleyball teams and not everyone makes it.  It is very competitive and volleyball is one of the hardest teams to get on at the high school I'm going to. I really want to continue playing volleyball, and I really want to be on the high school team! That is another reason why I really wanted a lot of time and opportunities to practice, learn, and improve my volleyball skills!

I've improved exponentially since before I started this odyssey. I have honed my skills to have more control. I corrected some things I did wrong, too, and learned new skills from my coaches at SillY. I have improved my hitting so that I hit it down and in much more. I have also improved my overhand serving. I didn't used to be able to get the ball over consistently serving overhand. Now I serve it over and in most of the time, and a lot of times the other team can't return the ball! I have learned many new skills, rules and strategies during this process, and improved all my skills with time and good coaching.

This project has been a great experience for me. I have gotten time to practice volleyball that I might not have gotten without this incentive. I'm also doing SillY Volleyball partly because of this odyssey. SillY has been so great for me, and I wouldn't be where I am today with my volleyball if it weren't for them! In addition to these new skills and practice time, I have gotten more confidence. I know more where I should be on the court at any given time, and feel more like I can get the ball if it comes to me, and make it to the setter or wherever it should go. I also feel more confident about my chances of achieving my goal of making the high school team. I enjoyed the opportunity to play more volleyball and learn so much more! It has helped me so much to do this, and I hope it helps me achieve my goal. Even if I don't make the team, I don't regret doing this project. I have grown so much and added to my love of volleyball. Now, I will continue to move on in my volleyball odyssey on my own. It will be an ongoing odyssey, and hopefully the next step will be playing high school volleyball!"

High School Volleyball

You all know that the culmination of my Personal Odyssey was to try out for my high school volleyball team. Well the tryouts were the week before school started and at the end of that week we found out the tentative team. I was going to go to the first night of volleyball tryouts and then if I didn't think I would make the team, I was going to try out for water polo instead, because I also really like water polo and it is the same season as volleyball. I talked to the Varsity coach after the first tryout to see if he thought I had a chance of making the team and he said he thought I was good enough to make the JV team, so I finished the week of 2 workouts a day of volleyball tryouts. At the end of the week I found out that I survived the first cut! On the Wednesday the next week (the first week of school) the team was finalized and I found out I was officially on the JV team! It was very exciting to be on the volleyball team and have reached my goal. It's really fun to be on the team, and all my teammates are really nice, but nearly every single one of them has played club volleyball. I have had probably the least experience on the team. It's really fun, but it takes up a lot of time! Practice is every day after school from 4pm-6pm and we have games every Tuesday and Thursday and sometimes tournaments on the weekends. Mostly all I have time to do is go to practice and then do my homework!

It's very exciting to be on the time and I'm really improving a lot. I am learning more about the specific positions, the rotation, and where people are supposed to be on the court at certain times. I am playing middle, which is in the middle front. It involves a lot of blocking and hitting.

I thought you all would like to know that I reached my goal and am continuing on with my volleyball odyssey.

Here's a picture of our team during a game:

I'm number 15!

Last Volleyball Practice

After the Personal Odyssey celebration, we had our final volleyball practice of the season, of this team and of my time at this school! We had a ton of food. I brought in 2 pizzas and a bunch of Gatorade, people brought in 4 different kinds of cookies, lemon bars, cake, and ice cream! I had a bunch of food, but after all the food of the Personal Odyssey celebration, I didn't eat as much as I might have another time! We made a card for our coach and everyone signed it. We also brought in a picture of the whole team for everyone to take a copy of.

We only had the gym for 20 minutes because they had to set up for another event that would be in there that night. We played a scrimmage in the time we had. It was very fun to play with the team, and I did my best. I actually had some really good dives, both in the same point, that saved the ball and got it either over, or able to be put back over the net! It was the kind of dive I had been wanting to do all season, and I was very happy that I was able to do it and show the team, and also just get the good feeling you get when you do something like that really well. Once we weren't allowed to play in the gym anymore, we went outside and played. It was really hot that day, so everyone drank a lot of water and/or Gatorade. It was just fun to have the opportunity to play, and I savored the last moments I had with my team. People had to leave early, so other people, not from the team, played with us on and off. We had more or less than 6 people on each side at any given time, and it kept changing, but we just kept playing, and it was fun no matter what.

It was our last practice of the year and it was very fun, but I was sad that I had to leave my team knowing that I would never play with them on that team ever again.

Personal Odyssey Project Wrapup

We had the Personal Odyssey Celebration on Friday as planned. Before we set our stuff up, we sat in a circle while some of our teachers talked, each said the title of our personal odyssey, and ate cake that they gave us. Then we had 10 minutes or so to set up our stuff and get ready for the celebration. We had 3 setups per table, each from a different class of Humanities (our English, History, Language Arts-like class). After everyone was setup we all sat on the floor facing the stage and prepared to watch or perform in (depending on who it was) the performance section of the celebration. The rest of the grades came in and sat behind us and the teacher, parents, relatives, friends and other people who had come to see stood in the back and on the sides. Then one teacher announced the celebration and had students come up and do their presentations. We had one person go up and sing and play guitar, one person played a beautiful piano piece, one person performed a piece of spoken word poetry they wrote, one person juggled a soccer ball while a slideshow of photos played, etc. A bunch of people also had videos or slideshows of pictures that they played instead of coming up. We watched all the performances, videos, and slideshows and then went on the the exhibition of the rest of us.

We were allowed to set up whatever we wanted to present our odyssey. We could have however much or little we liked as long as it was reasonable (and safe) and we had a summary explaining the project somewhere. We also had to present our odysseys to people in shifts. They had everyone who was in Humanities group A present their projects first, B second, and C third. Basically, everyone would wander around and look at all the projects and the people who were presenting would stand by their presentations and talk about their projects with the people who came by. We would also answer questions and explain things. I am in Humanities group A, so I stood by mine first. I didn't have a lot of people talking to me, although some teachers did chat with me at the beginning. Most people watched the video I set up and sometimes commented on how good I was at volleyball, and how professional the video looked. Also, people who were on the volleyball team with me looked for themselves in the video.

Once I was allowed to roam, I looked at a bunch of my friends and classmates odysseys. It was very interesting to see what everyone had done, how it all turned out, and how they decided to present their projects. One of my friends did henna art as her personal odyssey, and for her presentation she was actually doing it on people, which made her a very popular place to visit. She had a line that was longer than a wall. She was in the first group to present, like me, and actually didn't get to go look at other people's projects because it took her the whole time to do this and she still didn't get to everyone! Another one of my friends did art as her personal odyssey, and had a thing that connected to her laptop that you could draw on and it would draw on the computer! It was amazing, and she let people actually try it out! People really liked that, too. A girl who was also set up at my table made 1000 paper cranes for her project, and brought in all her cranes as well as Japanese candy for people to try.

A bunch of people brought food for the celebration. Multiple people did cupcake making as their personal odysseys, and other people did cooking through family cookbooks, making recipes from a certain culture, or just had baking as a part of their odyssey, like a friend who was studying Germany as her odyssey and made German cake that she brought in. There was a lot of options, so I tried my friend's cake, and an apple pancake that another girl made.

It was very fun to see what everyone else had done, and let people see all my hard work and enjoy my setup. This was the time for recognition of my personal odyssey and I really enjoyed it. I was very happy with the experience.

Personal Odyssey Celebration!

Tomorrow at school we're having a celebration of the completion of our Personal Odyssey project. First, some people will perform something they worked on in their odyssey (those whose odysseys involved performing, or could be performed). Then people will walk around and look at tables set up with a presentation of the odysseys. We're allowed to set up whatever we want to represent our project, as long as we include reflections from during the process (for me that will be my blog) and a summary of our project. People will walk around looking at the setups and eating sometimes (some people's odysseys were about food) until school is over. Then we will have our final practice of this year with this team and we will have a party with ice cream, pizza, and other food and we will play volleyball together and have fun for our last practice together!

For my setup for the Personal Odyssey Celebration I will have a poster board with pictures of me playing volleyball and my summary, a video playing on my laptop of me playing volleyball, and I will have all my blog posts printed out in a book/packet on the table for people to read.

I will post again after it happens with how it went, and pictures!

VA Home Game- unofficial

Today we had our first, and last VA home game! We played a school no one had ever heard of before. Our gym has a pretty low ceiling, which makes it harder to play because serves or the ball could hit the ceiling and it either causes the other team to get the point, or it changes where the ball goes which makes it harder to get. Since we practice there, we had an advantage because we've had to deal with the ceiling and practice playing without letting the ball hit it. A bunch of parents and other students came to watch us play. My friend's dad, who takes amazing pictures with fancy cameras, came and took pictures of the game, and then a picture of the whole team in our uniforms after the game.

We won both games, and therefore the match. We played well, and set up for hits a lot and did some really good ones. Also, the other team wasn't as good as the other teams, although they did some good things. The home court advantage did help us, though, because they hit the ceiling with serves and other things, which we did much less.

We won the first game by a lot. The second game was much closer, ending with a score of 22 to 25, but we won! We did well, but we got kind of lazy later on not going for some things and they brought it harder. It was never a question, though, that we were going to win (at least the match) and we did it!

That was our last game, and the only one we won this year, but it was a fun game! It was a great season and I learned a lot! I'm so happy we had a good coach this year who had us set up hits, and a good team of people who improved so much! I feel like if we'd had more time to practice together we would've done so much better, and maybe even won more games! It was a great season, it's so sad that it's over already! It went by so fast. I am grateful that I got the chance to play on this team this year, and I hope they continue to improve the quality of playing once we leave and new people join!

VA Volleyball Game #6

On Wednesday we had our last official game. It was a school we felt confident we could beat. We left early to get to the game on time. In the first game we were SOOOO close we could taste the victory that could have happened. The ending score was 24 to 26 and they won. It was a devastating loss, and I really could've seen it going the other way with us winning! The girl who served last and won the game for them was one of their best. She had a jump serve that was amazing, and hard to return. The second game wasn't as close and we lost 15 to 25. We played really well in the first game, and in the end of the second game. We had some really good rallies and we set it up to hit more and got some good hits! I felt like I could've done much better, but I did do a pretty good job. I had one thing where I was in the front row and we were returning the ball after a hit, and it didn't get passed to the setter, it was to me, and instead of setting it, I tipped it back over the net and it went right to the spot in the center of the court where no one was! No one got the ball and it was our point! Another thing that I did that was really good was also in the second game. We worked on blocking in practice on Tuesday, and especially where the people in the back row should be while some people in the front row are blocking. In the second game I was in the right back and  the setter and the right front were blocking, and I went right where our coach had told us we should be in that situation (right behind the blockers to cover the tips) and it was tipped over and since I was in the correct place, I got the ball and it was a good pass right to the setter!

Overall, I think we played well, and it was so frustrating how close we were to winning the first game! We were so close! We improved so much since the beginning of the season, and we played a really good game!