Blog No. 11: Top Ten Stories of 2008

Top Ten Stories of 2008

Today is November 10, 2008, so this year is just about over. Today I decided to look back at this year and list the best things that have happened to me. Hopefully the Thanksgiving and Christmas meals will be able to top anything else that is on this list, but here it is for now.

10. The spring of my 8th grade year was my last chance to play for OJSC (Olympia Junior Soccer Club). It was a lot of fun because it was the best OJSC team that I had ever been on. Before that season, there were three teams that we had never beaten before. Those teams were Washington, Pearce, and Germantown. During that season, we beat Washington and Pearce and I scored a goal in each game! Unfortunately we lost by 5 or 6 goals to Germantown (I lost track) and we didn’t score at all. It was still a really fun season and I think our final record was 4 wins and 3 losses.

9. After I graduated middle school, I played for the Olympia High school soccer team. This year was the first year that we were a varsity team and I think it was the most successful team that Olympia has ever had! It was a good team because we had a lot of seniors that had been through this before and they really helped me understand what was going on. It was exciting to be able to score a couple goals, but the best part was being able to play against older guys. I liked having the challenge.

8. Last May, I went to Washington D.C. as a part of the 8th grade trip. We were picked up by charter buses at Olympia, and then we drove to Midway airport in Chicago. Students from Morton went along with us. That trip to D.C. was the first time that I had ever ridden a plane. It was the scariest thing that I had ever done in my life, but it was a lot of fun. In D.C, I had a lot of fun times with my roommates Jacob, Matt Schmidt, and Matt Schroeder. A highlight of that trip was watching a play that required audience participation. It was a murder mystery that we had to solve. One of the suspects looked like Howie from Deal or no Deal and he was gay! Climbing on giant rocks and looking over the Gettysburg battlefield was fun too.

7. On November 1, my sister Rosie and I went to an Illinois football game. I had never been to a college or professional football game before, so it was really exciting. Illinois played Iowa and they won the close game 27-24. I had never seen as much orange as what was in that stadium! After the game, we went back to Bloomington and ate at Fiesta Ranchera, before going back to Rosie’s apartment. It was a great day.

6. July 8 was a scary day for many people, I got my drivers permit! I took drivers ed during the summer because if I waited for school, then I would have gotten my license after I already turned 16. I am comfortable driving anywhere now, but it will get interesting again when the roads get icy and snow covered.

5. For the last two winters, I have played indoor soccer at Lincoln Christian College. This year I decided that it would be fun to go to the soccer camp there. Sam Rosa is the coach and he is awesome because he is Brazilian! I went to camp with Hannah and Melissa, but there were other kids from Olympia there too. My roommate was Caleb Jennings. I think I played more soccer that week than the rest of my life combined! I was really sore by the end of the week, but it was all worth it. Cade was a college student there that helped us and he was really funny. I enjoyed talking to him especially when he would make fun of Sam. Sam always called us square heads for some reason.

4. Last years varsity team at Olympia had a great season. I don’t know if it was the best ever at Oly, but it was definitely the best that I remember. We made it to the Elite Eight, one game away from state! I went to just about every game that season, home and away. I usually went with the same group of friends: Hannah, Melissa, and Taylor (sometimes Dean). The best part of that season was when we scored 84 points on Central Catholic in the Sectional game!

3. I spent a lot of time with Hannah Bauersfeld and her family last summer. I really enjoyed that because they were a lot of fun to be with and we did fun things together. The best time was when we went to Champaign. We left on a Saturday and we ate at the Candy Kitchen. It was a nice old restaurant that served food, ice cream, and made lots of candy. Then we went to see their Uncle Bill who moved into a new retirement home. He was the only person living there at the time. Uncle Bill is 100 years old, but he is still healthy and can do just about anything! After playing a few games of pool and talking with Uncle Bill, we went to Hannah’s grandparents’ house to stay. They were not home but they had fixed the house up for us and even made us food for the night. We spent most of the rest of the night watching the Beijing Olympics. Sunday morning we went to church and then we went into Champaign to see a play. The play that we saw was “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream coat.” It was a really funny play and it was worth spending two days with Hannah’s family!

2. 8th grade track was a great experience. 1. I got out of doing long jump 2. I got out of doing the open 400 meters 3. I was put into doing the mile and the 4x100 meter relay. I wanted to be in the mile because I felt a lot better about running a longer distance than a sprint. In a sprint you have to be physically better, but in the mile it is more mental because you have to make yourself go as hard as you can and you have to decide when to make a move and when to hang back. I was nervous about the 4x100 because I was afraid that I would mess up the team. I was not as fast as the other three, so I was worried that I would get blamed for losing. In the end, I didn’t have to worry about it because we hardly ever lost! We made it to state in the 4x100 and we placed 15th in state. We were less than a second away from being the second fastest team! The state track meet was one of the best experiences of my life.

1. The best experience of 2008 was seeing David Beckham play soccer! For my birthday, Rosie bought tickets to see the Los Angeles Galaxy (Beckham’s team) play at D.C. United in Washington D.C. It was funny because before the 8th grade trip, I had never ridden a plane before and then I took two trips in less than a month! We stayed in Virginia for almost a week because we have cousins that live there. It was fun to hang out with them especially Braden. Braden is my little 2 year old cousin and I had never really met him before. He was fun to play with. Finally it was Sunday and it was time to go into D.C. for the game. We didn’t drive all the way into town because it is easier to take the metro. It was a weird feeling to ride backwards! We got to the Stadium and I was amazed when I saw how big it was! I have been to soccer games at Toyota Park in Chicago and it wasn’t nearly as big as the stadium in D.C. I wanted LA to win, but D.C. won 4-1. That was okay because I got to see David Beckham and a lot of goals!