Cello!

Goals: Over the next two years, I hope to augment my skills as a cello player. This is very important considering I started cello when I started high school, so seeing my improvement (and hopefully there is some) would be very beneficial to my role as a musician. I also hope that along the way, I can work with my cello-mates and learn as much as I can from them. Since I am now in Honors Orchestra, the music is much harder, therefore requiring lots of individual practice time at home. With the higher level of music, I hope that if I continue to work hard, I will be able to play the harder music with greater ease, reflecting on how I can use my skills to contribute to the greater good of the orchestra as well as improve my career as a musician. Over the past two years I have stuck mainly to playing in orchestra class, so my goal is to participate in events outside of school and push myself to be a part of the musical community and play cello at events that I would not have dreamed of participating in before.


2013-14
I am starting out Honors Orchestra this year and the music is definitely different. I instantly ran into a problem at the beginning that would haunt me for the rest of the year. My schedule got messed up so I am not able to be in the same class as the Honors Orchestra. instead, I have an independent study period when the Repertory Orchestra practices. This seems to be working our fine because it means I have more time to practice my individual piece with a fellow cello-mate in a similar situation. However, this blog is not to discuss what goes on during school hours, but rather after school. As I mentioned before, Honors Orchestra plays music of a higher caliber, and with I, having only two years of experience of the cello, have to do a lot at home.

   Additionally, there are only four cellists in Honors Orchestra, including me. This would not be a big problem if we are all playing the same part, however the piece that my instructor picked has three different parts for the cello as well as a separate piece of music for our principal cellist. This arrangement means that each cellist is playing their own part-the pressure is on each of us. Because of this stressful factor, the fact that I am not in the correct period to be practicing with the whole orchestra is even more stressful because I do not know how the piece is supposed to sound. Now I take my cello home every weekend to practice. The piece we are playing is called Holberg Suite and sounds very nice when played right. There are many parts that are way too fast for me, which is why while I am at home, I go through each note to make sure that I am playing the right note. Once I get the notes right, I focus on the speed and beats of the notes to understand the tempo. Then finally, after learning the notes, I work on speed. Something else that I was introduced to is the heavy use of the tenor cleft, even though cellos are in base cleft. Basically, this means that I have to learn how to read tenor cleft as well, something that does not seem that bad. However, the difficult part of tenor cleft is that most of it is played in a high fourth position on the cello-basically what I consider no man's land because it is so high and at times hard. Despite my fears of reading tenor cleft, I know that I have to learn in order for the piece to flow together. Since I was not able to participate in the class, I had to put a lot of time at home making sure I understood the tempo of everything.
  Luckily, my dad is a cello major, so whenever I had a question at home, he would be able to help me. He worked with everything from intonation to playing position to make sure that I play the notes correctly. Being in the orchestra at school required lots of outside time for me to improve my skills to help the orchestra to the best of my abilities. Many times, I feel that I am so behind because I only started playing my freshman year, which means I must work twice as hard outside of school to bring my skills up to my classmates' level- all of whom have been playing since middle school.

2014-15
  From starting cello as a freshman and not knowing how to sight read or play the cello very well, I do not think I would ever imagine that I would become first chair in honors orchestra. Coming in my senior year, I did not know what to expect. Mrs. Green introduced the class to Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet and we began to study the entire piece. The piece is composed of five different movements and each has a specific story behind it. What is great about music is that the composer tells a story through the music he or she is composing and the musician's part is to become creative with the piece and present the story to the audience in the best way possible using his or her imagination and style of playing. A big part of being in an orchestra is using your time outside of class to study the piece. At home, I dug deeper into the piece and researched its meaning. I learned that it was composed during the oppressive government of the Communist Soviet Union. The government did not allow Shostakovich to compose this piece because it was too radical for the government, but he defied the government and composed it anyways, presenting it to as many audiences as he could. When listening to the piece, each movement portrays a small story that is a part of the general theme of how terrible and oppressive the government was. As I played at home, I tried to find the best way to portray the movements, based on my own creative playing style. As I continued to practice with my friends, I came across two solos that I am expected to play since I am first chair. At first I was extremely scared because the music was written in Treble Cleft, something that is rarely found in high school cello music, so I was afraid because I was not as advanced as Kieran Campbell, a cellist at Julliard who went to Grimsley four years ago who played the same piece. A bigger part of me was scared because I did not want to ruin the story. I felt that perhaps my creative style and interpretation of what was going on during my solo in Shostakovich's mind would not be correct or be the best way to portray it. During my first solo, I imagine a time of rebellion, and thought that adding vibrato or legato would not give its total effect, so I became more careful of my stylistic techniques while practicing the solo. My other solo is completely the opposite as it has an extremely sad tone. My interpretation is that somebody was dying at the hands of this oppressive government. i think this means that I need to use a lot of vibrato and legato to make each note sound extremely sweet and tender. I also should take my time with this solo so that the audience can become connected with what is going in as well.
Solo Time!

Honors Orchestra Concert

    Before the concert started, I was extremely nervous and I honestly did not think I could play this solo by myself. I know that I had been practicing it for a long time, but it was something that required me to step out of my comfort zone and play on the portion of my cello that I had never played on. However, I thought about what I had done to prepare: hours of practicing after school and at home, playing it slow, then fast, then playing it on different beats- I had done all that I could do to prepare given my rigorous academic and volleyball schedule. After the performance was over, I was extremely proud of how much I had improved in such a small amount of time and even more glad the performance was over. Now that it is over, I am really glad that I was able to play that solo because of the skills that I had to learn to achieve it. I feel that my cello skills have improved so much and am excited to continue cultivating them at home so that I can further contribute to my orchestra. Below I have included clips of the performance. The first part is my solo followed by the quartet that I played in where I also had the same type of solo.

Southeast String Festival
    The Southeast String Festival is held annually at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro (UNCG). I wanted to continue to challenge myself in music so I auditioned for it and was accepted. I thought by participating in this festival, I would be able to meet lots of great musicians that I can learn from and apply what I learn to my cello playing. The festival was three days long and it was a great experience. When I arrived, we immediately had sectionals and began to practice the music. All the other cellists there were far more advanced than I was, and I was so amazed at their skill level given their age. I was not at their level, but I was happy that I was able to surround myself with these fantastic young cellists that I can learn from. When we received our seats, I was second to last, but this did not bother me because I knew that these other cellists spent all their time playing and their spots were well-deserved. Throughout the three days, I learned new finger positions from them that I would not have thought of on my own. They were able to maneuver about the fingerboard with great ease as they found way to play hard parts using very easy fingerings. One piece that we played called "Molly on the Water" was an Irish jig and was much faster than I thought it was. I was not able to play it up to the tempo that everyone else was playing, so I had to spend extra time on that piece to make sure I could play as much as I could up to tempo. I know that in my high school orchestra, we have never played a piece quite that fast, and it was very intimidating for me to hear everyone else play it up to tempo. However, I really wanted to take myself to the next level and practiced that piece at home as much as I could so that I could try to play up to their speed. Needless to say, I was happy that I was able to attend and learn a lot form higher caliber musicians.

Learning Outcome: Increased Awareness of my Own Strengths and Weaknesses                                 With the cello, there are definitely more places that I can improve on. However, I have noticed that my skills are improving since my entry into the honors orchestra. When I started orchestra as a freshman, I could not sight read and barely know how to play, now I am able to make my own fingerings and as section leader, I know the music well enough that I can find ways to play difficult parts in an easier way so that everyone can play it with ease. I could have never imagined that I would improve my skills that much since I began. However, there are still lots of skills that I have yet to acquire and know that as soon as I feel that I have understood a certain skill, there will always be another skill that I have yet to learn about.

Learning Outcome: Undertaken New Challenges
   I have never considered myself a musician, even when I started playing the cello because I never saw myself as an active member of the musical community. Over the past two years, I wanted to feel a part of the musical community and engaged myself in activities that I would not have done otherwise. From volunteering to play in quartets for big and small events to participating in a music festival, each time I have faced a difficulty in cello, I wanted to overcome it. Learning the Treble Cleft and taking up the position as the section leader has expanded my involvement in the community and has given me many new challenges.

Learning Outcome: Developed New Skills
   Coming into orchestra, I had minimal skills as a musician. Through working at festivals and playing at fundraisers, I have not only learned a lot about myself as a cellist, but I have also learned about the dynamic that is necessary in a quartet. Playing in smaller groups is very different because we do not have a conductor so we must rely on each other. Learning things about music from my classmates who play another instrument has proved very beneficial and helped me connect what skills I was personally learning on the cello with the skills that are demanded from playing with a group of musicians.

Learning Outcome: Shown Perseverance and Commitment
  Because I had only begun playing cello when high school started, I had to allot much of my time at home to practicing so that I can continue to grow as a musician. When I was told that I was first chair, which required me to play a lot of solos, I did not back down, understanding that although being first chair was an honor, I had to work twice as hard as my fellow musicians. Whether it be 30 minutes before bed or right before I left for school, I had to make sure that I found time to work and develop my skills, whether it be working on my solo, bowing technique, or developing proper fingerings for the piece that I give to the rest of my section. Despite all of the time I could have spent doing other things, the time that I committed to cello was the most rewarding after finally being able to play the solos that were written in a different cleft and required me to shift up past fourth position, something that I could not have imagined I could have done when I first started.

                                                  

Grimsley High School Volleyball Season- 2014-15 season (Senior Year!)

Goal: Building from my season last year, I hope to achieve a higher level of volleyball while working and growing with my teammates. Since this is my last year before hopefully playing in college, it is important that I give my 100% to my team and be sure to leave my mark on the court. I also hope that as I improve my personal skills, I can help teach my younger teammates tips and tricks in the wonderful game of volleyball. I specifically would like to improve my jump setting more and work on reading the other side before I set.


The Last Season:
         During preseason workouts in the summer, it had not hit me that I was going to be one of the oldest players on the team, meaning everyone was going to look up to all the seniors on the team. As the season started, something that I constantly had to be aware of was my actions on and off the court. I remember when I was not a senior, I always looked up to the seniors on my team and wanted to do act the way they did. Luckily, I had great seniors every year who were amazing role models and

Senior Picture

taught me how to carry myself-I hope that I could do the same for the younger girls on my team. Always being open and encouraging is a feature that I find very important, so I made sure that my team knew that they could always count on me for anything they needed. I kept extra knee pads, socks, hairbands, and spandex in my bag in case somebody forgot theirs at home. They came in handy many times as my teammates accidentally forgot their gear at home several times throughout the season. I also made sure that I was always early for practices and games to help set up the court as fast as possible. This proved very important because the faster the nets were set up, the more time we could practice. As I practiced my jump setting more and more, I found that I began to feel comfortable enough to start doing it in games. The first time I did it without thinking about it, then once I realized that I had just jump-set, I wanted to do it more. Jump setting is advantageous because it makes it harder for the blocker on the other side to guess where I am going to set the ball, thus giving me a better chance to set up my hitters with one block to hit against instead of two. We also started running different plays with the hitters to fake out the blockers on the other side which was very fun because I had to examine our opponents defense and blockers and decide which play to run based on who was on the court on my side and the opponent's side. This decision making process was very fun to learn and apply as I could feel myself and the team improve. The highlight of my last season was when we put on our annual breast cancer fundraiser, but this year there was a twist. Instead of playing another high school like we normally did, we challenge the football team to a game of volleyball. The planning and execution was awesome and it was really fun playing them for a great cause. We ended up raising more than $2,000 from the fundraiser which was all donated to breast cancer research. However, the most memorable part of the season was probably the worst part of it. Our high school's biggest rival is Page High School and we play them in volleyball every year and for the past 7 years, the Grimsley Varsity team has beaten them. Unfortunately this year, the outcome was not what we had hoped for. We lost to Page and everyone felt so upset. The main point of any failure story is to learn and improve from the failure. Although we lost to our rivals, we turned around and beat the three time defending conference champion, Southern Alamance, which helped our spirits rise to finish off the season making it to the first round of State Playoffs. No matter what happened, I am extremely grateful to have been a part of the Grimsley Volleyball Program for the past four years and know that no matter where I go, I will always have a Grimsley family to turn to whenever I need support.

Dig Pink Fundraiser- football team vs. volleyball team

Learning Outcome: Worked Collaboratively With Others: As mentioned in the previous Grimsley Volleyball blog post, volleyball requires the effort of each player on the court. Without 100% effort, there is no way a team can win. I found that this year specifically, our loss to Page caused us to come closer together and learn to rely on each other when we fall. After being knocked down, the only thing we could do is help each other get back up; everyone worked on their individual skills that they needed to improve. After focusing on technique, we had to learn how to use these new skills to benefit and work with everyone else's skills on the team.

Learning Outcome: Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities: Senior year means lots of fun activities and places to go to enjoy the last year of high school. Many times, my fellow seniors and I had to sacrifice these one-time events to come to practice. Although it was hard seeing our friends have a good time at football games or bonfires, working hard in the gym was worth all the missed events for me. Volleyball is such a technique-based sport that it requires constant practice to gain the proper muscle memory, and I understood this when I committed to playing the sport.

Learning Outcome: Increased their awareness of their own strengths and areas for growth: For me, jump setting this year was my biggest improvement because I was able to be so confident in them that I started doing it in games. I am normally a very safe player, so seeing myself step out of my comfort zone to try jump setting originally brought me to a new level of confidence in myself that I did not have before. I also know that there are things that I still need to work on. I really want to focus on my agility and leg strength so that I can get to the ball fast which will improve my jump setting.

Grimsley Volleyball Media Liaison

Goals: Grimsley High School always does a volleyball fundraiser for one of our volleyball games against Page, our biggest rivals. Our fundraiser for this year was for Cancer and all the proceeds from the game were donated to the American Cancer Foundation to help their research. This year, Grimsley is hosting it and I have taken the position of being the media liaison. This is my first time doing any kind of advertising work, so I hope that this will help me learn how to plan this section on my own so that it can help get the word out about the fundraiser. I also hope I can learn a lot of new skills regarding the communication and advertising business-something that I have very little experience doing.


I was very hesitant when the fundraiser coordinator was looking for a media liaison. I did not think that I would be able to do it considering I am only a high schooler- I was afraid I would not be taken seriously when talking to adults. However, I thought that this would be a great opportunity to improve my communication skills and learn a little bit about advertising. Needless to say, I hesitantly volunteered to do it, not knowing what I would get myself into. First, I decided that they best way to star was sending an email to all the news stations in my community. I started out with WFMY News 2 and FOX 8 news when I realized that I needed to get the word out as much as I could. After composing some emails and becoming more confident in my communication skills, and throughout the month,

News article that I coordinated about the fundraiser

I started reaching out to local radio stations such as 107.5 KZL and newspapers like The Greensboro News and Record. I was so nervous about getting responses because I did not want to fail my team, so I awaited anxiously for responses. Some stations said that they did not have enough room to cover it, however, one of the talk show hosts emailed me back saying that she would love to mention it on "Murphy in the Morning", one of the most popular radio shows in Greensboro! I had been listening to that radio show since I was a little kid, so being able to listen to my announcement on the show was a great experience. After, I also got a reply from a writer with the News and Record, wanting to come out during the game to do an article about it. After further communication, the newspaper came out to the game, took pictures, wrote and article, and conducted interviews to include as well. This experience was great and I am so happy that I volunteered for this position. I would definitely volunteer for it again next year if I could, unfortunately next year is Page's turn to host, so they will have their own liaison, but if there is ever a spot needed, I would love to fill it. At this point, I would also like to volunteer for other positions so that I can expand my horizons and learn new things. I went into the position of being a liaison without knowing anything and coming out with much more knowledge than before and I would be willing to do so in any other new position as well.




Learning outcome: Planned and initiated activities-
    This was definitely a step out of my comfort zone, especially because I was not working with anyone else on the team. I had to plan everything with the adults working in the media, which was hard at times because I wanted to make sure I could get as much coverage as possible. Planning all the media on my own definitely taught be a lot about the advertisement world and the communication skills necessary to advertise well. One thing that I thought was one of the most important parts of advertising is just being confident and putting yourself and your cause in front of as many people possible, someone will be interested, it just might not be the first person you see, which is why you have to try again no matter what.

Learning Outcome: Developed New Skills
    As I mentioned before, I learned a lot about communications and advertising, learning how to reach out to adults in a professional manner. Confidence was also a huge lesson learned-if you are not confident in yourself, how do you expect others to want to do business with you? By showing confidence and preparedness while talking to the media, your changes are bettered immediately because you can capture their attention and "sell" your product.

Learning Outcome: Considered the Ethical Implications of their Actions:
    Cancer is a very serious illness and choosing it as our focus was very hard due to the numerous diseases that affect millions of people every day. By raising awareness through something as big as the Grimsley-Page rivalry, we are putting our rivalry to good use and giving back to the community that raised us. As I sought out various forms of media, I reflected on all the great people out in the world who have to stop their passions due to an illness. The process taught me not to take any minute of playing the sport I love for granted, as many people are not able to have to same opportunity. Thinking about how this fundraiser can help a fellow volleyball player, mom, soccer player, artist return to doing what they love most drove me more to reach out and advertise this even as much as possible.

Miles for Matthew

Goals: Muscular Dystrophy is a muscle disease that inhibits the movement of the victim's muscles. It is one of the muscular diseases that often gets forgotten about, which is why by volunteering for Miles for Matthew, I hope to help local awareness of Muscular Dystrophy. I also hope I can meet new student ambassadors and work collaboratively with them in order for this event to run as smooth as possible.






Miles for Matthew is a great way to raise awareness for muscular Dystrophy in our community. This annual 5k race is held at our local arboretum and is filled with a diverse group of citizens of all ages and all the proceeds go to Muscular Dystrophy research. I decided that I wanted to volunteer at this event this year instead of running it and did so along with other student ambassadors for Grimsley. While we were there, our job was to direct the runners to make sure they went the right way.

Although the weather was rainy, we stood outside along the course cheering on the runners and providing them with anything they needed. It was great to see people that I knew who were running the course and show their support. We also worked with A&T University students to work the race, providing water and support for the runners. It felt really nice knowing that even though I was just one volunteer working, I was making a difference. Diseases like this one cause lots of pain and hardships in people's lives, yet they stay so positive and strong through their lives, something that it truly heroic and inspiring. If people can find happiness in their lives despite the fact that they are living with this disease, then I should do my part in helping them every way I can and show my support for them. This should be the case for any global issues, whether it be a disease like Muscular Dystrophy or a fight for cleaner drinking water (another event that happened at Grimsley). This experience taught me that as a global citizen, it is my job to help my fellow citizens of Earth make the most out of their lives and look out for them. Even the smallest actions can help raise awareness for a big issue in our society such as Muscular Dystrophy and I would love to volunteer at the next event.

Learning Outcome: Engaged in issues of global importance- As I mentioned above, Muscular Dystrophy is a disease that is often forgotten about. Since a teacher at my high school had a son with this disease, raising awareness by getting people to participate in this event was especially important. By getting the community aware of Muscular Dystrophy, I hope that I have made at least a small impact knowing that at least more people know about it than before. Since MD is such a scary disease, often leading to death, it is essential that more people are aware. By knowing more about what is happening to fellow community members, each person can help and support that person, they are able to fight the disease next to them the entire time.

The UNCG International Festival

Goals: Every year the International festival brings together different cultures to have the Greensboro community come out and learn about different countries. This year I hope to broaden my knowledge about different countries while developing my global awareness of what life is like in other countries. Since there will also be performances, I would like to see how different countries express themselves through music and dance and compare rhythms and styles to one another. By volunteering, I want to encourage people to explore new countries and try new food so that they too can become more knowledgeable and gain access to a whole new world of customs, flavors, and traditions.

Before the festival started

In the past, I had attended the International festival solely as a Turkish girl wanting to know more about different countries. I liked it so much that I decided that this year I would like to volunteer and help the festival as much as possible. I arrived at the host site, The University of North Carolina-Greensboro, at 8:00am with some other classmates. We were all really excited to be there and help out so as soon as the trucks arrived, we began unloading all the tents and setting them up in their designated locations.

Unloading tents

Setting up tents

      Everything was going well until we got one tent that was just rods and connectors, meaning we would have to build it on our own. After numerous efforts and lots of tape, we finally managed to assemble the tent and keep it stable so that it could last the entire day. Then after we set up all the tents, we went to the loading dock to wait for people who needed help unloading all their booth materials and decorations. The very first lady who we helped was from Malaysia. As we carried her food and decorations to her booth, she told us how to prepare spicy Asam Pedas, the dish that I was carrying. After helping her set up the booth, we went back and started unloading the items for the Germany and Columbia booths. We continued setting up numerous booths until all of them were complete. Throughout the festival, we were in charge of picking up any trash and changing trash bins once they had been filled up. We also got to watch the back-to-back performances they had on the stage, which was my favorite part of the festival. One of my classmates even da
nced two traditional Chinese dances. My favorite performer was a girl from Madagascar, I had talked to her previously and I learned that red is the most popular color in Madagascar and that everyone loves wearing it and having it on their houses so when she performed on stage with a red dress on, I loved that I knew why.

Experiencing Bubble Tea!

    Later, we got to walk around and try the different foods and I discovered some really neat dishes and treats! I tried Bubble Tea from Taiwan, then a sweet frozen yogurtlike dessert from South Korea and fell in love with both! After the festival was over, we stacked all the tables and chairs for the workers to come and get and we took down all the tents. After a final survey of the land to make sure there was no more trash, our service at the International Festival came to a close at 6:00pm. I had such a great time and cannot wait to do it again next year!










Learning Outcome: Engaged with Issues of Global Importance
    Nowadays everyone has such busy schedules trying to balance school, work, and social live that sometimes they tend to forget that we are not the only country in the world. By participating in this festival, I helped bring people together to get away from their busy lives for a day and have them open their eyes to the cultures and people around them. I hope that the people who came learned some really cool stuff about a country they came in knowing nothing about.

Reading with LiLi

Goals:  Through volunteering at the Greensboro Montessori School and helping Lili improve her reading skills, I really hope I can leave a positive impact in her life and teach her skills that she will use for the rest of her school and outside life. Since I have never been a tutor before, I also want to learn more about myself as a teacher others. Although I have had some coaching experience at the Greensboro Sportsplex, I think that there are some elements in teaching someone a sport that are different than helping a student learn something so important as reading. Therefore, I hope to learn more about my style of teaching and where I need to improve to help Lili understand better. Since Lili is young, I would also like to learn more about ways to keep her interested and motivated so that she does not get bored and lose her focus and make our sessions something she wants to look foreward to so that she can be enthusiastic about reading all the time.


    LiLi is a student at The Greensboro Montessori School who I read with twice a week. She is Vietnamese and is incredibly smart for her age; I am constantly amazed at her level of conversation and the way she handles herself when we discuss the books we read.

3/27/14 and 4/1/14
    These were my first two days working with LiLi. I was a bit nervous the first time because I was afraid she would get bored or would not want to read with me, but within minutes of meeting her, she was so enthusiastic about reading. I started off reading to her and she read a bit to me and she stayed very focused throughout most of the session. However, I noticed she did not like reading the books herself and was hesitant when I asked her to read to me, so my next goal is to help her become more comfortable and confident in her reading skills because she is a very smart girl and I want her to see what she is capable of doing.

4/8/14 and 4/10/14
       The past two sessions with LiLi have been so much fun. I felt a lot more comfortable and confident in helping her read and can see that she is starting to like reading more. She is still shy about reading out loud, which is why I read to her for most of the time. I would like to have her start reading out loud so she can hear her own voice while she reads, however, I do not want to push her so hard that she begins to feel uncomfortable reading out loud. Sometimes, I will read a page and then while reading, I stop to ask her to read one word off the page which she does. I wanted to start this way so that she does not have to feel nervous about reading out loud. Hopefully by the end of our sessions, LiLi will be able to feel more comfortable reading bigger sections out loud.

4/15/14 and 4/22/14
    I can definitely tell that LiLi is starting to become more comfortable reading with me. Whenever I ask her to read a sentence, she will hesitate at first, and then do it. I tried to make these sessions more fun by reading I Spy books with her. Since each page had a list of things to search for in the picture, LiLi and I alternate reading the lists on each page, searching for the items on the list along the way. I still would like her to read a whole page out loud to me, so at the end of our sessions when I can tell she is ready to go out and play, I ask her to read a couple of sentences from a book before leaving, and she always complies. My next goal is to have her read big sections out loud during our sessions, not just at the end.

4/24/14
     Today was my last session with LiLi and it was so much fun seeing how much she opened up to reading. Although she was still hesitant about reading big sections from books out loud, whenever she did read out loud, she read with more confidence than our first sessions. I loved working with such a sweet and bright student like LiLi, and I cannot wait to see her future accomplishments.


Learning Objective: Considered ethical implications of actions
   Reading is such an important skill and I love that I got to read with LiLi so that she can feel more comfortable with it. As education increases, children can often become left behind because they feel uncomfortable with reading or writing, so it is important to help them understand early on that they should not feel like they need to compete with anyone else and that everyone learns at their own pace. LiLi is a remarkable girl who already shows so much potential as her mind was constantly engaged in reading science books. I hope that our sessions taught her to be confident in her reading aloud skills, something that she was previously shy about, and showed her that she is a great student and a joy to have around.

Piedmont Volleyball Club 2013-2014 Season

Goal: my overall goal for participating in this club is to play volleyball in college while improving my skills and working together with my team. I also want to try new techniques and plays that are at a higher level. I would like to push myself to take more risks because I am usually a very safe player, meaning I do not take a lot of risks and I know that in order to play at a higher level, I need to learn to let myself take more risks.

       This is my fifth year playing volleyball for Piedmont Volleyball Club. The goal of this club is to prepare its athletes to play in college and give them the highest level of training possible. My longtime goal since I was in middle school was to play volleyball in college, so joining this club was a huge step toward that goal. The club signs our teams up for tournaments up and down the east coast, some of them areas far away as Minnesota, which gives us great opportunities to meet college coaches from different areas. This year I am on the 17 Red team and we have so far completed in three tournaments. Our first tournament was an alright start considering it was the first time we played together as a team, but I am hopeful that we can only excel from here.

January 18-20, 2014

       This tournament was much better than the first one, everyone was a lot more comfortable with each other. We ended up placing 3rd, which was great because we had been working on new plays during practice and we also came in over winter break to work on plays to make sure we really understood them before the tournament. I was very pleased with our performance considering the first tournament was not a very good one for my team, I can feel us connecting more and becoming more comfortable with each other. As we continue playing, I am excited to grow together and improve our skills.



February 1-2, 2014

      This tournament in Richmond, VA was very bittersweet. Our other setter discovered the week before the tournament that she had tendinitis in her knee and would be out for a couple of tournaments, meaning I was the only setter, so I was really nervous. The good part was that the tournament went so well and we got 1st place! We went the entire weekend undefeated which was such an amazing feeling. We all worked so well together and everyone gave all of their effort. Since I played front and back row for this tournament, I was able to run a lot of different things with our middle hitter. We tried some new things and they were effective! We definitely improved the setter to middle connection that is really important in volleyball. I had to make a risky decision by setting the majority of the balls this weekend to the middles because our outsides did not hit as much as usual. I made this decision because our passes were really good and the middle hitters were performing extremely well, so I knew I needed to take advantage of that for the team to be successful this tournament.



February 8th and 15th, 2014
   This tournament was broken up into two different days in Raleigh, NC. The first day of pool play went well considering that was our first time as a team playing in the Open Division because we had been in the Club division in all the previous tournaments. The Open division is known for a much faster tempo and higher level of play, so we were a bit nervous when our coach told us that we would be playing in the Open division. However, we all agreed that we did not play as well as we could have and being in the Open division was no excuse for our performance. The next pool that same day went a lot better because we became more comfortable and used to the faster tempo of the game; I know that by the end of the tournament I felt our team tempo increase. The second day started off better because we were all aware of the types of teams we would be facing. Personally, I also had to be in better control of my sets because now that we were playing higher level teams, I could not call the plays that I normally call because the other team would pick up on them fast. I realized that I needed to take some risks and run different plays to keep the other team from being able to set up an early block. While there were still a lot of errors made because of taking new risks, there were a lot of plays that went really well considering we did not use them a lot in previous tournaments. I learned a great deal about myself as a player as well as what our team is capable of doing.

March 15th and 16th, 2014

    The Shamrock Fesitval is a rigorous two day tournament that starts at 8am and ends at 11pm. For our team, our main goal for the tournament was just to keep our endurance up and continue to give all the effort we can, despite the fact that we would be playing games as late as 10pm. I thought it was so much fun and my main personal goal for this tournament was to be more aware of the blockers on the other side in order to make smarter sets. I ran a new "shoot" set with my outside hitters and reversed the set to trick the other team. One of my major long-term goals in setting is jump setting, so I tried more of that skill during game play. On sunday, we made it into the finals and lost, earning us the second place title in our bracket.





Learning Outcome: Increased awareness of own strengths and areas for growth
      At the end of every volleyball season, I reflect on what goals I have accomplished during the year and which goals I need to focus more on for the next season. I feel like I definitely became more of a risk taker throughout this season because my sense of when to take risks and when to stay within my boundaries strengthened. Hopefully, I can improve my skill for the next high school season so that I can begin to set at the next level.

Learning Outcome: Shown Perseverance and Commitment in Activity
    Club volleyball can be very demanding as it takes away lots of hours during the weekdays and the weekends. Every other weekend we have tournaments and practice three times a week. However, this is very important because by showing this perseverance, I create a better work ethic and teach myself that when you make a commitment to a team, I must do everything required to uphold that commitment. No matter how late practice runs or how long our tournaments are, I attended all of them because I had a duty to my team and if I failed them by arriving late or skipping practice, then there was no way that I could expect us to be successful.