Homecoming, blowouts against rivals and all that good stuff!

Hey all!

As I promised you, I would take time to sit down and write a blog post recapping all the things that have happened since I last wrote on here. Finally, here it is!

Let me start off with football. Since last time we have played four games, against Desert Vista, Mesa High and Mountain View twice, because they have a JV squad and a Juniors team, which is basically a B-team to their JV.

First up was the Desert Vista High School Thunder. Mistakes and big plays cost us the victory, and we ended up losing 41-28 at home.

Our varsity team played Desert Vista in an away game, that was broadcasted in Arizona on local TV and was sponsored by the Arizona Cardinals as a "breast-cancer awareness"-game. It would've been good for Westwood if it wasn't for the fact they lost 63-7.

Next up on our schedule was the homecoming (more about that later) week game against the Toros, from Mountain View High School. Mountain View is one of two bitter cross-town rivals. They don't like us, they think Westwood is a "ghetto" school (At least half of the students here are Mexican, but in Arizona, that's the case for a lot of schools). And we sure don't like them either. Matter of fact, one of my coaches said: "This is the one game where if I think you don't care, my foot will be up your ass. You have got to beat Mountain View." We played at Mountain View, in a tight game that was tied with about 5-6 minutes left in the 4th (and final) quarter. On a 3rd down and goal, with 20 yards to go to the endzone, we gave up a silly score to the Toros that proved to be the final touchdown, and so we lost 34-27. For varsity the game against Mountain View was our homecoming game, with lots of halftime celebrations that I will show pictures of later on. They didn't win though, which was very disappointing because of the rivalry and homecoming. Let's not talk about the score.

The other bitter rivalry is the Mesa High Jackrabbits. For a long time Mesa High and Westwood were the only two high schools in Mesa, Mesa High being more than 110 years old and Westwood celebrating it's 50th Anniversary. So this is a rivalry that goes way back. There's a tradition at Westwood called "Burn the Bunny". It is held at some point during the week that we play Mesa High. We create a big copy of their mascot, and as the title suggests, we burn it. Smaller stuffed bunnies are hidden around the school campus, those that are found are also thrown on the fire. I would have gotten pictures of this if it wasn't for the fact I had to stand with the football team next to the thing burning. Coach would not have been pleased if I had my camera out. As you can tell, we sure don't like Mesa High either.

This game was great both for us as a team and for me personally. Our JV Head Coach told us when watching film of them, in preparation for the game, that if we didn't already build up a huge lead 5 minutes into the game, we were doing something wrong. We didn't do something wrong, let me put it that way. We pretty much ran them over, tearing them up 62-15. I have been switched from safety to cornerback and I played most of the 3rd quarter and all of the 4th quarter on defense. I intercepted a pass that sealed the game for us, because we got the ball back to run out the clock. I was so excited I didn't hear "Interception by Thomas Madsen" being announced on stadium speakers!

I'm lying on the ground with the ball in my hands, it might be difficult to spot.

And then, this Wednesday, it was time for redemption. It is rare that high school teams get to play the same opponent twice in the same season. Technically, this wasn't the same opponent, we had lost to the Mountain View Junior Varsity team, and now we played against their Juniors team, a B-team to their JV squad. Some of the players were the same still, and it was Mountain View nonetheless. We got our revenge, 49-7. Once again I played parts of the 3rd quarter and all of the 4th quarter. All I managed to do was get one of the worst pass interference calls I have ever seen against me. The rule is that you cannot push and shove a receiver anymore once the ball is thrown. Almost a second before the ball was thrown I stopped. But yeah, it didn't matter much since they didn't score on that drive.

We have now won 4 games out of 7, and we two games remaining. Our varsity is no longer winless either, having won their first of 7 games. They went on a 3-4 hour drive, each way, to Sierra Vista, south of Tucson to play Buena High School, winning 51-19. That is about 15-20 miles (20-30 km) from the border to Mexico. I'm glad we don't have to travel that far to play our games. Did I mention that meant they came home at around 2-3 a.m. on a schoolday? And I thought we traveled far to play games back in Denmark.

Now, enough of the football!
As I mentioned earlier, we had our homecoming week here at Westwood.

Homecoming is an event where you celebrate the tradition of your school. It is celebrated all throughout the week, with Friday night's varsity football game and Saturday's homecoming dance rounding off the week.

All throughout the week, we were told to dress up in different styles, Monday was 1950s, Tuesday 60s, Wednesday funky 70s, Thursday was neon 80s, and then Friday was orange and blue, like usual, but especially this week. There was all kinds of wacky events throughout the week too, here's a video of one of them. The objective was to wrap your classmate in toiletpaper, who then had to run over and hoolahoop before coming back. Sure, it lacked toiletpaper but it was still lots of fun. Yes, that is me that you can hear yelling.

This was a competition where the Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors went against eachother. Two of my good friends won it for the Juniors! All throughout the schoolyear there are competitions like this, and the classes compete for points. You can either get the points or take points from another class. Another competition during homecoming week was trying to see who would be the first to unwrap a frozen t-shirt and put it on. And then Friday, meant another pep assembly! We all gathered in the gym where all the craziness continued.

Tug of war between the varsity football players and cheerleaders. It was a lot closer than you'd think! The cheerleaders almost pulled it off. But the football players still kept their pride.

As part of every pep assembly the different classes try to out-scream eachother with their own little chants. On the sign is the chant for our Junior class, it says "So fresh, so clean, we're the class of 20-13 (twenty - thirteen)!" 2013 is the year that all my classmates graduate. If you look to the top left corner, you might spot the guy in the bull costume. He was dressed out as the Mountain View Toro, our opponent for the Homecoming game. He was (on purpose) attacked by the football players and had his mask taken off. I found out the guy dressed out as the Toro was one of my JV teammates. Not cool!

That same night the festivities continued at the game itself, during halftime.

 Our school's marching band on the middle of the field.

 This, I hope, gives you an idea of how many people show up for high school football games over here.

 The floats, as they are called, are ready to drive out onto the track in front of the stands.

Terry Williams, president of the 1st ever student council at Westwood. 

The floats are driven out.

1960s - "We led the way" (Westwood was founded in 1962).

 70s/80s - "Cruisin' back through time". That guy on the orange circle actually moon-walked to the sounds of Michael Jackson while that float was driving. It was so cool. (Some of you may have spotted a guy in a cow costume standing in front of the crowd, on the track. That has nothing to do with the Toro of Mountain View. It is the mascot for a national chain of restaurants called Chick-Fil-A (chick filet). Their slogan is a cow telling people to "Eat mor chikin" (Eat more chicken). I have no idea why that guy was there at the game though).

90s - "Westwood rocked through the 90s!"

 A float representing modern day Westwood's 50th Anniversary.

The cars with the candidates for Homecoming Queen and King (a couple is crowned as such) is driven out. 

This truck didn't have one of the candidates in it, it had Dylan. Dylan is a physically and mentally disabled boy that always shows up for games and even practices wearing his orange and blue. He is a true Warriors fan, and everyone at Westwood loves him. It was so neat to see him driven out there with a big smile on his face to the chants of "Dylan, Dylan, Dylan!". You can probably even tell from the picture how much the crowd is cheering.

 The nominees for Homecoming Royalty start rolling out.

The last four floats, representing each of the classes, are the last ones to be shown to the crowd.

First up, the Freshmen's float. Usually we boo the Freshmen. That's just the way it is.

The Sophomores. Class of 2014. They received a few boos from us Juniors too.

The float for us Juniors!

The Seniors, class of 2012. "It ends with us - party like it's the end of the world." Usually, we boo the Seniors too (See a pattern emerging?).

To cap off the Homecoming week we had our Homecoming Dance. I went out to eat with my friends before the dance. The main idea of the Homecoming Dance is that you bring a date, but that was not gonna keep me from going. We spent all night dancing and then the Homecoming Queen and King were crowned. It was less than what I had expected really, but it still was a fun evening. After the dance I went to a friend's house and where we hung out as a group, watching a movie. I think I have already told you how many of my friends live far away, this was in east Mesa, a good half hour from home. One of my friends, who would give me a ride wanted to stay for longer. I completely shattered and broke my midnight curfew because of that, having no other option to be home before at 1.30 a.m.. Luckily though, my awesome hostfamily was okay with that. If they're reading this, let me just say, once again: Thank you!

Now, I already told you about Burn the Bunny and the Mesa game, that was little more than a week ago.

This past weekend though, I went to downtown Phoenix for the first time on a field trip with my classmates, to a college fair. We had fun on the light rail trip down there, one of the only types of public transport I have come across here. It was a fun few hours spent with friends. At the fair, about 60-70+ colleges had representatives there, ready to answer questions and hand out flyers. Among notable funnies can be mentioned the United States Air Force Academy. They literally told one of my classmates, right there and then, that he was too fat. No joke. The University of Miami mentioned that they were very generous in giving financial aid and scholarships to international students. Their website reads "International students should seek financial aid in their home countries". Wow, so generous!

It was still lots of fun though.

The reason why I finally had time to sit down and write a blog post (and a long one at that!), was that I have next week off from school, it is October break. I might be visiting some of the beautiful parts of Arizona, like the Grand Canyon, Flagstaff or Sedona. I will definitely have something to share if I actually go.

Other than that I've been doing fine lately. Except for the fact I have been having problems with a sore and swollen left leg that has been quite painful and that had left me hobbling around up until and through games and practices. It is getting better though. And I have been approached by the editors of the Westwood's "Chieftain Yearbook", to fill out a survey. Since I'm an exchange student, I'm getting my own page in the yearbook. I'm pretty excited about that.

Until next time, be safe.

Thomas.

(I have enlarged the pictures to make it easier for you to see what's in them. I know it messes up the design of the page, if they're ruining it too much, please, let me know.)