It's been too long since I last posted something on here. Sorry about that.
When I last wrote on here, I was on a holiday, my October break. That provided me with some time to go to the lake! My qourum (group of guys my age and a few adults) from church had arranged for a Saturday trip to a lake outside of the Phoenix Valley. Back in Denmark, usually that meant going fishing. Arizonans are a little cooler than that - over here, going to the lake means wakeboarding, surfing, diving and tubing. I tried wakeboarding. If anyone has ever tried it before, they'll know what I'm talking about when I mean it's difficult to get up on that board, especially for a first timer. What happens is that you lay down in the water with the board fastened to your feet, and a rope tied to the boat will then pull you up onto the board. This boat was a leisure boat, it kind of looks like a speed boat, just slower. It takes some practice to stay on the board and not get thrown forward as the boat starts to pull you. I think I tried at least 7-8 times and I didn't get up once. For those of you that haven't seen a wakeboarder before, I'll leave you a picture of one of my friends. He had no trouble getting up on the board.
My forearms were pretty sore so I passed on surfboarding, even though it was done in a very similar way and I was told it was easier. The boat would pull you up via a rope again and then you'd throw the rope back to the boat and ride the waves from the boat until you lost your speed.
Instead, I joined the rest of the guys in diving off a cliff. We found a perfect spot to jump off from, it was a good 30-40ft (10m+) high too. The climb up there was pretty steep though and climbing the rock barefoot wasn't all fun. I should mention we had to watch out not to step on a few cactuses too. Here's me on my way down.
We stayed on the lake until it turned dark. Before leaving, we did some tubing. I'm glad we did, because it's awesome fun! Most of you are probably wondering what I'm talking about. Tubing is riding on a raft dragged around 15-20 yards or so behind the boat. Since the boat is doing above 20 mph (30 km/h), you're clinging on to a few handles on the raft just to stay on. It doesn't help that it bounces and flies off the waves and there's two other guys on there that get thrown around just like you. Especially when they got thrown to my side and my feet started hitting the water. I flew off the raft and hit the water face-first. My jaw got sore, and also, my swimtrunks and underwear came almost half-way off. Good thing I was under water.
I didn't get any pictures of the tubing, but it was a lot of fun.
After the lake trip, we went back home to Mesa and had pizzas at the house of one of the adults in our qourum.
Monday, it was back to school (Ugh...). After school, showing up at the locker rooms for practice, I was told by one of my teammates that only varsity players, not JV, had meetings before we all had to do some weightlifting before finally practicing at 6. When I came back to Westwood ready to hit the weights, several of my teammates asked me where I had been. I quickly learned that I should have been at the meetings instead of going home. Even more, Coach was thinking of starting me for offense and defense. I was literally scared that I had lost that opportunity since I wasn't present at the meetings. I apologized to my Coach, and he accepted my apology. With a slight chuckle, he added "...don't ever trust that guy again."When it became gameday, I found out that I was still starting. Phew.
Our game was against the Brophy Broncos. Brophy is a rich catholic boys-only private school near central Phoenix. Rich is actually an understatement, I don't think I've seen a school with it's own full-size church on campus before. They had a three-floor Arts Center and we had to go a few streets further than the school entrance just to get to their sports fields, on their self-proclaimed sports campus. The campus had several fountains and was just plain amazing. Their JV team had their own football field with turf and a digital scoreboard that was a little more than just a scoreboard. It could show computer-controlled graphics too. Their varsity team plays in a stadium that belongs to a college team. Why is that necessary? Because their football teams are usually ranked in the top 5-10 in all of Arizona, often ending up at #2 behind Hamilton High, a school that is too dominating in football. Coach Whisenhunt from the Arizona Cardinals' son goes to Hamilton High, which is also a private school.
There is a reason why the private schools are good, they can recruit players from around the country, which is banned for any public high school. For instance, I was told that their running back (a player that is handed the ball and runs forward with it) came from Florida. Since I was starting on both offense, as a wide receiver, and on defense, as a cornerback, whenever we were on defense I was tasked with covering their receivers. Did I mention that they recruit some very fast kids? I did okay though, playing almost the entire game on both offense and defense. As a team, we did surprisingly well. Since Brophy can recruit, we thought we would have a tough game at our hands. It was a back-and-forth shootout that ended 48-43, a Brophy win however. When looking at the pictures, incase you've forgotten, I'm #84.
That same week, on Saturday, I had to get up at 6 a.m. to help clean up the alleys of our neighborhood, which was a church project. Good thing that the breakfast cooked for all of us included pancakes. If not, I would have dreaded waking up that early.
The next week of school, and football, was special. For school, I had to go through AIMS (Arizona Instruments to Measure Standards) testing. There's three days of tests, one for writing, one for reading, and the last day being math. It's not an exam or anything, it's a test meant to show how the schools of Arizona compare to eachother, in terms of how capable the students are. However, if you exceed a certain score on 2 out of the 3 elements, you qualify for having, at least part of, your tuition paid if you plan to attend universities or colleges in Arizona. I missed a bunch of classes, but that also meant less homework. So even though the tests were long (they'd take 2-3 hours, with math being an all day test), I didn't mind taking them. For football, tt was the last few practices of the season, and the last game of our season. On Wednesday, after practice, we said goodbye to our senior teammates. Thursday, with our record standing at 4 wins and 4 losses, the Mountain Pointe Pride was our last opponent. Again, I would be starting. I managed to get an interception on a nice sideline tip-toe catch. But I was unable to haul in a touchdown pass later in the game. I must admit, of all the plays I've been through in the few years I've played football, that one might just be the one I want back the most. It was not a pleasant feeling, let me tell you that much. I was sooooo mad at myself. I guess you learn from your mistakes and move on! If it wasn't for the interception I did catch I would've felt horrible about that game.
We lost 44-21 at home.
Immediately after the game, we had to clean up our locker rooms and turn in our equipment. We did get to keep the helmet stickers though. That is the last time in too long that I will be playing football, as practices don't start up again until sometime late in the spring. Here's our last team photo.
That weekend, it was time for Halloween!
Although we do celebrate Halloween back home, it is nothing like what people do over here. A lot of people decorate their houses and front lawns for Halloween. Some of them look more like a graveyard than a lawn! And there's several groups of kids going trick-or-treating. One of my good friends had her birthday that same weekend, so she held a combined Halloween/Birthday party. And of course, I needed a costume.
So I went to a local party store. I found a costume that was just too awesome to pass on. This:
It's a pimp/gangster-costume. The party was a lot of fun.
There's one thing I don't like about this time of the year, even in Arizona. Although I am thankful that Arizona doesn't get any snow (except if you live in Flagstaff and the mountains up there) during the winter, it still gets cold! It's in the 50-60s Fahrenheit (10-20 Celsius). It doesn't really seem that cold when I think of some of the winters we had back home. I guess I got too used to the 110F/40C+ degrees during the summer. I never thought I would have to put on a jacket during my time here in Arizona. The other day, I did! It's not that cold though. Whenever my friends tell me they're freezing, I let them know how cold it can get in Denmark. They all seem baffled, wondering how it is possible for me to live through that at all.
With the football season being over, I'm not doing any sports during the winter, as I'm not much of a wrestler, I don't like playing soccer and I didn't favor my odds of making the JV basketball team (according to my host brother, who did try out, out of the 100-120+ players that tried out, they had to select a team of 10.). I'll be enjoying some time off, meaning I can regularly go to bed before midnight, instead of past it. And I'll have to get ready for whenever baseball comes around in the spring, I'm trying out for that no matter how many students show up for the tryouts. It also means that I'll have some more time to write blog posts, so hopefully it won't be several weeks between each one.
Until next time, take care!
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