POKEMON GO!

So, I have recently discovered my new obsession. Its an app called pokemon go. In case you don't know what it is, its an app that uses a GPS on your phone and you just walk or drive around and pokemon pop up and the pokemon appears on a camera on the phone, (so it looks like its in real life) and you use pokeballs (balls that you throw at them) to catch them. Iv'e spent numerous amount of time playing this game because it is so fun! The only bad part about is that it uses your battery quickly, partly because you are using GPS signal, and I also had to stop playing it for a month because it was using too much data, (even though most of it was on my brother's phone). So right now I'm on level 10. Also, a lot of my neighbors play Pokemon Go, so sometimes we go out on walks throughout the town.

 In the game there are landmarks all through your town, and anywhere you go that are called Pokestops. You spin something that looks like a coin with a picture of the monument, and you receive different things that help you, or that you can use for the better. Some things are: Pokeballs, Razz berries, eggs, egg incubators, incense, potions and revives. You can put egg incubators on the eggs, and then it tells you the amount of kilometers you have to walk in order for your eggs to hatch. When your eggs hatch you usually get a rare pokemon. Once i got a Pikachu! Razz berries are helpful when you are trying to catch a really good pokemon and it keeps breaking out of its shell, or it keeps moving and its hard to throw it at the right place. If you throw a razz berry at it, it makes it easier to catch. whenever you catch a pokemon, you get 2 or 3 candies for the the pokemon, and when you get enough candies, you can evolve that pokemon! For most pokemon, you need 50 pieces of candy. Surprisingly, it doesn't take a lot of time to get that many. Also, if you get a pokemon that's CP Isn't that much (like 15- 40) you can transfer the pokemon and you get 2 more candies towards your next evolution.

So that is basically the whole game, but i might make another blog explaining more in depth and in detail. :)

MAPS NJ Soccer Tournament 2016

Over this past weekend, I traveled to New Jersey and played soccer matches in the scorching sun. It was a heat wave all up and down the East Coast. We played four games overall: 2 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. I had no idea what the competition would be like but I just wanted to play my best.

Usually my mom and I fly to tournaments but this time it was close enough to drive. We were able to carpool with one of my teammates and drive seven hours down to Bensalem, PA where our hotel was located. For these tournaments, you have to stay where GPS (Global Premier Soccer) says you have to stay. We were were about 40 minutes from Fort Dix, NJ where our games were being held.

Here are some highlights of the games:

Game 1 vs. Centre Court FC (a NJ club)

My team, GPS 2006 North National, won the game 3-1.  We had a lot of chances but we just couldn't finish more goals. My coaches was looking for high intensity, good communication, and through balls throughout the weekend. This first game was the easiest out of all four games. However, it was the first game that our team had played together since we went to the National Futsal tournament in Kansas. This was a challenge because we don't get to play together a lot. But, I think we did very well.

Game 2 vs. another NJ club

This game was a very hard-fought match but we ended up losing 2-1 to very unlucky goals. I thought I did very well in this game. In the second half, we did a LOT better because we noticed we weren't communicating effectively in the first half and we were a bit slow at the start. It didn't help that it was 2:00pm and 98 degrees (not including humidity). Despite it being almost too hot to play, I did have a very nice "nutmeg". A "nutmeg" is when you kick the ball through the opposing player's legs.

Here's what happened: I was right near the left sideline and had one strong defender trying to trap me and I no options to pass whatsoever and it was too tight to even try to do a move around her. So, I looked down at her feet for a quick second and saw that her legs were wide apart (which is kind of an instinct when defending because you're thinking about trying to get the ball, not how wide your apart your legs are). In a flash decision, I pulled the ball back with my left foot so it would go just behind my right foot and I kicked the ball through the girl's legs! That was definitely MY highlight of the game (if I do say so myself). What was great for my mom is that is happened right in front of her! She told me she screamed but I didn't hear her. I was just focused on the game. It was a tough one.

In the 2nd half, we started out very fast and with a very high intensity level and we were able to score. Everyone said that we outplayed them the second half but we couldn't pull off a tie or get a lucky goal. This team ended up winning the whole tournament for our age group and bracket.

3rd game vs. another NJ team

This game was temperature-wise, the coolest game. We ended up winning this one 2-1. Technically, we really like to think it was 3-1 because I brought up the ball, beat a defender with my speed, crossed a beautiful pass to our striker who had two girls on her and she slid and scored in the right corner. The ref called it back due to "off sides". The girl who scored, her mom was filming and caught the goal. When we went back to view the goal after the game was over, it was clearly not "off sides". I heard that my coach and the other team's coach discussed it and even the opposing team's coach didn't think is was off sides. Frustrating. The ref was really not good and there was a theory that our first goal was off sides but he didn't call it. So, he decided to try and fix his mistake by calling the second goal which was almost an exact replay of the first, off sides.

4th and final game vs. another NJ team

Well, this game a bit of a let down because we had a healthy 2-0 lead but ended up losing 3-2. We scored our first goal in like the first minute and the second within the next 5 minutes. The second goal was my only goal of the weekend but it was a very nice goal off a through ball. This was what my coach was looking for to create opportunities to score the goals. After I scored, I quickly "dabbed" to my coach because he was joking and said if we scored we should do a dance move like the "dab" or the "running man". I didn't see it but my mom said he did a quick dab back and had a smile on his face.

The second half we started off really slow and couldn't seem to find our momentum from the first half. We let up two easy goals and it was a tie game all the way up to the final minute. In the final minute, everyone was exhausted from the heat, and large field (I forgot to tell you that we were playing 7v7 on a field that was like a 9v9 field), and we just fizzled and lost our energy. They were able to toe-poke a ball to the left corner and scored. There was no way our goalie could save it.


Overall analysis of the weekend/tournament:

Basically, I have to say that overall I feel that we played really well everything considered. This group of girls are people I consider great friends and phenomenal soccer players. It's weird when you don't get to play with your team except on these big deal tournaments. There is a lot of pressure on the team, and we never know what the competition is going to be like. But, in the end, we always try to stay positive and learn how to get better.

One last thing...I would like to say goodbye and thank you to my coach, Matt. He is a wonderful coach but he is moving on to a new job in another well known soccer club, the New England Revolution. He is also getting married in August. So, he will have a lot of new chapters in his life. However, I hope he always remembers the chapter he spent with us and smiles.

WBZ Tour

    Today I got to go on a tour at WBZ news! When my dad went to London on his semester abroad, he went with a girl named Paula who is an anchor at WBZ news, so he asked her if we could get a quick tour of the place, and she got in touch with Danielle Niles and Pamela Gardener (both meteorologists)and made it happen! It was such an amazing experience for me because that is what I want to be when I grow up. I know that the meteorologists stand in front of a green screen, but it was cool to see what everything looks like. And, Pamela even let me have the experience that a meteorologist has by letting me click through the slides and describe what the maps and radar shows, and figuring out where to look and point. Since the President was having a speech about the supreme court, Danielle had less time to present the forecast. She only had about a minute! She had to go fast and keep it simple. It was fascinating that there were so many jobs to help edit, record, broadcast live on TV, and produce! I got to see people recording live for the WBZ radio, and even got to see my neighbor, and how she edits the sound and decides what is on the radio station at the moment. I want to thank Pamela, and Danielle for taking time out of their really busy day and taking me on a tour around the studio, and thanks to Paula for making this all happen! I didn't get to meet Paula because she works the night meteorologist shift, but Danielle and Pamela were so nice to me, and I really enjoyed them and the experience.

Summer is Finally Here

      So finally, school is out and summer is here! I have a pretty busy summer planned, but its going to be fun. I have like 2 weeks or so before I start camp so I just get to hang around the house and play with friends. I am doing camp for 6 or 7 weeks, so that pretty much fills up my summer. But, I enjoy going to the camp I go to because they have a variety of things to do like: swim, laser tag, rock climbing, crafts, tennis and more. There is a regular indoor pool, and then outside there is a water park. The 2 water slides can go very fast. This will be my second summer at this camp, and more to come.
      Also, in July I'm going to New Jersey for a soccer tournament with the same team that I went to Kansas with. Except this tournament is outdoors and on grass instead of indoors. I don't really know what the competition will be, but I'm sure the teams we play will be equally as good as us because I know our coach wants to give us a challenge, and doesn't want it to be a total blowout. And, I might do a soccer clinic that my Club is holding for a couple of days with some of my teammates.
      Overall it was a great school year with lots of exciting moments, and I'm ready to dive into the summer.

Post Kansas Trip

So I just got back from Kansas a few days ago, and I was planning to blog the whole trip day by day, but I got very busy with all the soccer games and just hanging out and having a blast with my teammates. So because I didn't blog each day, I'm going to do a recap of the games.

          I got to Kansas on Thursday and then we had a game Friday night. We were very nervous because we didn't know what it was going to be like. My team got beaten 4-1 by a very good Kansas team. I think we made too many mistakes when we had possession because we were still getting used to the court size. All of the team except for me had flown in on Friday, so I think they were very exhausted and tired because travel days can make you VERY tired. There was some getting used to do because at regionals (the tournament we played in in order to go to Kansas) the courts were a lot smaller and then we got to the courts in Kansas and they were a lot bigger so we had to get used to the width, and we had to remember to keep wider than usual when we had the ball. Also I think all the teams we played were teams that play Futsal year-round and are a Futsal academy. GPS (my club soccer team) doesn't focus on Futsal a lot, they focus more on outdoor playing, and we hadn't played in any Futsal games that were not in a tournament together, so we hadn't had a lot of practice. Next, our goalie that played with us throughout all of regionals couldn't make it to Kansas, and I didn't think that was going to matter, but it did because my coach just had to keep switching the goalies up, because nobody on my team plays goalie all the time. After that game we knew what it was like to compete in Nationals, so we had to come into the next two games with a different mindset.

        Our next game was against a team from Richmond, VA. We lost 7-4, but I wasn't very disappointed in how we played because we had kind of a slower start to the first 5 min., but we quickly turned it around, and was putting more pressure on the other team, and making better decisions when we had the ball. I thought though at some points, we were rushing the ball, and just shooting it wide when we had players wide open to pass to. If we had had a couple more lucky breakaways we could've won the game. I feel this was our best game we played, and we really
showed people what we are capable of and what we can do. I scored 2 goals in this game, but technically 3 because the left forward crossed the ball in, and I kicked it, but it bounced off someone  from the other team and went in so it was an own goal by them, but it was kind of me. The first goal I scored was a lucky play because the goalkeeper liked to kick it to the sides instead of throw it, and she didn't kick it hard enough, and went off the wrong part of her foot, so when she tried to kick it to
the defender on the left, and was right there, and simply kicked it into the back of the net. The second goal I scored was also kind of lucky too, because me and the left forward had passed it to each other a couple of times, and she passed it to me, and I kicked it low and at the goalie, and it went right through the middle of her legs.
         We were hoping to end our weekend with a win, but unfortunately we lost 2-1 to another team from Kansas. If we had had the same intensity from the second game in the third game, I think we could've won it. The other teams goalie was very talented and she managed to save all but 1 of our shots. In the first half, we had a lot of great 1 on 1s which led to a lot of shots, but again, their goalie knew just what to do in most situations. Towards the last 15 min., we started playing with 1 defender and 3 forwards, so we could have a better chance of shooting and scoring. But what happened a lot is that we were very tired and we were forgetting to come back and help the 1 defender when the other team had possession.
        I had a great time participating even though we didn't get the outcome we were looking for, and we had a lot of fun, and made lots of memories. After our last game I said "Well, it's going to be time for payback in New Jersey!" Because in the summer we are going to New Jersey for an outdoor soccer tournament which I'm looking forward to.

After one of our games our whole team went to a restaurant called Jack Stack Barbecue because everyone was recommending it and the Kansas City area is actually known for good BBQ.  I got ribs that were really good, I ordered from the adults menu and got more ribs than I could eat and one of my teammates next to me was stealing some of my bbq sauce because it tasted so delicious so I had to ask the waiter for more sauce and everyone at the table shared it. The last day we were in KS there were 2 other girls from my team still there, so we decided that we wanted to go site- seeing and just explore Kansas City together. Unfortunately, a lot of the historical places were closed, so we ended up doing more of a shopping day, which included going skating, eating frozen yogurt, and going to a Hallmark Card place that had a lot of stores. I was so glad that I got to go, and I Had a very fun time!

Enjoy some pics below!  If you want to see more I am going to make a slideshow that I could email to you if you send me your email address. 

        

Off to Kansas! Day 1

As you know from my previous blog I'm in Kansas right now! Its my first day here and I'm enjoying it very much. Our plane took off at 7:00 am but I had to wake up at 4:30 am so I was really tired on the plane and it felt a lot longer than it really was. Finally we got to Kansas, and a nice gentleman picked us up and drove us to our hotel. We were very early at the hotel because it was 11:30 and the lady at the front desk told us our room would be available at 2:00. So then my mom called the guy who was going to pick us up to drive us to the rental place where we would pick up our rental car. My  mom thought ahead and reserved a car for this trip so we could drive to places by ourselves, not always having a taxi pick us up.

Unfortunately my mom and I were stuck in the hotel lobby because the guy who told us he was going to be picking us up, told us he would be there in 10 minutes which, turned into 40 min. The both of us were being hit with waves of exhaustion, and on top of that, we were starving beyond belief because the last time we had eaten was 6:00 am. After a long wait, the guy named Logan picked us up, and we went to a place called enterprise and got a very nice silver Toyota Corolla. And, both of the drivers that picked us up recommended a really good barbecue place called Oklahoma Joe's. We decided that would be a good choice for when me and my teammates are all together. Due to how hungry we were, we decided to go to AppleBee's for lunch.  It was right next to the car rental place.

Our server brought food to the table that was very good and filling. The waitress was super upbeat and friendly and thought it was cool that we were from Boston (our waitress also worked at a bowling alley nearby that I really want to go to). Then, We hopped in our car and went back to the hotel.

Since our room still wasn't ready, the front desk manager gave us a room for a few hours so that we could have a place to be until our real room. I was on my I-pad and we were watching tv. About an hour and a half before the front desk manager told us it would be time for us to go to our new and real room, I decided that. I wanted to go swimming. Literally, I couldn't drag myself out of the jacuzzi because it felt like paradise. I went into the regular pool too. We came back to our temporary room and realized that it was the time that the manager had told us to come down, so we went down hoping that our room would be ready because he said it would be, but of course NO it still wasn't ready. He told us in 25 minutes it will be ready, so to kill time, we went to Kohl's (there was one right behind the hotel) because we wanted to shop around and, I forgot my Patriots had at the house so I wanted to get a new hat. I got a scarf and 2 hats. I got to scratch a coupon and we got 30% off! we saved a lot! Finally, we got back to the hotel and our room was open! We got settled and then I started blogging!

SUPERBOWL 50:PANTHERS vs. BRONCOS

          On Sunday, the well-liked annual SuperBowl happened. The two teams that were playing were the Carolina Panthers vs. the Denver Broncos. I personally wanted the Panthers to win simply because they had such a great season coming out of the regular season with only 1 loss (against the Arizona Cardinals), and i really wanted them to finish out on top. On the other hand the Broncos came out of of the regular season with 12 wins and 4 losses. The Panthers were heavily favored to the SuperBowl, and in conferences previous to the game, all of the players on their team acted like they had it in the bag, and they were very confident about how they were going to play. I feel that the Broncos were more humble and low key about it, and they didn't want to get too ahead of themselves. Peyton Manning had tons of people flocked around him trying to ask him questions. no doubt that he was the spotlight in the conference.  Tons of people were hating and trash talking the Broncos, but I don't think that they let that get to them because how they played blew everyone away, and they proved everyone wrong. The Broncos ended up winning 22-10, and I'm fine with the Panthers losing because the Broncos deserved it, and they certainly played very well. Congratulations Broncos, and lets just hope that the Patriots can bring home the trophy next season!