Jumping the Hurdle of Approval (DIY Post #2)

And so the DIY project begins...

Our curtain-less windows

So this week my job was to get the approval of a few different people for permission to do the project. I talked with the athletics director Mrs. Lawler, and she was delighted with the idea - especially after I told her the current state and condition of our team room. She said that I had her permission as long as Coach Nichols was okay with it, and suggested that we make an outline of our plans for the room, and show it to her. The only thing we would need to tell her about is if we decide to repaint the team room - she has to approve of the paint that we use because of school regulations.

Another curtain-less window

The second person I talked to was the girls water polo coach - Kaileigh. She, too, was very happy and supportive of the project. Since she is the coach of one of the 3 teams that share our aquatics team room, I asked her if she wanted anything specific to be done to the room. She only had a few requests: curtains for the windows as well as the removal of the entertainment systems (TV & game systems), or a storage area for them where they wouldn't be seen. One of my water polo friends - Merri Lightbody suggested that we secure the white board to the wall better because it currently flaps around every time someone writes on it.

The input that I received from them will contribute to the end product, and hopefully we will be able to satisfy the needs of all of the coaches and swimmers.

DIY Project Intro

The middle room in the shed is our team room.

From now on, this blog will be dedicated to my group's new assignment for the semester: the DIY (do it yourself) project. Mr. Z instructed us to "make something." Makenna DuBois, a fellow swimmer, had the brilliant idea of redoing the school's team room. This idea was exceptional because not only would we be completing our project, but we would make an impact on our school. Over the course of the next few months, we are going to remodel our swim/water polo team room on the pool deck.

Currently the team room is a disgustingly dirty shed, with nails sticking out and stuffing oozing out of the furniture. I never go in there because I have always thought that it was extremely gross and unsanitary. We are going to remedy this, and transform the entire room into a place where the team can relax and enjoy its comforts. Some of our main goals include replacing the filthy towels we use to cover the windows with actual curtains. We are also planning on putting in a better TV and mounting a projector for the coaches' uses.

To start off the process, we have to talk to a few people, to get permission to make the drastic changes, and to make sure that our project is feasible. We have already talked to swim's head coach Mike Nichols, and have his approval for the undertaking. My job is to talk to Mrs. Lawler, the activities director, and make sure we have her approval for the project as well.

I will try to post in this blog weekly to update the status of our project.

Lightning Assault

Title Screen

Three years ago my mom's cousin Timothy Chua began programming an iPhone app. The end product finally reached the App Store in early December 2012, and is now available for 99 cents.

Last year, Timo finally finished enough of the game so that he could let people beta test it, and I was part of the beta team. It was really cool being able to play a game that no one else in the world had played, and that my feedback would actually be taken into consideration to make it better. After years of hard work, the Lightning Assault was finally released in the App Store, and I was able to enjoy the final product on my brand new iPhone 5.

Weapons Room

Launch Pad

Lightning Assault is an intense, dogfight game. You pilot your own aircraft, armed with five different types of upgradable weapons and shoot down all of the UFOs and mother ships in order to pass each level. The graphics are amazing in this game, and for every five levels that you advance, you move to a different location on the world map - giving you an entirely new aerial view.

World Map

Although normally I don't play these types of "dogfight" games, this one really caught my attention - not only because my close relative made it, but because it was actually pretty interesting, and a game that kept me hooked. As I advanced in the leaderboards on Game Center, I became more and more determined to rise in the ranks, and now I'm #4 in the world.

I would highly recommend people to check this game out, and see what it's like. I decided against downloading many games onto my phone, and this was one of the few games that I felt was worth putting onto my phone. Here's the link to download the app on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/lightning-assault/id561474052?ls=1&mt=8

The Art of Not Studying

Finals are coming! Finals are coming! The more I see people studying, the more I feel like finals are like the redcoats, coming to attack us and that studying is like arming for battle. For many people, finals week is like the Revolutionary War. People are completely consumed in studying/cramming for finals. I don't see the sense in studying so much in such a short amount of time. Why put the strain of a whole semester's worth of material onto your brain the day before the test? It will cause an information overload that will make your brain explode like a hydrogen bomb.

I hate studying. So I just don't study. I focus on other things like swimming, playing the piano, and getting enough sleep. However, since I want to avoid studying at all costs, there are three important things that I do proactively, on a day-to-day basis, that allow me to not have to study: stay awake in class, do my homework, and get enough sleep.

Staying awake in class and paying attention allows me to absorb all of the information given to me throughout the school day. It goes into my brain and is stored there semi-permanently, especially because of all the repetitions and reinforcements we get in class. Doing my homework positively supplements everything I did in class, and often permanently engraves the material I learned that day into my long-term memory. In my life, I feel as if it has been statistically proven that getting an extra two hours of sleep rather than getting an extra two hours of studying has been way more beneficial to my grades. Sleep is the key to success, as mentioned in my previous post: A Science to Sleeping. Without enough sleep, your body does not perform at its optimal conditions - so make sure you get enough sleep before finals. For me, a good night's sleep is much more important than pulling an all-nighter of studying.

For those of you who don't have exceptionally gifted memories and don't absorb information like sponges, I suggest you review a little bit each night so that you don't have to relearn everything the night before the finals. Learning a little bit each day will help you in the long run. And you will find that eliminating studying from your life is pretty amazing.

The iPhone 5

The iPhone 5. "It's the thinnest, fastest, lightest iPhone ever."

That's what they always say. Which doesn't mean I'm disappointed in the product, it just means that I'm not amazed or surprised. I got one for my 16th birthday, and I love it. Going from a $10 Target pay-by-the month phone that barely did anything to an iPhone 5 that does virtually everything, is a huge leap forward for me.

Most people already know that it has an 8-megapixel camera with flash as well as a pretty decent front-facing camera for video chatting. They also have probably heard that the new "EarPods" that come in the box are much better quality than Apple's previous attempts at making headphones. However, there are a few things about these EarPods that you may not have known. The small little remote on the right EarPod looks deceptively simple. People normally assume that it only has a built in mic and can be used to turn the volume up or down. However, the space in between the + and - buttons is actually a button in itself                                                that has a multitude of functions:

1. One click: pause/play
2. Long press: activates Siri
3. Double click: skips to the next song
4. Triple click: goes back to the previous song
5. Double click and hold: fast-forward
6. Triple-click and hold: rewind

The smartphone is amazingly fast, and the multitude of apps that you can get in the App Store is astonishing. You can do anything from reading books and playing games to watching TV and doing work on it. It is truly a phenomenon in the age of technology.

Sectionals

Sectionals. They started on my birthday. Which meant that I would technically be 15 for a few extra days. It would be my last meet as a 15-year-old.

It started on Thursday, December 13, and I was exhausted from the action-packed 3-day meet that I mentioned in my post previous post: Las Vegas!!!. Katelyn and I had made it for a couple individuals, and Jordan and Makenna would join us for the relays on Saturday and Sunday. This meet, held at the Belmont Olympic Pool in Long Beach, CA, was decidedly more professional and businesslike than any meet I had ever been to. All of the swimmers who qualified for sectionals were insanely fast, many of them just coming back from Junior Nationals the week before.

Before my first race, the 100 free, I was sitting up at the bleachers and caught sight of people's bag tags on their backpacks. Many of them read 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials, or 2012 North American Cup Challenge - huge meets that indicated that the people here were extremely talented, and some of the best in the nation. I was in a pond with some pretty big fish. This wasn't your regular age group meet, this was a senior meet, where everyone was competing against everyone, and age wasn't a factor. I saw people as young as 12, and people past college-age competing. By the end of the meet I was completely exhausted from the two demanding back-to-back meets.

I went from being at the top of the meet to being somewhere in the middle of these incredibly speedy people of all ages from California and Nevada. It was an incredibly eye-opening experience. I was swimming with people who will definitely be swimmers to watch at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. I realized that for these people it wasn't just about the fun and games, but that the people in this meet were in the "Big Leagues." These are people who were breaking National Age Group Records, and I was extremely humbled. It was amazing and extremely inspiring that I got the chance to compete in the same meet as them.

Las Vegas!!!!

"Real athletes swim. The rest just play games."

After months of intense training, the moment finally arrived. We were going to Las Vegas for our Winter Age Group Championship Meet. It's a 3-day meet that's usually right before or around the same time as my birthday. The crazy anticipation was tangible in all of us in the week leading up to the meet. This was the very first out-of-state meet that I was going to attend, and I was beyond excited.

Despite being indoors, the pool felt really fast, and Thursday night when we were warming up, they were playing Christmas music through underwater speakers so that all of the swimmers could hear it.

From the moment I swam my first race, I knew that all of my hard work had finally paid off. To the surprise of the entire team, I won gold in the 100 free finals the very first night of the meet, and then found out that I broke the meet record. That was the very first time I had ever won a gold medal at such a big meet, and I was one of the youngest people in my age group. Even my hard-to-please Russian coach smiled and actually said, "Good job!" It was only the second time I had ever heard him say that to anyone in my life.

Our Team Logo

The rest of the meet went just as well. Jordan Stead, Katelyn Farrow, Makenna DuBois, and I were in every single relay and we medaled in 3 out of the 4 relays despite being seeded much lower. We would come back from behind even though we were swimming in the outer lanes, while the inner lanes are the ones predicted to win. I had to anchor (go last) in all four of the relays.
The highlight of the relays was the 200 Medley relay in which we got the gold.

Then, to close out the the weekend, I swam the 200 free and 50 free in finals, Sunday night, medaling in both, and getting another gold medal to add to my collection from the crazy sprint: the 50 free.

Since our team (OC Riptide Aquatics) is only a year and a half old, the performance of all of our swimmers made a splash in Vegas. We created a name for our team, and established it as a force to be reckoned with in the midst of many well-known, esteemed teams.

At the end of the meet, Katelyn and I found out we qualified for sectionals (an even higher meet) in some of our individuals, and that our relays had qualified too. All four of us were going to have to race again, within the next week.