We were going into our 7th game of the season against New Canaan, and I felt confident. We had new people at new positions, we had a good week of practice, injured players were cleared for the game, I didn't have to play offense this week, everything seemed to be going right that week. We all get to the locker room, just hanging out before the game, and then we get on the bus to go to New Canaan High School. We get off the bus and start doing our pregame stuff. But then, our stretches were off, people were talking the whole time, then our position warm-ups were messed up. We lost the coin toss. But then things pick again. I’m doing good on defense, we aren’t really letting them get down the field to score, things look up, and we might actually defeat this juggernaut team. 

Then they score. And they score again. The game is now 14-0 in the first quarter. We go back out for defense, and we stop them from scoring this time. Then we throw a pick. Now it’s half-time, I’m talking to one of my coaches, and he tells me the one thing that I didn't want to hear; I have to play offense. Although this is a position in football I eventually come to love, at this point I hate it. I go out, and of course I don't play well. I’m tired from playing both ways, and we lose the game. 

But on the bus ride home I feel more motivated than ever to improve my game and get better and better over the spring and summer, eventually leading me to love the thing I used to hate having to do more than just about anything, and allowing my hard work to pay off and allow me to play on the varsity team this year.

But after a few weeks of wrestling every day, I eventually started to actually like wrestling, and I was showing up to practice every day wanting to get better. I focused during practice, learning how to set up different moves that I was learning week after week, and eventually I won my first match. Looking back at it I made probably at least a dozen mistakes, but regardless, a win is a win, and I was happy. Fast forward to the end of the season, and our last tournament had about 20 different schools competing in it, everyone wrestling in 3 different matches that day. I win my first match against someone from McMahon, and I’m feeling optimistic about the rest of the tournament. I wait for my name to get called by watching some of the other matches, a bunch of my friends on the team win their first and some win their second matches. When my name gets called, I hurry over to the mat, the whistle blows, and after about 15 seconds I get taken down. As the match progresses I realize that me and the guys I’m going against are more or less equal, but despite that, I get pinned in the second round. Now after this round, I do much of the same thing, watch my friends in their matches, my name gets called, I go over to my mat, whistle blows, and this guy was so much stronger and better than me. He went for a takedown and almost pinned me in the first 20 seconds of the first round. I somehow manage to get off my back and stand back up, but he almost immediately gets me back down on the ground and pins me. 

My record for the day was 1-2, but it motivated me to wrestle in the summer during the off-season in the summer at South Side in order to get as good at wrestling as I could be, so this season I can be even more persistent and be even better than I was before.

I’ve learned a lot so far this season and during the pre-season this summer, especially about hard work and dedication. Every summer the football team goes to a camp at Yale University, run by their own football program. I was on the starting offensive line at camp, and a lot was expected of me. Every morning at about 7, we got on buses from Warde with all of our gear; our cleats, shoulder pads, pants, jerseys, helmets, mouthguards, and water bottles. Then when we get there, including about 10 other teams like Woodland, Ludlowe, Fairfield Prep, New Canaan, and others before we all stretch and get into positional drills and training. Then we would start working on remembering our plays then team vs team scrimmages. I was by far the worst player on the varsity team at camp, I could only remember about 7 or 8 of the plays during camp leading up to the Yale Bowl on Friday and I was insanely nervous. I had been struggling to perform well all week, missing blocks, messing up my footwork in both run block schemes and pass protection, giving up big yards allowing our QB to get sacked and our running backs to get tackled by the opposing defense, it was terrible. The one thing which I learned from Yale camp better than anything was persistence and that I needed to work harder than ever if I wanted to start that year.

Fast forward to our game vs Norwalk. I play great, I don’t let up any sacks, my footwork is good, my run blocking is good, we score, and we score again. On the sideline my coach is telling me how I’m doing a good job, and I think back to all the hard work I put in over the summer, whether it was in the weight room, on the field conditioning, or going to the field on the days off and working on my game; I found I stayed persistent, and all the hard work had payed off.

I enjoy being by myself most of the time. My room is my safe place because it's where I'm most comfortable, where I'm able to talk and play games with my friends,be with my pets, drawing, just being able to be myself. 

In my room I enjoy doing the dumb stuff. I blast music, scream with my friends when we play games, and bother my sister sometimes. I love the comfort of my bed and opening the window for a brown fluffy 60 pound   chihuahua. 

 I also loved how many animals  there were on my grandma’s farm. I would always love to wake up to go outside where you can hear the animals in the back of the house, seeing some of the chickens walk around, the dogs playing outside and usually seeing my grandma and my aunts cooking outside.   

I'm glad we went again because I didn't think it would be the last time I would see my grandpas. I enjoy spending time with my family whenever I have the chance because you never know when things take a turn for the worst. Those little moments matter.      

I got to know two people from this trip. We had fun going to Disney and   Universal Studios.I mostly enjoyed it because I got to know them both better and became better friends with them. 

I loved going to pool with them and the others. We would play games in the pool or either go in the hot tub and talk about our experiences during chemo, how much it changed our life and how it affected our mental state. 

At the end of the trip there was a party. I liked how there were the twinkling lights. Funny props like mustaches, funny hats, glasses  to take photos with, there was pop music, light up items.