More stuff on being a ball kid

Now that I have been a ball kid for a women's and a men's match, I realize the women are way more polite. For example, men just say "towel" or "ball," and women actually also say "please." So when I am out on the court with the men who just say "towel" or "ball," I would like to say that adding "please" to your vocabulary would not hurt you. So, I am hoping I get mainly women's matches not men's. Lastly, men sweat about 10 times more than women, so it isn't fun touching a sweaty towel. But, overall, being a ball kid is fun: You get free lunch, Popsicles, dinner, and a tent for shade while you are waiting.

Ball kid time

Today I will be going to the Fifth Third tennis tournament to be a ball kid for the first time. Being a ball kid means you clear the tennis courts after each point the pros play so there are no balls on the court that they could slip on and so the pros have tennis balls to serve. So I cannot wait to get to the tournament, but being a ball kid means you must pay attention to the court so you do not get hit or leave a ball on the court.

Work and camp

I am done with This Borrowed Earth and transitioning to Peter Pan, which is not as bad. But, it has a longer question to answer, so I am hoping that I get this done by the end of the month so I have some time with no work. Now for camps: this is my last one. It started Monday and ends today, so all I have to do now is the project. :)

Tournament time again

I have another tournament this weekend. It has mostly experienced players so I am probably not going to win a match, but I will at least try to win a few points. I am going to be doing another soccer camp (third this summer) next week, and I am looking forward to doing that with my friends. But for the rest of the summer I am not doing much except tennis, hanging out, and my dreaded school work. :|

Tennis tournament awesomeness

I played two matches today and won both. The first match was against one of my friends from school. He started playing tournaments when he was nine. We had a good match that took almost two hours, and in the end it was 6-2,6-2. For my second match (the finals of the consolation bracket) I played another one of my friends who is a good tennis player. It was his first tournament, too. The match was really tough,lots of long points. My feet were throbbing afterwards, but in the end it was 7-5,6-1. So for my first tournament I think I did pretty good.

Tennis tournament

I played in my first tournament today, and I lost 6-3,6-1 in the first round. My opponent was very good, in fact he is the number one seed because he plays lots of tournaments. I had to be tough with him because he changed the score a couple of times in his favor even though he was winning.I play in the consolation round tomorrow. That should be more fun.

resting day

This is my resting day, after all I did tennis and got a haircut (which I hate getting done) yesterday and I don't feel like doing anything, but tomorrow is lunch then laser tag. Over the weekend I am going to a tennis tournament and this is the first one I have ever done so it will be an interesting experience. I am also going to another soccer camp next week. So week and weekends with lots of fun.

Tennis and resting

I just got done playing tennis and doing some very painful fitness. Now, I have not played tennis in a week, so I hit about 60% of my shots out. So today was not my tennis day. Now to fitness. Tennis is hard enough as it is, add fitness, and drinking hot, dirty hose water would be better. In fitness today we had to jog, run, jog backwards and other things about four times each, then we did what we call seventeens, where you have to run across the court, doubles line to doubles line, seventeen times twice, then do about eight suicides, and if you think that is easy you are out of you mind. So right now I am resting. And it is wonderful.

More about Pennsylvania to present and future

On Sunday my grandmother's son's children came to my grandparents' house. They are brothers. Mark Robert is 12, and David is 10. We hung out, played checkers, and they brought their iTouchs, which have hundreds upon hundreds of apps, mainly games. Later we went outside to play four-square. After we had been playing about twenty minutes, a mean next-door neighbor said to stay away from his new car, which was 20 feet away from where we were playing. He was not nice about it, so we played soccer on the grass in front of my grandparents' condominium until we got bored. We went back in and used the iTouchs until it was time for them to go home.

On our trip back we went a different route through Ohio, but we accidentally started going north towards Cleveland rather then southwest towards Kentucky. We got straightened out. The weather was a problem, too. There were severe storms moving across Ohio, and we didn't want to drive through the middle of them. Fortunately, we missed the worst part of the storms.

Yesterday, one of my friends from Columbus came. We threw my football and ate ice cream at his grandmother's house until about 9 p.m., then we called it a night. He is staying until Tuesday. On Friday I am going to play laser tag with some friends at Champs so I cannot wait for that.

Grandparent's house

Yesterday when we got into New Castle we went to my grandmother's house, where she asked me about my favorite subjects in school and about sports I play. And my grandfather told some stories about when he was younger. While I was there they got me a tennis bag to carry my stuff in because you have no idea how much I drop my racket and water bottle. Right now we are getting ready to go eat lunch with my grandmother's son, who has two boys my age, so I think this will be fun. If you are doing anything or taking trips this summer please write a comment.

On a trip to Pennsylvania

I am on a trip in the car to Pennsylvania to visit my grandparents for three days and I cannot wait to see them. We are taking a different route than last time because there is a lot of construction around Cincinnati. We are driving through eastern Kentucky, and West Virginia is next. I am not used to seeing all these trees and hills. I think it is pretty neat.

Sleepover Day

I am going to a sleepover tonight. It is with one of my friends I haven't seen in a while. He has a pool, so we will be able to go swimming. We are also going to have a water balloon fight. From time to time we will play on his Wii but of course I do not have one or any other video game stations :(, so it is fun when I get to. I get to play some games on my parents' iPad but I have to read, practice piano, and write a blog post before I am allowed to use it.

Summer reading

So I have started my book on man-made disasters. It is amazing how people ignore things that cause disease and even kill people. You can tell that the people creating the waste are pretty greedy because they deny everything even after doing tests, like in the story I recently read about where this company in Japan was dumping mercury into the water with their chemicals that infected the fish and the people that ate them. But of course it is not always companies. For example, in England a giant soot cloud covered everything in London, but it was made by everybody using their fireplaces not just a company.
If anybody is doing summer reading please comment about it.

To Comment

Hey it's Rena. Several of you have noted the difficulty of commenting. I think I have found the easiest way. Set up a Google account at Google.com (you don't have to fill out all that profile info; what they really need is just an e-mail address that lets them track you in case you start making terrorist threats). Once you have a Google account go back to this page and hit sign-in (right-hand corner). Once you've signed in, it'll take you to your own account page, just use the back arrow key to get back to Matthew's page, where you will see you are signed in at the top and free to comment. If anyone knows an easier way -- please feel free to comment.
And, my very thoughtful father-in-law also points out below that you won't get through if you are using Internet Explorer as your browser and to use Firefox instead.

Tennis in the heat.

I am taking tennis lessons this summer with Jo and a group of kids I have been playing with for a while. Today we had to play outside while the sun was boiling on our backs. Now something different about these courts is that they are clay so the ball bounces much higher, and it is much harder to play. We really just did a bunch of consistency drills and singles. But, of course, we had to end with cardio tennis, which makes you beg for  mercy. I was glad when we were finished, but, unfortunately my mom forgot my swimsuit.

Yesterday and the things going on today.

Yesterday, even though it was the first day after school, I had to go clothes shopping because in the fall I have to follow the ridiculous dress code. We also bought some new shoes that are shaped literally like a foot, and they are water shoes so they're pretty neat. We also got a couple graduation cards and gifts for some friends. Also, we went to the bookstore to buy the books I needed for summer reading. Now today I am going to do my final soccer game at 1:00, and I cannot wait, but the thing is, my coach can't be there so my mom and another parent are going to coach. 

Last day of school

IT IS THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL AND I AM PSYCHED. This is going to be a big summer but of course I couldn't have gotten through the year without my 5th grade teacher, Mr. Clark who is unfortunately going to teach at a different school called Simmons Elementary school in Versailles, Ky., and for those of you who don't know where he taught before it is Meadowthorpe Elementary in Lexington,Ky. Anybody who knows me at all please comment.

Parting thoughts

Overall the trip was lots of fun, but I do wish we could have spent more time seeing family and sightseeing. Seeing family was fun, but one of my cousins whines a lot. For example, he doesn't like riding in cars too long, doesn't like waiting for anything, and he doesn't like walking anywhere, which is a problem in New York where everyone walks. He is 12 and his older brother is 15 and they argue a lot. My other cousin is 11. She is an only child like me, and we get along better because neither of us whine as much. She lives on the highest mountain in New Jersey.

A couple more things about The Lion King play, because I was so tired from everything we had already done for the day I ended up falling asleep for about 20 minutes of the play. I sat next to a Native American from New Mexico who had quite a trip getting to New York. At the Memphis airport, where he had to fly through, there was a big storm -- the one that created tornados last week. It made my trip look easy.

Lion King

Last night we saw The Lion King on Broadway. Now this was a musical/play so there was lots of dancing and singing. A little after the beginning there was a lady who was acting as the baboon and she clicked her tongue after everything she said, which was in an African language so we could not understand. She was hilarious.

Rafiki in The Lion King. She cracked me up!

My Mom and me waiting for the play to start.

 
I will have to write more later because we are about to take a subway then a train to New Jersey.

One busy day with more to come

My cousins from New Jersey came to join us in our busy day. We started off going on a Circle Line boat tour around Manhattan. In the middle of the trip we got cut off by sailboats twice but we did see the Chrysler building, Statue of Liberty, Empire State Building, and a lot of apartment buildings. Only 1% of these apartments are vacant even though the rent costs a minimum of $3,000 per month! We did not just see Manhattan. We also saw Brooklyn and Queens. One of three bridges we saw was built in the early 1800s and the measurements were done with only paper and pencil. The guide on the boat told us a lot of really interesting stories like this. Afterward we rode the subway, which was very loud and packed with people, to Ground Zero. I was expecting to see more but they had the area fenced off for construction. I did get to see the new Freedom Tower being built. It is half done. We then rode the subway to Times Square and ate at an Italian restaurant where I got a Caesar salad and penne to eat.

A plaque welded to a steel beam in the shape of a cross near Ground Zero

Freedom Tower...halfway done

Going to see Lion King at the theater tonight. More on that later. It should be fun.

What I like, do not like, and interesting things

New York City has its ups and downs. There is lots to see and do, like there are lots of places to eat and apparently the pigeons like it because they are the fattest pigeons I have ever seen. Also the pigeons orange feet look like they have gloves on. I also like the variety of people. Some are quiet and some are loud. On our way into Manhattan a man got out of his car and started yelling at a traffic cop, and some people talk to themselves. The bad part is some places smell like rotting garbage and there is lots of traffic. The drivers cut each other off and in the process use bad language. Some other interesting things are that many people wash the sidewalks outside their homes and businesses each morning and the view of the city with all the tall buildings. I wish I could stay longer but the weekend has its limits.

Central Park

We just went to Central Park. We looked at only a small part of what is a really big park. Also, there is a small water park near the entrance along Broadway. There were lots of kids all over the place, on it and around it. There were also people riding bikes, walking, and riding horse-drawn carriages.

My Dad and me in Central Park

First hours in New York

My airplane flight was like all the other flights I have had.We took a car service into Manhattan. The car was driven by an orthodox Jew who told me about his faith and about being Jewish.We are staying at the Crowne Plaza on Times Square which has lots of people going into large shops with even more people and cars and taxi's honking their horns. We also ate lunch at a Italian place called Daniela's, it was one of the best restaurants I have been to. When we were their I ordered spaghetti and meatballs the plate of pasta was the size of your head and the meatballs the size of your hand. As well we were one of the only ones there.

Times Square, right outside our hotel

Leavin' On a Jet Plane

My family is headed to New York City on Friday, that's uh...May 27. We are going to visit my grandfather and cousins and see lots of really cool stuff. This is not my first trip to New York, which is why it's very exciting. I know some of the great stuff to see already, like Broadway and the world's largest toy store. I am not looking forward to all the traffic and the crowds, but it's worth it.