Something New

This weekend was the first time ever that I didn't go to valley to watch the semi-final and final basketball games. Instead, for the first time I spent the entire day with my aunt and cousin brother. My aunt, Rae, is currently going to school at Northern Arizona University and my cousin brother, Colin, is a junior at Winslow High School. We went to town because he needed new clothes for a roping his doing this weekend and I needed new moccasins with my leggings attached to the new pair, our aunt was just the driver, but the trip was really for Colin.

My brother is careless, but I have never seen him so picky until that day. He told us before that he needed an outfit, I just didn't expect it to take an entire hour! He started team roping and well be roping this weekend in Holbrook, AZ, at the Tolani Lake Classic. My aunt and I started browsing through shirts after shirts, after shirts and every shirt seemed to have something wrong with it. The buttons were right, the shirt was too thin or too thick, or the color didn't match his rope! The last one made me laugh but he quickly defended himself by saying "my rope is an accessory to me." It wasn't until Rae picked out a blue shirt with black buttons, one pocket on the left side, without the shoulder design that he didn't like, and had the right thickness. Though it still didn't match his rope, so he ended up buying a new rope. Just his new shirt alone was about $65 and his two pants were $50 each, it was shocking to witness him spending all that money within minutes. Selecting his rope took even longer! From the rack, he inspected each rope and each one had a defect he named by just looking at it. "It's not balanced", "It's not straight", and my favorite "It has a bend", well of course it has a bend, it's a rope! After going through nearly all the ropes he finally found one that was "perfect" and I asked, "How did he know?" He undid the rope and told me to watch, then he threw the rope up in the air and let it hit the ground. I watched but I didn't know what I was really watching. Then he said the rope goes straight up and comes straight down without moving, that means it's balanced and the honda (the loop for the rope) is straight. Then I was amazed with how much he could tell about a rope with a quick glance. He then compared it to sports for me by saying, you spend hours at a shoe store looking for the right pair, then you wear the shoe in practice so that your used to it, and in practice you run and do whatever you need to do for the real game. It's the samething for me with roping, I trained my horse myself, I ride it everyday afterschool, I select the perfect rope, boots, and clothes, just so I know I did what I can to win.

I never noticed how dedicated he was to roping and it was impressive on how he compared what he does to what I did. He told me about some of the local ropings he goes to and wins about $800 to $300 each weekend. So he invited me to watch him in his first roping this Friday, I'll probably end up going to support him at his first roping. For him, it's just having fun and if he's lucky he wins. Rodeos do not interest me, but he bought my shoes for graduation with the money he won, I'll watch him (maybe). I love how my cousin has something he's dedicated to entirely.

Another Competition

 Today is the day I leave for Cottonwood, Arizona, for the SkillsUSA Regional Welding competition at Mingus High School. So far, I’ve only prepared my tool box and resume, I have not yet packed at all but eventually I will. Throughout the week at the welding shop, we were given pieces of metals and a blueprint that we to assemble according to the blue print within 30 minutes. 30 minutes sounds like a lot of time but when you have to quickly glance at the blue print, place the right piece of metal where it belongs, and correctly weld where and how the blue print says, the 30 minutes feel like 5. As we did our projects there has been little mistakes that would have cost me lots of points in the competition, 50 percent of our points come from our assembly and the other 50 percent come from how well are welds are. Inside the welding competition, we weld in three main processes in welding: mig, tig, and stick, along with welding we cut the metal in oxy-fuel and plasma, as well as a mock interview, and written tests that are related to welding in between everyone of these categories. We receive points in everything we do and in the end whoever has the most points wins.

Although this is just the regional competition, between the three NAVIT (vocational institute program) welding shops: Holbrook, St. Johns, and Show Low, to qualify for state we have to finish as one of the top six out of the three shops. There’s normally about 80 welders that compete in the regional that are just from the northern part of Arizona, but at state it’s everyone in Arizona. Last year I was fortunate enough to place 11^th in the entire regional competition and advance to state because I place 4^th inside the NAVIT shops. I plan to do my best at Saturday’s competition. It starts at 6am and does not end until 3pm, so I know already it’s going to be a long day.

I enjoy competing with welding, for me; it’s like putting two of my favorite things together. Even though I probably would have lost if my projects from this week were for this competition, I see it as I have already made mistakes and learned from them. Right now I’m nervous about welding, but I’m more confident than I was last year and looking forward to Saturday. I’m just doing what I love, surrounded by people who share the same interest in welding as me. I will do by best in this competition and most importantly have fun welding and hope it’s good enough to qualify for state in March.

Friends & Basketball

Growing up, we met many people that are somehow drawn to us that are either shares the same interests with us or just fun to be around and if you’re lucky they’re both. Friends are just the people we met and like to be around and talk to when our family members are just not the people to go to. My first friend I made when I was in Preschool, as little as we were neither one of us knew that we would evolve into what is known as “best friends”.

We grew up in the same area and began going to school at the same school with the same teacher. But then in 3^rd grade we received different teachers, though the classrooms separated us, nothing ever came between us during lunch and recess. The following year, she transferred to a new school a few miles away, so we wrote letters to each other for the entire year and occasionally I was allowed to visit her and play at her house. It was nice to have someone my own age that I could communicate with and proudly call my best friend. As we grew older, distance became our enemy, our 5^th grade year I transferred to Winslow (even further away from her than I already was!) starting out in a new school was difficult for me. Until then I finally understood how she felt when she first transferred through her letters. As the next few years when on our communication level declined drastically due to the large amounts of homework we I received and she had continue playing basketball, it was hard to keep contact as middle-schoolers. So instead of seeing each other in person, it was like we only seen each other on paper now.

Then came junior high, we once again were reunited at last! No more distance between us or writing letters, we finally had each other at our side. I couldn’t be happier having her back after so many years, and at school we had some of our classes together which made me even happier! Nothing ever got between us and nothing ever will, personally, I never could ask for a better friend than her. She was the person that could practically read my mind and finish my sentences for me and had so many fun memories from grade school that we would occasionally reminisce about the “good ole days”. As a bonus, from spending a few years apart, we developed friends of our own who all got along very well. We became an entire group of friends that had even bigger and greater laughs together, but it turned out that they all had played basketball, not I.

Though when the 7^th grade try-outs came around they all encouraged me to go, so I went. On the first day of try outs, on a piece of paper that was being handed around we were instructed to write: our name, how many years we played basketball and what position we played. My friend knew I have never played before, so she told me to copy what she wrote down three years of playing basketball as a post player.  At the end of our second week of try-outs, I made my first basketball team my 7^th grade year. I also became a part of the starting five basketball team that year and the next year as well. If it wasn’t for the amazing set of friends I had during my two years of junior high, basketball would have never been a sport I played because I constantly needed their assistance on running plays and working hard both offense and defense to improve my “game”.

With all the fun I was having on and off the court and making more friends that had the love for the game of basketball was a big part of my junior high years. As a team, we were like a family and set dreams of becoming state champions our senior year. Although towards the end of my 8^th grade year I decided to leave Winslow and finish my senior year at Holbrook. Why? Because I thought being a Roadrunner would make my dad and his family notice me. My entire childhood has always been stuck between the rivalry of Winslow and Holbrook, my mom and majority of her siblings graduated from Winslow and my dad and his siblings from Holbrook. So if you go to either school, you should kind of know what I mean, but if you don’t, watch any game, any sport at any location and you’ll know what I mean instantly. Leaving my best friend, again, and everyone else was hard because basketball really united our friendship.

As a freshman at Holbrook, I didn’t know anyone at all. Thankfully, I played volleyball much longer than I did basketball, so at a new school I tried out for a sport. There I made new friends, along with my girls from Winslow, after volleyball was over came the sport I was looking forward to, basketball. Playing basketball with new players was a new experience from me after spending my first two years with my first team at my previous school. But I adapted and learned that friends and basketball took away the lonely feeling from transferring and not knowing anyone. Between the two years I played for Winslow and the three for Holbrook, I feel blessed to have been alongside them on the court and both set of girls are extremely talented. Unfortunately, for my senior year I choose not to play, not because of my families, or the girls, or whatever but for my education and new dream of being a welder.

I still support all of my friends on the court and enjoy the game of basketball every now and then because it’s taught me so much in just five years. I learned that a team is a family and for your family: you work your hardest both in school and on the court, you practice until everything is right, not matter how sore or how tired you are, and what I think is most important about a family is you stay a team, not matter what the scoreboard reads in the end. Without a team, you have no family and it makes it harder on yourself and the team. I will never forget my team, whether they have “Holbrook” or “Winslow” written across their chest because in my heart, they will always be my family. For the true love of the game of basketball and irreplaceable friendships with all my teammates!

My Bundle of Joy

Babies. I have always have a fear of babies. I don't know why but I always try to avoid them as much as I possibly could. On the other hand, my mom loves babies so every newborn it was like we were the first to be there to welcome the new baby. I would just look at the baby and that was about it.

Though a few months ago, I was blessed with a beautiful, baby sister, Samantha, on November 10, 2011. She's really my niece but my uncle was the father figure for me as I grew up, and evolved into being my other dad over time. On the night of the Sam's birth, he was constantly texting me and keeping me updated until the actual birth-giving part of it. The next morning my parents left and said I could visit her until she was back at my uncle's, but that wasn't soon enough for me to meet my first sister. I say "my first sister" because I grew up with nothing but boys and never really had girls to talk to until I started going to school that is. But with my parents gone and my eagerness increasing to visit my sister, I asked a friend to take me to Winslow and since she had to pick up hay herself, it all worked out fine. The first stop was Little Colorado Medical Center, room 3, I remember walking through the hallways looking at every label searching for "Room 3". As I passed every room, my heart began beating faster and I became nervous walking until I reached the right room.


When I entered the room I saw my other dad, his girl, her daughter, and my baby sister. I hugged the three of them and stood beside my baby sister, she was asleep, so I began stroking her above her forehead and along her jawline, admiring her birthmark on her left jaw. I couldn't help but smile knowing that I finally have a sister of my own, so I held her hand and felt a warm tear gently roll down my face, tears of joy. Sam then moved her hand from mine then grasped my pointer finger and didn't let go until I had to leave. As she held on to my finger no words could ever describe the feelings that I felt that day for her. I stood beside her in silence listening to my other dad tease about him waiting for the doctor to tell him to deliver his child, his girlfriend telling me that she didn't feel any pain at all throughout the entire thing, and her daughter making fun of my dad telling me that he drove so slow from Holbrook to Winslow and occasionally I laughed with them. The four hours I spent with her felt like 20 minutes but my friend was waiting for me outside, so I had no choice but to leave the side of my sister. I said my good byes to the three and told them I would be visiting my baby sister as much as I could.

Samantha was the first baby I first held inside my arms and I enjoyed it a lot! I still have a slight fear when she cries inside my arms, but thankful my mom has been there for me to hand her Sam. I love spending time with my baby sister whether its a few minutes or a few hours, I know those are times that I will never regret. I am still learning how to feed her, change her diaper, and everything else you need to know to take care of a baby and I'm loving it and learning a lot. I just hope to be there for my little sister as she grows up, just as her dad was there for me as I grew up.