Genius hour is coming to an end soon, and there is still a lot more I want to do. It has just been decently stressful with the ap world exam coming. Also, the school year is about to be over and there are some classes where I'm not that satisfied with my grade. I will most likely try and double up these next two weeks on things to do. This week I had my ap world exam so I decided to make it a simple, stressful free week.
I decided to go biking. I used to bike a lot with my friends during quarantine around 2 years ago. We would go late evening. If we were to go now during that time, there is going to be a lot of people walking and golfing. That's not that big of a deal but the reason biking was really fun then was because I could go on the golf course and it was super fun. It also helped that there were about 6-10 of us every time we went to bike. This time, I figured at least one person would go. I also wanted to go early in the morning, which I know most of my friends don't like getting up early. Someone would come with me. Biking also gives me a lot of time to give my mind a break. It allows me to think even more about the stress of Genius Hour presentation. Some reason I feel like I am missing something vital for the presentation that everyone else has that I don't have. I don't exactly know what I want to do next week. I might do 2 things because I will have a lot of time, I think. It depends how far I am in my presentation.
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This should be our final week for lacrosse, but we managed to make it to the states. Monday we played West Forsyth and won 10-9. Then we played Reynolds Tuesday, which was 16th in the state and would later become number 4, and we lost 17-7 I think. I thought this was the end of our season so I could finally relax. The weekend I would later hear that we squeezed into state playoffs. I didn't know that yet though.
During the week, I had plenty of time. One of my good buddies plays golf and has a membership at a few golf courses so I can just play with him, and a few other good buddies I have, for free. I'm not good at golfing, but I wouldn't say that I'm terrible. I can hit a solid one every 3-4 times so that's my motivation to keep playing. It also helps that I live 2 minutes from 2 different golf courses. When I first played, when I use my driver, I curve the ball really far right. Therefore I'm aimed so far left which is awkward, but it works. It also doesn't help that I do so much work to make it onto the green and I am HORRIBLE at putting. I mean I have fun though, that's been my whole goal. With there being 3 weeks left, and a presentation in less than 20 days. I think about how close I am to my goal. I think I am doing pretty well, but then again I felt like I could've done better. I am thinking of how exactly I want to do my presentation. If I could do a video, I feel like it would be a lot easier to show my progress. I don't know what exactly I want to do next week. My season for lacrosse is finally ending soon. This is the easiest week we've had all year. We only have 2 games, and they're against easy teams. This is also our last week of practicing because next week is our conference tournament. Therefore, I'm left with a lot of time to try new things.
With the weeks counting down, I have realized that there is so much more that I wanted to do. So I will just have to give myself a week on each thing and see how far I can progress. I'll be learning how to cook these next few days. It doesn't seem that difficult, so I believe that I can make great progress. It also helps that I have parents who can help me make about anything I'd want. When I see my mom cook, she goes back in forth from the fridge and the pantry. For me, because I'm just starting, I would want everything already set out on my counter. Also, because my mom already knows how to cook what she's making, she doesn't have to use measuring cups and all the other measuring equipment. Most likely, I'll need to have the recipe right in front of me. First thing I made is eggs because if I can figure out how to cook them, then I can make myself breakfast every morning. I knew the first time I made eggs, it would be the best I would ever do because I have my mother to help and teach me. After that, I continuously burned and undercooked the eggs. It's a process thought, just a very slow one. I wanted to try grilling something but just never decided to go out and buy steak. I did try making spaghetti. It was a fun process because with meat loaf and grilling, you kind of just throw it on the grill or in the oven and then do nothing else. Spaghetti was a lot more hands on with making the sauce and boiling the noodles. Hopefully for the upcoming weeks I can manage to dedicate this much time to other things. That is my big problem. I am continuously thinking about the end goal and my final project. Lacrosse season really messed up my schedule but instead of dedicating one week to one hobby, I had to dedicate 2 weeks to it. Especially at the start of the project I couldn't try all the things I wanted to do. Now that the season is practically over, I can give myself lots of time to each week. Knowing that this was the last week before spring break, I couldn't decide what I wanted to do. This final week was also very hectic, so I wouldn't be able to give my full effort to something. Therefore, I decided to try a little bit of everything. I'm also going to combine this week with spring break because I have much more time and make more progress overall.
The first thing I tried was cooking. I made myself breakfast and it was fun. This will prob be something I will try to continue on a later week. I made something simple, eggs and bacon. I then tried weightlifting, which is something I've done but I haven't in a while. I'm in the at the end of my lacrosse season right now so I figured I should try to get back into the habit. Those were the only 2 things I was able to get done during the final week due to the amount of work and tests that were coming up. Finally, I made it to spring break. Now I felt like I had so much time and I didn't know what I should do. I spent about 30 minutes doing everything I saw in my garage. I went from trying to skateboard, to biking (which was pretty fun), and I even tried bocce ball. Then I eventually found something I really enjoyed, it was golf. I went with a few friends and it was amazing. It was something that I will defiantly something I'm interested in. That is probably what my next genius hour will be because there is a lot I need to learn about golf to be even decent. I'm going to spend more time on this hopefully more than the other ones because I'm motivated to become even better. We have our playoffs for lacrosse coming up soon and I know I can't spend all my time towards golfing. I was planning on doing another outdoor activity this week, but I somehow managed to get sick again. I was nauseous and couldn't eat much food. This left me tired most of the day. Therefore I had no motivation to try new things because I just wanted to be healthy again. I'm already familiar with the piano so I decided to simply try a new song. I was laying in bed and saw someone do a cover of a song that I enjoyed. I then really wanted to learn it, so that what I did.
The first day, I made really good progress. I learned the first minute of the song and was on a good track. I would continuously get stuck at one part so I played it over and over again until I was comfortable. My main problem was whenever I'd practice, I'd get caught off track and start doing my own thing. It's really fun to me to start playing random chords and messing around. I would rather not spend 2 weeks on this because it's something I know pretty well. I'm still lost to as what I want to do. I will be healthy again so I plan on doing something outdoor related. It would be nice to try and get some friends and do something. I know one of my friends would like to go biking, and I would prefer if it wasn't sports related. I would make an exception for pickle ball, because that is very fun to me. Hopefully I don't get sick again. This week I was able to spend the most time I think I will ever be able to spend on a hobby. During this week I had to quarantine because I took an at home test and it said I was positive. I showed some symptoms, most of which just seemed like a common cold. My mom wanted me to rest all week so I was left sitting inside all day. This left me with plenty of time to do whatever. One of those things I did was practice the guitar again.
I noticed that the chords I was playing sounded more clear than it did last week. I still am no where near being an intermediate guitar player. I learned a chord progression (which is a series of chords/ notes in an order) and luckily it all contains the same fingering the whole way. This means that I never have to change the shape of my hand and I just move my hand up and down the fret board. I decided to try and learn another song. Even though I didn't master the one I practiced last week, I believe if I get used to new chords my fingers will become more flexible. I made pretty good progress probably due to the fact that I was home all day. It was also nice to have the guitar in my room too because I could easily get up and walk 3-4 steps and start practicing. Just like last week, a problem I ran into was after practicing for around 30 minutes my fingers and hands began to hurt. My hand would start cramping and I would have to take a break. I actually felt like this helped me because every time I came back to practice more, it sounded better and better. After becoming familiar with my schedule in the past weeks, I was finally able to move to something else. I began to make progress with a guitar this week. This was something I didn't necessarily want to be good at, but something I want to at least be slightly decent at.
I initially started by teaching myself how to play a bar chord. This is where your index finger, and sometimes with your thumb also, reach across the strings on the guitar. I don't know if this was the best way to head into learning, it's something at least. For the first few days, my fingers would start hurting after about 20-30 minutes and my forearm would end up cramping. I believe that my fingers would hurt due to the type of strings my brother has on his guitar. They are thicker because he likes to play a more rock genre of guitar. I personally like the lighter, skinnier strings because they are softer on my fingers. Something I struggle with is parts of my fingers interfering with other strings. This would mute the sound of that exact string. What my brother taught me was moving my thumb down on the back. This helped a ton. I also noticed that the closer my hand is to the body of the guitar, I can't play the chord well. After a while, I got bored and began to play the bass. I figured since the strings are spaced out more than the guitar, it would be easier to play. I wasn't necessarily correct. It was easy to play simple patterns but once when things got more complicated, it became very stressful. Having to correlate a finger to play a different string on the bass seemed difficult. Well, it's not like I am getting lessons so that does play a factor of how easy an instrument is. Next I initially wanted to give myself two weeks on each hobby. Due to school, sports, and other various problems, I had to give myself another week. I wasn't too mad. This allowed me to practice and work on my objectives and goals. I basically repeated last weeks schedule in a way.
I got some time in from my high school practices and games. This week for me was oddly stressful so I never went out of my comfort zone in my games. That is something that I am urging myself to do every game. If I can get used to doing something that feels awkward, then it will eventually become normal. At home, I really only had time to practice outside on the weekend. Saturday, it was raining to I couldn't run without slipping. I had to compromise and stick to just throwing a ball off a wall, getting my hands feeling less awkward. I did a basic routine of throwing with my right and catching with my right, then vise verse with my left. I tried to hit the same spot every time so I can at least improve on something during the bad conditions. Sunday was better. It was cold and somewhat wet but I was able to shoot and slightly run to say the least. I did the same thing as last week so warm up. I then decided to try something new. When I shoot with my right hand (which is dominant), I try to aim to where I want the ball to go. Instead of trying that with my left, I decided to throw it as hard as I can. I realized if I can get my left hand to shoot hard, then I can learn to be more accurate. I find this much better than having a slow, easily saved shot. Next week, my schedule seems to be more laid back. I hope to pick up the guitar. This is something that I can do inside, anytime. I will teach myself different chords and songs by looking at guitar tabs. I will go into more detail next week. Due to my lacrosse season just starting, I think it's best if I start out with something I'm already familiar with. Also, I think it is smarter to do this now so I can work on my goals throughout the season rather than trying to get better towards the end of the season when I don't have much time left to improve.
What I began to work on was my off-hand dodges. I noticed during our first 3 games that I am typically on the right side of the field, meaning I have to use my left (which is my off-hand) often. Therefore whenever I have to make a dodge to either score or pass I have to use my left hand. I began by doing a dodge with my right and trying to mimic the exact same movement with my left. This process felt very awkward at first. After around 30 minutes or so of doing the same 3-4 dodges, I moved to shooting with my off-hand. This was where I felt the most awkward, I felt very robot. I start off by going around 5 feet away from the goal, just going through the motions. After about 5 minutes of this I moved back. Now I started stepping into shots. After another 5 minutes of this, I added it all together. I would make my dodge and then shoot with my left. I spent around 15-20 minutes on this. Next week I plan on doing the exact same thing but add something else. I want to begin shooting with my offhand on the run. I am still debating on adding this next week due to my on the run shots with my right (which is my dominant hand) still not the best. So instead I may work on moving shots with my right. Throughout my Genius Hour, I plan to follow a routine every week. This is just to help me stay on track. I plan to get around 9 hours to work on my dedicated hobby. I expect my week to be changed depending on the circumstances, so I want to try and get as much time as possible to work on my hobby.
I believe that this fits my own schedule best because everything like school and sports get in the way and this pattern works around that. The reason I want to try and find new hobbies is that in my opinion, the more things I'm able to do, the better off I will be in the future. You never know what will come your way so why not just try everything just in case.
The first hobby that I want to tackle is playing guitar. It is already something I started about 2 weeks ago so I believe it would be best to start off with it. With this being something I'm fairly familiar with, it will allow me to get used to my new schedule and find any flaws in it. The other interests I'd like to try are:
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