Next Stop: The Super Bowl

I have to say I'm not a HUGE fan of American football, or just Football, but it is one of the sports I follow; Unfortunately I don’t play it as much as I’d like to due to several reasons, but whenever I have the chance to, I do watch it. I would say it’s the third sport I watch the most on TV, after of course soccer and tennis. As at least some of you might know, the season is coming to an end, and the Super Bowl XLV (45) is on its way, which will be played on February 6th.

The four teams that were on the run for the Super Bowl today were; The Green Bay Packers vs The Chicago Bears, and The Pittsburgh Steelers vs The NY Jets. Earlier on today, The Packers played The Bears, with a final score of 21 to 14 for the Packers, which makes them the first finalist in The Super Bowl. Right at this moment, as I'm writing this, I am watching the second Final of one of the Conferences, The Steelers vs The Jets. So far, it seems like it’s going to be The Steelers against The Packers in the Super Bowl, since so far the score in the actual game is 24 to 10 for the Steelers at the end of the third quarter, and with only one more quarter to go. However, if there's something I've learned in sports is that nothing is finished until the referee blows the whistle. 

Hopefully, it'll be a great match this year, and I'll be writing soon with all the details on the Super Bowl XLV.  I recommend all of you to watch it if you have the chance.

All Set For the Knockout Phase

Earlier on today, the group stage of the Champions League concluded. The first and second place of each of the six groups will go on in the competition into the knockout phase, which will start in the first days of February of next year. It starts with round of 16 first, then quarter finals, semifinals, and at last the final, which this year it will take place in England. So, how is it decided who goes against who now for the round of 16?

First of all here is the list of the classifying teams.

Group	Classified in 1st place	Classified in 2nd place
A	Tottenham (England)	Inter (Italy)
B	Schalke 04 (Germany)	Lyonnais (France)
C	Man. United (England)	Valencia (Spain)
D	Barcelona (Spain)	Kobenhavn (Denmark)
E	Bayern M. (Germany)	Roma (Italy)
F	Chelsea (England)	Marseille (France)
G	Real Madrid (Spain)	Milan (Italy)
H	Shakhtar D. (Ukraine)	Arsenal (England)

The round of 16 is chosen randomly, just like the group stage was. However, there are two rules. A team cannot go against the other team that was on its group, or another team that’s from the same country. For example, if we were to see who Man. United could go against, it would be; Inter, Lyon, København, Roma, Marseille, or Milan. The draw for the round of 16 will be done next Friday, the 17th of December. Let’s hope they'll all be very interesting matches and that Madrid doesn’t get a very hard team to go up against. I’ll be writing soon again.  

'El Clasico'

Real Madrid vs Barcelona. What a huge amount of people all over the world would define as the two biggest enemies in the world of football would face yet once more to dispute another 'Clasico' this past Monday.  Millions of viewers all around the globe; over forty cameras set up all around Camp Nou to captivate what was determined to be the greatest match of the semester. Mou against Pep. Ronaldo against Messi. Real Madrid against Barcelona.  Both teams were coming from a really successful moment in both the local league and the Champions. On one side, Mourinho's Real Madrid was still undefeated in the season, winning most of their matches and only drawing a couple. They had already classified for the play-offs in the Champions League, and so far, they were in first place in the local league. However, the second place was only a point away. Guardiola's Barcelona. They were coming from having a solid start to the season; pretty much classified to the play-offs in the Champions League, and only a point away from the spot at the top of the local league. What was going to be the most even' Clasico' in the past years turned out to be the exact opposite. Barcelona beat Madrid 5-0. It seemed like 'Los Merengues' never even showed up to the game. There was only one team on the field. This Saturday, almost a week after the catastrophe, Madrid will to show that they are strong enough mentally to have overcome what happened in the 'Clasico'. They’ll have to lift up their spirits and make it up to its people, now at home. They’ll be playing another big one of Spain, Valencia; with a lot of suspensions and injuries, Madrid will still hopefully win. 

The Match

The most intense, the hardest and the last one of the season. We were now playing for bronze. We had beaten CMS in the opening game in three sets; we knew we could do it. In my opinion, that was something that turned against us since we went into the game too confident. The referee blew the whistle. Before we knew it, the first set was over, one, zero to them. Half way through the second set, we started realizing we had to start playing and stop messing around, but it was too late, they won it.

Before the third and what could’ve been the last set started, the referee kicked out our setter for arguing with him. He gave him a red card, which meant he had to sit out for that whole set. He could come back on the next one, if there was one. We didn’t know what we were going to do, in case you don’t know much about volleyball, the setter is, well in a way the most important player on the court; he knows all the plays. He's like the goalie in soccer, the QB in football, the pitcher in baseball. Players that can be replaced but almost never are.

The coach told us what we were going to do, and how we were going to do it. We knew it was going to be tough, but not impossible. The referee blew the whistle, and after a couple of minutes, we were winning ten to two. We were now certain we could do it. After some time, the score was now seventeen to fourteen, they were catching up. We kept playing, still as focused as we started that set.

It was my turn to serve. I looked at the referee to see him blow the whistle. I looked down at the ball. I bounced it, one, two, three times. I looked up and saw the score; it was twenty two to twenty one. I served. It’s in. We won that point. I followed the same routine, and in. We won that point as well; it was twenty four to twenty one. If we won this point, we were still in this. I served and luckily it was in. We won that point. We won that set.  Nobody could stop us at that moment. If we won without our setter, we could win this.

The four set, came, and we won it. We were now tied, two sets to two. The fifth and final set came, this one was only to fifteen. It was very close, till it was fourteen to thirteen to them. This was the point, if they won it, the came third, if we won it, we had a chance. Sadly, they got it. The final score was fifteen to thirteen. We came fourth, but you know what? I was proud of being fourth because I know we left everything we had in that court.      

Caissa (Volleyball)

Caissa, what we had worked for all along, this was the last tournament of the volleyball season. This was it. We met at school at two am that Wednesday morning; I hardly slept a couple of hours that night. After a couple of flights and hours of waiting, we finally got to the Dominican Republic at around three in the afternoon; we arrived at Carol Morgan School and met our hosts. The next day, we got to school at eight in the morning. The Opening Ceremony began, and so we heard the national anthems for each of the countries participating; Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela and Dominican Republic.
We were playing the hosts, CMS for the opening match, and after around an hour, it was finished, we had killed them in three sets. We played the best volleyball of all season.  Later on that day, we played ISPS (Trinidad), and unfortunately, we lost. I have to admit though that two of their players, seniors, were extremely talented. They actually were so good, that they made it into their national team, which is pretty impressive. Later on that day, we went to the mall, where pretty much everyone was. 
The following day, we only had one game, against Cotopaxi (Ecuador). The statistics showed it was very likely we would play them on the semi-finals, so this was sort of a practice for the playoffs.  There was a small reunion that night at our host's place, where people from his school and my school as well went to. The big day was here, Saturday, the playoffs.  We played Cotopaxi in the semi-finals. It was a tight game, they won the first set, we won the second, they won the third and sadly, the forth too, 25-22. We were now playing for the bronze medal, against CMS. We had beaten them once already, and I think that was not good for some of us, since we went into the match a bit too confident. I have to say that game was by far, the most intense, the hardest (both mentally and physically) and the last one of the whole season.  If you want to know how that game ended you'll have to wait for my next entry … 

Of Mice and Men

This short novel was written by the Nobel Prize winning author John Steinbeck. There are two main characters; they are both the opposite from each other. George Milton and Lennie Small. Lennie is incredibly strong, he is quite simple and he has a learning difficulty. Nevertheless he is well coordinated and is capable of doing manual jobs. He is sort of a child in a man's body. He is dependent and he likes to pet animals.  George on the other hand, is small and very clever, he's the one in charge, and he organizes and reassures him about the future.  The story begins when they're walking to jobs in the ranch, Lennie constantly forgets things and he keeps on asking George where they're going. Lennie then finds a dead mouse on his pocket and wants to pet it, but he isn't able to keep it. Later on, they get into get a small discussion since Lennie goes to find the mouse. The next day they arrive at the ranch, where they already they didn’t make a good impression because they were late. Different things happen to them throughout the days, with Carlson and Slim (two other workers there) and Curley and his wife. George and Lennie dream on having their own farm someday with animals for Lennie  to pet. Some people at the ranch want to go with them too. Throughout the story there are ups and downs, times when everyone gets along and times when they fight. Unfortunately one day Lennie has to run away since he broke Curley's wife neck. Everyone is looking for him.

I found this short novel quite interesting. At first it seemed a bit odd and I think it was because of that, that I wanted to keep reading it, because I wanted to see what this was going to lead into. I would recommend it more for adults than for teenagers since the topic might not seem very interesting to them. At first, I was a bit unsure myself about the topic, but in the end I did end up reading it.

Life as We Know It

The film begins when Holly Berenson (Heigl) and Eric Messer (Duhamel) are being set up on a blind date by their mutual friends (a couple). The date goes amazingly awful, up to the point where they didn’t even get to the restaurant they were supposed to have dinner in.  Years later, an unfortunate car accident occurs, where they couple dies, luckily Sophie (couple’s daughter) wasn’t in the car. Both, Holly and "Messer" (as he’s known) are Sophie's legal guardians. The couple decided to leave Sophie with them in case an accident like this happened. They both put aside their differences and the fact that they pretty much hate each other in order to help their friends when they need them. They both have been told that it'd be easier for Sophie if they moved to Sophie's home, and so they do.  Since they have no experience whatsoever with kids, and the fact that they need to learn how to get along with each other, they struggle and start getting really stressed.  After some weeks, they start getting along and things start working out pretty well with Sophie. In fact, they start getting along so well that they go out on a date, which ends quite well. Life seems to be going perfectly until Holy learns that Messer's been offered the job he's been wanting for years in Phoenix and he's seriously thinking about moving there even if it means he would have to give up his 'family'. She is extremely disappointed and wants him to take the job and go.

Will he give up on the perfect family for the job of his life? Will this story un like others have a sad ending?

You'll have to watch it to see how it ends.