Creativity - Cooking lessons

Today i had my first ever cooking lesson. I thought it would be a good idea to learn how to cook at least a few dishes as in university i don't want to be one of those people who lives off of either other people's cooking, or junk food. And with my mom being such a good cook and all, i thought i would ask her how to teach me.

My first ever dish was pasta with a simple tomato sauce, plus a nice salad on the side. It's not hard, i know, but let me tell you, i am TERRIBLE at cooking, so i thought i would start with something easy.

So first i had to make the pasta sauce. I started off by heating up some olive oil in a saucepan. At the same time i finely chopped some garlic, and once the oil was hot enough i added them in. I had to make sure that it was on a low heat, though, as the thing my mom told me was that the secret to cooking garlic is that it must be cooked slowly. If not, it apparently gets all bitter and nasty, and of course i didn't want that. Alright, so i had to wait about 10-15 minutes until the garlic was golden brown, and then i added in two tins of peeled tomatoes (that's the way my mom does it and to be honest, i was thankful for not having to peel all those tomatoes). I then added some salt and pepper, and a tiny amount of sugar, as my mom said that the sugar makes the sauce very nice. I turned the heat slightly up until the sauce started bubbling, after which i turned it down very slightly so that it was only bubbling a small, small amount. I let this cook for about 20 minutes. While this was cooking, i put some water into a big pot (enough water so that all the pasta could be covered) and turned the heat up to the fullest. Once it has started boiling, i put some salt in and then put all the pasta into the pot. This i let cook at a high heat (so that the water is constantly bubbling) until the pasta was al dente. This took about 10-12 minutes. Once the pasta was done, i drained it using a sieve and then combined the pasta and the sauce together in the big pot. At the very last minute i added in 7 basil leaves, which i tore up by hand and then mixed in. And voila!

I also made a salad at the same time, which had lettuce leaves, tomato, half a large onion and a nice dressing of vinegar and olive oil. My mom helped me quite a lot on this, as i have never done it before and was not sure about much of the processes. For example, i had no idea how to cut an onion properly, so she showed me how to do that. And also, i wasn't quite sure on how much of the vinegar and olive oil to add in, so she mixed the dressing for me. Though, i have made sure to take it all to memory, and hopefully next week i will be able to do the salad by myself!

Action - Volleyball tryouts

I am definitely a lover of sports. The two that i played in my junior year were varsity football and varsity volleyball. The football season is at the beginning of the year, while the volleyball season is at the very end. However, there are still volleyball tryouts at the beginning of the year because there is this tournament called the ISSEA (International Schools of Southern and Eastern Africa) tournament. It is a large tournament with seven schools that is hosted in a different country each year. ISSEA is split into three sports: football, volleyball and basketball. Football and volleyball are the same week, at the beginning of november (but in different countries), while basketball is sometime in february.

Well, because of this tournament i needed to play both football and volleyball simultaneously up until the ISSEA tournament. This is because i have already decided that i am going to do volleyball, and not football (both cannot be done, as they are held on the same week, as i have already said) for ISSEA.

The week of tryouts just didnt seem to be as hard as the week of football tryouts. This is probably because i was already getting used to playing sport again, though i found it difficult to juggle volleyball and football for that first week of doing both at the same time.

I made the team as a setter, the position i played in my junior year as well, and hope to continue to progress my skills as a setter over the coming months.

Action - Football tryouts

I tried out for the football team at the beginning of the year, as i really enjoy the sport. It is also able to be a part of my CAS program under the action part. I played in my junior year as well, playing striker on the varsity team.

The first day of tryouts was HARD. No joke. Over the course of the summer i did only a minimal amount of exercise, which had reduced my fitness to a level where i was definitely not ready for heavy sports again. Because of this, on that first day of tryouts i really struggled. I could not run for as long, as my lungs just seized up and i couldn't breathe, and i just had much, much less energy.

This lack of fitness continued over the course of the week. It was a difficult time. Thankfully, my school work had not yet exploded, so the tiredness that i was constantly feeling did not affect my academics. Even so, i could see that if i did not get fit as soon as possible, then there could have been consequences.

Tryouts started on the monday, and by thursday i was actually feeling a bit better. I wasn't as constantly tired, and i could play a full game without becoming too over-exerted. It seemed that the more i played, the fitter i became, so of course i tried to play as much as possible. I even committed myself to going cycling in the forest next to my house on weekends to try and improve my fitness level. It did pay off, but i realised that i was never really reaching my previous level of fitness (from before the summer holidays).

After the week of grueling physical exertion, i did manage to make the team. It wasn't a surprise; i definitely expected it, having been on the team the year previously. But i was a little worried that i may not be able to be as big a part of the team as in my junior year because of my fitness.