Action - Volleyball

This week was the last week of school before October break. This didn't really change much, we still had practice three time in the week, and we still were working on the same sorts of things.

The only thing was that our coach was worried about our fitness levels on how they will be affected during the coming week (during holidays the majority of people don't do any exercise at all). Knowing this, he assigned us a little task. Well, okay it's actually quite a major task. He told us that everyday we must do 40 push ups and 40 sit ups. But that's not all, he also said that every other day at least we should do some form of exercise: running, biking, swimming (though he said preferably not swimming as it's not a weight-based sport).

So i will do that, and i will also bring a ball to the Kenyan coast (where i am going on holiday), so that me and my brother can practice a bit.

Creativity - Cooking lesson

This week i made chilli con carne, a speciality of my mom. I've had this dish countless times and i still love it, so i'm happy that at last i can learn how to make it.

I started off my heating some olive oil in a large saucepan that has a lid (mine is red), and fried two onions and two cloves of garlic (both of which i had already peeled; the onion i had sliced, while the garlic i had crushed). I had to wait until they were softened, which took timing, and my mom helped me notice when they were ready. Once done, i increased the heat a bit, and then added the beef mince (1kg), cooking it quickly until it browned. I had to make sure that all sides

were brown, which meant flipping it all once one

side had sufficiently browned. I also had to make sure there weren't any big chunks (and there were lots at first), meaning i had to cut it all up with a wooden spoon. Once it was all brown, i then added in 250ml of some nice red wine (i have no idea what type) and let it boil for a couple minutes. Then i stirred in some tinned tomatoes

(2x 400g), three tablespoons of tomato purée, three teaspoons of chilli flakes, a teaspoon of ground cumin, a teaspoon of ground coriander, a stick of cinnamon and some Worcestershire sauce, and then i crumbled in a stock cube. On top of this i added some salt and pepper and then mixed all together nicely. I then brought it to a simmer

(i actually had to drop the heat, as for some reason it was too high and bubbling away), covered it with the lid and let it cook for about an hour. I had to come back every ten minutes or so though, just to stir it around to thicken it up.

After it had all been cooked, i added in the kidney beans (2x 400g) and a large bunch of fresh coriander from my mom's herb garden. I then let this cook for another ten minutes, took it off the heat and seasoned it a bit more with salt and pepper. And voilà!

I served the chilli con carne with some rice (which i made in a rice cooker), some sour cream, and a nice salad which my mom wanted to make (she was bored).

And it tasted delicious!

Creativity - Cooking lesson

This week i decided to cook pasta once again, though slightly different. Last time i made pasta it was simple, with a tomato sauce (with a hint of garlic). This time, my mom told me that there is a different way of making pasta, by baking it. So i decided to try it. I would use a sauce of tomatoes and mozzarella, which would melt while baking, and become very, very nice.
First, i preheated the oven to 200*C; this saves time. While that was heating up, i began boiling a large pot of water. Also simultaneously i took a pan and added some olive oil, an onion that i had already sliced up, two cloves of garlic that i had already finely chopped and a red chilly that i had crumbled up. I let these slowly fry (key word = slowly!) for about 10 minutes or so on a low heat, basically until they were all softened up. Once they were done, i added the tinned plum tomatoes (3x 400g). I then brought it to a boil, turned down the heat and let it simmer for about 20 minutes or so. I made sure to stir it every so often, just to get out the inconsistencies, and make it a nice smooth sauce. While it was simmering, i added some salt to the boiling water, and then put in the pasta (400g). It didn't need to be cooked completely until al dente (as it will still be cooked when baking), but i let it chill for a few minutes in the boiling water, just to make sure it was not completely hard. Once i judged it to be done (i used my mom's help a bit, as i didn't want to get it wrong), i drained the pasta and then mixed it with half of the tomato sauce and a bit of Parmesan cheese. As soon as it looked like it had been mixed together enough, i got a nicely sized baking tray, and sprayed a bit of olive oil (with the handy sprayer) onto the surfaces. I then scooped in all the pasta with the mixed in sauce and cheese. On top of this i put some more tomato sauce, a bit more grated Parmesan and a sliced up mozzarella ball, and repeated this until i had used everything i had (i had enough ingredients for three layers). On the very top i grated some more parmesan, to add a nice crust once baked. I then put this into the preheated oven for around 15 minutes (basically until it was golden and crisp, with a bit of bubbling going on.

Action - Volleyball

This week in volleyball we continued working on tactics (as we pretty much have the basic skills down), as well as our fitness levels (though mine isn't really changing). It's good to see the younger plays of the team pushing hard to improve as much as they can. It's also really good to see the older players helping out so much; being the leaders that they should be.

Apart from the practices that we had (monday morning, wednesday morning and thursday after school), we also had a tournament at the school against two Kenyan schools that focus on sports. This posed a bit of a challenge for us, as they were the first proper games that we have played. It was interesting to see how some players reacted. Some people became very nervous, and this lead to one of two consequences. Either that player became too nervous to play, and ended up making many mistakes, or they conquered the nervousness and ended up shining. And even so, there was another group of people who were not nervous at all (i was part of this group), as we were used to playing matches already from previous years.

We didn't do as well as i think we could have, as we played three games and only won one of them, though the two losses were very close. The first game we played was against a team of players where the smallest player was about 6'3''. We were intimidated, as our tallest player is about 6'3''. We are not the biggest team, though we make up for it with clever gameplay, and it became a bit of a challenge for us to not lose focus. Once the game began, however, it became clear quite quickly that we were the better team in terms of skills. They had a few players who could hit, and those were the ones we watched out for, but their setting and defense was definitely not up to scratch. Because of this, we had a chance to capitalise, and we did: we won the first set.

After this, it seemed to all go wrong. We started making mistakes that we really shouldn't have made, giving them many many more points than they actually won. Because of this, they ended up winning the game 3-2 in sets. And our coach wasn't happy, let me tell you.

Next, we had a break, as the two teams wanted to play each other, so we happily gave them that opportunity. Once they were done (the team that beat us having won again), we played the losers of that game. And we won easily with 3-0 in sets. We still gave the other team too many points because of our mistakes, but not enough to let them take the game from us.

Because there were only two teams, we wanted to play the good team again. It was a very tense game, as we were playing well, but they had started to play really well (hit after hit after hit after hit). Each set was very close, and when it came down to the last set, it was 2-2 in sets, and 25-24 where we were losing (games go up to 25, but you must win by two points). The final score ended up being 27-25, with us losing unfortunately, but we learnt much from the tournament. So we weren't too disappointed. 

I think the thing we learnt the most was that we really need to work on getting all the mistakes out of our game. If we had not made any mistakes, we would have easily won every game (we gave away about 14 points on average per game). Over the next couple of weeks, i think this is something that we are going to be working on.