CAS Blog

         A couple of weeks ago, my school was let out for spring break. I was extremely excited as I would be able to pursue one of my hobbies being golf. So, I made a tee time during spring break to go play 18 holes in the early afternoon. Once the day arrived for my scheduled tee time, I got my clubs and headed over to the golf course. When I got there, I practiced on the range to warm up before I played 18 holes. Once I hit all of my clubs a couple of times, it was time to start playing. I got my clubs and went to the first hole. When I got to the tee box, I grabbed my driver, tee, and golf ball to hit a shot. As I swung, the golfball veered to the right, indicating I had made a slice. I was a little mad, but I kept on playing. My next shot was with my irons, then my pitching wedge, and finally my putter. Once I finished the first hole, I went to the second. Like the first hole, I got my tee, ball, and driver to hit my swing. When I swung, my golf ball decide...

       A while back, I became extremely interested in learning to yo-yo. I, for some reason, thought it was so cool to do tricks with this little trinket in your hand. So, I decided to buy one of these yo-yo's and give it a try to see if I could learn some of these tricks. When I got this brand new yo-yo, I tied it on my middle finger, and then slung it to the ground like one was supposed to. However, when I tried to tug the yo-yo back up, it wouldn't respond. At that moment, I didn't realize I got an unresponsive yo-yo. Now, I had to learn how to bind the yo-yo to bring it back up to my hands, which is hard in itself. After a couple of tries, I was able to decently bind the yo-yo back up into my hands. Although, I now wanted to learn some cool tricks. So, the first one I tried to do was rock the baby. This is where you take the yo-yo string and make a cradle for the yo-yo (the baby) to rock through. It was a little difficult at first, but I was able to use the inter...

     Yesterday I was bored, so I decided to go play 9-holes of golf. I didn't think I would have time for      18-holes, so I only played 9. With this being said, when I was on the course, I played super well. I was able to hit my irons, chips, and putts, all with accuracy and precision. However, the one skill that was giving me trouble was my driver. The main reason it was giving me trouble was because I hadn't hit my driver in a long time due to the fact that whenever I would hit it, I would hurt my shoulder. So, when I would hit my driver off of the tee box when I played these 9-holes, I would hook it right almost every time. This made me super mad, as I wasn't playing my best game of golf. Although, I realized I needed to try and work on my skills if I was going to correct my swing. So, I changed my stance a little, moved the ball more towards my left foot, and took some practice swings before I hit the ball. After doing these things, I started to hit m...

       A couple of days ago, I went skiing with my mom and brother in Telluride, Colorado. We left on Wednesday and came home on Monday. One of my favorite things to do when I was skiing was going on the ski jumps in the terrain park. In Telluride, there are three terrain parks where there are jumps. The first one is on a trail called Ute Park, where there are the smallest jumps. Then there is the lower part of a trail called Hootbrown, where there are the medium-sized jumps. Lastly, the upper part of Hootbrown is where the largest jumps are. By the end of the trip, I wanted to go on the largest jumps. With this being said, I began my journey to do the largest jumps by starting on the smallest jumps in Ute Park. Once I arrived at these small jumps, I immediately went off of them. My balance was good, and I didn't let my fear of falling get in the way of me doing the jump. I then moved on to the lower part of Hootbrown to do the medium-sized jumps. These jumps were 3x...

       A while back, I decided that I wanted to learn how to do a handstand. I had done gymnastics for a period of my life and I got pretty good at it. However, I ended up quitting because of the amount of work I was getting in school. One of the things that I wanted to learn was how to do a handstand and walk around. Years later after I quit, I chose to learn how to do it. So, the first thing I did was find the best place to do a handstand. I realized that it would be best to do it in my front yard on the grass. This way if I fall, I am only falling on the soft grass. I then went outside to the front yard to start practicing my handstands. Once I got outside, I thought I was going to be able to handstand. When I tried it, I immediately fell over. I realized that this was going to be harder than I thought. So, I decided to brainstorm the best ways I could start to learn to handstand. I figured the best way is to start in a headstand. My balance was pretty good, so I ...

     A couple of days ago, I was extremely bored. So, I decided I would go to the golf range and practice my putting. I had played 9-holes a couple of times before I went to the range, and my putting was preposterous. Whenever I got to the green, I was making 3-5 putts, which is terrible. Putting this into perspective, one should usually make 2 putts every hole. However, I was not doing that when I went to play 9-holes. This is why I decided I was just going to the golf range to practice my putter because that is what needs the most work in my golf game. With all of this being said, I packed my golf clubs in the car and drove over to the Hermann Park golf range. Once I arrived at the golf range, I parked my car and immediately walked over to the putting green. When I got to the green, I proceeded to grab my putter and three golf balls. I then chose a golf hole and put my three balls on the ground about a foot from the hole. After this, I started putting. From a one foot d...

       A while back, I chose to play a round of golf on the golf course. I didn't have that much time, so I decided I was going to only play 9-holes. With this being said, I grabbed my golf clubs, a bottle of water, and then loaded it all into my car. I then started the hour drive to Houston Oaks (a club for golfing and eating), which is where the golf course was. Once I got there, I grabbed a golf cart and checked in for my tee time. After this, I went to the first hole to start playing. As I started playing the first couple of holes, my drives, irons, and chips were all very precise and successful. However, my putting was an entirely different story. The greens were super fast (the ball would travel very far with a small hit), which I kept on underestimating and ultimately sending my ball all over the green. I would usually only need a two put for every hole to get a par, but I ended up always four-putting. This increased my score to having a lot more bogeys, doubl...

       A while back, I became extremely interested in learning how to wheelie on a bicycle. This is an extremely difficult task because one has to balance themselves on a single wheel while not tipping forward, backward, left, or right. I kept on seeing people wheelieing on social media, which sparked my interest. One day I decided I was going to give it a try and at least get a decent wheelie by the end of the day. With this being said, I grabbed my bike out of the garage, pumped up the tires, and pedaled out to the street. Once I got to the street, I went ahead to try a wheelie to see if I was able to do it. Not to my surprise, I wasn't able to do it. I ended up not popping the wheel up enough and then just letting the bike fall back into the normal position. After I did this, I brainstormed a little on what I was doing wrong. The first thing I came up with was that I needed to be in a higher gear. When you put your bike in a higher gear, one can pedal easier, howe...

     During this holiday break, I went to Del Mar - a city in California- to go surfing for 8 days. This was a really fun trip as I got to surf with my brother who was home from college. When I got to California on the first day, I was so excited to go surfing as I hadn't done so since about 8 months ago. This then led me to convince my parents to let me go surfing, to which they said "yes." I got on my wetsuit, waxed up my surfboard, and headed over to the beach with my brother. Our hotel was a walking distance away from the beach, so we would just go barefoot down to the beach. Once we got to the beach, I did some stretches and then got in the water. The water was freezing cold as it was effectively the wintertime. By the time I paddled out to where the waves were forming, my hands and feet had already gone numb. However, I was too excited to care how cold it was. I then started to catch my first waves. The waves were around 3-4 ft tall, which is quite a big wave for an...

    Running around Rice University has been something I have always wanted to implement into my daily routine to help create a healthy lifestyle for myself. I started out taking it slow by only running three miles once a week. It took me around 30 to 35 minutes each time to run that long. While this might seem like a short time, it wasn’t where I wanted to be. I strove to run every day while breaking under the 30-minute mark. However, talking about your goal is much easier than accomplishing it. So, I decided to work towards my objective.      The first thing I did was try to recover from my daily runs so I wouldn’t be as sore and worn down the next day. I went to bed early, stretched before runs, and cleaned up my diet. After adding in this little routine, I was feeling much better the next day. Then I tried going on another run around Rice. Once I completed the second run in a row, I was still feeling worn out yet incredibly accomplished. Over the next weeks, ...