Tagay Basketball Game 1

I have not played organised basketball in around 18-20 months because I told myself I quit the sport. Going into this game I was not nervous as all because I had no expectations in terms of how well I will play. Throughout those 18-20 months I have probably done a little shooting around and I remember it being almost impossible for me to make a three point shot.

I remember right before this first game, even before warm up I decided to shoot around a bit and see where my current skill is at. Most of my basic fundamental skills are still there, I can still dribble the ball with my right hand and somewhat with my left, I can make a basic layup, and still do strong passes, but something which takes a lot of technique and practice such as my shooting has gotten a lot worse. Probably after about 10-15 minutes of messing around I randomly made a three pointer which caught me off guard. I guess the natural muscle memory took control and I made 2 more three pointers which really caught me off guard making me gain confidence in my shooting which I have never had.

In the past, I was known as one of the worst shooters. My form has always been off, in general I was just not the best shooter. It always felt forced every time I would shoot the ball rather than letting it flow naturally so that is mainly what messed my shooting up. Due to the long period of time not actually shooting the ball I guess I went back to how I naturally shot with my body mechanics and so on which caused me to actually make 2 in-game shots which were contested. I did in the end miss another 3 shots very badly which caused my dad to tell me to stop.

I also realised I lost a lot of confidence in terms of getting to the basket and trying to make easier shots such as a lay-up or floater which in the end did cost us the game. Most of the game we were up ranging from 5-10 points but towards the end we lost by 2. Our team was split into 3 groups, the amateur/really good players, those who can play the sport for both fun and recreational, and lastly those who just want to play in the league but don’t exactly play the sport. Each group playing for 4 minutes in a quarter which lasted 12 minutes each. Due to myself still being a student playing against older, stronger full grown men, I am put in the lower bracket and the middle bracket. This caused my team heavily relying on me to carry the lower bracket while being a support player in the middle bracket. My team was heavily relying on me to make some valuable shots, due to me being younger, faster and more skilled compared to my on-court teammates. I mainly was a runner to move the ball up during transitions when playing with the middle bracket and I was one of the scorers in the lower bracket. Because I was in the game for 32 minutes out of the 48, and also being the main runner, I was not exactly conditioned to do a lot of short sprints throughout that amount of time. I am mainly a long distance runner so sprints aren’t exactly my thing. By the end of the third quarter, I was struggling to run and by the fourth quarter, I was lying down and walking every opportunity I had. At one point I felt like I was going to faint out of sheer exhaustion.

I guess I have to work on my conditioning.

“I Be” Unit Final Post

Identity

When it comes to perceiving people we are only able to tell so much about someone through looking at them. Myself as an example am filipino, have glasses, skinny and relatively tall. You would be able to tell my age and my appearance at most. But if you would really get to know me I would say it would not be what you were expecting. As they say, it’s whats on the inside that counts. For example I am very anxious and shy 90% of the time, but when I am with someone I am comfortable with, I cannot keep my mouth shut. I also genuinely care about the people who mean the most to me and I would literally do anything for them. Though it does not seem like it because I can be pretty distant in general, I guess that is just the way I am.

Ideal Personality

When it comes to working in groups I like to pay attention to details. I always like to know the who, what, when, where and whys of our task. I mainly like to know all the details so I know the purpose of the task cause if I don’t know the purpose, I am usually not motivated. At the same time I do always always take into consideration other people’s opinions and feelings as I always want to include everyone so no one feels excluded. When working in groups I do not usually take the leadership role especially when I am not completely comfortable with the people in my group so I have decided to make a small change and make sure I try to be a bit more talkative to make sure I actually help. Basically due to realising what I am like in groups, it makes me think about my contribution and what I need to do.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ)

In the previous post I mainly talk about learning how to say no and getting enough sleep. I personally never get enough sleep even on breaks or weekends. This causes me to be tired all the time which leaves me cranky and therefore never really in the mood to have a conversation. Throughout the past few weeks I have tried to stop using social media as that is what mainly keeps me up at night and since then, I have increased the amount of sleep and the quality of sleep by a lot. With having anxiety, it is hard to interact with people most of the time but I am slowly working my way up to where I want to be where I am comfortable with people.

Self Talk

I personally do a lot of negative self talk and am known as a generally pessimistic person. I have tried many ways to improve that but I am still working on it. At the moment my main strategy to stop myself from thinking negatively about myself is by just slapping myself to snap out of it and it somehow works or by going for a walk (or alone time) to clear my mind. I have realised that my mood has been better due to the implementation of positive self talk but at the same time that is due to my weight training which trains my mindset of being able to do something difficult for me. I guess I could use this during assignments or tests to make me think that I can really do it.

Stress

First of all I do not deal with stress well at all. When I am stressed I start to panic a lot, hyperventilate, get a little light headed, stuttering and also start to think very bad thoughts about myself. All of those things are really bad which always affects how my day goes on from there. Although I do think some stress is beneficial because it makes us do things we don’t want to do such as an assignment which is due the next day or so on. I just think maybe too much stress is not good. Maybe just the stress of school work is not so bad if there isn’t a lot.

Mental Health

I do personally have some mental health problems which I do not want to state but it is really hard dealing with them all the time. The things it has done to me such as made me lose interest in some of my most favourite things and so on. At school I am so very grateful for the protective factors I have at school such as my friends. All my closest friends are very aware of my mental state and constantly make sure I am okay all the time or if I need space, they are willing to oblige no matter what. In our group we all have some sort of mental health problem whether it is an actual mental disorder like me and a few of us or if we’re just going through something. All of us being there together is what makes us such a great group.

I cannot deal with change well as I am so used to things. For example, my gym closed after I have been working out for 4 months, that affected me a lot as it was a form of stress relief for me and some sort of therapy. That affected me pretty bad.

What most got in the way of my success?

I would say it would be my mental health due to the things I have lost or lost interest in due to my mental health. When I am at a low moment, I tend to put no effort into anything which definitely gets in the way of my school work, my hobbies, my interests and everything. When I am at a low moment, I literally turn into a potato that does nothing all day. It is like a very long term rut which is very very hard to get out of. The amount of things my mental health has prevented me from doing isn’t great but I am working on it.

Tagay Basketball and Sports

Since I was in 8th grade, I have been playing for the basketball league my dad has been playing in since I was little. In middle school I used to play a lot of basketball especially in 6th grade where I lived and breathed the sport. As time went on, I started to drop out of the sport as I lost interest and by 9th grade I actually quit the sport. Although my father still signs me up every year for our local basketball league.

This recreational basketball league is mainly just for local filipinos who are looking to play basketball with other filipinos. I honestly find it quite interesting because sometimes my parents introduce me to people who I have never met before but they knew when they were still kids. At the same time the experience of playing against people who are a lot bigger, stronger and definitely a lot better than I am. Actually some of the younger players there are amateur basketball players which I find pretty cool. Since I don’t exactly play basketball anymore except during the part of the year when my dad signs me up for the league, I am not that great as I used to be. With some amateur players being in my team, they teach me a lot about how to play the sport from their perspectives by giving me tips.

The main reason why I stopped playing basketball or any sport in general was due to my mental health dipping which made me lose interest in anything. As someone who was obsessed with basketball, running and playing video-games, I never thought I would stop. It was actually not until the start of this school year is when I started getting back into the groove of things because I am not going to get out of this rut unless I do something about it.

On the very left, is my first year joining Fastbreak Basketball around 6th or 7th grade around when I first started playing basketball. The other 2 images is my first year joining my father’s basketball league in 8th grade when I was old enough to join.

Representation of Women Over Time: The Domestic Servant?

What values/stereotypes/attitudes are being conveyed? How are representation and Identity conveyed?

The message that these two advertisements are trying to convey of the domestic role of women in a household. 

Then: In the ‘then’ image, it is showing a woman trying to remove the lid of a ketchup bottle which is known to be easy. The main line in this ad is “You mean a woman can open it?” asking the question if women are strong enough to open something as simple such as a ketchup bottle. At the same time the lady in the image seems to be very delicate due to the way her hand is positioned next to the bottle. Also showing how she has to present herself for the men of the household though how her hair, makeup and nails are done.

Now: This image shows an egg covered in colourful lines. The main line of this advertisement being “Be a good egg. Treat your daughter for doing the washing up” showing that it is a girl’s job to do the dishes. Even at such a young age it is told that it is a woman’s role to do the household chores. At the same time, the way that they portray the girl as an egg with the connotation that the girl is fragile or sensitive due to the fact that eggs are easy to break whilst showing they are more than just an egg due to their colourful ‘shell’. 

 

How are the adverts similar/different in conveying this?

Other advertisements are using the similar idea of representing a woman through an object or something else. In general representing anything through an object.  Many adverts today like to convey people as other things which have a similar connotation to the demographic of people that they are trying to convey. An example of this would be any given Snickers advertisement where they show that before someone eats a Snickers bar, they are restless or more like an animal, and after eating a Snickers bar, they are more civilised and calm.

 

How do they provoke thinking about global issues?

In a day and age where the fight of equality is still going on even after centuries, this makes us really think if we are actually progressing. Both the ‘Then’ and ‘Now’ images have both connotations that women have to do things for men in terms of being put together for them, being fragile or weak, and do domestic chores. So it really makes me think, are we really progressing in the way some men see women in terms of men thinking they are superior. I would say this would make you really think about the global issue about identity as adverts like this is what sets men to think that this is the identity of women.

Natural Sciences TOK: Neutrino Faster than Light?

Just recently there was an experiment carried out in central Italy about Neutrinos. A neutrino is basically a small electrically neutral particle which is released after a nuclear reaction. In the experiment, they say that the Neutrino made a 731 kilometre run 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. This caused an outbreak in the scientific community as it was known that light is the fastest thing known to us humans.

They also said that there was no flaw in their experiment until other organisations disproved that theory and suggested it was a timing error.

Knowledge Question

  • To what extent can we trust things which are not exactly observable?
  • How do we measure things accurately?
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