Horses, Friends and Competition

Dear Reader,

            The book that I read was Canterwood Crest: Take the Reins. The books set in the first six months of Sasha Silvers first year at Canterwood Crest Academy . It shows her hopes and her tries for making the Advanced Riding Team. Her struggles with the Trio, three very competitive and mean girls who also ride. Her making friends and of course crushing on cute boys. Plus the hard school work and trying to keep up with the amount of homework she has.  This book is all about horses, friends and competitions. But what I am going to focus on is the competition aspect. I chose this theme because it’s something that is easy to talk about and to understand, competition is everywhere, so everyone will somehow be able to relate.

"I'm not in competition with anybody but myself. My goal is to beat my last performance."

    Dear Callie,

            Hey girl its Sasha, man its only been the first week and life has already been crazy. I cant believe the stiff competition between the girls and guys here. And that girl Heather Fox, she tried ruining me that day of auditions for the riding team. I decided to write her an apology and maybe we can be friends. But she seems the kind of girl that does not want to be friends with a small town girl like me. But who knows, maybe we can work something out. But yeah the competition here even without Heather is crazy, I mean I seriously dont know if im going to make the advanced team. Your a shoe in, your amazing! Ive never seen someone ride with such grace and poise.  But me im from a small town, I'm not sure if i'll make it. You've had better training than I have. Most the girls and guys here have.

"Friends are the bacon bits in the salad bowl of life"

           

10 Ways to Know if You’re Canterwood Crest Advanced Riding Team Worthy

1: You love horses

2: You’re are hard worker

3: You can put up with strong competition

4: You can work as a team

5: You are willing to try again even if you fail

6: You can handle mean girls

7: You think it’s worth putting horses before friends sometimes

8: You are willing to lose everything, to gain everything

9: Waking up early even on Saturdays and Sundays are okay with you

10: Having fun with horses and friends is one of your favorite pastimes

 "Here's to show days: early mornings, long days, hotel rooms, learning courses, warmups, sunburns, countless hours of practice, taking the fall, bruised egos, determination, shavings/hay stuck in your hair and clothes, your trainer, your partner, the drama, HURRYING UP AND WAITING, show clothes, competition, missed classes, expectations, blue ribbons, laying down the perfect trip... and most of all, our sport, riding."

“In life, horses are some of the best friends you’ll ever have!”



Dear Heather,

            Its Sasha, I would just like to say I am sorry for the first day we had a really rough start. What with me losing control of my horse and him knocking you off yours. I know you don’t really like me for some odd reason, and i'm sure it’s because I’m your competition for the riding team. But I wish we could work together and maybe we will both make the team. I am not trying to be better than you, and I'm not trying to show you up in front of your friends. I’m just here to gain the experience and become a better rider, plus hopefully make the Youth Equestrian National Team. Which I know is why you are on as well. Were both good riders, so why don’t we just turn this tension around and become friends instead of hating each other and just causing us both unwanted drama.

"An apology is a good way to have the last word"

    Alright so the first genre that I did was a personal letter from the main character in Take the Reins to one of the minor characters in the book. I chose this because in the letter it is explaining how Sasha feels about the competetion to her friend Callie. What I learned about this genre was that in a personal letter its easy to express feelings and know that the only person who will read them is the person getting the letter.  The second genre that I chose was a 10 ways to know list, I chose this because it gives the reader an idea of the competition level in this book. And also the different levels of commitment you have to have at different times. What I learned about this is that it can be about anything really. As a\long as you have ten items then you can really have a 10 ways to know list.  The third genre that I used was pictures with captions. ANd I used this to show horse show competitions and the life involved with that, as well as competitions between friends for friends and girls for guys and vica versa. In this genre I learned that pictures can convey many messages. As long as your willing to read into the messages a picture can really tell you anything.  The last genre that I used was an Apology letter from Sasha to Heather, I used this to convey that there are times where no matter how strong the competition or how mean the girl sometimes apologies are needed. What I learned with this genre was that an apology note isnt so easy to write. That even though you can be saying sorry you need to explain why and offer something in return.

    I didnt really find any difficulties, other than at one point I wasnt reading and book and all I wanted to do was read the next book but it was pretty easy. Even this portion of the project has been pretty easy because its all about creativity pretty much and I love being creative and being able to write things down. I didnt really have any reactions. Other than I started getting bored towards the end of making the blog post because i'd been working on it so long that it just started to bore me when all I had to do was some adjustments and things that were small.

Works Cited

"Apology Quotes, Sayings about Apologies." The Quote Garden - Quotes, Sayings, Quotations, Verses. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://www.quotegarden.com/apology.html>.

"The Best Competition Quotes, Sayings, and Phrases - 1 to 10." The Best Quotes - 1 to 10. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://www.boardofwisdom.com/default.asp?topic=1005&listname=Competition>.

"Best Friend Quotes, Best Friend Sayings, Best Friends Forever Quotes, BFF Sayings." Famous Quotes at AllGreatQuotes. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://www.allgreatquotes.com/best_friend_quotes.shtml>.

"Best Horse Show Quotes? 20 Characters? - Yahoo! Answers." Yahoo! Answers - Home. Web. 24 Mar. 2011. <http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110208162123AAip0uQ>.

"Google Image Result for Http://www.horseplanet.net/images/horses/AHORN.jpg." Google. Web. 27 Mar. 2011. <http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.horseplanet.net/images/horses/AHORN.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.horseplanet.net/&usg=__i3oMLbuZRTHJwv3ftO_StRtxgug=&h=300&w=400&sz=47&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=qgJbBZWQbVMIxM:&tbnh=142&tbnw=178&ei=VviPTZLvJoG00QHNkK3DCw&prev=/images?q=Show+Jumpers&hl=en&biw=1149&bih=536&gbv=2&tbs=isch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=125&vpy=130&dur=185&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=162&ty=116&oei=VviPTZLvJoG00QHNkK3DCw&page=1&ndsp=11&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0>.

"Horse Quotes and Sayings." Sayings and Quotes. Web. 24 Mar. 2011. <http://www.coolnsmart.com/horse_quotes/>.

Last blog before multi genre blog yay

Well this week was pretty boring to be quite honest, I cant remember much from it. Ive been having those weeks a lot lately and they really suck. I guess ive just been settleing down to be quite honest lifes been hectic and things are finally cooling down so thats awesome!!

So I guess I should just talk about my greatest achievment. Ok so for any of you that know me and know me well I love horses. And since most of you dont know me well then obviously ya'll aint going to know that. So yeah well I love horses, and honestly my greatest achievment has to do with riding. People say horseback riding isnt a sport, say its easy and say anyone can do it. Well id like to see anyone ride a horse without there stirrups -which for you all who dont know is the things you put your feet in while in the saddle- but yes id like to see anyone take there feet out of there stirrups and take a two foot jump. Now obviously this doesnt sound hard at all but when your on a horse and are already about five or six feet off the ground and then you add another two foot where your soaring through the air without any support except for your own balance its scary as all get out. Now this isnt exactly an achievement but an accident. What happened was I went to a summer camp this past summer and we were doing a course of two foot, 2'3 and 2'6 jumps and as me and the horse I was riding was headed up to a jump I lost my stirrups, now this is me who hasnt jumped this height without my stirrups yet. But insted of swerving to avoid and regain my stirrups i went over the jump beautifully. This to me was amazing because it is very hard to do when your not used to it. So yeah maybe not something big to most people out there but for me that was my greatest achievment not falling off while going over a jump without my stirrups, whether my accident or not.

See ya'll in school tomorrow!!