Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Becoming Michelle Obama - by Kennedy

Michelle Obama is the former first lady and was married to President Barack Obama. She is such an inspiration to almost everyone around the world. She made a book about her experiences when she was the first lady. This book is called Becoming and it shows her paths to becoming who she is today.

Children like me see her as a role model and a leader who makes a difference in everything she does.


We had two extra tickets, so we invited Millie and Molly. They were very thankful for the opportunity that they had to listen to such a strong and powerful woman. We had fun watching different pictures of Michelle pop up on the jumbotron. We not only enjoyed that, but we admired the other leaders that spoke at the beginning including Ayesha Curry and two of Michelle's childhood friends. They also spoke a little about their paths to success.


The overall experience to see such a famous and inspirational live was great. Her life must be amazing. I can't imagine how fun it was when she was able to live in the White House. So many people around the world dream of just being able to take a picture of the White House. Michelle Obama is just an all around great person and makes a difference with her actions. She is a big part of history and I wish she was still the First Lady.


8th Grade Cross Country - by Kennedy


As many people know, cross country is a very hard sport. It requires energy and speed. With those two things, you are can be successful. The course that we regularly ran on was the hardest course in the state. It was located near Evergreen College.

At every meet, each school in San Jose Unified had around ten runners except for Burnett. We had only five athletes.


In every one of my meets, I ran to a 4th place finish. Everyone said that it was good, however I feel I should've done better, After every meet, I was exhausted. It was very hot at each meet and difficult to compete at.

At the county meet, I ended up getting 16th out of all middle school runners in all of Santa Clara County, which can be considered good.


As I said, this course is one of the hardest. This hill is a killer - it is pretty much straight up. To be successful, you need to be technical. By doing so, you need to have shorter strides and more pumping of the arms. That gives you better momentum to have more speed up the hill.


In my district, we have four of us who are on the same soccer team, Santa Clara Sporting. Bethany, Esme, and my sister Landry all competed in the same cross country finals at county. Bethany got 5th with a very fast time. Esme got 65th which was actually very good. Landry got around 45th which was alright and I got 16th which was pretty good. We all brought this speed out on the soccer field, which impresses our coach.


All of the athletes who participated in our cross country team included Landry, Nicole, Clarissa, Oscar, Ty, Jermaine, Connor, Leslie, Chloe, Noah, and Ethan. We had a fun and successful season that will never be forgotten. And my cross country career in middle school is now officially over!


Our Final Fall in Las Vegas - by Landry


This fall, like many other years, our Santa Clara Sporting U15 team went to Las Vegas for the Mayor's Cup Tournament. It is our 3rd year doing this and unfortunately it's our last. We left Friday morning and got back Monday morning.


We won our first game 2-0 against a team from Idaho. But later in the day we lost 2-1. So that meant that we were second in our group. Sadly, we couldn't qualify for the finals so we just played one final game on Sunday. In that game, we tied 1-1.


On Saturday night, our team had a little fun. We went to a haunted house. It was super fun because everyone was screaming and pushing each other to be first. Somehow I ended in the front but its fine because I was the brave one, *wink wink!


One thing I didn't mention is that both of our teams wears pink in October to support breast cancer awareness. In the end, the Green team got 2nd place and the White team got 4th place in two separate brackets.


This was a weekend of fun and hard work and I'm glad that both teams did pretty well. The Green team will be going back to Vegas in March for a player's showcase!

By: Landry Schoennauer

Las Vegas 2018 - by Kennedy



This years trip to Vegas was a blast. We started off the tournament with success, winning our first two games. In between games, we went to our usual lunch location, Whole Foods. Whole Foods has a large variety of food that our team decided from. I enjoyed rice and chicken because there was lots of protein and it was pretty light.


I was really tired after a long first game, so since I didn't have a chair, I decided to make myself comfortable in between these boxes of water. My teammates were making fun of me, but I just thought that it was an energy saver. They understood when I was the only one not as tired on the field.


This tournament is very hard since we have to play the best teams from around Nevada. Although it was very upsetting that we lost, we were proud of our performance. The last time we played the highest Vegas team, we lost by three points. This game we only lost by one point. We thought we deserved the win, but it is what it is.


For the finals game, a parent brought a bagette of bread. That was used to bring us motivation. We kept saying, "Let's get this bread!" Since I guess it was like a trophy, we all lifted it up in happiness.





Becoming Michelle Obama - by Kennedy

Michelle Obama is the former first lady and was married to President Barack Obama. She is such an inspiration to almost everyone around the ...