Horwitz

Name: Julia Horwitz

Guiding Question: Are these three lifetime sports, tennis, squash, and golf, sports I would like to play in the future?

(optional) Use this space to list possible activities, tasks, experiences. Remember everything you do should help you answer your Guiding Question.

(Required) This plan is a “best guess” as to what you and your mentor think you will be doing. It is not meant to be a hard and fast schedule for your Exploration. The plan should illustrate how you intend to complete a minimum of 80 hours.


 * = Date ||= Location/Activity ||= Number of Hours ||
 * = May 2 ||= Research, Equipment, Squash lesson ||= 5 ||
 * = May 5 ||= Research, Equipment, Tennis lesson ||= 2 ||
 * = May 6 ||= Research, Equipment, Golf Lesson ||= 5 ||
 * = May 7 ||= Squash and Tennis Practice ||= 2 ||
 * = May 9 ||= Squash Lesson ||= 2 ||
 * = May 13 ||= Golf Lesson and Practice ||= 2 ||
 * = May 16 ||= Squash Lesson ||= 2 ||
 * = May 17 ||= Tennis Lesson ||= 2 ||
 * = May 19 ||= Squash Lesson and Practice ||= 2 ||
 * = May 20 ||= Golf Lesson and Practice ||= 2 ||
 * = May 21 ||= Squash, Tennis, and Golf Practice ||= 5 ||
 * = May 23 ||= Squash Lesson and Practice ||= 5 ||
 * = May 24 ||= Tennis Lesson ||= 3 ||
 * = May 25 ||= Tennis Lesson ||= 2 ||
 * = May 26 ||= Golf Lesson ||= 5 ||
 * = May 27 ||= Tennis and Golf Practice ||= 5 ||
 * = May 29 ||= Golf ||= 5 ||
 * = May 30 ||= Practice ||= 5 ||
 * = May 31 ||= Practice ||= 5 ||
 * = June 1 ||= Tennis Lesson ||= 3 ||
 * = June 2 ||= Squash Lesson ||= 3 ||
 * = June 3 ||= Golf Lesson ||= 3 ||
 * = June 6 ||= Squash Lesson ||= 3 ||
 * = June 7 ||= Tennis Practice ||= 2 ||
 * =  ||= Total Number of Hours ||= 80 ||

Journal: 1. Nuts & Bolts: How well were you able to follow your Plan of Action? (Were there any deletions, additions, schedule changes?) How many hours were spent this week? Explain how close you are to answering your Guiding Question. Summarize your discussion with your mentor.

2. Reflection: How do you feel about your experience so far? Describe any concerns, insights, doubts, fears and critical questions about issues, people, and most importantly, yourself.  Journal #1: May 20, 2010 1.) I was able to follow my plan of action fairly well these past few weeks, however, with my exam schedule, I was not able to do as much extra practice in addition to my lessons as I would have liked. There was one schedule change of moving a squash lesson from a Monday to a Thursday, but there have not been any additions or deletions to my plan of action thus far. The first week, I spent about 12 hours on my exploration, as I only had two exams. Unfortunately, due to my heavy exam schedule the week of May 9th, I was only able to spend 4 hours on my exploration. This past week I was able to pick it up again to 4 hours, and will be getting more practice in over the weekend. I still am not sure about the answer to my guiding question, but as I progress, or don't, I'm sure I will be able to know within the next few weeks if Tennis, Golf, and Squash are sports I will like to pursue in the future. I can, however, give a partial answer to my guiding question, in that I know that Tennis is a sport I would like to pursue in the future. In my meeting with my mentor, who is also my Tennis coach, he thinks I am making good progress, and all of my coaches, Tennis, Golf, and Squash, say I have an athletic swing. 2.) I really like my experiences with these three sports so far. I have noticed an improvement in all of the sports, especially in regards to actually making contact with the ball. The only concern I have is about squash - courts are not as common as Golf courses or Tennis courts, and I currently do not know/am not friends with any squash players. This would make it difficult for me to keep up with squash in the future if I can only hit it off the wall to myself. My general concern is that I will not be good enough after the exploration in any of the areas to be successful/not embarrass myself when actually playing with others.

Journal #2 May 27, 2011 1.) I was able to follow my plan of action with no changes this week. I spent 15 hours this week playing golf, tennis, and squash. I am pretty close in answering my guiding question; I think I would like to continue with all of these activities in the future. My mentor asked me which I improved the most in, and I said squash. He also asked which one was hardest for me, and I said golf.

2.) I have really started to enjoy all of these sports, especially as I have improved throughout the exploration. I think that within the next few weeks I should become good enough to be able to successfully play all three sports, but I would have to say that I am the best at Tennis and Squash. The only concern I have for the future is about squash because there are not courts everywhere, and not as many people play.

Journal #3 June 3, 2011

1.) This week it was difficult for me to follow my plan of action for two reasons. The first is the death of my grandmother. She died on Thursday night and the funeral was on Tuesday. Because of this, I was not able to practice as I had planned to over the weekend. Also, a problem I have had throughout my exploration is fitting my exploration schedule with my skating schedule. Unlike school sports at Friends, my competition season is just beginning and I have been training for competitions in the summer. Ice is not available all day every day, and I have lessons with coaches that have been scheduled months in advance. Most days I went skating for 1-2 hours, did my exploration, and then went back to the rink for another 1-2 hours depending on how much time I skated earlier. This travel time as well as equipment changes took up to at least an hour from place to place, wasting an hour or more every day I could have been practicing. I spent about 18 hours on my exploration this week. I am ready to answer my guiding question, and the answer is yes, these are sports I would like to continue to participate in in the future. My mentor and I discussed the differences and challenges of each of the sports and he asked me how I felt each of them were going.

2.) I definitely have enjoyed my experience with my exploration, even more so this past week as I continue to improve. I hope in the future I will be able to find other people who play Tennis/Squash at my level so I can play with them. However, I still need some more practice with golf before I would go out and play with others.