The Euros

            This summer The Euros will be played in France. It’s a soccer tournament that is very similar to The World Cup, but instead of every country in the world having the chance to qualify, only European countries can. The tournament is played every four years, and is a great way to watch some of the best players in the world go head to head. National team games have a different vibe than the club team games that are on the rest of the year. You are born to a nation and, as an extension, its team. Each nation has to do the best they can with the players they are given, whereas club teams can buy and sell players as they deem necessary (assuming they can afford it).

             While many people believe Germany will take home the gold, as they did two years ago at the 2014 World Cup, I don’t think that they will. There are many teams that will be able to put together very strong teams that are certain to give Germany a tough time. England looks to be very strong, with several young players coming off of breakout seasons. France looks to be fielding a moderately older, yet very similar, team of recent breakout stars. Belgium has a few solid older players who can, hopefully, lead a squad of young talent to victory (they may be a little too young to do well at this tournament, but they will undeniably be a force at the 2018 World Cup and 2020 Euros). Regardless of who wins, the tournament promises to be as thrilling as ever, and I’m very excited for it to begin.

La Musique

         When I was younger I would listen to whatever my music my parents would play. This consisted of a lot of oldies and one gypsy kings album that my dad had an inexplicable love for. As I got older I wanted to listen to the songs my friends listened too, mainly those which were commonly played on the radio. I’ve used the same iTunes account since the fifth grade, slowly adding songs with iTunes gift cards I’ve received as gifts for birthdays and holidays. I bought songs that I liked that I’d heard on the radio, tv shows or YouTube videos, my library slowly growing each year. The discovery of Pandora was a revolution that showed me many terrific songs and artists.

            The past year or so, I’ve kept an eye out for new music coming from artists whose past music I’ve liked. When one of them is releasing a new album, I’ll listen to it as soon as I can, hoping to expand the list of music I like. What I’ve noticed is that I often won’t like an album the first one or two times that I listen to it; it takes a few run-throughs to start to realize which songs stand out. Coloring Book, an album Chance the Rapper released late last week, was just like this. The first time I listened through the album I didn’t really like it at all, but the more I listened to it the more it’s grown on me. As is expected, there are a few songs on the album that I really don’t like much, but a majority of the songs are very catchy and all-around awesome, so I’m glad I gave the album a chance to show me it’s true beauty.

Assassin/Stalking/Paranoia

            This week a majority of the Senior Class has partaken in a game of Assassin. We have a website that everyone who wants to play signs up on, and the website tells each player who their target is. I was worried that I would get someone who would be nearly impossible to kill, but luckily I got a girl who lives a few streets away from me. She also plays softball, so it was easy for me to know when she would be coming home. I hid in her bushes a few minutes before practice ended, and was able to “kill” her as she walked from her car to her house.

            If there’s one thing I learned from the game, it is scary how easy it is to acquire information about someone. Within minutes I, and many of my friends, were able to find out where our target lived and when they would be coming and going from their house.

I also totally underestimated how paranoid I would get while waiting for the person who had me to strike. It could have been anyone, and they could have struck anytime when I was not in school or at my house. Every flickering light or animal in a bush made me jump, and towards the end I was pretty ready to get killed so I could calm down. I even went to the YMCA in Woburn to work out because I was afraid I would get killed while working out.

It was definitely a fun game, but I’m not sure I would be quick to play again.