Hello everyone,
My name is Grace Patrino
, if you couldn’t tell by the name of my blog. I know I am soooooo creative, right?
P.S. that was sarcasm and if you didn’t understand I’m going to have to tell you, that you probably won’t understand many of my attempted jokes that I put in my blog posts.
Now that that is taken care of, I will get on to talking about what you are all here for: to learn more about ME. So get ready for this, I am about to give you a rundown on my life and how I have become who I am.
I am 17 years old, I live with my mom, dad, younger sister (Kelly), and our dog (Lucy). We are very much a Naperville family. Everyone is busy all the time, so anytime I get with them I try to enjoy as much as I can – as long as they aren’t being too annoying. Even though they can be annoying, I am very thankful to be able to call them my family.
More and more this year I have realized how important spending time with them is because soon I won’t be seeing them everyday. But I still have to limit myself because spending 24/7 together just does not work, as we all discovered this past summer during a 17 day trip to Italy. Don’t get me wrong Italy was amazing and an experience I will never forget but spending 17 days with just my family and no one else, lets just say I got irritated at times – or a lot.
Just like any other 17 year old, I hang out with my friends a lot, sometimes too much according to my mom. I mean what else am I supposed to do with my free time? Seriously, I am trying to take advantage of being able to see these people whenever I want right now because who knows where we will all be a few months from now. 
Anytime I can, I try to be able to spend time with my friends, even if its just to talk about our favorite Spanish TV show. Yes, this actually happens way more often than you think.
My favorite thing I get to do with a lot of my friends is a Co-Ed soccer league run by the Park District, and a bunch of us play on a team together. Now, I wouldn’t recommend coming to watch if you want to watch a good soccer game. Most of the people on our team played soccer when they were 5 and moved onto a different sport by age 7. A few of us, including myself, have played soccer our entire lives, so there are all different levels of experience on our team. The best part about it is that it just gives us 50 minutes to spend time together even if we aren’t winning (which is a decent amount of the time), everyone is still having fun. 
Typically Emily and I find our enjoyment in watching Sivaayan going to attempt to header the ball, but instead falling backwards or him just completely whiffing and then falling once again. Sorry to expose you Sivaayan, but it’s pretty funny to watch each week. Anyways, I love spending time with my friends every week, I can’t imagine what I am going to do without them next year. But I don’t need to focus on that right now, I am just trying to enjoy the time I have now without worrying about the future.
I have to move on to a different topic before I get too emotional talking about the idea of graduation and the fact that I am somehow supposed to be able to be an “adult” in a few months. Yikes, that’s very scary. That worry is for another time. The only other aspect of my life that I haven’t touched on yet is what I am involved in. I am apart of SNHS, NHS, NNHS Ambassadors in school. I am a Park District Referee and am currently interning at a sports rehabilitation facility called The Turner Method.
As I mentioned above, I play soccer, it has been about 12 years since I put on my very first Naperville Park District soccer uniform. Ever since then I have been in love with the sport in every way. I have spent every year on a club soccer team since I was 7 years old. The past 3 years, I have been able to play high school soccer for North and it has been the best experience. The best team I have ever been on was last year, I was on the JV1 team for North, it was amazing. I have never felt closer to a team in my life, the best thing was that I didn’t even know that many of the girls that well because a majority of them were Freshmen. We all got along so well and became so close over the course of 3 months.
Most importantly, this bond was created by our coaches, the Kuehne brothers, they were the glue of the team and were a big part of the reason why we all became so close. Whatever our bond was worked really well, as we went undefeated for the entire season and only let in 2 goals in 14 games. This team became a family, I will never forget my time with them, neither will Sean Kuehne, as he has permanently printed on his body G’19 for our season. 
I can’t wait to start my 4th year of high school soccer in the spring and the memories to come with my last season. Basically if you have taken away anything from this, soccer has been apart of my entire life and if you don’t know about how important soccer is to me then you don’t know who I am.
Now, I think I covered everything that is necessary for you to know about. Thanks for wanting to learn more about who I am, I guess some people might find it interesting. Anyways, I’m done talking all about me – for now. I hope you enjoy my blog.