Today's the day!

Today is the final day of the 2010 FIFA World Cup and it'll be very exciting because Spain and the Netherlands are both really great teams. I'm sure the game will be awesome. I'm actually getting ready to head out and watch the game at my parents' house shortly. I'm rooting for Spain but overall I am just hoping for a good, exciting match!

After yesterday's game, I attended "Art in the Park," which is basically an art show in downtown Northbrook. I saw some really cool art -- sculptures, paintings, photography, jewelry, you name it! One artist that I really liked was this guy who made these glass sculpture things. He calls them "glass relief images" but to me they are just glass sculptures.

Cool, huh? The artist's name is James J. Connolly. I like that he made a lot of different faces with different emotions and expressions. Very cool stuff!

The other artist I really liked was an Israeli woman named Smadar Livne. I saw her at the same art fest a year ago and I could not stop staring at her work because it was so interesting! She does all kinds of stuff but mostly she paints on canvas and what I like about her art is that she includes other elements, like buttons or lace or anything else that will enhance the image. You can't tell in this photo but her paintings might include photographs and lace and paper cut-outs and stuff. It's all very cool to me. I've never been artistic myself but in the last few years I've started to appreciate art a lot more.

Then yesterday evening I went to see a film about Bogota, the capital of Columbia. I don't think we actually have any students from Columbia but I have to tell you all -- the movie was really cool. It was all about how Bogota became more artistic and caring and reduced crime and violence when regular people like you and me started to care and felt more responsible for making the city a great place. They also made major improvements to the public transportation system and added bike lanes and the whole city became a much better place to live. The movie was very inspiring because, basically, regular people just decided that the city mattered and they began to act differently. Bogota is now on my list of cities that I plan to visit.

Well, I hope everyone is enjoying the summer and the World Cup, even though it's coming to an end!