Hobbies

Early on in high school, I shared tea with one of my friends and, when COVID hit around my Junior year, I started a tea club. There I presented and shared facts about different types of tea, teaware, and gave an overall introduction to tea. I've persisted those slides in Google Drive, available here. Since then, I've collected teaware that I love and use often. Additionally, I've placed orders to both China and Japan to dive into the unique styles of tea found across both countries. I've found that my tastes tend to lean more toward Japanese green teas. I can definitely say that my favorite so far have been bancha, specifically kyobancha. Below I've placed a collection of images related to tea along with a description of each. //TODO add pictures and descriptions

Before my Junior year of high school, I had nearly no interest in reading. My Junior year of high school was formative for a number of reasons, however with regards to reading, my English teacher, Mr. Hale, had a massive impact. During high school, I always tried to get the best grades, complete assignments exactly as required, and for my English class with Mr. Hale, that meant looking for deeper meaning in the text and analyzing it to a level that I hadn't been required to do before. Through his assignments, I found an enjoyment from reading. I perhaps treated it as a sort of treasure hunt, searching each sentence for things like analogies, hyperboles, etc., but that doesn't take away the fact that it inspired me to go into my parents' library and pick out some books that seemed interesting: Dan Brown's novels. I began with The Davinci Code and quickly completed the rest of the series. I enjoyed his writing style, especially with switching between characters for each chapter, building suspense throughout the story. During Mr. Hale's class and in the following year, we were required to analyze a number of authors' works. From Kendrick Lamar to Haruki Murakami, I thoroughly enjoyed learning English, something my parents would have said was impossible for me to do at any point prior. In my Senior year of high school, we analyzed Haruki Murakami's short stories. A few that I remember are Birthday Girl and The Second Bakery Attack. I was enthralled with his writing style, and I slowly purchased every book that he had written, both fiction and non-fiction. After having moved three times with all of my books, I realized that I needed a better solution than physical media. I did a lot of research and ended up purchasing a Nook Glowlight 4e from Facebook Marketplace which I currently use for reading. I read mostly on the train to and from work, however there's something about reading in bed with natural afternoon light shining through the window on the weekends that I love.

TODO: Info about travel.

TODO: Info about games.

TODO: Info about cars.

1. Make a piece of art
2. Use my notebooks to take notes and get ideas down
3. Finish my website and get started on the blog section
4. Buy technology that makes me happy that will improve my life
5. Learn Japanese to N3 level for test next year
6. Make a song
7. Finish all Pokemon games
8. Finish all Murakami books on my Nook
9. Mentor a student
10. Sign up for gym membership and start going