My Love For Cars

Passion; an intense desire or enthusiasm for something. The latin origin of the word ‘pati’, meaning to suffer. For me running is my passion in every sense of the word.

So it all began when i was sitting in school daydreaming. It was a normal day just like any other. Until I got home for about an hour. I came home got a snack and started to work on my car. Then I realized I was done. I was so excited! I just couldn't wait to drive my car, a 1971 nova, on the street. This car was a car my dad and I built by hand, and that's impressive for a 16 year boy. So I started the car up and did some final tweaking. Then I took it for a spin.

For as long as I can remember, I loved to read. There was never a distinct moment that clicked. Never did I see reading as a requirement; more so a desire. My desire to read paved the way for my need to tell my own stories. Aside from the stories I read, the ones I created brought a sense of satisfaction that I could never find elsewhere. My love for reading and writing is like the need for one to consume food and liquids to keep their body both nourished and hydrated. It’s a necessity! When I read or wrote, I craved peace and the need to escape into the world of endless possibilities. A place I can venture with no responsibilities and no worries. As I got older, my need to open a book and read, or write a story came natural. I was free!

Reading has always been a way for me to explore a new and different world,

The vast majority of people think football is just a sport. However, to me it has been one of the greatest things I have yet to do. It has given me a surplus of life skills I can carry to my adulthood. The time I have so far spent on the sport is time I would not want back, because of how useful it is to me. Throughout the past couple of years, which I have spent playing the sport, I have gained a love for football. The love is so massive, that I want to pursue a career that affiliates with the sport.

Kumi Yamashita (Kumi): I was born in a small town not that far outside of Tokyo. I moved to the United states when I was in high school as a foreign exchange student.

Although I was born in Mississippi, I moved to Florida and lived there for almost half of my life. Florida was a time in my life where life gave me lemons and it gave me lessons that I will forever be grateful for.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved to read. When I was younger, I would grab any children’s book I could find and ask my mom to help me read it over and over again until I was sure that I could do it on my own with perfection. As I got older, the books got harder but I never lost interest. I can’t say the same passion came for writing though. I’ve struggled with writing ever since I first started writing essays and paragraphs in 4th grade.

For any person that went on vacations as a little kid, there will always be one that sticks out in their mind. For me that vacation was a 2008 Disney cruise in the Bahamas. As a second grader getting to miss school was a big deal. This vacation just happened to be during the last week of school that year. I was incredibly excited to not only miss school but also get to go see a new place.

Growing up reading and writing has always been a strength for me. I loved to read and I have always been intrigued by writing poems, short stories, and even my own songs. I remember being the only one in my neighborhood inside because I wanted to read instead of playing outside all day. Reading has opened my mind and imagination to see things in a more creative light. Regardless of your situation in life, reading can give you an escape from the realities we face every day. I remember coming home from having a bad day and opening a book; I would forget everything else around me. It was like I was drowned in another world when I was reading, that’s how real it felt to me. When I got in my teenage years I started to read less. This was detrimental for me because my love for reading had many positive impacts on me. Reading gave me a reason to teach others, kept me out of trouble, and gave me a special meaning to my life.

From day to day, I live trying to figure out my purpose of being in this world. No child is born a mistake irrespective of the circumstances. I was born with a talent, although, yet to be discovered. A talent is a symbol of who a person really is. When I was younger, my dad put me through music school hoping that I would learn to play the piano because he wished he did when he was my age. I was not a big fan of playing the piano so I struggled most of the time. My fingers were so stiff and my instructor would request that I moisturize and massage them to make them more flexible. However, the underlying issue was my lack of interest and not my un-cooperating fingers.

Ever since grade school, reading and writing have been forced upon me and many other students. Like some of my peers, I didn't enjoy having to read and write more than twice a day. Despite my long exposure to english and countless and enthusiastic approaches from my teachers, my love for english never grew. Perhaps my dislike for english began when reading and writing was more than a chore rather than a hobby. Since kindergarden, my teachers would read to us everyday until we learned how to read, then we would have to read quietly in class. These class and silent reading sessions were supposed to open our minds and help us explore the world of reading and writing to be more creative but this was not the case with me. My mind was more active during our math and science lessons but we would only have these for about an hour or less. Math and science require logical thinking and most of the time the results are very similar while english and writing are subjective and we can have different opinions on the same subject and still be correct. Personally I am more of a logical thinker than a creative one.

Growing up I can remember our house always being enveloped by music. Every holiday we had music playing, during summer mornings and weekends our house was woken up the thumping of a drum or the soft string of a guitar. It engulfed our ears with its voice. I can recall a time when I was much younger where under our television was an elephant of a stereo that roared aggressively like a lion when played. I felt as though my heart was going to explode with each beat a song made, it was the best feeling I had ever had. Mother always told me about her time as a child playing the clarinet, “Oh, I loved it” she would exclaim then with a smirk she’d add, “I was very good at it too”. You could see her love of music like it was her makeup. I’d always found music to be fascinating, always wondering how it could make such a thundering, glass shattering sound, then become as gentle as a kitten's purr. Music, when it reached my ears was pure joy, the beats to each instrument meticulously planned out by the artist. The variety of music was even more interesting than the different tempos it could be played at, a genre for every quinquagenarian a new artist for every song you would hear. It was constantly changing, which is why I think I loved it so much, it reminded me of myself.

Music is the most important thing in life. Or at least it is to mine. I play the violin along with a couple other instruments I taught myself. I went to the Denver School of the Arts for high school to play in their orchestra. I plan on studying music in college. Almost everything I do is connected to music, but it was fairly recently when I first started becoming really devoted to music. There are many kids who are born being an amazing musicians, but my passion for music had to be grown over time.

Throughout most of my life I have had one consistent goal; to become a veterinarian. I have had a continuous and solid passion for animals in all respects. This passion and love has fueled my in striving to achieve the dreams I have for myself after high school. The beginning of this story begins long before high school though.