What do you and your closest friends have in common? How do you like to spend your time together?
Sweat drips out of every pore as I sum up the energy to chase down another fuzzy yellow ball. The humidity had just reached a hundred and the temperature was threatening to do the same. With trees to provide shade, the tennis courts had heated up like an oven (literally, for we had proven this fact by frying an egg on the ground). All around me were the people whom I felt I was closest to. While we were not all from the same background or even the same age, we were united for one purpose: to capture another Michigan State Tennis title for the eighth consecutive year in a row. Our team had a reputation to uphold, an expectation to succeed, and a dedication to this sport. Some may give up, refuse to put up with the overwhelming heat, while others may call us crazy for waking up so early and practicing four hours a day five days a week during what should have been our summer vacation, but I knew everyone on the team stayed because of our one passion. We had a passion for tennis. If you have not played on a competitive tennis team before it may seem an isolating sport; one player plays another player on opposite sides of the court. It may seem like there is little interaction going on; however, that is not the case. The mood of a single player on any given day can effect the mood of the entire team. Team coherence is an important aspect in staying mentally strong and winning. Furthermore, Tennis is split into singles and doubles matches. I play doubles which means that for an entire season, I am assigned to a partner. Throughout the year I get to know my partner very well. We play together in nearly every match and every practice during our two month long season. By the time the season is over we have learned each other's habits, both on the court and off. From these partnerships in the three years I have played high school tennis, I have formed some of the strongest bonds of friendship, which even tide over into other aspects of life. The very kids whom I practice intensely with also are the same group of kids whom I spend time with outside of school and extracurricular activities.
Tennis is for very logically minded people. The game is mostly mental. Therefore, many of the tennis players I am friends with are very good with computers just like I myself am too. In our free time we like to build and fix electronic devices. Sometimes we do it for a small fee, but most of the times we do it for the pure joy of learning how devices work. Often we will take a broken piece of hardware, dissimilate it and analyze how the pieces work together. Pieces of motherboards, wires, extension cables, and various assorted tools litter our garages and basements, where we work on these projects. In addition to breaking down and repairing hardware, we also work on some computer software. Each of us has experimented with various distributions of the Linux operating system with each one choosing our own favorite distribution. The same thing goes for programming languages. I have chosen the more cumbersome but stable Java programming language, while another friend specializes in the quick and more simple Python scripting language, and yet another prefers to do work in the old fashioned C++ environment. All of us are mostly self taught and we put our talents together to fix broken computers as well as make improvements on computer performances. No matter what it is, my friends and I love to work with electronics and technology. That is one the of biggest things we have in common and in turn that is what we spend a lot of our time together in.
I truly enjoy spending time with my friends. No matter if it is outside on the tennis courts or inside in the basement swapping news about the latest cutting edge technology slated to be released soon, we have a lot in common. Our passions draw us together. Time outside of school should not be composed of only time to work but also time to play. To be able to relax with my friends while doing something I love is truly the best use of that time I could ever want. I am grateful for having such good friends who I can spend time with and I owe it to them for all the accomplishments I have made thus far in my life.