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Basketball for the first time

One thing I wish I could experience again is playing basketball for the first time. To be honest, I have no clue when this specifically refers to, just that it was early in elementary school. I want to say that I was around 7 or 8 years old when I was introduced to the sport, but I can’t recall the exact time. I want to experience playing basketball for the first time again because I’ve been reminded of how much fun it is, with my senior season currently in full swing. After not playing on the Uni team last season due to COVID, I hadn’t played much in the offseason, besides getting together with some friends to play occasionally. The beginning of my senior season was kind of like a reintroduction to the sport, where I once again realized I loved playing and felt the adrenaline every time I stepped onto the court.  Looking back, basketball has helped me fit into the world around me, making new friends and practicing essential skills like coordination and communication. Experiencing ...
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My Favorite Place(s)

  My favorite place in the area is the U of I campus. Not necessarily a specific building or restaurant, but the entire campus as a whole provides me with a practical location to do many things. I have been familiar with campus for most of my life since my dad is a professor at the university, and my sister also went to Uni before me. Throughout the years, I’ve become familiar with the many great places in the campus area, especially since I began attending Uni myself. For starters, the restaurants that line Green Street are plentiful — and all packed with great people and food. One of my personal favorites is Chipotle, and although it isn’t a restaurant unique to campus, I never forget the long lines of students during each visit. A specific instance that comes to mind is a time when I went to grab dinner before a school event. I placed an online order ahead of time to avoid the line since I knew that Chipotle would be quite busy at the time. However, it turned out that the online...
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Stressors

          Stress definitely plays a large role in my life. I used to rarely get stressed, but as my workload has picked up over my senior year, stress has happily followed along. That’s what I attribute my stress towards — a heavy workload. Many deadlines in the form of college essays and schoolwork topped off with some procrastination have led to a large buildup of work, and as a result, given me a lot of stress. However, I have been able to utilize strategies that have helped me relieve this buildup of work, and as a result, stress as well. One way I attempt to alleviate my stress is by completing my work in the most efficient way possible. By efficiently reducing my workload, I not only can eliminate my stressors but also create free time for myself too. A typical work session for me begins with 30 minutes of work, followed by alternating 15 minute breaks/15 minute work sessions. I begin to chip away at my workload with a concentrated effort, and since...
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A Deeper Meaning

The shoes I wear are an article of clothing that represents me. Not in the sense that it shows my personality or in some kind of visible representation, but in the way that the shoes I wear have a deeper meaning to me. Although it is quite an expensive way of representing myself, my sneaker collection holds a deeper meaning to me than just the shoes themselves (or the cost).    To start off with a little background of myself, I began reselling shoes as a side hustle a few years ago, and I quickly fell in love with the sneaker world. Previously, I had been secluded in a world where I would never see shoes that cost more than $100. As I took more interest in the sneaker industry, my eyes were opened to a world where people regularly spent up to $300 on a single pair of shoes! Recognizing the high demand, from that moment on I slowly began my sneaker reselling journey, working to grow my capital, and reinvesting 100% of the profits I made back into my business. I was fascina...
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Words of Wisdom

  A phrase I live by is “If it won’t matter in 5 years, don’t spend more than 5 minutes thinking about it”. The ideology behind it is simple enough: current decisions and thoughts that won’t matter in the long term simply aren’t that important. To me, it isn’t necessarily restricted to just five minutes and five years, but just the general idea that things that won’t matter in the long term shouldn’t be over-thought about. Oftentimes I see my friends and family stress out about things that are honestly quite trivial. Things like wondering if they should order a drink alongside their meal, whether or not they should go see a movie, or thinking about if they missed a question on a small homework assignment. Clearly, these are all things that won’t matter (or even be remembered) 5 years from that moment. In my eyes, these are examples of some things that should be given little to no thought about, because what’s the point of causing so much unnecessary indecision? By identifying small...
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