Introduction

My name is Joshua, I’m currently a student in high school and some of my favorite subjects are history and math because my parents didn’t grow up knowing much about the United States. In elementary school, my teachers had taught a little bit of US history but it wasn’t until high school that I felt more connected and understanding of the past. I enjoy math most of the time, usually when I can actually understand it and know what I am doing. Math hadn’t really interested me until I think I was in 4th grade and I had to memorize the times table. I remember studying so much and I was very happy about my accomplishment of memorizing it and I think this moment has always been so memorable for me. 

Something that you should know is that I have a younger brother and a pet cat. A lot of my time is spent with them whenever I’m doing homework or playing video games after school. My brother and I connect through playing video games where we have to work together to complete the game. We also get to hang out during fencing, fencing isn’t something I love to do but getting to fence against my brother is always fun as we tend to laugh a lot. My pet cat is named Cleo, she is very silly. She has a habit of walking through people’s legs and then suddenly dropping to the ground, expecting  someone to pet her which is just very attention seeking of her. I value moments in life that bring me a sense of happiness that doesn’t feel like I have to meet a requirement or an expectation in order for everyone else around me to also feel happy. Whenever happiness can come from a genuine place, I treasure that as it feels like moments that create genuine joy are often very scarce but it makes them so much more valuable.

Outside of school, I enjoy taking walks outside with my family because it feels like time moves much slower when it doesn’t feel like I’m in a rush to meet a deadline for assignments or not feeling adequate enough. Taking walks allows me to move away from those kinds of thoughts and feelings. When I get to do that, I space out and just try my best to not think at all because a bad habit of mine is to overthink things that I don’t feel completely resolved. Another activity that I enjoy doing outside of school is playing tennis. Since the beginning of the summer of 2024, I’ve started getting into tennis and my brother also participates. Although I love to play tennis, I wouldn’t be able to say with a straight face that I am anywhere near good at this sport. My serves are absolutely horrendous but it is satisfying to get a good rally in everyone once in a while. 

Expectations that I have for myself as a Freestyle student is learning how to have creativity become more fluid to me and being able to execute that creativity into something meaningful. I think Freestyle academy would help me learn to be more effective in expressing my ideas that I may have and learning skills through a visual art matter. I’ve also been learning how to use new editing softwares that I have never used or heard of before which has been a huge challenge for me but I have slowly become more comfortable with these programs. In a technical manner, as I’m writing this, I will get to learn how to set up a website which is unfathomable to me that I would ever be doing something like this and I would say overall that it has been an exciting experience.

The values that I have found in being a Freestyle student is that my Mom has told me this is a rare and special opportunity in having the chance to try something in the more artistic side of education. She wouldn’t stop telling me about how this opportunity wasn’t available to everyone around the world yet and I shouldn’t let something like this pass by without giving it a chance. I value the amount of responsibility that I have been given to be able to use lots of equipment which I haven’t exactly figured out completely yet but these equipment are things I probably would have never used unless Freestyle Academy was here. However, I have thought that it was an overwhelming responsibility for this equipment because I really don’t want to break anything.