I tried a lot of sports as a kid, from horseback riding, to gymnastics, to lacrosse, but I have always loved to swim. Seven years ago, I started swimming competitively, and I have loved it since. I currently swim for Greenwood Swimming at WPI. My favorite event is the 1,000 yard freestyle. Swimming has taught me the values of patience and perseverance, as well as the importance of exercise.
In my free time, I can often be found reading a good book. Some of my favorites are The Call of the Wild, A Void, The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, and Elatsoe. My favorite genres are mystery, fantasy, and non-fiction, but I enjoy reading anything that gets me thinking and engages my imagination. I love to find bookstores wherever I go. Last April, I went to Shakespeare and Co. in Paris and a couple bookstores in Ireland. I have also been to a bookstore in every state in New England.
I very much enjoy cooking, but I do prefer baking, if only because I prefer to eat what I bake more than what I cook. I often experiment with various cuisines to find and create delicious vegetarian recipes. I have been a vegetarian for 11 years. I think that this has increased my love of cooking and baking because I enjoy adapting recipes to make them vegetarian and experimenting with different vegetarian options. Here are some of my favorite desserts to make (and eat): Macarons and Crème Brûlée. I also enjoy making fun shapes out of homemade marzipan.
My love of travel is probably due to the constant trips to Ireland that I have made over the years to visit family. Some other countries that I have been to are France, England, Canada, and Bermuda. Inside of the United States, I have been to Florida, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho (where, of course, I ate a potato), all of the New England states, New York, and more. I love to experience different cultures and try new cuisines. A place that I have always wanted to visit is the Amazon Rainforest. Below are some pictures of me at Sacre Couer in Paris, snowboarding in Utah, and kissing the Blarney Stone in Ireland. The Blarney Stone is a rock in Blarney Castle that is rumored to give the gift of eloquence to whoever kisses it.
Extracurriculars vary by term here at MAMS, which means that (other than Math team) each extracurricular is offered for one term. I joined the Mass Academy Community Service club over the summer, go to the Community Service page to learn more about MACS and my community service. In A Term, I was a part of the Biotechnology extracurricular, which was run by Dr. Crowthers and allowed us to learn wet lab skills like pipetting with interesting experiments and labs. For model organisms, we mainly learned about Drosophila melanogaster (fruit flies), but we also used Caenorhabditis elegans (tiny transparent worms). In B term, I joined Creative Engineering and Design. This club focused on Arduinos, but also allowed us to take apart technologies that we see in our everyday lives to uncover their inner workings and design whatever we could think of to accomplish a given objective using the materials given. Last year, I joined the Science Olympiad team at Auburn High School and even spoke about the club at the Auburn school commitee meeting. I have remained on the team even though I now attend Mass Academy. I am also a part of the Brickyard Beat, which is the Mass Academy newspaper.