Hey, everyone! I know I haven’t posted in months, and I did regret it the whole time. But I’m back! My new school is amazing, and I’m taking part in many of the programs they offer. Here’s a look at the main two.
Robotics
One of the major bonuses of this school is their massive Makerspace: an engineer’s playground filled with art supplies, tools, machines and materials to build almost anything you can think of. The Makerspace is home to the varsity (Incognito) and JV (Wolfpack) robotics teams, and I’m an engineer for Wolfpack along with several of my friends. Each year, we participate in FTC, or the First Tech Challenge, along with schools in our area.
The qualifying tournament is coming in a couple of weeks! Our robot is being prepped, and us humans are training too, as we’re planning to take turns honing our driving skills over the next few practices. Plus, we’re finally adding a camera to our robot so that we can run an autonomous program in the first minute or so of our matches that will score even more points than normal. FTC challenges are always pretty wacky, so they’ve graciously provided us a video. (Go to 00:52 to skip through the long intro animation.)
Water Polo
The second thing that drew me to this school was the robust water sports program. At the high school level, we have both swimming and water polo, and I decided to give the latter a shot for my freshman year! Indirectly, it’s led to me finally learning how to put in contacts and making friends with a bunch of people I wouldn’t interact with much normally. I’m glad I got into the sport in my freshman year, as I’m fast enough to be great at water polo later, I just need more experience. Soon, we should be going to playoffs, and I’m excited to see how well we’ll do.
To be totally honest, I don’t think I would’ve done water polo or even swimming if I wasn’t bald! It’s so much easier to deal with rubber swim caps and fabric water polo caps, plus I get to tease my teammates for having too much hair. (Lol, imagine having hair. Couldn’t be me…) I’m a pretty lazy person when it comes to getting ready, so I don’t think I would’ve joined my old school’s swim team in fifth grade if I had to figure out that extra mess. But hey, swimming was one of the things that got me here! Just another upside to alopecia, am I right?
Also, the whole friends thing…
In terms of friends, this school’s been amazing at encouraging relationships before school even started. I’m set up with an awesome group of friends that had been together since seventh grade, and they were amazingly accepting. And hey, if you’re in my situation, good for you! If not, it’s okay. I really do suggest going to hangouts, get-togethers or club meetings; you never know what or who you may find. I got into water polo and robotics by learning a bit about it and saying, “Hey, why not?” There could be a whole hidden world of people like you, just as it was for me with alopecia and maybe even for you reading this.
Thanks, y’all!
So, that’s about it for today’s post! Once again, I know I shouldn’t have waited so long to post again, but now that I have, I can’t wait to get back into it. Thanks to everyone who visited this site over my too-long hiatus, and I hope you’re all having a good day!
peytonpecia 