Activities and Interests

Video Editing

I’ve always been interested in film, but never really had any practical skills in the medium. I had dabbled with video editing in high school in our film club and thought it was fun, but it didn’t interest that much at the time. On my study abroad trip to China, our main assignment was a video project focusing on an aspect of city planning and infrastructure in major Chinese cities. That project made me discover how much I loved putting a video project together, and I’ve made several small video projects since then. Most of the videos I make are video essays focusing on something involving international media. I don’t make these projects regularly and only when I feel inspired.

My love of film was also satisfied by my leadership in the MSC and its film committee, called MSC Aggie Cinema. I loved talking to people about why they love movies and what genres they like best. After I graduated, my good friend Yash from that organization reached out to me and wanted us to do a podcast together. He wanted a show that would feature the two of us interviewing a guest and talking about that guest’s favorite movie. Talking about film was also one of his favorite parts of the film committee.  We released our first episode of Cinema Convos in August 2020 and have released 20 episodes to date. Yash is the face (or voice, rather) of the program and I edit it. I also add clips from our subject film or any other media relevant to the conversation, as a way of keeping the audience engaged. While it isn’t necessarily a video project, it does scratch that itch for me. I’m really proud of it.

Trivia

I discovered when I was young that I have a very good memory, and an interest in memorizing things. When I was kid, my dad bought me a sports almanac, a book about the presidents, and an atlas. I used to spend hours after school memorizing facts from those books. To this day, I can recite all the presidents in order and all the state capitals without so much as a second thought. Hours spent reading almanacs in elementary school became hours spent on Wikipedia in middle and high school. I just loved learning new things as much as I could, especially things involving history, geography, or any kind of media. When I got to high school, I started my school’s quiz bowl team and went on to place individually in the state tournament. I enjoyed quiz bowl because it was something I was good at, but I also got to help other students realize they were good at it too. After high school, I would play pub trivia regularly with my dad for several years, where we placed regionally a few times in our league.

Travel

I used to travel a lot with my parents when I was a young kid, going all over the US, the Caribbean, and Europe. We traveled minimally through most of my growing up, with me being focused on school and my parents focused on their own things. When I graduated high school, my mom surprised me with a trip to Germany. It was just the two of us and we had a wonderful time. We both rediscovered our love for travel and for history. We went on trips to Italy two summers since then and it’s really been the thing that my mom and I have bonded over.

In the summer of 2019, I got a chance to study abroad in China, and it was the most amazing trip of my life. I saw things I never thought I would see as long as I lived. If the Europe trip reignited my spark for travel, then the China trip made sure the flame never went out. I want to travel for the rest of my life and see as much of the world as I can.