Persistence to self to explore new things

Aldair Funes is a senior in Yerba Buena High School, and he is currently 17 years old. He wanted to find new hobbies and his passion by trying to experience new things that he never did before. Therefore, he can find a passion for a new hobby that is playing sports, make many memories and those experiences can help him create new bonds with his friendship.

When Funes was in 7th grade, he noticed that I wanted to try to join the volleyball team at school. Since Funes saw his friends that are 8th graders playing volleyball is cool and professional so he wanted to challenge himself by joining the team. He realized that I like to play volleyball especially with his friends because it can be fun and make more connections with his friends. Therefore, he joined the volleyball team in 8th grade too.

Transitioning to high school, Aldair didn’t stop finding a new experience, specifically a new sport experience.  

In 10th grade, Aldair got into the football team. During this experience, Funes said it was fun because he can learn more skills about football from other people

For Funes, exercise is really helpful to his life and it helps his life change to be better “I feel like I’m exercising a lot and I feel like I have something to do throughout the day” Funes said. 

In 11th grade, Aldair tried to join wrestling. This is the first year he joined a wrestling team so it’s really new for him. He mentioned that sometimes, it was a challenge to him such as during the game, his opponent was strong so he got really tired, really quick and that made him slow down. 

“Something that helps me when the game, even if I'm tired is I just think of what my team will say if I give up. So I just keep pushing and trying, even if I'm really tired, because I know that my team will be disappointed in me if I just give up."Funes said, those factors can make him build resilience to win the game 

Losing games also helped him to build discipline for himself so he could try to better and become better during the practice. Therefore, Funes could get a great preparation for the next game instead of being disappointed and then giving up. 

Funes also learned how to calm down and control himself for the upcoming game , “I truly just take a deep breath. I try to relax my body so I cannot be nervous when I play” Funes said. Therefore, wrestling has become his favorite sport because of the community and the sport in general, he also met new friends from the team and those were his favorite members of the team, many memories and experiences from wrestling so he felt like he already found a new hobby for him that is wrestling.

Moreover, in 11th year, Funes also took photography class as his elective class. In this class, he learned how to use cameras and take pictures. In fact, after taking photography class, he realized that he loves to take pictures so he bought a camera of his own. Sometimes, he uses his own camera to go take pictures for sports such as the games. 

In this year, 12th grade. Funes also try to explore more hobbies by joining water polo

“I think that playing sports help me find the new passion of new hobby because i’m always persistently trying to new sports, it helps me find new hobbies like since I’m doing water polo, I found that I really like it too and I also like swimming so that’s a new hobby that I found out like I like swimming and play water polo” Funes explain about playing sports helps you find the passion of a new hobby

During those sports experiences, Funes also realized the importance of friendships. For every team he joined, I made friends with his teammates then built communication skills, helped and encouraged each other whenever they struggled so they could be better. “Friendship is important to me because it helps me create bonds with other people and it helps me come out of my shell and helps me become more confident with talking to people.” Funes shared.