I've been obsessed with music my whole life, and I was finally able to attend my first concert on January 28th, 2024, to see Travis Scott! I went with my best friend, and it was the most fun I have ever had in my life. Travis Scott's tour was for UTOPIA, which was my favorite album of 2023. It felt so surreal hearing songs that I'd been listening to so much for the last year live. I'd never been in a stadium so large before (it was Kaseya Center, where the Miami Heat play), and I was stunned by the number of people that filled the arena! The stage was incredible, too! The terrain of the stage was built like a mountain, with only a few flat sections surrounded by rising and falling platforms. There was a flying head going back and forth above the stage that seemed to resemble a parasail (this was because one of the songs on the album was called "Parasail"). Lights above the stage would change colors and create an atmosphere that made the experience so immersive. Travis Scott played many of his hits from previous albums, like "Goosebumps," "Sicko Mode," and "Antidote," but by far my favorite memory of the concert was when he played a song on UTOPIA called "My Eyes." The song is split up into two halves, with the first half being slower and melodic, while the second half switches the beat and has an incredible rapping performance from Travis that goes on for a whole two minutes. The lights were dimmed low for the first half, and Travis stood still on one of the higher platforms, singing the words. The audience was quiet, simply enjoying the calm and only speaking to sing the "10,000 on my eyes" chorus, where Travis would go silent to hear all of the voices sing that portion. Once the first half was over, the beat changed, and the tempo started to pick up. The lights above the stage turned green and aimed down all around the stage, making Travis look like he was standing on an island surrounded by a mysterious green mucus. Everyone started to chant, "AYE!" knowing that the drums were about to kick in and Travis would begin rapping. The drums pounded around the arena, and fire burst into the air around the stage. Everyone screamed in excitement and jumped wildly as Travis began the verse. This was the most dynamic performance of the whole night, and I will never forget when everyone in the crowd, including me, yelled out the final line, "If I gave you a day in my life or a day in my eyes, don't blink!" Fire burst around the stage one more time, and the audience screamed and applauded in excitement as the green lights dimmed and the song came to an end.

My favorite Nintendo game to play by far with my friends is Super Smash Bros Ultimate for the Nintendo Switch. Every year since I was in 5th grade, I have hosted an annual (sometimes twice a year) Smash Bros. tournament with all my friends. It started out with Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii, but now we all play Ultimate, which I think is the best game in the series! I love doing these tournaments because it brings all of my friends together for one day, and Smash Bros. can be fun for casual players and people who play it often. My greatest memory in Smash Bros Ultimate is when we were doing one of those tournaments and had one person who hadn't shown up yet. If he didn't arrive in time, the person he was going against would have moved on to the next round. At the last second, the person finally shows up and manages to land the cleanest Falcon Punch on Captain Falcon that I have ever seen! He was hit by an upward-smash attack by Ike, and as he was falling down, he clicked the Falcon Punch move and hit Ike midair, killing him at 50%. That unifying moment where we all screamed in excitement made me realize that this was my favorite Nintendo game to play with my friends. I've hosted nine tournaments at this point, and the tenth one is in just a couple of weeks. Eventually, the tournaments will come to an end, but I, along with everyone else, will look back at this game fondly and remember the amazing moments we all shared while playing it.

For the last several years, my passion has been creative writing! I am the author of one book and am working on getting it published as a hardcover for the world to enjoy by the end of this year. I have been working on my second book for a couple of years and plan on finishing the series with my third installment after that. The books are fictional fantasy, and I drew inspiration from book series like The Heroes of Olympus and Series of Unfortunate Events. I've done this entirely for fun, but being an author has made me a much better writer, and the improvements from when I started to where I am now are extremely noticeable. Being an author is by far my proudest accomplishment, and I will continue to push myself to get better! If I had an extra twenty-four hours in the day, I would definitely spend it writing more. As a full-time college student, I don't have much free time to myself, and sometimes the last thing I want to do when I have that free time is use more energy to write. Sometimes I go a week or two without doing any creative writing, but if I were given more time, I'd be able to pursue my passion every day. I have creative bursts that lead me to write for hours, and this usually happens when I am given inspiration from something. I take inspiration from various outlets, including books, movies, TV shows, and music. The first inspiration burst happened when I was reading the aforementioned Heroes of Olympus series, specifically the book "The House of Hades." I already liked reading, but this book made me realize how amazing literature can really be. The book had such a rollercoaster of emotions that all felt so cohesive, and I wanted someone to be able to feel that from something that I wrote. Whenever I watch a movie with a great story or a really good episode of a TV show, I also feel inspired to be creative. Certain songs bring out certain emotions in me that reflect moments in my book, too, that ignite me to begin writing again. I hear calming music that reminds me of a relaxing moment in my book or a radioactive song that reminds me of a fight scene I've been working on. Moments like this happen spontaneously, but the best time to write is when I am at my most creative. I hope that my books can inspire other people to become authors, as The Heroes of Olympus series did for me. That series changed me for the better, making me a more creative person and a better writer. If I can make that impact on one person, then I feel that I have made the world a better place.

I love math because of how practical it is. This is the first semester that I am not taking a math class, and yet I am still doing math all the time. I do math in my economics and astronomy classes, and without the math I completed in prior classes, I wouldn't know what to do. I also use math when determining what grades I need to get on certain assignments in order to keep my A. Math does not come easy to me, but that keeps the class interesting and engaging. Classes like Algebra 2 and Statistics pushed me, but the feeling of finally understanding the content was so rewarding. It just takes practice to learn how certain problems work, and I prefer that learning method over memorizing (which is how you learn most content in other subjects). I'm not going to be a math major, but I will look back at the subject fondly for pushing me to my limit and rewarding me for finally grasping the material. The hardest class I ever took was Algebra 2, but when I finished the class, I felt I had learned so much. The class was less equation-intensive than Geometry, so the work was focused more on learning through practice instead of memorization. I took several math classes like this (Liberal Arts, Algebra 1, Statistics) and I enjoyed all of them for their challenging course content and variety.

I am the most passionate about music. I love discovering different genres of music or diving deep into an artist's catalog and getting invested in their work. Every weekend I sit down and listen to an album I have never heard. Listening to an album for the first time feels so grand and important to me. The anticipation of going into each song, not knowing what it is going to sound like, is so captivating and allows me to go into records that are over an hour long and still feel excited to hear the final track. Not every record is of the same quality, but that makes album listening so fun! Just like with songs, I never know if the album as a whole is going to sound great or not. Music is subjective, so opinions on an album can completely contrast with what I think. Going through albums that I end up finding mediocre make the records that I do enjoy that much better. Sometimes I'll enjoy a record so much that I get a poster of it and put it on my wall. I want to be able to see the record in physical form, not just on my phone screen. Music helps ignite a wide range of emotions that push me through the day. I have music perfect for working out, relaxing, or assisting in my other passions, like writing. I know there is so much music out there in the world that conveys so many different emotions, and that's why I constantly am looking for more. I started my passion for listening to albums when the pandemic hit, and now I've listened to almost one hundred and fifty albums, but I still know that I've barely scratched the surface. Music is constantly changing, and its history is so dense but easily accessible. Spotify, the app I use to listen to music, has so many albums available to digest. From timeless classics like Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" to modern masterpieces like Kendrick Lamar's "To Pimp a Butterfly," the history of music from the last two centuries is right in front of you. I know that people's passion to discover new music tends to decrease as they get older, but I want to make sure I do not follow that trend. I may not listen to a new album every week ten years from now, but I want to make sure I still discover music every so often. Music has had such a massive impact on my life, and that is something I will never forget or let go of.

I dream to be an author who inspires the next generation of writers to write what they are passionate about.

Some books have genuinely changed me as a person, and the first book that comes to mind is "The House of Hades" by Rick Riordan. This is the fourth book in Riordan's spin-off series of Percy Jackson, "The Heroes of Olympus." I read this book while in middle school, and after I was finished with this book, I decided I needed to write a book of my own. I had written plenty of short stories in elementary school, but this book was so powerful that it reignited my love for writing and brought me back into it. Coming off of a shocking ending in the previous book, "The Mark of Athena," this book lived up to the hype from front to back. Taking place in the underworld, filled with chaos and destruction, the main characters often struggled to find hope but pushed through their obstacles for a chance at redemption. This book was intense, filled with moments of passionate character development, and had me glued to my seat until its heart-punching ending. Books like these remind me why I read as much as I do. Feelings of intensity, followed by laughter and then sorrow all stem from words on a page. Even though it would be better to read the whole series, "The House of Hades" can be seen as a standalone book. It tells a complete story, and by the conclusion, it is clear that you have just finished reading a modern classic. Everyone in the world should experience this read, and I cannot recommend it enough.

My name is Andrew Vasile, and I am entering my last year of high school before I transition to the college setting. I go to a small high school of under four hundred in Punta Gorda called FSW, and I plan on going to Florida Gulf Coast University, a school with over fifteen thousand students. This transition in size seems pretty drastic, but I think this will be a great change for me. I want to pursue a degree in Public Relations, so the obstacle of adapting to a large population of students is actually beneficial to my degree. Even though I am already a great communicator, I will be improving my communication skills every single day! I am being given the opportunity to interact with people from so many different backgrounds, which will give me the experience I need to succeed in my field. What could be viewed as a burden I see as a moment to shine. The transition in setting and size is not the only potential obstacle I anticipate. My family has a history of being in student debt for a long time, and I want to avoid having that problem. Simultaneously, I want to focus on my studies without having to work, so I can give the best effort possible in my classes. I plan to be debt-free and not have to work in college by doing exactly what I am doing now: applying for scholarships. I apply for scholarships almost every day, and with my impressive high school grades and test scores, I hope to win enough scholarships that can give me a free ride through FGCU. My biggest passion is being a creative writer. I started writing short stories in elementary school, but once I hit my freshmen year of high school, I decided I wanted to write a book. Writing this book while also being a high school student was a challenge. Freshmen year was the toughest year in terms of workload for me, and juggling that with my creative writing made me take extended breaks from working on the book. With enough perseverance, I managed to finish that book, edit it, and publish it. I still work on the book to make a finalized version of it that I will publish in a larger mass, and at the same time I am working on the sequel. I managed to overcome the obstacle of being a student and a writer by simply using a planner. Some days I would dedicate myself to getting my schoolwork done, and if the week was not too heavy, I would dedicate other days to writing. I plan on doing the same thing in college, and through this plan, I have learned that no matter how overwhelming something is, it can be overcome.