For most of my junior year, my friend kept on bugging me and bugging me to join a class in which he was in. He explained that not only did they go play sports outside during school hours, but they also teached us how to be referees for whatever sport we wanted. The class was called Team Officiating and at that time I didn't realize just how big of an opportunity I had missed by not signing up for the class that year. When it was time to choose our classes for next year, I remembered all the times my friend explained to me just how fun the class was and this led to me choosing Team Officiating as one of my electives. As the year progressed, I kept on learning more and more about being a referee and just how much patience and dedication it took. Randomly one day during class, my teacher explained to us that we had an opportunity to make some money. I was instantly intrigued since at that time I had never had the opportunity to make any kind of money doing something school related. At first, I was hesitant to tell the teacher to sign me up for it since I believed that I would make a error when it was time to referee. However, after being persuaded by my brother who was also in the class, I decided to try it out for one week. Long story short, I refereed every weekend for about 2 months straight after that. I loved refereeing but I have one specific memory which changed my perspective on life. Every year, my school has a friendly competition called the Unified game. It is a way for less fortunate students to be able to do something they have always wanted to do. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for special needs people since I believe they didn't deserve for life to treat them how it has treated them. My teacher asked us who wanted to participate in the Unified Game and be a referee and without hesitation I volunteered. Every year, the stands are packed since many students want to watch the game and hang out with their friends. I was lucky enough to be able to be in the field helping out less fortunate students who had always been treated differently just because of how they were born. It was my duty to coach a special needs student to successfully give the right calls whenever a play was happening. It made me emotional seeing how my partner was having so much fun just by simply raising his hands and making the right call. Since then, I never judged anybody until I met them since what is important is what is in the inside not the outside. Being a referee has taught me to be more patient with people. It has happened many times where players are rude to you while you are refereeing and as time went on, I learned that it is not their character, but simply the fact that they have love for the game. As of now, I am a certified soccer referee and although I don't have much time to referee at this time, I hope I can start refereeing more in the future since I want to do something I love as a job.