Hobbies/Sports

I started judo when I was just 7 years old, and continue it to this day. I have competed in judo, though with my focus on research, school, and business, I now mostly attend judo classes to keep myself fit and well-rounded.

Judo

Chess

Books, Movies, Series

Ping-Pong

Politics, Weather, and News

I have played chess also since a very young age. I played competitively until freshmen year of high school, winning a multitude of awards. I still play a very significant amount, whether it with friends in school and family at home. Chess helps requires my undivided attention and concentration, allowing me to rest from schoolwork.

At night or during the weekend, I love to open a nice book. Recently, I've been into books on business; I am currently reading Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, and not long before that, Benjamin Graham's The Intelligent Investor, Wheelan's Naked Statistics, and Freakonomics by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt. The next book I plan to read is The Big Short by Michael Lewis.

Prior to my nonfiction phase, I read many adult realistic fiction novels. My favorites included Sir Arthur Canon Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Jodi Picoult's House Rules.

On a Friday night, their is nothing I love more than a hot tea and a good movie. My favorites include Foxcatcher, Good Will Hunting, A Beautiful Mind, Good Morning Vietnam, Saving Private Ryan, American Sniper, Black Hawk Down, Schindler's List, Dr. Strangelove, and The Pianist.

Of series, I love and watch three: The West Wing, The Office (US version all the way), and The Shark Tank.

Whenever I have time at a computer, I immediately check CNN, BBC, and Politico. I am therefore very aware of news happening worldwide, and I am especially interested in U.S. politics. For now, my interest is just that: a hobby. I enjoy debate, and I have a need to know always what is going around me and around the world. I am also the administrator of the Opinion Nation News Facebook page, a page with 3,700+ likes.

I also enjoy tracking the weather. I am the co-founder of a Facebook page called Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Weather. This page has only 145+ likes, but it has growing significantly recently. Weather is not a field into which I would like to go into professionally, but I strongly believe in being informed, and wish to inform those around me.

Before we moved, my older brother and I played ping pong wherever we could find a table. After we moved, we got our own table, and quickly went from being absolutely terrible to just bad. However, ping pong is one area where I made a deal with myself to keep it completely as a hobby and never compete. I decided not to force myself to practice or play any more than I wanted to. My school has a couple of tables as well; I play Ping-Pong to relax from the everyday stress in school and at home, and to focus on hitting the ball rather than hitting the mark for just fifteen minutes.