"Hi, my name is Max, it's nice to meet you!" That phrase can be interpreted and taken in tones all very different from each other when reading that on text as opposed to hearing it in real life. That is not to say that using online gaming forums has had a negative effect on social interactions. Having access to these forums I think is a great thing. It allows for those who find it more difficult to interact with others in real life a chance to find others with similar interests as them and make friendships too. In my personal experience, I can say that it has been a positive experience in using gaming forums to communicate with other players of video games or with online users. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I remained indoors for the majority of my time and spent most of it on gaming chats and forums. I can safely say that a lot of the people I talk to and keep in touch with now, almost 2 years later are some of my closest friends. We went from only talking in online forums and chats to online calling and we continue to do so today. Eventually we did find that we did not live too far from each other so at one point we decided to set up a day where we could all meet and introduce ourselves in person. I will admit it seemed a little intimidating at first having low social skills and not being use to meeting many new people in person after a pandemic where I spent my time indoors. But the day came and it only brought us closer as friends. The use of online gaming forums to communicate and ditch the commonly accepted social norms is not a bad thing in my opinion. On the contrary, I think it's a great thing that has allowed for thousands of people of the world to meet and make friendships. Although I do think that meeting people in person as the first impression, there is sometimes more comfort in being able to be in the comfort of your own space and still meet others that you know already share similar interests as you.

"DONE! 45.6 seconds! Thats the fastest time so far!" These are the words spoken by my Algebra teacher after I had completed my math problem in a competition that we had in class for extra points. The competitive spirit in that class is what gave me my love for math. Now in college, I have only grown that love due to the brain-scratching complexity it has shown me and the exciting feeling I get when I find the answer to that problem. Math has been a passion of mine for years and gives me a reason to use it every day. It gave me my really good time management skills so I can always be punctual, it's given me an edge at being responsible with my spendings, and has even allowed me to be a help to others in my community by giving them help in tutoring so that they may also understand the subject at their level and understand it. The reason I love math the most is just because it has given me actual day to day use that I didn't think I'd ever find myself using when I was younger. I only thought that my my competitive spirit at this subject would be temporary and only last me a school year or two, but thanks to that spirit I have gained quite the arsenal of skills with math and can easily use them everyday to easy my daily life.