Community Stories!

November's Community Story! (2024) 

Hi Everyone! Welcome back to Faces of Silicon Valley’s Community Stories Page! This month, we welcomed, four-time gold-medalist in synchronized swimming, Alina Zhu to Faces of Silicon Valley, and we heard about her journey as a middle-school athlete, dedicating time to both volleyball and water polo. Read more to learn how Alina and her activities! :) 

Alina started playing volleyball around two years ago, playing on two different teams. She was first introduced to the sport when she was in fifth grade. While playing, she realized she enjoyed playing and that was when her coach recommended her to a club. When Alina first started playing, she notes that she started playing to learn the game. Volleyball was something she liked, so she surrounded herself with teammates with similar goals; to learn and improve. She mentions that it’s important that she continues practicing as she still has occasional difficulties with the sport. Alina mentions setting the ball in the wrong place at times, making it very easy to mess up in volleyball. But I’m sure with dedication and practice, Alina will be able to gain mastery of this sport. 

This year Alina has joined a more competitive team, and while they are providing more opportunities for her to grow with the sport, she still reminisces about her team with her old team, as we all do. I know I still remember my teammates from my first basketball team, I still keep in touch with some of them, and it’s always nice to reconnect :) 

Moving on to water polo. Alina started the sport around a year and a half ago, and since then she’s met a lot of new people and made a lot of new friends and teammates, all of whom have inspired her. She was inspired to play water polo after quitting her long-time sport of artistic and competitive swimming. After leaving those sports, Alina decided she still wanted to be involved with a water sport and thus began her journey of water polo. Alina’s favorite part of water polo is the concept of being on a team. She likes playing with others and admits it can be tiring, but that’s when having your teammates to back you up, can help. She goes on to say that water polo can be pretty tiring since you have to swim back and forth. She makes an analogy to “Soccer in the water,” when I asked her about the rules of the sport. Alina teaches me that there is offense and defense, and the goal is to prevent the other team from scoring, thus the analogy of “soccer on water.” 

So now you’ve heard Alina’s highlights of the sports. But here’s where it can get controversial…I’m kidding :) 

But for all you, volleyball and water polo enthusiasts out there, here’s Alina’s favorite sport: Volleyball! :) 

Just thought I’d add that in. And for a little trivia, according to an AI overview, in 2023 almost 6.9 million Americans participated in volleyball. So 6.9 million others agree with Alina, contact us at Faces of Silicon Valley to let us know your thoughts about this. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~AND NOW FOR THE Q&A SEGMENT WITH ALINA~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Q: What is your biggest achievement? 

A: As I mentioned earlier, I did a lot of synchronized swimming. During one competition, I was a four-time gold medalist. For me, it was a big achievement for two main reasons. 

1. I won against people that were way older than me! So there’s always a sense of happiness when you win out as a fledging. 
2. I put a LOT of effort into the sport, I trained at least four times a week for at least three hours. I had to learn to hold my breath for a long time and be flexible, so it was good to see that hard work pay off. 

Q: For someone with the number of achievements you have, you must have had someone supporting you along the way! Who would you say is your biggest supporter/mentor/coach? 

A: My dad. For all of my sports, he takes videos, so my team and I can rewatch our performances, and learn from our mistakes. For swimming, water polo, and volleyball, he drives me everywhere and stays with me. I’m very grateful for his support. I know that some people don’t have others to support them, so I want to tell them, “If you don’t have a mentor, reach out to your friends and peers, and look to see if they have mentors and can help you out.” 

Q: So, you’ve provided some advice for those without a meteor. What is your general advice? 

A: “Try your best in every moment, and take all the opportunities. Don’t wait for an opportunity, take all the time you have to do, everything can.” 

Q: With someone of your achievements, you must have MAJOR time management skills! What does a typical school day look like for you? 

A: It requires a lot of balance. I take whatever free time, I have, to complete my homework. My practices are usually late, so during that period (after school and to practice), I spend time with other activities and any unfinished homework. After school late practices, to do other work. 

Q: Can you describe what those other hobbies look like?

A: Recently, during the break I got into coding with Python. I really like it! It’s super fun, and you have to use a lot of logic and your brain. It kinda teaches you to be patient. Outside of coding and sports, I also take a lot of outside math classes. 

Q: This is super miscellaneous…but if you had a superpower, what would it be? 

A: Super speed! It would help me to be more on time, sometimes I get late, and I’m not the biggest fan of commuting. I feel that super speed would just erase all those troubles.

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Faces of Silicon Valley was so happy to welcome Alina onto our community! We are so thankful/grateful to her for giving the time to share her story! 

If you want to listen to our interview or learn some more things about Alina; feel free to click the link below and listen to our interview! 

September's Community Story! (2024)

Meet Mishka Chobe, a thirteen-year-old swimmer, badminton player, and active participant in Speech & Debate! Rising eighth-grader, Mishka lived in Santa Clara until she was ten. A while ago, Mishka moved to Saratoga and is currently attending Stratford Middle School. Mishka misses her home in Santa Clara, but she's learned to get used to it. Her tip to new movers is to remember the things of your old home and use them to remember the memories you had at your previous home. Mishka enjoys riding bikes around her neighborhood during her spare time, playing badminton with her friends and family on weekends, and reading fantasy novels. Her favorites include the Cruel Prince and the Percy Jackson series. She tells us that Rick Riordan's books are some of her favorites. Badminton is another one of Mishka’s favorite things to do. She enjoys playing it with her dad, who she mentions is one of her biggest supporters. Another activity she enjoys is swimming. Mishka learned the sport at the age of four. Mishka started swimming with the Santa Clara Swim Club and competed in competitions and swim meets with them. Unfortunately, during the pandemic, Mishka had to pause swimming. However, after the pandemic, Mishka could participate in swimming again. This time, Mishka joined the Daca Swim Club. Now, she's paused competitive swimming and enjoys swimming for fun! Mishka enjoys swimming because it's fun and a good way to release all her energy. If Mishka was given the choice to enter the Olympics as a swimmer, she'd swim freestyle as it's her favorite! Now, Mishka's shifted her focus to a different activity. Speech and Debate. Mishka has been an avid participant in Speech and Debate and currently competes with Athen's Debate. Mishka participates in impromptu at her speech event and spars at her debate event. Make sure to watch out for her! Her advice to new speakers in impromptu is to have a structure and use bullet points; to expand your ideas while speaking. She tells us that her brother was one of her supporters on her journey with Speech and Debate. Her advice to others to help them balance their activities and work hard on them is, “Practice continuously and have a structured schedule to help with time management.” 

If you want to listen to our interview or learn some more things about Mishka that weren't mentioned in our article; feel free to click the link below and listen to our interview! I would definitely recommend listening to Mishka describe her experience at Speech and Debate around the 10 minute to 11 minute mark. She explains her experience vividly and that can be helpful! Enjoy!

August's Community Story! (2024)

Meet Aanya, a rising eighth-grader with dreams that reach beyond the skies and stars and into space. But Aanya is limitless, besides her pursuits to achieve her dreams of becoming an astronaut, she still tries new things. Aanya is an avid athlete, environmentalist, speaker, and aspiring athlete. Let’s keep reading, to learn more about Aanya’s pursuit of her dreams and hobbies over the past months. This summer, Aanya became one step closer to reaching her dreams. Aanya joined at NASA Space Sleep-Away Camp at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Alabama. She vividly describes these space stimulators at the camp that helped the students envision how working in space feels like. She said the stimulators would spin you around in a chair for at least forty miles and hours.  Aanya elaborates and says it’s very thrilling and scary at times, but for the most part, it is exhilarating. Aanya says that ever since she was little, she’s wanted to become an astronaut. But her experience at space camp got her more interested in the work behind the scenes of astronauts and more into the scientific approach taken to astronomy. More recently, Aanya pursued the activity of speech and debate. Aanya has held a keen interest in the speech side of speech and debate. However, Aanya’s school Moreland Middle in San Jose hasn’t presented her with any speech opportunities. So this summer, she took matter into her own hands and decided to explore impromptu speeches. She explains the speech structure very simply: You write an introduction and give some examples on a said topic. The speech is usually around a random topic; either a concrete/abstract noun, a current/political event, or a quote. For Aanya, she enjoyed connecting her speech to her experiences at the NASA Summer Program. She says, "Often, there'd be a topic and I couldn't think of an introduction, so I'd come up with an experience I had at NASA." It makes sense because those experiences are real life and they probably connect to a lot of the lessons or morals that impromptu covers topic. She goes on to explain that the speech is usually around seven minutes, so there are two minutes to prepare a speech and the remaining five to present the speech. Aanya laughs when explaining the challenges of staying within the time constraint. She says, "A lot of times I'd go way overtime and sometimes I'd only manage to make a speech for less than five minutes." But that's the beauty of practice, with time I'm sure Aanya will continue to get better! Finally, Aanya talked about her interest in sports. She says, “I play basketball and run track during the school year. It’s how I balance schoolwork, science, astronomy, and sports. I do sports during the school year and focus on my academic interests like science and speech during the summer.” What inspired me about Aanya, is her journey in sports. Aanya deals with mild asthma which can make it very hard for her to run. Track and basketball are two sports that require intensive running, and it can be hard for people with asthma. But Aanya keeps trying and practicing track, trying to improve her running time as much as possible. She’s truly an inspiration to me and so many other people! Despite her hardships, Aanya has even gone on with her school’s basketball team to win second in their league! Congratulations Aanya! And I'm so thankful for Aanya for taking the time out of her schedule to share her story! 

If you want to listen to our interview or learn some more things about Aanya that weren't highlighted in our article; feel free to click the link below and listen to our interview! 

July's Community Story! (2024) 

Meet Avni, a thirteen-year-old musical prodigy, originally from Santa Clara, who is now living her dreams at Round Rock Texas! Avni plays piano during her spare time and enjoys participating in her school’s band, as she plays the oboe. Avni has been playing piano for around seven years now, and she enjoys taking part in musical tests such as RCM. Avni enjoys playing piano and dedicates her time to her passion, as she hopes that she can keep this as a hobby as she grows up. Avni explains how she got into playing the piano, through many of her friends, who had previously shown an interest as well. She goes on to explain, that she was particularly motivated by one of her piano teachers, here in California. This teacher was motivational and passionate toward all her students, which had inspired Avni. Moving on to the oboe, Avni and her school band recently played in Indianapolis, something Avni is very pleased with. Avni describes the oboe as long and black with keys, an instrument in which you play through blowing. If you listen closely to the interview, before Avni explained more about the oboe, you’ll find my mistake of thinking, the oboe looked like a harp…hahaha! Outside of school and music, Avni enjoys art and she emphasizes her love for burning designs into wood as a favorite pastime. Besides excelling in music and art, Avni enjoys traveling, this summer, Avni visited her mother's side of the family in India. Although, she enjoyed visiting them and seeing the Taj Mahal, she told us about the excessive heat in India. To end this on a happy note; Avni’s advice to others is, "Don't give up, it's gonna get hard, but you just keep trying, and when you do, you'll want to keep trying!" 

If you want to listen to our interview or learn some more things about Avni; feel free to click the link below and listen to our interview!