From Freshman to Freshman (the basics)

Well as you probably don’t know, I’m Ryan Emilio Maniquis from Northern Virginia (Woodbridge to be more exact.) I’m a freshman here in the college of engineering at Virginia Tech, though I have yet to decide on my specific major to pursue. I graduated from Gar-Field High School 2009 and in the process also received a diploma from the International Baccalaureate Program. Despite the harder classes, similar to AP classes, I still excelled in math and science, leading to my decision on pursuing an engineering degree in one of the greatest colleges with an engineering program.

Apart from math and science, I also was regarded as one of the best and most talented musicians of the school among my friends. It was widely known that I was a great piano and clarinet player amongst the other musicians of Gar-Field and people would sometimes come to me to ask for help for particular parts in their own music. I played in many different ensembles during my high school career including playing the clarinet in symphonic band/wind ensemble, the high school marching band, and even an extracurricular orchestral ensemble with fellow musicians from different high schools from the surrounding counties. It was in these classes and groups where I had made true friendships with my classmates. We would often hang out with each other after school to watch a movie or have a friendly bowling competition that would usually end with me outscoring the rest of my friends (I used to be on a bowling team.) However this all ended abruptly when we all graduated in June 2009. Afterwards we didn’t have time to have fun like we used to. All of us were busy preparing for college or spending time with our families before we all left. But despite going to different schools we all knew that during our breaks we’d hang out again like the old days.

Though we didn’t hang out Thanksgiving Break, Winter Break was a different story. Over the month we all lived life like we always did with bowling, movies, guitar hero, foosball, and a lot more ridiculous things. However the fun never stayed 24/7 like it did at Tech. Finally after a long winter break being home with high school friends, I was glad to be back in West AJ at Virginia Tech. Being home for such a long time was a good change from being in a dorm for 15 weeks, but I realized I really missed hanging out with the guys in my hall as much as I missed hanging with high school friends. When I got back it was great to be able to live life again with no worries with my friends here at school.