Oh boy is the pressure on! I, Aaron Xing, had reached the top level of middle school, eighth grade. I’m actually pretty young for an eighth grader, I’m only twelve turning thirteen on December fourth. Eighth grade isn’t easy, it seems like everything is so cramped up with all that homework along with ping pong training every other day and piano lessons two times a week. As time went on, I saw that my grade was dropping as fast as a eagle diving for a mice in the fields. By the end of the first trimester, my grades dropped all the way to the bottom, straight F’s. My parents know it’s report card day, they are going to be waiting for me to show them my perfect grades. I doubt that this trimester’s grades are “perfect”. What if my mom cancels my practices? What if she doesn’t let me play ping pong or piano anymore. There’s no way she’ll do that, but still I need to get home, fast.
I dashed home in the windy, cold fall air. The wind pierced my face like darts while I ran full speed towards my house. I passed the curve of the house, and saw that I was too late, my mom was home.
My mom saw me coming in and asked, “How was your day today, honey?”
I stuttered, “I...I need to use the…restroom.”
“Oh ok then,” my mom replied, “but first let me see your report card.”
I started panicking, this wasn’t good. If she found out that I got straight F’s she’s going to kill me. “I’ll give it to you once I’m done with my business, I really need to go. Bye!” I dashed into the house and went into my room. I locked the doors up just as my mom came to the door.
“Aaron, you come out here right now! I will call your dad to come back if you don’t unlock these doors in 10 seconds,” my mom shouted. This isn’t good, if my dad comes back and knows my grades…
“10...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2,” my mom counted.
“Ok! I’ll show you my report card, just don’t tell Dad and I’ll let you see it.” I shouted. I reached into my backpack and took out my report card.
With shaking hands, I opened my door and my mom snatched the report card out of my hands.
“WHAT,” my mom screamed in rage, “HOW DID YOU...STRAIGHT F’S! YOU ARE GROUNDED AARON, FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR!”
I didn’t really care if I got grounded as long as I still can play piano and ping pong. Little did I know that my mom is telepathic.
“I know what you are thinking, you don’t care if you get grounded as long as you can play piano and ping pong,” my mom said, “so I decided that you won’t be able to play one activity for the rest of the year!”
I was shocked, how did she know what I was thinking? Also, choosing one out of ping pong and piano is almost impossible for me! I knew something like this was going to happen. AH! Think Aaron think! There must be some other way!
“Mom, can I have one last week of both activities so I can choose which one to quit?” I spoke softly.
“As long as you decide on one I’m fine with it. Boy, get those grades up! Academic is way more important than your extra activities.” my mom ordered.
The next week, I told both my ping pong coaches and my piano teacher about this “incident”. They both had the same responses, focus on only one activity. Choose wisely, for your future will depend on what path you take. I really don’t know what to do now, I’ve played piano ever since I was 6, and I played ping pong ever since I was 8. Both of them seem to be a part of me now, I can’t bring myself to pick one activity out of the 2. My piano teacher had tried to persuade me to keep piano.
“Aaron ,you are really talented in piano,” she told me, “you can go a long way with it. Looking at what you already did, getting 2nd place in Carnegie Hall and helping our choir get first place in Anaheim’s 60th Anniversary Competition. I hope you would choose to keep piano, after all you are the best students I have.”
That was really touching, I really want to just keep with piano, but my coaches had a really good point too…
“Aaron, think about it. You already have a rating of 2400. 50 more points and you would be in the boy’s USA junior team! Do you really want to give up ping pong right now? You’ve got 3rd in nationals and the US Open. That’s a really big achievement, you are only 13 right now and there’s still so much you can build up on. Quitting now, would be a real shame. Plus, think about your teammates, what would they feel if you just leave them?” my coaches explained to me.
See, they are very persuading. I feel like my teachers and coaches made it harder for me to pick one, so I asked my mom to give me some more time to pick. She agreed but I had to choose after nationals and the annual MTAC (Music Teacher’s Association of California) competition.
The day came for nationals, I completely forgot about the choice I had to make so I played with all my heart without worrying about anything. After 5 days of vigorous play, I made it into the finals! After 5 intense rounds, it was finally down to the last round. I planned every ball skillfully and being as careful as I can be so I wouldn’t make stupid mistakes. 1-1, 4-2, 4-4, 6-4, 6-6, 7-7, 8-8, 9-9. It’s my serve now, I have the advantage to take this game right now. I watched my opponent to see what weak spots he has in his ready position.
“There!” I thought to myself, “There’s a hole in his left side, serving long there will catch him off guard.”
I stared at my opponent's right side to give him a feeling that I’m going to serve there. I tossed the ball high into the air, it seemed like time slowed down. I can see the ball slowly dropping, 15 in, 12 in, 10 in, 8 in, 6 in. I hit the ball and it traveled as fast as a bullet to my opponent’s left side. He stumbled hitting the ball super high into the air. Bam! I slammed the ball for a smash right towards my opponent’s face. He didn’t react in time, the ball hit him square in the face.
“Sorry!” I said, “Are you alright?”
“I’m..fine. I’m fine, but dang kid, you hit really hard.” my opponent said, laughing. We played on and immediately I forgot about pitying for him. He is my opponent, and he is the only thing between me and my chance to go to the Olympics (by the way, did I mention I was really competitive?). On my next serve, I stumbled a bit and the ball went out of control.
“Oh no! At this rate the ball is going to go--”, my train of thoughts was hit abrupt when “tink”, the ball hit the edge of the table. I was so shocked, that I didn’t even realize I had just won the game.
“GAME!”, the announcer yelled, “This game goes to the young underdog, Aaron Xing, the youngest person to ever win the nationals and to participate in the Olympics!!!” I did it! I might go with ping pong in the end since I’m going to the Olympics! The youngest person to win the nationals and be in the Olympics representing U.S.A, just knowing that is exciting. Well, let’s just see what happens for the piano competition now. After all, I’m still not all for ping pong.
It was time, my friend Adam and I have been practicing for this competition for 4 months. We are playing a concerto that is 20 minutes long, but we are up to the challenge. After 2 days of competitors performing, the results finally came out.
“Thank you everybody for coming to this year’s MTAC competition.” the announcer spoke on the speaker, “After a very difficult judging on the many great pianists we have here today, we have chosen the top 3 groups as 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. In 3rd place, we have the Baroque Duo! In 2nd place… the Classic Pianists! Last but not least, in 1st place…”
Come on, come on! This has to be us! We did so good onstage! Please…
“The Romantic Duet! Congratulations you two, you’ll be going to Carnegie Hall this summer representing California for the Carnegie Hall Competition! Good luck!”
YES, we managed to do it! I thought we were goners! This is awesome...wait. Hold up, I still need to quit one activity. This is impossible! I’m going to the Olympics for ping pong and Carnegie Hall for piano. If I stop any activity, I’ll blow this awesome chance I just got. My mom needs to understand, if she doesn’t my teammates will be very disappointed in me. Adam, Anthony, Andy, Andrew, and Anakin. I can’t do it, I just can’t! I don’t see any possible way for me to get out of this mess. Unless… wait… I got an idea! Instead of quitting one activity and focusing on another one, I can just not take that many lessons with both activities and keep both! That’s perfect! The main problem to begin with was me not getting enough time to actually do my homework due to the countless practices I have. So if I reduced the amount of time I spent on having practice, I should be able to have enough time for me to do my homework!
I rushed over to my mom and told her what I thought.
“You can try it out for the second trimester, if your grades are still that low, then you must quit one of the activities.” my mom said, “ If it does work for you, I think it would be nice to have you keep both of the activities, my little champion.”
“Yes!” I thought to myself, “I still have a chance to keep what I love to do and continue building up on it.”
The next two months or so was a blur. I’ve just been doing homework here, homework there, while still keeping up with practice. I talked my mom into lowering my practices so it’s just one piano practice and 2 ping pong practices per week. I took my homework with me to practice just in case I wasn’t able to finish it all. Slowly, my grades started climbing back up. Finally, it was time for finals studied hard for the finals and even cut down all practices for that week. I was more desperate than hard working. I need this, the finals can change it all…  As time flew by, it was time for the third trimester report cards.
“This is it, the moment of truth.” I muttered under my breath when I got my third trimester report card back, “ It’s been awhile, straight A’s.”
I ripped open my report card and I slowly scanned through each of the classes. Orchestra: A, P.E.: A, Language Arts: A, Science: A, Math: A, Social Studies: B... Ha! I got you there. Social Studies: A (remember what I said earlier? I was back to the straight A’s). I was shocked, but at the same time I was excited. I started dashing home the moment the bell started to ring.
“Mom!” I panted, “Look… at… my report card.”
“It must be good right? Or else you wouldn’t dash home like this, my mom said through laughter. “All right, I’ll look at it. Though I doubt I really need to since you look like you are really happy and glad.”
Slowly, my mom took the report card and opened it, “Wow Aaron! Straight A’s? You really put some effort into school this year didn’t you?” my mom said, “See, I knew you had the potential to get good grades while still keeping up with all your extra activities. I’m so proud of you! I’ll go call your coach right away so you can resume a bit more of your practices. Let this count as a little treat for all your hard work.”
The next day, my mom doubled my practice time to two piano lessons and four ping pong practices per week. I’m glad to say that both my coaches and piano teacher are really proud of me!
“Wow Aaron,” my piano teacher exclaimed, “you really are serious about piano! You studied so hard just so you can play piano again, I am really proud to be your teacher. Keep up the good work! I got a little job for you that will earn you a couple bucks!”
“Nice work Aaron,” my ping pong coaches said, “I’m glad to see that you managed to pull through with all that catching up with school work while still managing to keep up with your ping pong. We are thinking that it might be time for you to be the team captain for nationals!”
Wow! I thought. I guess it was really worth it, all that hard work and staying up late to study for tests, it was all for a good cause. Now look! I have so many opportunities to build up my future! Who knows, I might become a ping pong champion and a great piano accompanist while still getting into a great college…

six years later...

Well, here I am. I, Aaron Xing, has been accepted into one of the best colleges in the world, Yale University. I’m now eighteen and it’s my first year at Yale. I like this college, it’s not too strict and the professors are nice. They understand that I need to leave school often because of my ping pong tournaments. Oh right, I didn’t tell you that yet. I’m now the second best ping pong player in the world. Even though I’m not the champion, second place is not bad for an eighteen year old. I’m also the piano accompanist for the Philharmonic Orchestra as well as Yale’s Orchestra and choir. It was all thanks to my mom for enforcing a cut in my practices and my ping pong coaches and piano teacher for helping me pull through with this tough time in life. Of course I did the hard work, but I doubt I have the willpower to actually study.
“Hey Aaron what’s your GPA as of now?” my roommate Adam asked me. He’s always so curious when it come to these things: test scores, mile times, GPA, etc.
“I think I have a 4.0. I’m pretty sure I aced every single test,” I replied.
“Dang I only have a 3.4… How do you even do all that when you still have to leave so often? I don’t get it,” Adam asked.
“Well, I had trouble when I was in eighth grade catching up on grades.” I explained, “ Though I managed to pull through the hardship. Back then, my mom didn’t even let me play ping pong or piano!”
“Wow man, I can’t even imagine you leaving ping pong or piano for even one second. I mean you still have that bad habit of yours.” Adam said.
I looked to my hands and sure enough, my right hand was drumming the melody of one of my most cherished pieces: Beethoven’s Rage Over the Lost Penny. My left hand was imitating a ping pong serve toss.
“Well, I guess somethings can’t be helped.” I said, “but you can always try to find a way to make it better.”

The End…