At AHS, students are extremely talented and gifted. Among these talents are several peculiar and unusual ones.

For instance, sophomore Anthony Chiang is able to recite the alphabet backwards without much hesitation. “I didn’t even know I could do it until one day I just did it flawlessly,” he said.

Another natural-born talent is freshman Ashley Pan’s outstanding skill at playing cards. She’s especially good at Egyptian War, Speed, and Double 07. “I started playing cards when I was eight,” Ashley described. She was able to become an expert quickly by constantly playing with her Chinese teacher. “Once I played Speed with my teacher, and it took less than 8 seconds to finish a round,” she recalled. Ashley also stated that she seldom loses in Egyptian War.

Junior Jacob Kitt has a natural talent of freestyle and speed rapping to any beat. He first discovered this talent back in eighth grade when he had to rap a song about the scientific method to the beat of “Boyz-n-the-Hood” by Eazy E. “I used to rap in my free time, but now I don’t do it as much,” he answered when asked if he still currently practices.

However, other students have to constantly practice to achieve such unique talents. An example is freshman Matthew Le, who can solve a Rubik’s cube in 30 seconds or less. To get this amazing time, he had to train himself with several trials and errors for months. “In seventh grade, I started with the beginner method and got down to a minute and thirty seconds. But I wanted to be faster, so I used a different method of solving,” Matthew explained. “After a few weeks of practicing I got it down to 50 seconds. I started learning these different algorithms that could solve the cube in specific cases. Eventually, I got down to 30 seconds.”

Senior Kaelyn Ong can perform improvisational acting, and is extremely skilled at it. She first tried it in fifth grade for the Destination Imagination competition, and she said it was “honestly the weirdest thing” she’d ever done. “I had to connect completely unrelated events, from eagles trying Cajun food to a woman living with pet alligators,” Kaelyn recollected from the experience. Seven years later, doing improvisational acting has become second nature. “Sometimes I’ll be the narrator, the unlikely villain, and the annoying alarm clock all in one skit. It takes a lot of energy and quick thinking.”

Just as impressive is senior Kanchan Kaur’s ability to use nunchucks. She can freestyle and do amazing tricks with them. She stated, “I used to do Taekwondo and while I was training to get a black belt, so I learned how to do nunchucks.” She has been practicing the art of nunchucks for four years, and can still use them despite having already quit Taekwondo.

It’s quite obvious just how talented we Apaches are!

Graphic courtesy of FREEPIK.COM