Michael Hartman

UWRT-1103
Exploratory essay assignment draft 1
My passion for my hobbies
Everyone has a passion that they pursue in their life. For some individuals, it may be
about their favorite car or their commitment to their community. For others it may be a passion
for a subject that makes their stomach turn like politics or the amount of hours spent on
schoolwork a week. We all have a passion for something. I have a strong passion for playing
videogames, playing airsoft, and building decks of cards that I simply cannot ignore at all. These
simple hobbies express how I am as a person and express what I love to do.
The first hobby that I am very passionate about is video gaming. Video gaming is a
common hobby for many individuals around the globe. It creates a sense of adventure to explore
the many types of genres of videogames and the consoles that each game is best played on. For
example, the idea behind the genre of role-playing games create a sense of adventure through
sequential and random events that will be influenced by your decisions and reactions to those
objectives. The game changes accordingly to the decisions that you choose throughout the
storyline of the game, hence why it is called a role-playing game. Another example of a genre
would be strategy. These types of games require you to be creative and construct ways to defend
a location. These types of games create a sense of thrill and excitement as you find new ways to
fully maximize your bases defense against enemies. The last genres of videogames I feel
passionate about are first person shooters. In these types of games, you control a soldier or
character whose only object is to eliminate the target. For example, in the game Battlefield 4,
players are split into teams of 32 to a side and fight against the other team to take control of
objectives in order to win the game. As a skilled sniper, my mission is to defend a location by
taking out enemy players from a far distance, sometimes as far as over 1000 meters away. The
reason why this style of first-person shooting is challenging and fun is because it takes real life
aspects of gravity, velocity, trajectory, bullet drop, and wind direction into play so that it makes
taking out enemies much harder than most games. Not only are videogames played for the sheer
adventure and challenging feats, but it also relaxes the player and makes the player feel better
after a long week at work or school, for instance. All in all, playing videogames is relaxing and is
a fun way to relax after a long week and which is why I am very passionate about this hobby.
However, there is a more intense way to stay challenged and test your reactions which involves
playing airsoft.
Airsoft falls into the classification of using fake guns with non-lethal ammunition to
take out other players like in paintball. However, the difference is that paintball requires you to
have balls of paint as ammunition. The ammunition used in airsoft varies but the main
component of the ammunition is made up of plastic beads. The ammunition is put into an airsoft

gun and is fired through the mechanism in the airsoft gun. I started becoming passionate about
airsoft mainly because you have so many options available to you that you can use when you
play against others. For example, airsoft regulations require a participant to have safety glasses
or a facemask in order to participate. However, you have a wide selection of different safety
glasses and facemasks to choose from and customize to your liking. Not only do you have to
wear protection but you also have to use an airsoft gun. Now there are so many different
preferences to choose from when it comes to picking out an airsoft gun ranging from shotguns,
snipers, assault rifles, machineguns, and many others. Most primary weapons require the use of
either a spring mechanism, which fires one pellet at a time, or a battery powered mechanism,
which allows people to choose from semi to fully automatic shooting styles. Although they are
optional, pistols can be very useful in close quarters. Pistol shooting mechanisms can vary from
battery powered mechanisms to spring mechanisms, CO2 to green gas, and pull back to
blowback. The possibilities are endless when it comes to picking out a pistol as well. However,
even though there are a wide variety of choses when it comes to ammunition, most airsoft guns
can only fire certain sizes of ammunition. Otherwise, the gun may jam or malfunction and leave
you out of the fun. The last aspect that I am passionate about airsoft is the fact that not only is it
challenging, but also when you get hit by an airsoft pellet, it will hurt. No matter how many
layers of armor or clothing you choose to wear when you play, getting hit by an airsoft pellet will
hurt no matter what. The feeling of getting shot feels like getting a bee sting or like getting a
shot. However, the pain varies depending on the range that you were shot from. For example, last
October, I played airsoft with four of my friends. We decided to split into teams of two which
ended up leaving one person by themselves which I volunteered to. So we split up in different
directions and took up positions where we decided to start the game. Around thirty minutes into
the game I saw the two teams walking about 50 yards in front of me. I knew that I would not
survive out in the open so I stayed in the woods to observe the two teams. In less than ten
minutes, the two teams took up positions and began to shoot at each other. I happened to spot one
of my friends about 120 yards away so I picked up my sniper and shot at him twice. The first
shot missed but the second shot hit him right in the chest. I saw my other friend on his team and
shot him as well. Knowing that my cover was blown and that I was out of ammo for my sniper, I
retreated into the woods with only my CO2 blowback pistol in hand. About 20 minutes after my
two friends gave up on their search to find me, they gave up and I followed them to their base
camp which was located on top of this big hill. I snuck behind one of the logs without being
heard and laid down behind it, waiting for one of my friends to come by. Sure enough, one did
and I shot him first then ran up the hill and started to shoot at my last friend. Unfortunately, I
only shot him in the arm and he shot me three times in the chest and twice in the back so he won.
Even though being shot multiple times hurt, I still played airsoft that day because I was so
passionate about getting back out in the game and playing to win and defeat my opponents. My
last hobby that I am most passionate about is building and playing with my card decks.
Building card decks and testing them has become a passion of mine that began the
freshman year of my high school career. The real name of the card game is called Magic: the

Gathering. In this specific card game, each player has their own deck of cards and play against
one or more people to see whose deck is the strongest. Every deck varies in many ways. For
example, many standard decks consist of 60 cards minimum which usually include 30 lands, 15
spells, and 15 creatures. Decks also vary depending on the color build of the deck. There are five
major colors to choose from which are: black, green, blue, red, and white. Black cards mainly
consist of abilities such as death touch and consist of spells that require opponents to discard
cards from either their hand or deck. Blue cards consist mainly of control spells which are
drawing a select number of cards from your deck to your advantage. Blue decks also consist of
counter spells which nullify an opponents spell as it is being cast thereby making their spell
useless. Green decks consist mainly of finding land cards and summoning powerful creatures
with abilities such as trample and defender. Red decks consist of quick damage to a player and
low cost creature cards with fewer heavy hitting creatures later on. Lastly, white decks are
mainly focused on the aspect of regaining life points and summoning flying creatures. Every
deck usually includes creatures with abilities. Some examples of these abilities include death
touch which means that any amount of damage is another to destroy another creature, flying
which means that the creature can only be blocked by flying creatures, life link which states that
the amount of damage done is the amount of life points you receive, trample which means
damage that is not blocked can be inflicted on the player, and defender which means that the
creature can only defend against creatures not attack them. Of course there are many other types
of abilities but these are some general abilities seen more often. Lands in a deck are used to
mainly cast or summon creatures or spells onto the battlefield. Spells have a wide range of
effects and consist of several different types of spell classifications which include creature,
artifact, enchantment, sorcery, and instant. On rare occasions, players may play a type of card
known as a planes walker. Planes walkers are essentially known as players and each of them
have their own set of unique abilities. Also, these special cards are sometimes worth lots of
money depending on the version of the card you own.