Hello, My name is Michael Roda, I’m 18 years old, and in my senior year at Lake Shore High School. My top 2 hobbies are the following, #1, making music on my 2 acoustic guitars, and my ukulele, and writing stories. In fact, in the 83 days that elapsed from Friday, June 16th, 2023, to the 1st day of school, Tuesday, September 5th, 2023, I wrote 8 different novels. These novels include The Bowling Bonanza, The Secluded Species, Velocity: Unleashing The Jet-Powered Revolution, Mental Madness, Bowling For The Ages, The Scarring Story, The Sneaky Swordsmith, and The Gruesome Game. All of these novels differ in length. The Bowling Bonanza was 19 pages long, The Secluded Species was 12 pages long, Velocity: Unleashing The Jet-Powered Revolution was 15 pages long, Mental Madness was 16 pages long, Bowling For The Ages was 17 pages long, The Scarring Scar was 12 pages long, The Stealthy Swordsmith was 13 pages long, and The Gruesome Game was 14 pages long. This is my second Summer break in a row, where I’ve been writing novels. In fact, during the 83 days that elapsed during Summer break 2022, which spanned from Friday, June 17th, 2022, to the 1st day of school of the 2022-2023 school year, Tuesday, September 6th, 2022, I wrote 10 different novels, Ice Age #2, The Deep Freeze, Late, Natural Disasters, The Dream Decimator, Police Pandemonium, The 30th Anniversary, The Dramatic Drift (which I worked on with fellow senior Nathan Smith), The Great Fire, The Mythical Music Festival, The Supercar Showdown, YouTuber Edition, and The Zombie Apocalypse, Mankind's Final Frontier. Like the novels I mentioned earlier, all 10 of these novels varied in length. Ice Age #2, The Deep Freeze was 12 pages long, Late was 15 pages long, Natural Disasters, The Dream Decimator was 17 pages long, Police Pandemonium was 14 pages long, The 30th Anniversary was 9 pages long, The Dramatic Drift was 70 pages long, The Great Fire was 36 pages long, The Mythical Music Festival was 16 pages long, The Supercar Showdown, YouTuber Edition was 14 pages long, and The Zombie Apocalypse, Mankind's Final Frontier was 13 pages long. All of this novel writing, sparked when I was in the Writers’ Club in my 7th and 8th grade years, the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 LSPS school years, where I wrote 6 different novels. These novels include An Alarming Automotive Accident, Discovery (which was a 2-parter), The Supercar Showdown, and Speed, (which like Discovery was a 2-parter). All 6 of these novels, like the 17 novels mentioned earlier, differed in length. An Alarming Automotive Accident was 4 pages long, Discovery (which was a 2-parter), was in total, 8 pages long, with part 1 being 3 pages long, and part 2 being 5 pages long, The Supercar Showdown was 7 pages long, and Speed, (which like Discovery was a 2-parter), was in total, 8 pages long, with part 1 being 3 pages long, and part 2 being 6 pages long. All of these activities, however, were during my free time. In the intervening time between writing novels, and making music, during the 3 years of middle school, I didn’t have anything going on, until I got into my high school years, where I had 2 other activities occurring. The 1st came 1 week after school got out, on Thursday, June 22nd, and spanned to Sunday, June 25th, 2023. It was a leadership conference at Michigan State University in East Lansing, known as MYLead, which is an acronym for Michigan Youth Leadership. It was at this conference that I was working behind the scenes, as a Logistics Intern (LI). This was my 2nd year at Michigan State University, as I also attended last year from Friday, June 24th, 2022, to Sunday, June 26th, 2022, as a Young Leader (YL). Then, 15 days after the 2023 MYLead conference, on Monday, July 10th, 2023, I began working as a store worker at Great Lakes ACE Hardware, which spanned over 24 days, 4 days a week, for 6 weeks. This spanned from Monday, July 10th, 2023, to Thursday, August 17th, 2023, where I was working from 9:30 A.M. to 2:30 P.M. This is my 2nd year working, as I worked at Big Lots last year, from Monday, July 11th, 2022, to Thursday, August 18th, 2022. After the 2023 program concluded, I earned $1,045.35. This is $68.11 more than I earned last year, as when I worked at Big Lots, I was working during the same timeframe, from 9:30 A.M. to 2:30 P.M, and I managed to earn $977.24. However, this work wasn’t the traditional job, where you go in for an interview. This was through Michigan Rehabilitation Services (MRS) (Gesher Human Services), which is a non-profit organization, which is headquartered in Southfield, Michigan. These totals were because while I was in this program over the last two Summers, I was getting paid minimum wage, which was $9.87/hour in 2022, and this increased to $10.10/hour in 2023. My goals after high school are to build up enough money, buy a 1.1-acre piece of land, and build my 3-story, 38,383ft2 dream house. After I pay off that house, I would then travel to my local Lexus dealer, and then purchase my dream car, a 2022 Lexus LS.
