“We’re all in this together,” is hard to believe at times. Especially in high school. We’re all dealing with mountains of homework and a five minute passing period made worse by the “one-minute warning siren.” We all cheer on our teams and give standing ovations for concerts. We’re all T-birds.

However, there’s more to us than meets the eye. What do our classmates do outside of school? Are their hobbies similar to ours? Or are they shockingly different?

Junior TJ Knotts, who founded the Smash Bros Club last year, told me about his hobby of film critique. If you’ve ever gotten into a discussion with TJ about a movie, you’ll find he gets extraordinarily passionate about it. He avoids spoilers like the plague and believes the only true Spider-man is Tobey Maguire. To prove this point, he said very early on in our interview, “Han Solo and Shrek have the same outfit. Try to change my mind.”

TJ believes that although his passion causes tension at times, it brings him closer to others. “It’s like a Facebook group,” he says. “It draws them all together.” To TJ simply having a passion connects people together, because we are all passionate about something. “It’s one of my main talking points.” This is how he meets new people and makes friends. In the meantime, he’ll be playing Smash Bros and watching Spider-man 3 (sorry Tom Holland).

Senior Caleb Sherman, spoke about something that gave me a mental double take: linguistics. It’s a hobby, he says, that few people can connect with, but grabs his attention all the same. “This idea that there can be two different words for the same thing… one can be meaningless to one person but something significant to another,” is something that fascinates Caleb. At school you can find him taking classes that go into a philosophical depth that others don’t, like AP U.S. Government and AP English Literature.

Caleb connects his passion on a global level. “It helps me think of things in different ways,” he says. This is a great way to join people together, not just here at Timpview, but everywhere. He says learning a new language is a great way to do this. It can be done by doing small things, like ordering tacos in Spanish.

Freshman Annie Reichner has found joy in swim team. It takes a lot of dedication for practices and meets, but being part of the fastest group in Utah seems to be worth it. Her eyes light up as she expresses her hopes for Timpview’s performance. “We’re going to win this year,” she excitedly states. “I’m callin’ it!”

Annie credits friends and family for getting her interested in swim and she too wants to get others excited. “It’s a fun sport to be around.” Drawing other students to join swim promotes a certain unity that she has felt from her participation and wants others to share.

Anyone heading to Sundance any time of the year is likely to see senior John Hughes skiing the slopes or launching off jumps with his mountain bike. “I go out and enjoy it with friends,” he says describing his passion for biking.

John tells stories of accidents and close calls including a back wheel popping off “That was fun,” he says grinning. Despite opposition (mostly from his mother) John goes out to do what he loves, with people who also enjoy biking. But this isn’t exclusive to mountain biking. Describing unity, he says, “because [people] are interested in something else they’ll listen and share.”

There are certainly things that are different about every student at Timpview, but our passions draw us together and unite us as one Thunderbird nation. High school is a challenge, but small acts of kindness, like saying hi in the halls or meeting someone new, brings us together to make Timpview amazing.