Who am I and What am I doing here?

My name is Matthew Tung and I was born in Hong Kong.  I've pretty much lived there for all 20 years of my life.  My family has never felt the need to move since we love living there so much. Many of the best friends in Hong Kong that I currently have I've known since I was just in kindergarten.  The reason why I love it so much is because there's not a city like it anywhere else in the world.  The food is great, the city is efficient, the scenery is beautiful, and the people are amazing.  However, I was becoming too comfortable staying in Hong Kong with the same friends I've had since I was just a small kid.  Hence, when after my freshman year in high school in Hong Kong, I chose to step out of my comfort zone and completely change the scenery from the busy city to a boarding school called Blair located in the middle of nowhere in New Jersey.  This change at first was extremely difficult.  I've never had to make new friends for a long time and I was situated in a new environment.  However, as time passed, I learned to open up and become comfortable being uncomfortable.  I found my passions of playing baseball, doing weightlifting, and playing super smash brothers.  If I had never gone to boarding school, I would have become an extremely different person.  In my opinion, going to college would've been much more difficult for me. 

I didn't know the answer to the question "What am I doing here?" until recently.  For as long as I could remember, I wanted to play college baseball.  Every academic year, every holiday, and every summer for as long as I can remember was devoted to playing baseball.  I would travel to showcases, work with different coaches, and just practice for long hours.  Every spring in Hong Kong, I used to practice for 8 hours a day every weekend. Unfortunately, the college recruitment didn't end up working out and I was cut from the last second when I slated to go to a D3 school I actually really liked called Swarthmore.  Not knowing what to do, I applied to Northeastern since they didn't have any supplemental essay, but as a normal academic student.  Who knew I would go from attending a small liberal arts school as a baseball athlete to traveling abroad in Greece.  At the moment of the rejection, I was extremely heartbroken as I felt all my efforts for the past 18 years have been for nothing.  But, I believe everything happens for a reason and I'm excited to be a part of Northeastern in pursuit of higher education.