Earphones in and hands gripping the bike handles, Parth Pendurkar (12) begins his ritual night-time bike ride around his neighborhood in the Los Gatos Hills, surrounded only by the fresh summer breeze and rows of houses and cars on either side. Fascinated by the discoveries he made about the very area where he lives, Parth made this bike ride part of Parth’s summer routine.

More than just an interest in rare cars and unique houses, Parth’s bike rides are representative of his fascination towards the world around him and his passion for exploring and discovering new aspects of life.

“I love to read action books and Percy Jackson series and video games and such,” Parth said. “Exploring just allows me to find cool new things that I wouldn’t have seen if I was just walking around doing nothing or if I was just driving around. But if I take that detour, I would maybe find something really cool that I wouldn’t have found otherwise. That what I love: just the uncertainty of it.”

In his exploring, Parth enjoys not only physically traveling places, but also learning new skills and creating things from his own imagination.

“It goes back to feeling happy and doing what you love,” Parth said. “What motivates me is that there’s such a big world out there: so many people to meet, so many things to do, that I want to try everything, find out what i like to do, find out what I love.”

Most recently, Parth has ventured into computer-making, and his most recent accomplishment, a water-cooling computer built from scratch, embodies this idea.

“I already found out that I love computer science, and I like building stuff,” Parth said. “I’ve been building legos and stuff since I was three. So I just like creating things, so whenever i have the opportunity to express my ideas and create in my environment, I’ll do that. It motivates me if I have the tools, the resources to create something.”

A longtime friend of Parth and musician himself, senior Aashish Jain explains Parth’s newfound uptake in guitar playing.

“Sometimes he just comes over to my house or sends me music and then we just sort of jam for a little bit, and it’s pretty cool,” Aashish said.

Other than learning how to play the acoustic guitar without lessons or sheet music, Parth has also taken up other tasks such as learning French in hopes to travel to Paris and building his own water-cooling computer with just a frame and parts. Parth’s desire to experience more and learn more is culminated in his actions, as well as justified in his thoughts.

“To be honest, I guess [what keeps me up at night is] why we’re here,” Parth said. “So many people exist and so many different lives and so many people do different things in life. We’re all so separate but so similar at the same time that it’s just pretty mind boggling. What the human race is it just pretty mind boggling. Just the whole scheme of things is just pretty interesting. There’s not answer to that question, but I mean we’re here so just have to make the best of it and just do what you love.”