For as long as he can remember, Brendan Tobin (12) has been a creator. Regardless of the medium – carving, writing, graphic design – Brendan finds joy in building things with his hands.

“[Success is] being able to do what I want without restriction, so either being in a place where I’m financially stable enough to fund my own projects or associating myself with the right people,” he said. “Going back to middle and lower school, there was a lot of stuff I wanted to just that I wasn’t able to because it wasn’t offered then.”

Recently, during breaks and summer vacation, he has been working on writing a science fiction novel.

“One day, when I was driving to school, I just had this great idea of essentially what became the two main characters, and I thought ‘Hey, that would make a really great book,’ and then it just spiraled from there,” he said.

Brendan has always had an “unorthodox” way of thinking and his interests are widely varied. From biology to space exploration, he looks in every field for the opportunity to advance humanity.

“If there’s no place to go, I don’t think your looking hard enough. You can always make things better, be in in terms of technology, peace, education,” he said. “The world in general has a long way to go, and I think people should keep that in mind and put more effort into bettering themselves and the world around them.”

Brendan firmly believes that it is necessary to experience bad times to be able to fully acknowledge good ones.

“I was getting very discouraged by school, and there was just so much going on and little of it I was interested in, so I just got kind of bored and uninterested, very unmotivated, and I was talking to my mom and I was telling her, ‘there’s so many things I want to learn, but none of it’s going on in school.’ She was telling me, curiosity is one of the most important things about human life. It’s what drives people, and that’s stuck with me,” he said. 

Brendan spends most of his free time at school in the “shed” area between Dobbins and Manzanita Hall. This has influenced who he spends his time with, and he appreciates that the somewhat isolated environment allows him to individually interact with his friends.

“I don’t make up fake identities or put up facades in front of people, but I show different groups different side of me. Some people I’m more serious with, others I’m more joking, or just there to have fun,” he said.