My alarm started to yell right at eight in the morning. I hopped out of my dorm bed and began to get ready. It was almost Halloween, and the entire campus had a buzz of excitement for the festivities ahead. I was especially excited to see how the volunteer facility was decorated, as every previous holiday, the staff had gone all out on the décor.

         My fellow volunteers and I hopped into our cars and started to the facility. On the way, we listened to some Halloween classics, including “Thriller” by Michael Jackson and “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell.

         The moment we arrived, we were greeted with a spooky tunnel of spiders, cobwebs, and pumpkins. I knew when I saw my Buddy, I would ask what her thoughts on the decorations were.

“Hey there!” I called. My Buddy was already at a side table with another Buddy, Mrs. M, and looked up in excitement when she heard my voice.

“Hi!” She responded.

As I was pulling up a chair, the floor nurse gave me a few fall-themed packets, which included coloring pages and word searches ranging from “easy” to “expert.”

“A word search! Would you want to do that together?” I asked.

“What if we race?” Said Mrs. M.

“Oh, you’re on!” My Buddy was eager to win the word search challenge and immediately began to list the words out loud and skim the entirety of the page with impressive precision.

As she was searching, I began to draw the beloved character, Snoopy, on a blank page. Which my Buddy was excited to see after she had found the full list of words.

“Wow, you two were fast!” I spoke.

My Buddy had beat Mrs. M in a near-tie, leading only by seconds.

“That was quite hard, but I haven’t done one of those in a long time. That was fun!” exclaimed my Buddy.

“I agree! That was hard but worth it.” Said Mrs. M.

“I’m glad you two liked it. I don’t think I could have solved it as fast as you did!” I explained.

In reality, I truly was not the best at word searches, but besides learning some new strategies for future games, I also learned that having a competitive, friendly spirit can get you so far in life. Playing simple duels of word-searches may seem simple, but engaging with some friendly competition can make ordinary moments seem all the more extraordinary.