Maya Inouye

Q: What is your full name? What is the meaning behind your name?

A: Maya Renee Inouye. My first name my parents just loved. My middle name is my grandma’s name, my mom’s mom. My last name is just my last name. It’s Japanese though, so that’s cool.

Q: How do you spend your free time?

A: I spend my free time playing tennis. But if I’m not playing tennis, I read. I love to read romance. If it’s not romance I’m probably not reading it. Or motivational.

Q: What are you passionate about? Why?

A: I am super passionate about tennis. I want to pursue that and play college. I love the relationships I make out of it, the friends. It’s helped give me so much confidence in so many areas. Even as far as learning to be more social because I was so shy and did not talk but now I do. It frees my mind too. Every single time I play tennis I don’t think about anything else. It levels out my stress.

Q: What makes you unique?

A: I speak three languages, even though I’m not fluent in one of them. English, Chinese, and sign language. I’m gonna be fluent in sign language, though. I’m determined.

Q: What motivates you in life?

A: I really want to have a good future. I want to go to a good college and I want to find a love, find a husband. And my friends motivate me.

Q: How would you describe yourself in two words? Why those two?

A: I feel like I’m motivated, super driven. Like most things I do I have a purpose in doing it. And kind, I want to say I’m a kind person. I feel like I get so many compliments too, that people say how nice I am so I just know it’s a gift I have and I’m proud of that.

Q: What is a vivid memory or experience you’ll never forget?

A: Winning state at tennis in 2020, that was so fun. I won in second singles as a freshman.

Q: What is a typical day like for you?

A: I wake up at like 6:15. Get ready. Do yoga. Go to school. Come home. Go straight to tennis for about two hours depending on the day, sometimes I go back, sometimes it’s short or whatever. Then just come home, homework, dinner. I normally fall asleep around 10:30ish.

Q: What is something you try to live by? What is your motto?

A: I love my quotes, I’m always looking at motivational quotes and stuff. Harry Winston said, “People will stare. Make it worth their while.”

Q: Who is your favorite celebrity and why?

A: I have many favorite celebrities. Currently, it is Michael Jordan. First, he has amazing clothes and stuff and he is just such an inspiring dude, he’s literally the GOAT of basketball. But there was one game where he played and he had the flu but it was an important game and he was like, ‘I’m just gonna push through and do it, I’ll play until I die.’ So anyways, I was like ‘dang that’s motivation’ because that happened to me in this tournament just barely. I was so sick and I woke up and I was like ‘I’m pulling out, I don’t want to play.’ And my dad was like, ‘have you ever heard of Michael Jordan? Read this article’ and he showed it to me. I was like, ‘holy cow, okay fine I’ll go play until I die.’ And then I ended up winning the tournament and so it was so worth it.