It was the last week of our winter break in January 2019 when me and two of my friends, Vianna and Laura decided to go out and explore Kenny Center that is located near campus. We decided to go out on this day as it will be the last time we will get to enjoy ourselves and also because Laura was just released from the hospital, so we decided to take her out. In Kenny Center, there are various stores and restaurants that were geared towards Japanese culture, and we took a huge interest in looking at the different foods and gifts that were displayed in each shop.

We stopped at one store called J.Avenue, which is a store that mainly sells gifts and stationary from Japan. As we were looking around, I had stopped upon the earring section and saw that there was a wide array of assorted earrings that were of unique shapes and designs. Laura came over and we started comparing the different styles of earrings with each other and after a while, we decided on a pair that I had assumed was going to be for her.

We went back to the car to decide our next destination when she handed me a small paper bag with the earrings we had chosen. She had written a small note on the bag which had told me that these earrings were not chosen for her, but for me instead as a late Christmas present. I felt guilty that she was buying something for me when the purpose of the whole day out was mainly to celebrate her release from the hospital. Because of this, we all in the end treated each other to different items from the stores we visited as our late Christmas presents to each other to commemorate this relaxing day out.

During early Summer 2018, I participated in the annual local Columbus Asian Festival along with my group of friends. This festival showcases a variety of cultures and different performing arts associated with some of these cultures. Me and my friends had decided to participate in this and I was honestly very nervous as well as excited. After my surgery in 2017, I had never participated in any activities that would strain my back until we made this decision in Spring of 2018. Me and my friends have a huge interest in Kpop (Korean Pop Music) and there were certain songs that had amazing choreography that we had wanted to learn. Although we have an interest in this genre of music, we have never actually danced much to these songs, making this our first big public performance. Our practices caught the attention of our coordinator of the place we volunteer for and after a brief discussion, we decided to perform at the Asian Festival showcasing Korean Pop Music, which has been an increasing trend that has spread throughout the whole world.

After weeks of practice, we finally reached the day of the performance and we were all nervous performing in front of such a big crowd. But once we hit the stage, we all let the adrenaline take over and just had lots of fun. We performed twice and after our last performance, we felt great satisfaction after seeing how we managed to pull through this event without any issues. I bought this little toy puppy from the festival as a memory of everyone’s hard work in allowing this to happen and also as commemoration of our first big public performance with many more to come.

I had first started taking Advanced Placement classes during my junior year in high school, and one of the most memorable classes out of the four that I have taken is my AP Chemistry class. This class was the first class in which I had experienced a great amount of stress but was also the first class in which I have put a tremendous amount of effort into. My class had a maximum of thirteen students, which had also allowed us to grow closer to each other through the various lab experiments and activities that we conducted. By the end of the second semester, we were all very close to one another and had discovered at least one interesting thing about each other. One of my artistic friends had drawn all of us in our typical classroom setting and the final result was a comedic drawing which surprisingly captured all of our unique personalities and habits during class, which also included my instructor going along with our classroom antics. This class has been very memorable for me as it had allowed me to grow closer to people whom I never thought I would interact with throughout high school and allowed me to see that even the most strenuous classes can have some very rewarding moments. I left this class not only with scientific knowledge but also with very wonderful memories.

In the early summer of 2017, I had made the decision to get a spinal fusion surgery, which was a topic that I had debated on for 4 years. I had discovered that I had scoliosis when I was in 8th grade through a routine school check-up, and throughout my high school years, I had received physical therapy and a brace to prevent my condition from worsening, but unfortunately, it had gotten to the point where it would be beneficial for me to undergo surgery. While I was awaiting my big day, I had gone through a lot of mixed emotions, fear being a major one, but that was quickly cast aside when I had received the most caring response from my friends after breaking the last minute news to them. Tears had filled everyone’s eyes before I even had the chance to cry, but they quickly gave me encouragement and promised that they would always be thinking of me and would wait for my recovery. I walked into the hospital with smiles and when I woke up afterward, I couldn’t even remember why I had been worried. The surgery was successful and a day later, my friends had filled up my hospital room. Ever since that special day, I had realized that I had the support of the people that I don’t see every day, because of the bond that we had with one another and within our group, we would all be ready to support one another through the toughest times. I am glad to know that I have these amazing people in my life by my side.