For our first unit of the Senior year, our goal was to answer the question, “Who am I?” For the most part, we did this through our essays in English, where we wrote about our beliefs and values. Here, I’m putting some of the things I wrote and the related production projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The purpose of this project was to write about the thing that we believe most strongly and present it, not in a persuasive way necessarily, but in a way that illustrates why we believe what we believe. For me, my belief is that what makes my life meaningful is the people that I meet and love. In English class, we wrote a short essay about our belief, and in Digital Media, we made a video of the essay. Here is what I wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have never really grappled with difficult questions, like the meaning of life. But the answer to that question dawned on me very suddenly, in the context of violin. For me, what gives my life meaning is the people I love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m a regular ABC (American Born Chinese). I started playing violin when I was six years old. At that time, I couldn\u2019t really say that I enjoyed violin at all; I only liked it when I could show off to my friends. When I was seven, I almost quit twice. The reason why I kept playing was because the music school I went to had a policy where you had to tell the lady at the front desk that you were quitting a month in advance. For both of the times I tried to quit, within that little month-in-advance, I backtracked and wanted to keep playing. Looking back, that was a very smart policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ten years later, I cannot imagine my life without violin. Honestly, violin is basically my entire personality, which is probably not good, but the fact of the matter is that I actually love the violin now. It could have just been an effect of the time, but I really think that it was because I had found a community around violin, and through that community, I found meaning in my instrument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can remember the moment I realized that I loved violin. I could immediately identify the source of my feelings: my orchestra. The thing about my orchestra (California Youth Symphony) is that we have a summer camp before the season starts where we basically go to a forest and play our instruments for eight hours a day. On paper, that doesn\u2019t sound very interesting, but that summer camp is what creates the close community that I love and made me actually care about classical music. That and our orchestra manager has given me a lot of food over the years, so I am eternally indebted to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There isn\u2019t anything that I really like about the violin itself. It hurts to play, it kind of sounds like screeching, and violin music is generally very technically difficult. However, it is my mentors and my friends, the connection that I have with others, that has made me enjoy it so much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(since making the video, I have revised the essay)<\/p>\n\n\n\n