A calendar for my goals that spans from when I started the project in January to when the results of Expo will be announced. This calendar is always being updated and in-progress, with obstacles acknowledged, such as days off and other time-consuming objectives that can take away from project work that allows me to plan more effectively.

Attachments

Project values for Your Small Moments

Attachments

Your Small Moments hosted slam poetry events in the months of February and March, welcoming students to share food and bond over telling their stories.

Attachments

My high school art teacher once told me that if I have an impulse to create art and poetry, I have to honor that impulse. Throughout the past four years, especially during this final year of high school, I have actively seeked out ways to push the way I create and perceive the world. This project, if nothing else, is perhaps the peak moment that I realized that I really am capable of handling the world on my own.
While I was not a part of the Academy program, I did take some of the electives. While I may not have always been on a team, I have found ways to practice being a team player -- sports, clubs, and academic projects. While I am not a technologically-inclined person, I have tried my hardest to jump into every new situation and challenge myself to think in a way that challenges and frustrates me, but also forces me to grow and adapt.
I think I have grown into a person that my freshman self would be proud to see graduate and enter the real world. I think the person I was four years ago would have loved to know that I started my own literary publication and ran poetry events in the school and gave everything I had to what I have loved -- art, reading, my friends, my academics, my interest in innovation and science that had no clear origin, I just liked the way I would struggle and work until something would click and I could figure out the way forward.
I think I am who I need to be right now. I think this project reflects everything I have wanted to accomplish and everything that I hope I get to do in my future. As Joan D'Arc once said, "I was born to do this." I have always been willing to honor the impulse, and with the grit and perseverance and entrepreneurial mindset among other skills that I have developed over the years, I think I know how to do this creative obsession justice.