In my sophomore year, I took penicillin for wisdom tooth surgery, but it ultimately tore me down to my barest self. For the next year, my stomach rejected almost all foods. I developed malnutrition and insomnia and by two months, I had lost around fifty pounds. Everything at that time felt like an obstacle, something I had to overcome. I felt little comfort from anything except for writing, but writing helped me understand that this was not the new normal for me. I was going to get better, and all I needed was time. So, I filled my time with writing. I wrote of characters wishing to be reborn, hope muddling their judgment, their fate working against them. I wrote for me and everything outside of me, and by then, time really had passed. Now, my stomach has improved, though I still have issues occasionally. This experience has affected me greatly, but writing, above all, helped me realise the importance of mental health. There were many days when my thoughts were more difficult than my stomach, but writing helped relieve them. I can't say that writing cured all my struggles, but it was like a crutch for a broken leg. Finding the ability to power through has made me understand that a setback does not define your future, but how you build from that experience. My building was writing, and now I have such an indistinguishable love for it that I'm not quite sure I could separate myself from it.

I am a president and founder of several clubs, and through this I have learned that the only way to thrive in a community is to support it. In my way, I wanted to give opportunities that I was not given when I first came to high school. For me, a talented leader introduces you to new concepts and encourages exploration, something I learned from my sixth-grade English teacher. I decided to take what my teacher gave me and give it to others. I used this in one of my most beloved clubs, my creative writing club, which wouldn't exist had my teacher not done free-writing exercises. At first, I found writing a hassle as I'm a horrific speller and lacked experience, but soon I discovered my love for it. My sixth-grade writing was still objectively terrible, but it let me further my experience and grow as a writer. It became a comfort activity that I could take up whenever I felt an inescapable emotion overcome me. This elysium to me held great importance and enjoyment, and I wanted to share that, so I created a writing club. I went to the necessary teachers and administrators, and within a year, I had a club. It was my baby, something I knew I had to nurture. This wasn't my first leadership position, but it was my first to lead wholly, where I made the executive decisions and curated all the information. It taught me many things about writing and leadership. An art is practiced for its whole life, but it will never be perfected, and I think leadership is similar to that. Leadership is a constant learning experience; where one thing works for some, it will not work for others, and your goal is to find a connector that bridges that divide. This was done through trial and error as one kid wanted to write anonymously, and another wanted to write competitively, or one didn't want to share his work at all. Things procure themselves, but finding a way to make things compatible is what true leadership is. Of course, I still faced doubt in my leadership abilities when creating my creative writing club. The first year, I had two members and a lack of investment, as one was a senior and another uninterested in writing. Regardless of this, I pursued the club the next year and saw fifteen new students, all interested in the same passion as me. This sort of growth only invigorates me and I hope to continue this sort of community into college as I believe everyone deserves that push to find their passion.