For a few years, Kaleidoscope Song by Fox Benwell sat on my bookshelf unread, full of potential I was unaware of, but after I read it, the story captivated me. It tells the story of a South African queer girl named Neo who deals with discrimination, homophobia, sexual violence, and grief. Throughout this storyline, I learned about the beauty of African culture and how community-based it is. It had such a transformative impact on me because of how closely I could relate to Neo's passion for music and identity as a queer woman all while being different from her because of the trauma that she faces. As a musician, this book was intriguing to me because of its pace and onomatopoeia. Benwell makes Neo's love of music clear from the beginning, but the author's stylistic choices further this in an incredible way. When I was least expecting it, Neo goes from speaking in a “normal” way to musically sounding out drum beats or melodies. Though the novel's detailed description of South African culture would have sufficed, the familiarity that music brings to the table helped me to insert myself into her world and attempt to understand how she lives. The entirety of the book felt like a song, sometimes happy and at other points gut-wrenchingly horrific, that steadily moves forward with a rhythm created by the protagonist's life, love, and dreams. As Neo traverses through aspects of life that we all deal with – school, love, and work – I came to comprehend how important it is to grapple with how the world around us and the culture in which we live affects every part of our life, but if we fight for who we are and what we believe in, the burning issues of society can progressively be mended.

My anxiety has often prevented me from feeling confident within myself and presenting myself as a confident person. However, since I entered high school, I have improved in this area without question. Mental health is not linear, and I would never claim to have seen exponential growth in reducing anxiety, but I am proud to say that I have found myself in my journey to be more confident. After struggling with feeling awkward in social situations and bubbling up with fear at the mere thought of having to raise my hand to ask a question in class, I am now able to say what’s on my mind even if it’s just an opinion, talk to and work with new people to make amazing connections and friendships, and, most importantly, lead projects in my community in order to benefit other community members. I am most proud of my ability to lead confidently because it has allowed me to start and guide necessary conversations surrounding social justice and community service and organize and run projects to help underprivileged people that live near me. Though this has been a benefit of my improved confidence, I would also credit my work in community service to my improved confidence as well. Working with others and facing anxiety head-on, in addition to cognitive and biological methods to tackle it, has proven to me that practice makes progress. My improving confidence only moves me to get even better, which has been exceedingly inspiring ever since I began to intentionally improve myself in this way.

My hobbies largely revolve around creativity and community service. I love to make music through songwriting and composition as well as singing and holding a leadership position in the choir at my school. This being among my favorite hobbies led me to decide to pursue music as a career. I also enjoy journalistic writing. I have been in my school’s journalism program for the past three years, holding the positions of opinion editor and co-editor-in-chief in that order. Writing about politics, music, and film have taken up much of my time, though the program at my school is very rigorous and has required us to be extremely multifaceted in that we must cover a wide range of categories like news, opinions, and features. Through this, aside from simply allowing me to express myself, I have gotten ten student journalism awards since I began contributing to the news websites sponsored by my school. Reading has become more of a hobby of mine over the past year. It has undoubtedly improved my mental health and allows me to take a step back from my life and reflect on the words of someone else. Community service has been another hobby of mine since my freshman year, and I have completed over 325 service hours throughout high school. I have channeled this through founding a school supply donation drive and Earth Day cleanup to benefit my community and provide others with the opportunity to serve my community as well.

Beautiful experiences provide life with meaning. Søren Kierkegaard said that “life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.” This philosophy has guided me in my viewpoint of the world, materialism, and relationships with others and myself. Especially in the time of new year’s resolutions, it is common for many to resolve to “rebrand” and commodify themselves. Instead, though, I feel it is necessary to improve the world around you and your relationships with others in order to better yourself. My idea of a good life revolves around enjoying the little things in life and giving everything I have to bring peace to myself. My ideal good life, which I believe I am successfully working toward through maintaining this thought process in the first place, is one full of beautiful moments intertwined with an effort to lead and support mutual aid and justice to stick up for my beliefs. Novelist Barbara Pym wrote, “The small things of life were often so much bigger than the great things…the trivial pleasure like cooking, one’s home, little poems – especially sad ones, solitary walks, funny things seen and overheard.” I agree with this wholeheartedly, in that watching all the Harry Potter movies with my boyfriend, indulging in freshly made Italian food with my family, and going on a walk simply to improve my mental health will always beat out changing myself for others.

The piece linked above is an original song of mine entitled "Insomnia." I released it on all streaming platforms last year, following another song that exceeded 120,000 streams on Spotify. Before its production and release, I was often worried about living up to the standards that listeners may have set because of my previous work. When I was able to let this go through having fun with the idea of two insomniacs falling in love, growing together, and then apart, I was able to become proud of what I'd created. Through winning a regional songwriting contest, I was able to record it at a local studio and was provided with performance opportunities at the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh as well as multiple community and charitable events. This was an amazing addition to my previous experience in recording studios and performance that spans from 7th grade until now, my senior year. I plan to major in music technology and have prioritized finding programs that also cover music business and performance. My main goals are to own my own recording studio and to provide accessible services to underprivileged youth that are underrepresented in the music industry.

I have always considered myself to be someone who is outgoing with their opinions. My anxiety has not always let me speak upfront about everything I'm feeling or socialize with everyone, but nonetheless, if anyone were to ask me my opinion on social change or religion, I hope that they are ready for a long discussion. Even when my anxiety was at its worse, my number one priority for my daily life was to stay true to these opinions. Of course, this did not mean shutting myself out from any opinion besides my own-- it meant that I wouldn't let any outside source influence my core beliefs such as everyone deserving to be treated well or every life being valuable. The gossip or political discourse that can easily fuel hatred and hurt feelings has always been intolerable for me, so I stay true to myself by way of standing up for others and making sure that they can also stay true to themselves. Even when someone is not present, I make a point to not fall into the trap of following a toxic crowd. In anyone's daily life, it may be difficult to just try your hardest to fit in with the crowd so as to not get hurt physically or mentally, but staying true to myself means consistently standing up for this belief.

Instagram: @quinnvolpe I came out as bisexual when I was twelve. Feeling performative in a way, imposter syndrome ran through me, as if years of questioning were for nothing. But as I grew, I learned more about the horrors of the world: war, death, disease, and famine. I understood these concepts, and in comparison to them and their horrific weight, I learned that having an endless capacity to love was something to be proud of.