Outside of school, I enjoy devoting a lot of time to my musicianship on the trombone. From working on solo and group pieces in many different styles, to playing with the local jazz band, Dr. Jimmy and the Swingtime Serenaders, I keep becoming more proficient on the trombone. This has given me a real sense of accomplishment as well as a drive to keep going working. Playing with other musicians to create music is an experience like no other. Once you really get going, you get into a swing of things and everything else melts away. Upbeat pieces are nothing but fun and slower more soulful music is so incredibly satisfying. I have played with multiple big bands, various sized trombone ensembles, and groups with a broader range of instruments. I also started playing euphonium in a few ensembles, joined choir, and have taught myself some piano (less in a classical sense but more to understand chords and music theory topics). Through this time I have met a lot of really cool people who are both fun to be around and mentors to my own playing. Some of the closest relationships I have today began as musical mentorship going both ways. People have passed their knowledge and skill to me and while I am still picking up more all the time, I am also passing it on to the next generations of musicians. No matter the genre, you can produce feelings with nothing more than the science of sound and a passion. Music is crucial to my enjoyment in life and no matter where I end up, it will remain as so. There are so may vast opportunities for my future in music that I cannot wait for. While I am pursuing an education in STEM, I'm sure I will find a jazz band or trombone ensemble in whatever city I go to. I am also very interested in pit orchestra for musical productions. Either way, music isn't going anywhere from my life.

Throughout my life, I have heard repeatedly to, “leave this place better than you found it.” Usually just from disgruntled teachers who don’t want to deal with the mess made by some arts and crafts project. But I think it is something we should all live by and use when looking at life in the long run. I want to have a life rich with experiences and people. I want to have an impact in solving the biggest threat for all, climate change. I have already had a fair bit of experience with activism, having organized 2 climate strikes in my town, but in that time I have found that I don’t think activism is the correct route for me. It can be quite dreadful and really feel hopeless at times. As much effort as you put in, the globe is still going to be warming. At some point, I decided that the best way to go about impacting the climate crisis was to learn more about it. So I signed up to take AP Environmental Science. This class opened my eyes to all the individual facets which have detrimental impacts on the environment, as well as the world of possible solutions and factors that could contribute towards helping the environment. Alternative fuel vehicles, research on reaching a 100% return on recycling plastic, machines that can directly take carbon dioxide out of the air or water and store it. New renewable energy options like nuclear fusion keep advancing towards sustainably producing energy by harnessing and refining the same processes that our sun uses. It is truly incredible. My brain is wired to understand science and mathematics, and it has become clear that STEM is the field for me. I want to be able to look back, and say that I was not complacent in light of an emergency. I dream of being able to say that the climate crisis has been averted. While the specifics of my career are still quite up in the air, I have always planned on going to college, and I hope to get the best education I can while still being somewhat affordable. Eventually, I hope to be a part of some research on nuclear fusion and if it becomes a successful means of generating energy, I could help implement it into actual power structures and make even more progress towards phasing out energy generated by fossil fuels. There’s lots of talk about switching to electric but it’s not too much better for the environment if the electricity is still being generated by burning fossil fuels. I plan to use my education to create the most positive impact on the world that I can with my time here, and maybe one day I can be a part of why the globe has stopped warming.

My biggest dream is to end the climate crisis. I hope to studying in some field of STEM with a goal of doing environmentally positive work. I have found myself really enjoying some of my science classes over the past couple of years. While music is a passion of mine, thinking about the impact I want to have in my life, I feel that science is the path for me. I am quite passionate about the environmental issues, and if I can spend my life doing anything I would like it to have a positive impact. I have spent some time exploring opportunities for this in the STEM field, and the one that excites me the most is nuclear fusion research. I plan to go to college and eventually get involved with fusion research. If the technology reaches a point we are trying to get to, I would want to spend my time helping to implement the technology into our energy grid and providing further alternatives energy sources to fossil fuels. An alternative fuel with basically clean limitless power would be revolutionary.

I have been an activist since early on in life, and during the summer before my sophomore year an opportunity to really get involved in climate activism arose. Being fortunate enough to have a supportive family and the time to commit, I couldn’t just sit idly by. So I dove in headfirst. I gathered a few friends together and reached out to a local environmentalist group, 350 Bellingham, to combine our efforts and plan the most effective climate strike we could. My position was the “Bellingham City Lead” and I delegated tasks to our teams of volunteer activists. It all happened so fast. Before I knew it, I was putting my all into the work. Getting a permit and hashing out the details with each department of the City of Bellingham, going to meetings in church basements and climate centered organizations to promote the strike to as large a crowd as possible, freezing my hands off holding signs up as high as I can over the highway overpass, talking to media, and doing my very best to confidently answer the many questions of our volunteers. And it worked! Bellingham took part in the global climate strike on September 20th, 2019, as well as the December 6th, 2019 strike in short succession. I had done what I set out to do, and I was proud. At the same time, I felt something else. I did my best to ignore it but at a point I couldn’t anymore. I had to ask myself, what did those strikes really accomplish? Yes, we gathered large crowds of people in Bellingham and across the world to call for change, but who is answering that call? Deep down, I felt crushed. We can encourage every individual in that crowd to be as environmentally conscious as possible, but the globe is still warming. We can cry for pipelines not to be built, and promote the use of clean energy, but the globe is still warming. We can yell as loud as we can, but the only people who will hear us are ourselves, and the globe is still warming. All the hard work, all the courage I built up to speak to a crowd of 2,000 concerned yet hopeful faces, all the people I connected with and learned from, to barely make a drop in the massive bucket of slowing the speed at which the globe is warming. I couldn’t keep fighting like that. I had to take a step back and find a new direction. While reconsidering my approach, I signed up for AP Environmental Science. I figured that the best thing I could do at that point was to learn more. This class opened my eyes to all the individual facets that come together to cause detrimental impacts on our environment. At the same time, it got me thinking about solutions for these problems, and suddenly I discovered a world of possible ways to fight the climate crisis. Alternative fuel vehicles, research on reaching a 100% return on recycling plastic, machines that can directly take carbon dioxide out of air or water and store it. New renewable energy options like nuclear fusion keep advancing towards sustainably producing energy by harnessing and refining the same processes that our sun uses. The STEM field is truly incredible. If we could reach a point where an alternative energy like fusion is cost efficient, it would be revolutionary. And with enough hard work and persistence, maybe someday I can be a part of why the globe has stopped warming.