Me, In a Nutshell

Some Fun Things I’ve Done

Trying Photography

I started photography my senior year of high school because I needed to fulfill my arts credits, and have loved it ever since. My family got me a camera as a graduation gift, and I used it to photograph my brother’s water polo team at Junior Worlds, which introduced me to sports photography. I’m currently a photographer for my Taekwondo club, shooting tournaments, belt tests, and other club-wide events. I also like nature photography, and have photographed flowers and birds, though I’m excited to photograph other animals and insects. You can find some of my images here.

Earning My Black Belt

I earned my black belt in Taekwondo during my junior year of high school, three and a half years after beginning Taekwondo. It was a fun process, learning forms and kicks. COVID hit a year and a half after I started, forcing me to self-study for a bit. When we came back, we had to train in masks all the way through my black belt test, which was certainly a test of my commitment. I ended up getting motivation from the young kids just starting out, starry eyed when I taught them simple moves. Now, I’m on my school’s Taekwondo club team, both as a member and as an instructor.

Additionally, at the end of my second year of college I earned my second degree. During the five hour test, we did basic stances, punches, blocks, strikes, and kicks, hapkido self defense, sparring, breaking (accuracy, specialty, and power), poomsae, Korean terminology, sequences, and burpies. It was a long road getting there, with an extra three hour practice every weekend of the spring semester, but definitely rewarding.

Stage Managing The Addams Family

My high school does a musical every year, and during my senior year they chose The Addams Family. I stage managed, which had me in rehearsal every weekday from mid-November to mid-February. I enjoyed rehearsals, but my favorite day was our dry tech day where we choreographed the set movements. We had two staircases, each made of two rolling parts, and our director wanted to use different formations of them to make different rooms in the house. I was in charge of everything backstage and the set, so that day was very busy for me. I was trying to communicate with the director, move the stairs, and make the shift plot (check out the completed plot here), all at the same time. It was a test of both my physical and mental multitasking capabilities, but still so, so fun. The show was a major success, especially with the different backgrounds.

Learning Bartending

The summer before I began college, I decided I wanted to learn to bartend, figuring that it would be a good skill to have in the bank. I took a course at the New York Bartending School, trying my hand at mixing different drinks. It was super fun to learn the different mixing techniques and equipment. We even got to make a Smoked Old Fashioned using a mixture of wood shavings. Now, I usually make my parents drinks when we’re together – their favorite is a modified Amaretto Sour: 0.5 oz simple syrup, 0.75 oz lemon juice, 1 oz Amaretto, and 0.5 oz brandy, shaken and strained.