April has been quite a weird month…ever since we came back from spring break, soccer was canceled, digital days almost began again, school work and test started piling up…

With that, I ended my short soccer season with agony. However, I was grateful that I got to practice with my friends on our own over spring break. This kept me active over break and energized me somehow. I guess that’s the fun part about getting engaged in CAS–you get to do something you enjoy but afraid to try, you get to explore yourself more, you get to reflect upon the things you do. Playing soccer is a perfect example. I know I have never been an athletic person, but I never really wanted to play a sport like this so much. As I have also begun at a relatively later time than others, I told myself that the journey is going to be hard, but the skills I will develop would eventually make all these challenges worth it. “Practice makes perfect” is no longer an adage, but instead something that I am truly experiencing.

Besides soccer, I found myself starting to paint again. One night when I was struggling with insomnia (oops), I simply decided to repaint a half-done painting that I was not really satisfied with. Mixing color here and there, I think I am slowly regaining my passion for something that seemed to be so familiar yet so distant. CAS really allowed me to rejuvenate–to re-experience and revisit the things I love, to embrace and explore what I want to do, to take a break from schoolwork. Something I found interesting was that art really provides a cathartic effect, for both the creator and the viewer. I can relate to the creator more in this case. I can remember being frustrated that night with thoughts on how disparaging comments against females were troubling me. Besides jotting thoughts down on Evernote, painting gave me a therapeutic feeling as well.