“Find what love’s worth to you, do what you love to do and you’ll blow us all away… Someday, someday…”
Those lyrics were from a song called “Dear Saratoga,” sung by seniors Timothy Leung and Aiden Chen in a video shown during the annual schoolwide Speak Up for Change tutorial assembly in the Large Gym on Jan. 24. “Dear Saratoga” was written and sung in the style of “Dear Theodosia” from the hit Broadway musical “Hamilton.” The video was filmed at a beach location and depicted the academic struggles that students face. It also introduced the week’s theme, “Finding Your Passion.”
After it was shown, the music video, directed by senior tech commission member Rylee Stanton, was met with massive applause by students and faculty.
Speak Up For Change has been held during Martin Luther King week each year since 2013. It was organized by a commission, consisting of seniors Alan Cai, Langdon Huynh and Tarun Ramakrishnan, junior Bryan Zhao, sophomore Kyle Liu and freshman Vivian Li.
Speakers this year included junior Lizzie Lockhart, seniors Ramakrishnan and Kat Aldrete and English teacher Marcos Cortez.
Lockhart finds herself through her passion for drama
As the youngest sibling in her family, Lockhart described the feeling of following in the footsteps and shadow of her older brother and sister — such as being a good student and having similar music tastes.
“It was hard for me to break out of the mold that had shaped my entire life,” Lockhart said. “Another side effect of being the youngest is that everything your older siblings do looks like an act of God.”
Slowly, she began to find her own voice and path through performance in musicals. In fourth grade, Lockhart earned the lead role of Annie Jr. in the Foothill Elementary school musical. Through rehearsals, she began to discover a passion for singing, dancing and acting, ultimately pushing her to pursue drama in middle and high school.
“I love drama because I’ve found myself in characters that I’ve gotten to play, and I’ve gotten to see how they deal with problems. Through that, I’ve really gotten to know how to be myself more,” she told The Falcon.
According to Lockhart, this journey has changed her life for the better. She believes that it has made her a more confident person, taught her time management and helped her develop better people skills.
“The most important thing I’ve learned is that I’m capable of more than I thought I was. When someone tells me: ‘you can’t,’ I take that as a challenge and say: ‘yes I can,’ which has been a great motivation towards me,” Lockhart told The Falcon.
Ramakrishnan discovers passion along a long journey
Like many other students, Ramakrishnan found that he struggled to discover exactly what he likes to do — he didn’t feel a pull of waking up at 5 a.m. or forgoing sleep to pursue his interests in anything specific.
“In freshman year, I was very carefree,” he said during an interview with The Falcon. “But then, in sophomore year when I started having to think ahead to college, I started to really wonder what my passion was. At a time when many of my friends were already doing research, starting non-profits and making an impact, I felt hopeless and lost.”
However, Ramakrishnan didn’t give up. Instead of falling into a slump, he began to take advice from friends, family and his college counselor. They all suggested that he keep trying a variety of activities that intrigued him and go from there.
“After volunteering at a hospital, I began to develop my interest in neuroscience,” Ramakrishnan told The Falcon. “I joined research groups using brain stimulation to treat Parkinson’s disease and explored how music could evoke nostalgic memories in Alzheimer’s patients. These applications of technology and alternative treatment methods were fascinating and motivated me to delve deeper into this field in college.”
Ramakrishnan also noted that despite having found his passion, people — including himself — can often feel empty. For them, Ramakirshnan suggests: “To be truly passionate, one must be genuine in their pursuit. Take what life gives you, listen to friends and family and stay open-minded.”
As a member of the Speak Up for Change committee as well, Ramakrishnan helped select this year’s theme for the rally. He found he resonated with the theme on a personal level, as discovering his passions was one of the most prominent events that happened in high school.
“The experience was similar to college applications in the sense that it forced me to reflect about my past years here,” Ramakrishnan said. “The difference was that it allowed me to talk about the uncertainties I faced and the weak moments I had in a very real way.”
Aldrete inspired by reading and creative writing
“I’ve been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, and while I’m doing very well now, I’ve gone through some of the worst rough patches I’ll probably ever have in the past. Depression isolates you. It feels like no one really knows how you feel, and there’s no way to tell someone about it,” Aldrete said during their speech.
Aldrete, who is non-binary, found solace in writing fiction. They found that in the books they read, the characters were almost like a mirror of themself, finally finding someone that they could sympathize with. Aldrete is also non-binary, and they feel that there is an underrepresentation in writing when it comes to non-binary characters.
“You don’t see a lot of non-binary characters, and when you do, it’s usually the same story. They find out: ‘Oh my gosh, I’m non-binary,’ then they worry about people not accepting them, and when they finally come out to people, everyone’s fine with it,” Aldrete said during an interview with The Falcon. “And that’s basically the whole idea. There’s only so many coming out stories you can read until you’re like ‘OK, I want to start talking about the deeper issues.’”
Thus, Aldrete chose to use their creative writing skills to help share stories with people who are similar to them. They often write stories that elaborate on the struggles that they face in their lives, which they then post to online platforms or share with friends.
Through sharing how creative writing changed their life, Aldrete hopes to have inspired other people to take up a pen and try to see where it takes them.
“For me, the last three years, Speak Up For Change has meant a lot to me, especially being able to see other students talk about topics honestly in front of a giant crowd and show who they authentically are,” Aldrete told The Falcon. “I had a lot of fun giving that speech, and it was exciting to show my authentic self to help empower other people.”
Cortez delivers a moving speech about his “Aloha” moment
Cortez set a humorous tone for his speech from the beginning, saying: “Like any good English teacher, I am going to start with a hook, something designed to catch the audience’s attention and fuel their engagement. So here we go: Passion. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, passion means — no, no. I would never do that. OK, how about this: Monte Iwanaga was Hawaiian and proud of it. That feels better.”
Cortez described his experience in high school as a strong swimmer but with no passion for academics, struggling to maintain a 2.0 GPA to stay on his school’s swimming team. Despite his athletic capabilities, he found that his swimming coach never had any “aloha,” or love, in Hawaiian, for him.
He recounted how his coach had “aloha” for his sister and even athletes on the team who struggled in the pool — but never for Cortez. He asked why and Iwanaga told him: “When you come back here with a college degree, then I’ll have ‘aloha’ for you.” And so, as he was challenged by his coach, Cortez managed to not only graduate from high school but also work his way through college and later return to his high school with a college degree in hand and received his aloha moment from Iwanaga.
Yet, even in college, Cortez admitted that passion didn’t immediately strike him. Instead of finding his passion, he found people around him who were passionate for all sorts of things. He asked what they were doing, listened to their responses and was most importantly, “passionately” curious.
“I hope you find many passions by opening yourself up, being passionately curious, checking your ego at the door, asking questions and listening. Don’t worry about the path being the right one, passionately trust that it is the right one for you,” Cortez he told the assembled students.
