I joined the Shanti Alliance program in my sophomore year of high school. Shanti Alliance is a program dedicated to empowering students to make positive changes in their school community by encouraging cohorts of a few students to create and execute an action plan. I wanted to make a difference in my community, but I wasn't sure how. It wasn't in my nature to be particularly daring or a risk-taker, so when I applied to be a part of the Shanti Alliance, it took a lot of courage. This "club" or "cohort" had a significant impact on my outlook on political opinions. Advocacy is intertwined with politics, and so were our conversations. From our conversations, I, a not particularly political person, learned a lot about liberal viewpoints and I was able to silently compare them to my parents' conservative viewpoints. I also connected with people I had never fathomed would walk into my life. As the younger half of the cohort, I formed bonds with juniors and seniors and learned from the wisdom of their one-year age gap, which, surprisingly, in high school means a world of maturity apart. Lastly, I'm most grateful for Shanti Alliance introducing me to the idea of restorative justice, as it has become one of my great passions.

However, like any group, we had our difficulties with collaboration. The nature of the Shanti Alliance Program's design is that students who are passionate about advocacy in general must congregate to pursue one topic of interest. Unfortunately, as five individually passionate teenagers, our viewpoints differed drastically. It took us nearly half a year to settle on restorative justice. When we did set off on the project, some of us were disappointed and became withdrawn from the project while others became more invigorated. Also, naturally as we were from very different walks of life and grade levels, none of us were particularly close outside of Shanti Alliance. This meant that most of our work was done during our meeting times, and our communication was spotty. For me, difficulties arose from being in an environment where I felt I had no merit to speak. I was on the younger side of the cohort, and admittedly, on the first day, when we were asked "what is one issue you want to see changed in the world or in the school?" I was stumped. I came into the program with the idea that I wanted to make a difference, but without a plan as to what and how. From that very first meeting, I felt out of place. However, this issue arose from my own psyche rather than the environment I was in. In my junior year, I became more open to speaking out, and this was largely due to my undertaking of new extracurriculars.

I started learning chess when I was in the 5th grade, and competing at the scholastic level in 6th grade. Chess was always a tough sport for me to fall in love with. I wasn't very fond of sitting at a board for hours on end, or having to think through so many possibilities. I felt isolated from being one of the only girls in my chess class besides my twin sister. However, playing competitive chess from 6th grade into high school has taught me the value of patience and persistence. There is a motto that I repeat in my head whenever I'm playing, which is "despite the circumstances, never resign." Continuing the game despite being in a losing position was a position I found myself in often. It forced me to be more creative in thinking of ways to save the position because if all is lost, then there's nothing more to lose by trying something unorthodox. Also, it was found that a professional chess player can burn nearly 6,000 calories during a tournament, which is near or more than what most athletes burn. This is due to the high mental strain that players endure. There are hundreds of thousands of possible chess positions that stem from a single one. Good chess players can recognize patterns, but no one is exempt from "calculation," which is a term that describes the practice of predicting the opponent's next moves and coming up with appropriate responses. I hated this part of chess because it felt too overwhelming–amongst thousands of positions, where do I start? But, my Coach taught me something called the "stepping stone method" which changed the way I calculated. The "stepping stone method" is a calculation method that works from the destination back to the initial starting point. This means that the player must envision their desired position, and work backwards to find ways to achieve it. This breaks down a daunting task into little "stepping stones" across a river. This, combined with patience and persistence, has kept me slowly chipping away at the restorative justice issue at Punahou School for the past three years.