Matthew Y.
By Jungyoon Park
Born in Vancouver, Matthew Y. is a student in grade 9 who’s been attending
Collingwood school since kindergarten. He has loving parents and a brother who’s exactly two years younger because they share the same birthday!
Matthew is a student who goes above and beyond. He is involved in extracurriculars in a variety of categories like music, sports or academics. He is exceptional in figure skating and has reached 7th place in novice nationals! But this isn’t all, Matthew has a love for arts as well, specifically, literary arts. There isn’t a definitive starting point for Matthew as he believes that everyone starts literary arts at a young age by reading and analyzing stories. This process of analyzing, presenting and memorizing helped him develop confidence. His love for literary arts only grew from there and branched into three different activities: speech, drama and debate, two of which he does competitively. Out of these three branches he consistently does, impromptu speaking, persuasive speech or after dinner speech, interpretive reading or solo acting, and debate. Out of these his favorite events is solo acting and after dinner speaking, he enjoys these styles the most because in solo acting, he is able to embody a character and freely express him in his way and with after dinner speaking, he is able to intertwine humor and satire to tackle a relevant subject in this world. Within literary arts, he is fascinated by how random squiggles on pieces of paper can transform into prompts which humans use to create infinite unique sounds that can be interpreted in different ways.
With Matthew’s experience through his journey in the arts category, he can confidently say that there is no wrong or right to what and how you can express yourself with literary arts. Rather, he believes it’s about creating believable and convincing arguments that can get people on board. Literary arts help Matthew learns more about people, specifically how and why they think the ways they think. This allows him to have more compassion towards others: understanding a wide range of people.
People around Matthew constantly inspire him. His parents and grandparents in particular inspire him to work harder and become a better version of himself. The sacrifice and dedication put into raising him and his brother motivates him each day.
He wishes that future aspiring artists understand that everyone has slightly different nuanced interpretations of different texts, different experiences that can be converted into literary art and that every human being on this planet is born with the foundational roots to create and perform literary art. However, there’s a barrier, a barrier of fear that everyone is once caged inside. It can be intimidating or uncomfortable to express oneself, to cope with. Matthew believes that people need to lose this fear and realize that there are no rules in the first place. He wishes that people should be able to express themselves to their fullest extent because you are someone that can never be recreated and what comes out of you is unique in all its glory.
By Jungyoon Park
Born in Vancouver, Matthew Y. is a student in grade 9 who’s been attending
Collingwood school since kindergarten. He has loving parents and a brother who’s exactly two years younger because they share the same birthday!
Matthew is a student who goes above and beyond. He is involved in extracurriculars in a variety of categories like music, sports or academics. He is exceptional in figure skating and has reached 7th place in novice nationals! But this isn’t all, Matthew has a love for arts as well, specifically, literary arts. There isn’t a definitive starting point for Matthew as he believes that everyone starts literary arts at a young age by reading and analyzing stories. This process of analyzing, presenting and memorizing helped him develop confidence. His love for literary arts only grew from there and branched into three different activities: speech, drama and debate, two of which he does competitively. Out of these three branches he consistently does, impromptu speaking, persuasive speech or after dinner speech, interpretive reading or solo acting, and debate. Out of these his favorite events is solo acting and after dinner speaking, he enjoys these styles the most because in solo acting, he is able to embody a character and freely express him in his way and with after dinner speaking, he is able to intertwine humor and satire to tackle a relevant subject in this world. Within literary arts, he is fascinated by how random squiggles on pieces of paper can transform into prompts which humans use to create infinite unique sounds that can be interpreted in different ways.
With Matthew’s experience through his journey in the arts category, he can confidently say that there is no wrong or right to what and how you can express yourself with literary arts. Rather, he believes it’s about creating believable and convincing arguments that can get people on board. Literary arts help Matthew learns more about people, specifically how and why they think the ways they think. This allows him to have more compassion towards others: understanding a wide range of people.
People around Matthew constantly inspire him. His parents and grandparents in particular inspire him to work harder and become a better version of himself. The sacrifice and dedication put into raising him and his brother motivates him each day.
He wishes that future aspiring artists understand that everyone has slightly different nuanced interpretations of different texts, different experiences that can be converted into literary art and that every human being on this planet is born with the foundational roots to create and perform literary art. However, there’s a barrier, a barrier of fear that everyone is once caged inside. It can be intimidating or uncomfortable to express oneself, to cope with. Matthew believes that people need to lose this fear and realize that there are no rules in the first place. He wishes that people should be able to express themselves to their fullest extent because you are someone that can never be recreated and what comes out of you is unique in all its glory.
