Keaholoa 300 Word Essay

Jashea­Tatiana Leleiwi

“ What was your most challenging experience in high school? How did it affect you and what lesson did you learn? “

I had many challenges so far in high school but all were a great learning experience.

Although, the hardest challenge I overcame happened this past school year, my junior year. From when I was in elementary I always knew that I wanted to help with Prom and
Homecoming, talk at award assembly's. It just seemed like fun to make kids laugh and get them excited about school. It also seemed like it would make me a cooler and more popular kid. When I got to middle school I was more interested in it. Especially when I became my class secretary. I like the idea of being in charge on something and being a part of a group of leaders. Leaders that could potentially make an impact on the school.
As I go into high school I knew I had to be on the board or apart of it somehow. When I transferred from a Hawaiian Emergen to Konawaena High School, after four years it was a big change. Konawaena was so much bigger, there were more students, more to do! I was beyond excited to be on board with a big class and really getting involved and making mark. In my junior year I was elected class treasurer but I mainly acted like a
Vice President. I came up with and planned all the fundraiser ideas alongside my president. Although, that year, I also was selected for a leadership training class. Now this was the exciting class because we got to plan Homecoming, Winter Ball, Prom, etc.! This is the class that I was dreaming to take ever since I was a little girl. Of course I tried to be the most involved. This wasn't a mistake just an obstacle that made it really

hard to juggle everything else I had going on in my life. I am a student­athlete and that was already hard to do! I met my hardest challenge during Homecoming. Homecoming was around the same time as soccer conditioning, PSAT's and our biggest class fundraiser. Of course I had to be the event head of Homecoming even though I was already planning our class fundraiser because our president was going to be absent. Being that I was a junior and this was my first year in leadership I didn't quite understand how time consuming
Homecoming would be. So my life was hectic for about a month, I was beyond stressed.
I thought to myself everyday that I will never head anything this big in my life! Being that you’re an event head you have to call meetings and continually check on everyone and everything. For Homecoming each class need community sponsors and class participation. There also was a court that we had to teach a dance to and rent cars for.
During the week of Homecoming we had a spirit week, which meant that we would have an assembly on the last school day of that week. All this lead to competition between classes. As a head I needed to figure the best way to organize this event and make it the best Homecoming ever. As you can see that is already a lot of mini challenges or obstacles that happened within one event of my life, I was planning two! With my class fundraiser the weekend after homecoming all the planning for both events were happening at the same time. I had meeting every other day and it was starting to affect my grades. I was focusing more on planning these events rather than what was more important than everything else, my grades. It was beginning to get really hard for me.
May Day consisted of going to school, soccer conditioning right after school till it was

dark, homework/plan events. By the end of my practice I was already so tired that I rarely got stuff done at home. I would always have to catch­up in the morning or at lunch. This caused more stress on me. Eventually everything got done and I got a lot of feedback from my peers. My advisors told me that I worked really well under pressure and made sure that everything was under control at the events and in the planning stage of the events. My friends also said that they had a fun time at Homecoming and I really made it memorable for some of them. At the end of all of it, I learned new things about myself. I learned that I really like making big things happen and hopefully impacting some peoples lives. The lesson I learned from all of this is that if you work hard at something you do, good things will come of it. No mountain is too high, if you set your mind to. But I also learned that you should pay attention to all little details that come along with your dreams. Making sure that you do everything right the first so you don't have to go back and redo something. Also to believe in yourself. Believing in yourself will help you in every aspect of you life, and it is an important thing that I will continue to practiced throughout my life.