My name is Elsa Phan. I’m fourteen, turning fifteen on January 23rd. I’m half Vietnamese, a quarter Chinese and a quarter Cambodian. My mom’s name is Cam and my dad’s name is Andy. I have two younger brothers; Darren and Lucas. And in about a month and a week, my baby sister Isabella will be born. Darren is roughly about 11 months younger than I am, only because he was a premature baby. Yes, we’re the same age, in the same grade but we are not twins! My brother Lucas is about 8 years younger than me and is in grade one. I’m currently in the ninth grade, studying at Riverside Secondary School. I transferred about a week ago from Gladstone Secondary up in Vancouver. Anyways, I was born at BC Women’s Hospital on Tuesday, January 23rd, 2001 at 10:48 PM. People describe me as bubbly, funny and free-minded, but I don’t see it. I’m the eldest of all of my cousins on both sides of the family. I like to spend my free time either on the internet working on my blog(s), sleeping, reading, writing, or eating, like any other typical teenager would do.

I’ve lost so many great, amazing people in my life. Especially my best friend and my grandpa. I lost my best friend a day after I came home from a three-day road trip to Edmonton where I visited her, on August 12th, 2013, to a disease she had, which was attacking her liver. She was born with it and it still amazes me that she lived for that many years because she wasn’t supposed to. Her name was Fiona. She was born on January 20th, 2001, about 3 days before me. She was such an angel. I miss her so much and often think about her. My grandpa recently passed on April 1st, 2015 at 7:30 PM, to an unknown cancer he had. The doctors just simply didn’t know what it was, but it was something they had never seen before. I miss him the most. He died at the age of 56. Thee last words we exchanged were along the lines of, “I love you.” I’m just happy he left peacefully. I didn’t have to see him struggling for oxygen anymore. He’s not suffering and that’s all that matters the most to me.

Art is everything to me. I enjoy different kinds of art whether it’s the strum of an instrument or a brush gliding across a canvas. Music, despite how corny this sounds, literally saved my life. My favourite artists are Ariana Grande, Ed Sheeran and most of all, the boys who were the ones that helped me when I was struggling with everything; One Direction (and Zayn Malik). I’ve been a fan ever since they were formed. Their lyrics reminded me that it’s okay to be myself and that I am beautiful just the way I am. Music really does save lives. It’s beautiful. I like to sing, just not in front of people. I play the ukulele, piano, recorder [which is absolutely useless], and I’m slowly learning about the guitar. Art has always been my favourite subject. I love the idea of expressing my emotions onto a sheet of paper. The whole point of art [to me] is that you can be true to yourself without anyone knowing it’s you. It’s like wearing a mask. The mask is the art. When you wear the mask, no one sees your face, in other words, your identity. All they see is the emotion or art in the “mask,” but they don’t know who’s behind the creation which plays the role of the emotion that is expressed into the mask. Okay, that was a horrible example, but you get what I mean.

School has been hard for me. Transitioning into a new school was extremely rough. Especially when you’re the “new blood” of the school. I forgot that Coquitlam high schools were from grades 9-12, so I have to relive to newbie part all over again. I started preschool at a place called Cedar Cottage. After that, I was enrolled at St. Joseph’s Elementary School from kindergarten to grade 7. My teachers here at Riverside have been super nice and very helpful to me. I haven’t made friends yet, but I have my brother. I miss my old school and my friends. I remember wanting to cry so bad on the first day, but I kept holding it in. To tell you the truth, I don’t really like it here in Coquitlam, but I can’t do much about it. I’ve been playing many sports like volleyball, basketball, track & field, cross-country (etc.) and I enjoy them very much. Especially volleyball! When I play my favourite sports, I feel empowered and invincible. All eyes are on me and I get to express all of my emotion, whether it’s a spike or a 400 meter run.

When I grow up, my desire is to become a doctor. A specialist to be precise. The reason why is because when I was four, my mom and I were sitting in the couch watching World’s Vision. I saw all those poor, sick kids and I sat there, thinking of them. I immediately thought, “Mom, I want to become a doctor. I want to help sick kids when I grow up.” And from then on, I’ve been working as hard I possibly can to step closer to becoming a doctor. It’s a lot of hard work. From knowing your cells to knowing how to perform open-heart surgery is no piece of cake. I want to be able to do something I absolutely love and be wealthy so I can give back to my family for all they have done. That’s all I have to say about me as a person. I really hope you enjoyed the read!