Eyes focused on the beads in front of her, Christine Tang (12) deftly adds onto the pink bunny keychain, her meticulously-completed crafts scattered across the table. Ensuring that each aspect is perfect, her gentle fingers move across the keychain as she searches for gaps in her immaculate design. 

Christine’s detail-focused and patient attitude is evident to her close peers and teachers even though she only joined Harker as a freshman in high school. She was able to assimilate easily as she observed how kind those in the community were.

“Adapting to the Harker high school environment felt pretty smooth. I do think it’s because the Harker students are really friendly. It’s also because I’ve moved schools multiple times before,” she said.

At a young age, Christine found that making crafts truly helped her take her mind off of anything going on in her rigorous schedule.

“I’ve always enjoyed doing arts and crafts and I took art classes outside of school. Schoolwork is really hectic, and I just wanted some time to relax my head,” Christine said. “Whenever I get time in between, I do crafts to calm down.”

Not only were crafts a way for her to destress, but she also loved seeing others react to her designs in various different ways.

“I simply enjoy seeing other people’s emotions when they receive or see the crafts. Some get excited and some seem to go back to their childhood days. I love seeing every individual reaction to each craft,” she said.

Reflecting on her relationship with Christina, senior Emily Liu describes her close friend’s diligence and her unique reactions to those around her.

“Christine is incredibly kind and subtly funny in part because of her reactions to things. She always has something interesting to say. She’s insightful, she’s a hard worker and she’s fun to be around,” Emily said.

Christine enjoys the learning process of making new things, especially because of the great variety of designs. Through crafting, she learned to persist even when she didn’t know how to make something at first. 

“I enjoy figuring things out. There is such a large variety of crafts that one can try and figure out,” Christine said. “Each craft has different techniques to make and use them, so I love just trying out how to make different crafts and sometimes developing my own versions.”

Alongside crafting, Christine also learned similar skills in the Camerata choir, where she showed great attention to detail in her own voice. Upper school vocal music teacher Susan Nace, Christine’s conductor in Camerata, notes her innate ability to assess herself and find ways to address aspects of her voice she struggles with.

“She’s constantly thinking, ‘How can I sing this better? How can I make my sound better? Many times she does her own diagnosing to fix things,” Nace said. “She [hears] something that sounds off to her and [diagnoses] to figure out how to fix it.”

Her awareness of her own skill level was something that helped her improve, but while she showed great initiative in building her voice herself, she emphasized how she was able to grow through the support of others. 

“Singing by myself, I never have a standard to see where I am at, so I don’t know if I’m improving or not … [Through choir], I’ve been able to learn to work with people as a team. I’ve learned to perceive more of my teammates’ strengths and weaknesses and I’ve found that we can work together to bolster each other,” she said.

Christine’s close friend Jessica Jiang (12) expresses how her articulate personality allows Christine to connect with those around her.

“I think Christine is a very unique person because she can get along with almost everyone. She’s very good at talking and making everyone feel comfortable,” Jessica said.

Christine’s desire to learn and grow also transferred into her academic classes where she constantly asked questions to fuel her curiosity and clear up any confusion.

“I’m a question-asker in class. I feel dissatisfied when I don’t understand something so I always reach out to try to solve that,” she said. 

Elaborating on her inquisitive nature, Nace also articulates how Christine’s innate love of learning allowed her to observe aspects of the environment around her which others may not see.

“She has incredibly deep insights into the world that on the surface, you wouldn’t realize she has. I think people really do not know the depths of Christine nor the depth of her knowledge,” Nace said.

Through both crafting and singing in choir, Christine has learned to become more detail-oriented which has built on her introspective attitude and constant awareness of her sense of self. Her strongly founded personality has allowed her to understand herself and live in her desired way in spite of what anyone else might tell her.

“I just live how I think I should rather than thinking that I have an identity that I should fit or thinking that I don’t have an identity. I just keep going … If I act a certain way, I act that way no matter what other people think,” she said.