Connor Nguyen

I don’t know about you, but I, Connor Nguyen, love seeing people smile genuinely. It makes me smile, and sometimes laugh a bit. There’s just something special about a smile that I want to remember and cherish forever, you know? Life is important because of the special happy moments people share with each other, and I thankfully have a lot of special happy moments just like everyone else. There was that time when I broke my first Tae Kwon Do brick for my black belt testing. I was so surprised and shocked at myself for breaking it that I bowed to the master way longer than I should have. There was another time when me and the rest of the school orchestra split up into groups to play popular winter songs in the hallways of my school, like Let It Snow and Jingle Bell Rock. It was the last day of school before winter break, and there was a smile on my face, there was a smile on my orchestra teacher’s face, there were smiles on my friends’ faces when they saw me… smiles and laughter and joy were felt everywhere in the hallways on that day. Another special happy moment was when I wrote my first song parody ever! It was a parody centered on my friends that was full of our inside jokes, and when I completed the lyrics, I sent them via email to my friends. When I saw them the next day, they had huge bright smiles on their faces and recounted to me their reactions when they read the parody. Their smiles were priceless in those moments. The last special happy moment that I will share with you today is one that I hope to never ever forget in my entire life. It was the afternoon I finished reading a perfectly wonderful yet saddening manga titled Your Lie in April (Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso). It’s just so wholesome and pure. It’s about the revival of emotion in pianist Kousei Arima through his newfound friendship with violinist Kaori Miyazono. Your Lie in April is such a beautiful story that put me to tears, but it also helped me connect on an emotional level to the songs I played. I was able to feel the sadness and sorrow in Tchaikovsky’s June-Barcarolle when I performed it, seeing someone full of a despair that turns into a glimmer of happiness and hope before descending back into darkness. I’m really proud of myself for being able to emanate the emotions that music holds because that’s what life is all about, isn’t it? Just having and remembering those magical, emotional moments forever.