By Jessica Nguyen, Staff Writer
Her eyes scanned the room as she observed how every part of the hospital came together to bring her father back to life. She adored the physicians, surgeons and nurses as they performed surgery on her father for his cardiovascular disease. A confusing moment of life or death, this was the event that sparked Desiree Le’s motivation to become who she is today.
Desiree Le’s ambition, willingness to help others and diligence has led up to her becoming October Senior of the Month. Her passion drives her to care for her community and family. Le’s creativity and daringness is expressed through ways of communicating with others, including public speeches contests and music.
“It is important to do something each day that scares you. You don’t want to be doing the same things over and over because you already did it. I want to be able to explore myself even more than the opportunities given to me and not just focus on my own comfort zone. I want to be able to learn new things based the things that I do each day,” said Le.
Her father’s life-defining surgery inspired her ambition in helping others. As a member of American Heart Association (AHA), she is able to pursue her ardor. Her communication skills and zeal in assisting people reveal her leadership abilities. Starting out as just an active member and secretary her junior year, Le is now serving as president.
“My life story doesn’t have the word ‘president’ or ‘secretary’ in it, but it does because I’ve worked my way there and I followed my passions,” said Le. “I think I have developed my way into becoming a leader because as a child, I was pretty shy, but FVHS has really opened a pathway for me to express myself to my peers through clubs and organizations that really stole my attention. I really believe in the power of really cooperatively working as a team and I try to lead as many people as possible into doing what they love to do.”
As mentioned before, Le is a member of AHA, but additionally, of Crew Club, a Christian organization that helps Le relate to her religion and aid her community.
“Crew Club has definitely added a different aspect to being a Baron here at Fountain Valley. Not only am I viewing the school and people in a different way, I’m also applying what I learn about God and just going to school in a more oriented perspective,” said Le.
Le was apart of the freshmen/sophomore and junior varsity basketball team, as well as the junior varsity track team.
“As the starting point guard [in basketball], I had the duty to make quick decisions and manage change when is possible,” said Le. “I feel like I can take those aspects learned on the court into the application of real life situations where I would have to make quick decisions and promote change whenever is needed because nothing in life goes your way.”
Not only does she play basketball, Desiree Le can play the piano as well. As a 10-year player, she is a member of the National Guild of Piano Teachers Organization at Westminster Music School and participates in annual evaluations, earning consecutive top talent trophies from her days of practice and not giving up. Music has also opened new doors for Le.
“This opportunity allowed me to play piano for my church occasionally and for adults, like my dad, to sing. I also create a couple pop mashups. So I took the foundations of what piano is and I added that fun touch of creativity into it. I just created a stream of pop songs where they all linked together into one masterpiece,” said Le. “I feel like playing the piano not only expresses my creativity, but it builds my character and how much I can offer to others.”
Passion is an intense desire or enthusiasm for something. For Le, passion is supporting others and playing the piano.
“For me, I love helping people, becoming apart of their lives and contributing myself as much as possible to the community around me and to be able to do that I have shown qualities as a good leader to help all these people to reunite,” said Le. “For piano, I like to express myself through that too. In the end, I just want to build good relations with people because it cultivates a good lifestyle and you’re going to use the skills that you’ve learned to help yourself in the future.”
All things have a beginning of course. For Desiree Le, piano started 10 years ago introduced by her mother and AHA freshmen year sparked by her interest in helping people, especially the ones diagnosed with cardiovascular disease. These activities add to a memorable high school experience and maximize her days at FVHS by allowing her to step above the line and explore herself.
“My teacher saw that I was gifted in music and I continued from there up until now. I will be getting my high school diploma in music next year: that just kind of shows how I stuck through the days that were hard and I preserved through it. For AHA, I knew that it would be the club that would fit my personality, characteristics and my passions,” said Le. “Although academics served as the basis of your career, I also believe that all of these extracurricular activities mean a lot to me because school isn’t the only thing and that’s not what true passion is.”
Her biggest accomplishment is pursuing the piano, even after 10 years and numerous days of feeling tired and not wanting to practice. After knowing the piano better, she realized that the piano is not just an instrument that produces music, but also words when something can’t be explained or interpreted.
“I view the piano as a way to interpret my own unique story. You are the one controlling the instrument and your emotions, expressions and the things you deal with. If you are putting your own twist to it, it is going to create a whole different view with your audience because they are now going to take that in and create their own interpretation out of it. Playing the piano is not just for yourself, but for your listeners because they are going to gain something out of it and learn something in the absence of words,” said Le.
In her free time, Le enjoys playing with her dog and going to church every Sunday. She plays some of her favorite jams on the piano, usually pop songs. As a skilled pianist, she further expands her options by working part time at her music school, teaching piano theory. Another way to express her creativity is by daydreaming about poetic and figurative things, writing poetry inspired by reality and looking into the sky and nature to personify inanimate objects. Recently, Le just got basic life support certified from a CRP class and is excited for a student research internship at University of California, Irvine. Her activities take up most of her time, barely giving her any free time to accomplish these things. However, Le maintains a rigorous schedule that helps her manage her time and stay on track, although she isn’t on the team anymore.
“I try to focus on studying more than I do homework, because studying is the ultimate outcome of your results and just doing scribble homework is not going to help anything, although I do finish my homework. For me, I have to focus at lot one at a time and then take a quick break because if I don’t or I’m not on track, I would be missing out on the details of my whole day. I focus a lot and I’m diligent with what I do and if I’m not, I just tell myself, ‘Hey, you got this. Try again next time.’ I just keep on promoting the idea of optimism throughout,” said Le.
While Le makes juggling everything look so effortless, it has been mentally and emotionally draining for her, especially the dreaded junior year when she received her first C on her transcript.
“I definitely faced a lot of failures, but now, I’m reflecting on the bad thoughts that I had- they are not worth it and worrying is going to do anything for you in the future. The failures from my classes, peers and my family all bundled up together into one burden that I carried around all the time,” said Le. “But now, over the summer, I told myself ‘Give it your best shot and if it happens, then it happens. You know that you gave 110% of yourself because you love doing it and you’re going to try harder next time even though you failed, because each time you are just going to improve, get better and you are going to be happier because you did that.”
Her family, passions, friends and peers motivate Desiree Le when she feels like giving up. Le’s parents are the most hardworking people that she knows and they set the line for what she wants to do. As parents, they push Le to her limits because they know that she can do more than what she is doing now. Her peers also propel her because of their strong belief and trust in her.
“Trust is the most important thing because you have people accountable for what you are doing and they are going to continue to support you and what you like to do,” said Le. “Also, I want to be able to fill all the missing spots in my dream-to live each day according to your thoughts, intentions for other people and make each day good. In the end, I want to be able to fulfill my story as a Baron. Creating relationships with my peers motivates and makes me happy when they smile because of what you did and all the hard work; I know that hard work pays off in the end.”
In her mind, there is a brick wall that she has to overcome because when people tell her that she can’t accomplish something, Desiree Le knows that they are wrong because she puts her mind to things and her passions are so strong that they can overrule what society tells her. Throughout her life, she has encountered several walls when trying to attain her goals but has only learned from it.
“I’m now not afraid to shoot the best things that I want. If I want it, I’m going to get it and I’m going to overcome the brick wall. The thing that defines a person’s limits is their mentality and if your mentality is where you want it to be, then you can most definitely achieve your goals. I’m not afraid anymore to go for it and refrain because I’m scared something small will happen. If it is something small that is going to happen, it won’t matter much because it doesn’t lead you to where you want to be,” said Le.
Le’s overall life experiences have impacted her personality. As a freshman, she felt like she was only going to focus on school but when opportunities began to open up, she stepped into them and from there, there were only more branches. She never expected to play basketball or play piano to joining track, playing songs for her dad and creating pop mashup songs.
“There are a lot of unexpected things along my path and if you are really dedicated and diligent with that one thing, then more opportunities are going to sprout for you in different paths. It opens up your perspectives,” said Le. “I have one holistic view of who I am as a person because the different aspects I’m associated with; I’m musically artistic, athletic, and take rigorously academic classes. Sometimes, it gets overwhelming, but I know, all of these combined together in the end will be worth it and it builds my character in each of these aspects but all together.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Disney are two role models that Le look up to. Emerson’s words, “Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you,” inspire her to be the best person she can by working hard everyday and contributing to the things around her. Walt Disney, on the other hand, reminds her to have time to discover herself and expand upon her creativity rather than only focusing on work.
“If you work all the time and you don’t look up once in awhile, you are going to miss those opportunities,” said Le. “Live happy and make your imagination worth it. Those thoughts are only going to make the world and the people you encounter a better thing because if you keep all the ideas to yourself, who is going to hear it-who is going to appreciate it.”
From her high school years, she has learned valuable lessons herself.
“Put your passion into your actions. It puts your own twist in things that normal people do. Everyone can play basketball and anyone can play the piano, but you can put your own twist to it because you have your own passion for it-your own magnitude of how strong your passion is. Adding your own twist to something makes a huge differences because you made that thing yours. Now other people are going to appreciate it because you’ve done that,” said Le.
As a mature senior, Le has experienced the things that incoming freshmen are too. Particularly to them, she shares a special message.
“Don’t be afraid to do what you love to do- don’t be afraid to take that extra leap even if you may feel unsure about it because there is nothing to lose if you try. You might miss out on an opportunity if you don’t go for it. Don’t hesitate if you have that sense of wanting to do it, just do it,” said Le.
Le’s dream school is University of California, Los Angeles for nursing or anything in the healthcare field.
“I believe that my passion can make a huge impact a diverse community. My dreams in the future is to live out my life story that I have began as a child and that is growing from that shy personality into a person who really exerts ideas and principles into other lives,” said Le.
The world knows that Desiree Le will surely go on to do great things and accomplish everything she wants to.
