Hey guys! Quest4Clarity (Q4C) is doing a survey to see how views on mental health at home vary; specifically, we want to see what barriers or challenges teens (or preteens!) face when discussing their mental health with parents. Please help us by completing this survey: (https://forms.gle/e9VJMsPe6sAKyB4p8) @Grace Lee

You Can Read a Better-Formatted Version of the Text Here: Recap of 2024 I mean, if you don’t want to… man, why don’t you like better-formatted text? I won’t steal your money. Don’t worry! Well, that aside. It’s December 25th! Two things: first off, Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you are enjoying your holidays. I surely am, since I got a two-week break. It’s just sleep, sleep, sleep because after that, I won’t be able to… story for another day. The other thing is, the New Year is coming soon, so what I wanted to do in this post is to recap my year. In one word: eventful. To give you a perspective of how important this year was, if you visit my LinkedIn account and see the things I’ve accomplished, all of them are from 2024. So let’s get this thing rolling: January to May: My First Year in FRC Robotics This was my first year in FRC Robotics, and man, it was crazy. We had work meetings every day from 6-9 PM and from 10 AM-4 PM on Saturdays too. It wasn’t like we were just chilling there; we actually needed to get stuff done, test them out, and treat it like an actual job. You might have guessed it, I’m on the programming team, and we needed to have the code almost ready before the robot was even built. How, you ask? While we simulate the robot in a virtual world. We already have the CAD model of it (which is just a digital twin of the robot, used as a guide to build it in real life), and we just need that to write the code for the robot and see if it works as intended. Honestly, I learned a lot. I learned how to use GitHub in a more teamwork-oriented environment and better collaborative coding practices. There was just so much to learn, and I worked on the vision side. Next year (2025), we are planning to implement AI in vision, and you know how interested I’m in that. We also got selected for Worlds, which is really good! But it was also so stressful, waking up at 5 AM, going to school at 7 AM, coming back, then tennis after school, followed by robotics, and finally getting back home to freshen up… It’s 10:30 PM, and I haven’t even opened my homework. Then other not-so-fun things came by: finals, APs, and sleepless nights.

Many people with mental conditions in the world are not receiving the support that they need. There are also not enough resources like psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, etc to support them. I was wondering if anyone would be interested in starting a non-profit together on neuroscience for mental health, where we post and share resources that are backed by science on a website or application. This way, the resources are not just cliche reassurances, but actual science-based methods and cognitive behavioral activities that can help. Any other ideas are also welcome. Please let me know if you'd be interested in founding and leading it together! Update: If you are interested, please drop your email below or to my DMs for privacy as it is the form of communication that everyone can access! Update 2: I sent out an email for those of you who were interested. Please give me your email so that I can add you to the chain if you want to be a part of this. Thank you for your cooperation!

Ok, today was one of those days that I really don’t like to have, and I don’t even know why I have them. I was sad, but I can’t pinpoint a reason for being sad or mad. There might be a cause, but no clear reason for how I’m feeling right now. Like, idk. My day started as one of my best days—finally getting the thing I’d asked for months, even if it was at 4:40 AM. It was awesome! The morning went well, but then something happened (the cause), and from that point on, I lost my grip. I don’t know why I’m feeling sad or mad; there’s a cause but no reason for my reactions. But that overwhelmed me really badly—so much so that even multiple pieces of good news couldn’t lift my mood. From that early morning win to getting into something I wanted, nothing seemed to help. And now, even nine hours later, I still feel this way. I don’t like it, and I don’t know how to stop it because I can’t even identify what started it. Idk, does sadness really dominate happiness this much? "Remember when I used to joke about being a tiny kid? Now I feel smaller than ever, hiding in a luggage of my own thoughts."

I spent a lot of time reading books over the summer. Some of the books were good, and others were not. Some reappearing phrases were: "Schedule your time." "Focus on one thing at a time." "Have a growth mindset." "Remove distractions." "Work now so you can retire later." Yes, this advice is technically right. Yet, you could read a thousand "self-help" books and still learn no more than you did from your first one. Self-help books can be useful, but I will caution you not to read past two or three. The authors of self-help books dangle a prize in front of you and tell you there's only one way to get to it: through implementing their instructions. However, the truth is that none of these authors have figured out life, no matter how they present themselves. There is no universal truth to life: if anything, the only thing that's definite is that life is a paradox. And don't think that I have answers, either, just because I'm writing this. I'm only writing so that I can sort through my own thoughts. "Self-help" books are useful if you're just getting into philosophy, but don't let them stop you from moving on. Self-help books are the equivalent to picture books: you can't learn to read without them, but you also can't stay in the reading-level for years and years. You need to switch to chapter books, and then young adult, and then the classics, etc.