About Me

Hi my name is Estella I am currently a Grade 12 this school year. I am currently going to school at Dr Charles Best. I am Chinese and Vietnamese. Whenever you come into my room you would usually see me watching a show or playing an instrument. The only time you would see me do my homework or study is between 11pm-3am as I like to study at night when its really quiet.

One thing that would surprise a lot of people is that I had recently transferred to Charles Best last year. The most common question that I get asked a lot is what school did you go to before. To answer that question before more people ask me is that I went to Eric Hamber Secondary School. The reason why I transferred to Charles Best is because of the pandemic. I actually didn’t move at all. I was attending school in Vancouver while living in Coquitlam which is crazy because now I can’t wake up at 6:00am anymore. To be honest I do miss my old school sometimes since I was in the band program, theatre program, and as well as my friends that are there but I am also glad that I transferred because I got to meet so many amazing people. I was able to gain a lot of confidence as well since transferring to a new school where you’ll graduate next year which is not something someone would want to do. Since everyone is in their little group but luckily there were people who were willing to become my friends and I was able to find new people to talk to.

With the theatre program at my old school I didn’t act at all because I can’t do acting nor do I have the confidence to perform in front a lot of people so I worked back stage. I was able to be in a props crew, running crew (where they change the set when the scene changes as it is pitch black), stage management (making sure everything goes smoothly and getting people on and off of the stage at the right time), and I was able to be in a pit crew for the musical. In grade 10 I was doing three shows at the same time as well as Concert (Flute) and Jazz Band (Tenor Saxophone). I had to also fill in for the section leader for the Senior Concert Band so my schedule was really hectic and crazy. Everyone knew me as the hallway girl because I’m either running back and forth from the drama room to the band room even to the auditorium. The musical that was happening during that time was Les Mis. I was only able to make it to the practice for the music only one week before the musical was about to happen. I think every year in my old school I would have spent over 100 hours doing the theatre program but Grade 10 was a bit higher than that. I had also just started learning how to play the Tenor Saxophone in Grade 10 around February so I was able to make some progress and got to play in the concert as I thought I wasn’t ready to play yet.

I hope you got to know a little more about me of what I did in my old school. Even though I may look intimidating or very shy please do come up to me and start a conversation. I really do want to get to know more about the students attending Charles Best as my knowledge for the students in the Senior Grade is very low. Even if you’re not a senior I would still like to acknowledge the Juniors that are attending Charles Best as well. As I want to learn more about this school. Or if you’re from different school.

Estella Pham