It is a struggle for many students to maintain both classwork and extracurricular activities. Having to attend meetings, events, games, and other activities while trying to keep up grades in every class is not easy. But for junior Victoria Sulak, she is involved in five different extracurriculars, both in school and outside of school.
In school, Sulak is involved in choir and theater. She has been doing choir for one year and theater for five years. Outside of school, she is involved in dance, taekwondo and religious education. She has been doing dance for 13 years, taekwondo for around four years, and religious education for 17 years. She was formerly involved in Girl Scouts and also played the piano. She was in Girl Scouts for 10 years and played the piano for seven years.
“It can be difficult, but I work during advisory and around the extracurriculars,” Sulak said.
Sulak is involved in choir and theater in school. In choir, she has won multiple awards for her performances, and in theater, she has been in three plays. Sulak said she wanted to join theater because her brother was in it and it looked fun.
“I was the Singing Telegram Girl in our production of ‘Clue’ and got to die onstage,” Sulak said.
In taekwondo, Sulak takes on a leadership role and trains other students involved in martial arts. She is also a first-degree level black belt. In dance, she does tap and lyrical dancing, and formerly did ballet, point, and jazz dancing as well. In religious education, she has made her confirmation, takes on a leadership position, acts as an altar server, and sings in the church choir. Sulak said the most exciting part about dance is recital time.
“We start with stretches or a warmup,” Sulak said. “If we have a performance coming up, we practice it; if not, we work on technique.”
In taekwondo, Sulak said they start with stretches, then practice form, sparring, board breaking and defense skills, in no specific order.
“I like helping kids get better at protecting themselves against anything that might want to hurt them,” Sulak said.
Sulak must orient her schoolwork around her busy schedule that takes up a significant portion of her free time. However, she states that other students can and should participate in extracurriculars activities without stressing or worrying.
“It is a lot of work, but it is fun to do; you have to be willing to give up your free time,” Sulak said.
