From court to stage, racket to pen, Vu maximizes high school experience

With tennis, forensics, plays, musicals, college applications, and more, Angelina Vu has a lot on her plate. It’s no secret that senior year comes with a great amount of stress, but opportunities and rewards can appear just as frequently.

Over the summer, around mid-July, Vu was a part of a virtual panel for ‘Kids Inspire Difference.’ She and fellow teens from across the country came together to share their stories and promote the importance of representation.

“This organization is all about diversity, equality and social justice,” she said.

The panelists were also given a creative method to express themselves.

“They had us all introduce ourselves using a piece of art they created,” Vu said. “Most people wrote poems.”

She has found poetry to be a useful tool in releasing emotions. 

“Junior year was really tough on me; I struggled a lot with my mental health,” she said. “Out of nowhere, at like 11 pm, I had an urge to write poetry, so I opened my notes app and wrote a poem called ‘She is Glass.’”

She decided to share this poem with one of her teachers, William Brydon, a Global English teacher.

“I showed it to him and he really liked it and encouraged me to submit it somewhere,” Vu said. “I submitted it to the Lakefly Writers Contest and I ended up getting third place.”

She didn’t think much of it at first, until she learned the sheer size of the contest.

“Brydon told me that over 200 people submitted to this, a lot of them are real published authors,” she said.

Brydon has continued to push Vu with her poetry.

“He’s really inspired me to keep sharing my voice; he was always the first person I showed a new poem to, always so encouraging and supportive,” she said. “He set me up with all these resources to get my work published.”

Poetry has also been a focus for Vu in forensics.

“Last year, I had a piece on destigmatizing periods,” she said. “Ms. Huettl had sent me the poem and I fell in love with it. It's just about the shame around periods and how people think they’re disgusting, but really, they’re just a normal part of life.” 

This poem came with some resistance.

“Mr. Thurwatcher didn’t think I would be allowed to do it, or how the judges would react to it,” Vu said. “But I held my ground, did it anyway, and I was a state finalist. That was really rewarding. I’m passionate about this, and this activity is all about challenging social norms and sharing your voice. It was so important to me and something so different.”

Her passion on female empowerment has gone on to inspire her Global Capstone Project, the last requirement for receiving a Global Scholar certificate.

“I took chemistry with Ms. Markon and she told me about her time in the Peace Corp and how she was a sexual and health educator for the people there and made reusable pads.”

She connected this idea to a larger issue in refugee camps.

“Having periods in refugee camps is terrible, so many girls have to drop out of school because they can’t afford period products,” Vu said. “This further increases the education gap and forces women to enter abusive relationships because they don’t have independence.”

When she learned about the requirements for the Global Capstone Project, she saw a perfect opportunity to try and help the issue. So she and her partners for the project, Addi Peck, Avery Pakula, and Sophia Schneider, met with Markon over the summer to learn how to make the reusable pads.

“We’re hoping to send these to third world countries with kits so they can learn how to make them themselves and teach others how to make them,” Vu said. “This would be something sustainable and inexpensive.”

She’s been working with the refugee community through the Winnebago Literacy Council, hoping to come up with a plan.

“I plan to set up a meeting with them to set this up and get help with translating our instruction manuals, because they’re going to have a much better insight on what they need over there.”

But this project is just one of the priorities she has on her plate; she also is dedicated to forensics, or competitive public speaking.

“You show up to school ridiculously early, take a bus to a random town in Wisconsin, and then you perform whatever piece you’re doing, and then they publish the results,” Vu said. “Countless hours go into it, from December to June.”

She began participating in her freshman year.

“It was just Addi Peck, Lara Funnel, and I on the team that year,” Vu said. “We have been so fortunate to have a lot of success. Being eighth in the nation freshman year was absolutely huge for us, as we knew nothing about it and never heard of forensics before that. We got national, not thinking too much about it, and then we were in the quarters, then the semis.”

This has also served as a bonding experience for her and her partner, Peck, for the Duo Interpretation category.

“We have so many fun memories from it. We would spend so much time together; we were there till 6, 5 days a week, for months,” Vu said. “There was a time when we were competing and the ceiling started to drip on Addi, and she just had to try her best to not break character.”

Aside from forensics, she’s also gotten involved with the school plays and musicals.

“Sophomore year was Little Women and I played Beth. It was three hours long,” Vu said. “Little Women is such an iconic show; there’s so much depth, and being a character who died was interesting to play.”

During her junior year, the One Act performance was Tracks, where she played a stuck-up lawyer.

“What a great show with a small cast. We all worked together well, and we ended up making it to state,” Vu said. “We had three nominations for outstanding lead actor, and by some miracle, I was one of them.”

She notes this as the start of her “villain era,” the same year she played Karen in Spongebob Squarepants: The Musical.

“Spongebob was the most fun I’ve ever had in a show. It was so much fun to play a cartoon character,” Vu said. “I was able to wear those Frozone glasses, which I still have. It was so much to be this sassy villain.”

She has methods for getting into character for these sometimes emotional roles.

“I like to create backstories to my characters,” she said. “When you know who these characters are, and what their motivations are, it makes it easier to connect with them.”

All of these activities can create a lot of stress for Vu, but she has ways to stay on track.

“My challenges are time management. I’m filling out college applications, and I’m in like 18 different clubs and activities,” she said. “Sleep is the first thing that goes; I’m an obsessive planner, there's type A and then there’s type B, I consider myself type A+. I have a ton of planners, lists, calendar reminders, spreadsheets, anything and everything. It’s the only way I stay afloat.”

While Vu may be weighed down with all of the responsibilities in a day, she strives to find joy in the things she does.

“My goal this year is to work really hard and have fun,” she said. “This is a really stressful time in my life, and I just want to take the time to do the things that I enjoy.”

by Addi Isely

Published October 2 2023

Oshkosh West Index Volume 120 Issue I