In my junior year of high school, I decided to create a YouTube Channel called "Mirakell" and spent hours on there working on a cappella pieces with drawings in the background. I loved watching a cappella videos in my free time from other YouTube artists and felt inspired to create one myself.

I pushed through tough times of losing audio files or struggling with pitch and finished my first piece in roughly a few months. In the first few days of its publication, all of the 20 views were by me. I dared myself to share it with my peers and before long it got more than 100 views and later on more than 400.

My videos started off with drawings mixed with a cappella songs but soon I began directing more cinematic filming of my face. It was a solo thing at first, but within a few months, I decided to involve more and more people, until my latest video which includes me and a bunch of friends traveling to Coney Island to film at the beach spot.

"Mirakell" has definitely taught me a lot about my limits and the boundaries I can break. Even though I don't really have an audience outside of my friends and family, I'm still learning as I go. I feel like my video qualities have increased a lot since the first video I posted and even though I look back with a little bit of cringe, I also feel a tiny sense of pride—pride at the things I can create and the feats I am capable of.

I am so thankful to be able to make YouTube videos thanks to the wonderful friends in my life like Shiva Vummidi and Michael Cai who have helped with filming and all my other friends who gave me moral support. Without them, I simply can't imagine the feasibility of my videos.

My love for "Mirakell" has grown a lot since junior year. In fact, as I begin my freshman year of college, I'm beginning a project which involves the ballroom dance team and my friends who like singing and acting; I'm thinking of merging these multifarious talents in a video centered around the theme of love.

I also spend a lot of time thinking about why I make music. YouTube seems like such an obvious choice for a shy girl like me who wanted to put herself on a platform, but in reality, the idea never even hit me until the end of sophomore year. I was never really the kind of person to put myself out there so I always ended up being lost in the crowd or being ignored. But it was more than just a platform for me. I felt a part of myself being jolted awake—and honestly, it was one of the most thrilling experiences that I'll never regret.