may: sidelined, but still showing up

chelly's May '25 newsletter: becoming a cripple, SSD update, some lil life lessons...

hellooooo!
fun fact: this is our 20th consecutive monthly newsletter. 🎉
wowww, to think how much has changed from that first cringe post to now this, slightly less cringey post.

crazy. and this is just the start of the journey.
tbh, I don’t have a long-term vision for this newsletter, but how crazy would it be if it’s still going in 20 years and I’m posting abt my kids 😭

let’s just continue taking it one month at a time- here’s the recap for May.

How beautiful are the rosy footsteps of May !
- Eliza Cook's Journal, 1850

this is the pic of the month because this lil guy, Paddington, is just adorable

tl/dr;

• becoming a temporary cripple 🩼 and what that is teaching me

• update on SSD and talking to industry pros

• lil life lessons:
  - focus less on what your life looks like and more on what it looks like
  - let your decisions reflect your hopes and not your fears 🌟
  - macarons are no joke

• revision of May goals + June goals 📅

becoming a temporary cripple🩼

so random plot twist of 2025… I’m on crutches now? 🤷‍♀️

It’s kind of sad how boring the backstory is: In a hockey game I was running (sprinting in fact 🏃‍♀️- picture Usain Bolt typa of stuff), I attempted to change direction, and then my knee copped out. 😋

me being a very expressive person I instantly dropped to the floor.
tsunami of tears later, and a whole lot of embarrassment here we are now hobbling about like a cripple.

At least we can make funny tiktoks about it.

I’ve never had to use upper body strength before💪 - and have very quickly learnt that I don’t have any lol.
Some days, my arms are in so much pain, I’d rather just walk on my knee.

To give a glimpse as to why crutches at school is infinite ∞ negative aura:
Falling down the stairs, bashing into people 💥, constantly dropping stuff, being late to class ⏰, having to ask grade 8s to carry your stuff everywhere.

my ap maths class made this

However, the physical pain is NOTHING compared to the emotional anguish of being sidelined during my final hockey season 🏑; sitting on the bench, watching my team take the field without me.

Watching them lose and not being able to battle it out with them. Watching them win, and not being able to share in that triumph.
The team talks, the hilarious practices, the electric rush⚡️of running onto the field with the roar of the whole school behind us - those moments are priceless.

I’ve poured 12 years into this sport. And now, just as I’ve hit my peak 📈, it feels like I’ve been taken out of the game.

And I know I should be grateful that I got to play in the first place.
That I have something to be so upset about losing.

but honestly it just sucks. 💔

what i’ve learnt about suffering is it’s always going to suck; the sting of that rejection, the grief of that loss, the weight of that disappointment.
It’s undoubtedly unfair.

suffering doesn’t discriminate, yet it seems so unjust.

again and again.

undoubtedly it rears its nasty head when least expected.

the natural reaction is to shake your fists - why God why?
why me? why now? don’t you love me?

I’ve heard a lot of people say ‘God is good all the time’, and sometimes that sentiment feels naive to me. Really, all the time? Even in this?

But this is what I’ve learnt-
God is far less concerned about my hockey season than He is with my character, the state of my heart, and my relationship with Him.

God doesn’t change us with a magic wand 🪄, He changes us through circumstances.

He grants patience by placing us in situations that demand it. He teaches us to rely on Him by bringing us to the end of ourselves.
In this, He taught me gratitude by taking away what I loved, so I could truly see what I had been blessed with.

Even in suffering, nothing is lost when relationship with God is gained.

And even though it sucks. As in really, really sucks. I get to glorify God through this.

---

The immense suffering we see in this world causes a lot of people to doubt God’s existence (me included!).
Suffering far greater than just some high-schoolers’ sports injury.
The starvation of widows, the exploitation of children, the vulnerable abandoned.

How could a truly all-powerful, loving God allow this?

And I honestly don’t know.

But in Isaiah, we get this description of Jesus:

He was despised and rejected-
a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief.
Isaiah 53:3

I don’t know why God chose suffering as his mechanism to refine people. But I know He has experienced the severity of it Himself.
There is no feeling of anguish that He is not well acquainted with.

He is a God whom not only meets us in our suffering, but comes close to it and knows it intimately. ❤️‍🩹

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.

- Isaiah 43:2 -

Update on Student Service Diary 💚

This month had some steady progress for Student Service Diary (a web-app I built).

Got the proof-of-concept and validation needed to make sure that the platform built was secure and POPIA-compliant. ✅

I also met with some IT specialists from my school. Super chill guys with a lot of vision and enthusiasm for how I could take this even further.

Our first meeting had a bit of a hiccup - my backend had unknowingly gone down, right as I was trying to do a live demo.
What could’ve been an absolute flop turned into a lesson in owning it: I apologised, fixed the error that afternoon, and emailed them a working version.

Here’s the thing: something similar has definitely happened to each of them before. Confidently demo-ing something you built - and then it just doesn’t work. 😭
If you’re humble enough to admit the mistake, they’ll usually give you the grace they wish they’d gotten in that moment.

What I’ve learnt when engaging with industry professionals as a high-schooler.

• Be on time & prepared.

• be super intellectually honest with how little you know

• laugh at their jokes (this one is very important) 😅

I’ve put together a full technical & logistical proposal for how this will be piloted at my school. It’s currently waiting for approval, but we’re moving forward on schedule.

lil life lessons from may-

These are three thoughts that have plagued me and that I think are worth sharing.

1. focus less on what your life looks like and more on what it feels like.

am I living for the definition of success that has been placed on me by others?
how does one break free of this?
how do you truly define success for yourself?

I had a call with one of the coolest people, Rachel Lee, a canadian tks alumni, current gap-year student in Uganda, who is just radiant. ☀️
The type of person who leaves you feeling so full after just one conversation.

She and I had a long chat about shaking off some mindsets we learnt in tks that don’t serve us in building the lives we want.
Something that struck me about her is how comfortable she was with where she was in life.

No one’s disapproval could shake her. That authenticity is so attractive, that realness so rare. Not caring how you measure up to others’ standards.

2. let your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears 🌟

   ^my very wise sister said this to me.

What horrifies me most is the idea of being useless: well educated, brilliantly promising, and fading out into an indifferent middle age.
- Sylvia Plath

Just going to leave this one here, I feel like it speaks volumes by itself. 🗣️

3. The macaron mission

(this is just a fun story I wanted to include lol)

My best friend and I decided to bake macarons. No skills, just pure delusion.

I actually think I’m a pretty good baker and chef - I love cooking. 👩‍🍳

So instead of pancakes, we googled the hardest dessert and decided to send it.

Four hours later, we ended up with these burnt-looking cookies instead of green French macarons. 😭

Honestly, it was a humbling reminder that sometimes enthusiasm alone doesn’t cut it - and that’s totally fine. You’ve got to respect the craft before you master it. ✨

#attempt2comingSoon

revision of May goals + June goals

Looking back at May 👀

• Goal: ace my AP physics exam (85% +)
  Outcome: we clutched a solid 86% 🤓

• Goal: break my phone addiction
  Outcome: yeah, this didn’t happen. i fear it may have just gotten worse lol.
  I want to have authority over this.
  so made a deal with myself 🤝. If I go on Instagram once this month, I have to delete my account, no exceptions ❌

• Goal: Run on 14/31 days
  Outcome: injury messed this up, but we were on track. Ran 12/31 days.

Looking ahead to June 🤩

• get the technical & logistical approval for SSD

• commit to a uni/path for next year

• actually break this insta addiction

“And then one fairy night,
May became June.”
F. Scott Fitzegerald

🔗let’s connect

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/l-chelle-bester-683463294/

Email: lchelle.best@gmail.com

I’d love to hear your thoughts - leave a comment :)