About
River An



Peddie School 27’


As a singer, actress, writer, and visual artist, 
Musical Theatre
Vocal Performance  
- Performer

SEPTEMBER 2023 – PRESENT

  • Lead roles: Fiona (Shrek) and Gloria Thorpe (Damn Yankees) in school production

  • Chapel and memorial soloist; core member of Peddie Singers (10th, 11th) and Treblemakers (9th) with repertoire in jazz and musical theatre.

  • Lead vocalist for Blair Day band (2024, 2025), performing before the full school community.

  • Upcoming (Feb 2026): Ensemble member in Peddie’s winter musical Mamma Mia, expanding musical theatre experience.
Peddie Student DEI 
Leadership Council 
- SDEI Leader

MAY 2025 – MAY 2027

  • Liaison between DEI office and students; collaborate with affinity groups; lead community workshops.

  • Focus: moving from awareness to respectful dialogue; amplifying underheard voices.

  • Core skill: listening and facilitating to reach compassionate solutions; carrying this work into college leadership and academics.

Visual Storytelling 
Amphion 
Literary Art Magazine 
- Artist and Editor

SEPTEMBER 2023 – PRESENT

  • Independent study in visual art; Scholastic submissions recognized (Silver Key).

  • Amphion 2024 cover artist, layout editor; curating work and mentor contributors.

  • Plan to lead Amphion and apply visual/narrative strategies to independent work and critique in college.

Peddie Arts Citizenship Committee
– Theater Representative

 2024 – Present
  • Represent the theatre community in school-wide arts planning, advocating for student perspectives in arts programming.

  • Connect theatre with civic dialogue by framing performance as a space for empathy, identity, and social responsibility.

  • Collaborate with faculty and student leaders to promote inclusive, accessible, and community-centered arts initiatives.
Peddie Creative Writing 
Signature Program 
- Participant

SEPTEMBER 2025 – MAY 2027

  • Selected for a two-year, discussion-driven signature program focused on sustained study of literary works across historical periods and the production of original creative writing.

  • Create and revise original poetry, genre fiction, and graphic narrative through regular workshop critique with peers and faculty..

  • Junior-summer in-person program (2026); final portfolio and public capstone reading.

Law & Psychology Research on Juvenile Vulnerability 
– Researcher

JULY 2025 – NOVEMBER 2025

  • Completed original research study (N=307) examining adolescent comprehension of Miranda rights and linguistic vulnerability in the justice system under mentorship of a clinical psychologist.

  • Conducted statistical analysis on age, confidence, and familiarity effects; manuscript submitted to The Whitman Journal of Psychology and National High School Journal of Science.

  • Presented findings at NJ Student Ethics Conference (November 2025): "Why Do Miranda Rights Fail to Protect Young People?"
Columbia University High School Law Institute (HSLI)
– Student Scholar

Fall 2025 – Spring 2026

  • Selected for a competitive law program at Columbia Law School to deepen practice-based understanding of juvenile justice.

  • Participate in weekly case-based seminars on criminal procedure and constitutional law led by Columbia Law students.

  • Connect independent research on juvenile vulnerability to real-world legal decision-making through lectures and case discussions.
Hartley's Legacy at Princeton CIEL Senior Center 
– Founder & Volunteer
Spring 2025 – Present

  • Founded intergenerational music project collecting seniors' most meaningful songs and life stories through performance, conversation, and collaborative singing.

  • Shifted from performer to listener and documentarian; archiving elders' memories through interviews, illustrations, and voice recordings.

  • Developing sustained community service initiative in coordination with Peddie School's DEI programs to amplify underheard voices.
Peddie Varsity 
Girls Golf - Athlete

SEPTEMBER 2023 – PRESENT

  • Varsity team member; MAPL team champion (2025).

  • Built resilience, patience, and team mindset; value humor and cohesion alongside technical skill.


PRESENTATIONS & PUBLIC SCHOLARSHIP

November 22, 2025
  • New Jersey Student Ethics Conference (NJSEC 2025) - Presenter

  • Selected as school representative to present original research: “Why Do Miranda Rights Fail to Protect Young People?”

  • Delivered analysis on false confessions, linguistic barriers, and legal reform proposals.
Honors

  • Peddie Declamation Contest – Second Place(2026), Honorable Mention(2024, 2025)

  • Scholastic Art & Writing Awards - Silver Key (2024, Painting), Honorable Mention (2025, Painting, Mixed Media)

  • Amphion Literary & Art Magazine – Selected Cover Artist (2024)

  • Peddie Talent Show – 2nd Place (2024, Vocal Performance)

  • MAPL Golf Championship – 1st Place Team (2025)

Languages

  • Korean (mother tongue, native fluency)

  • English (second language, native fluency)






Writing

Poetry | Fiction | Essays | Research

2026 Scholastic Art & Writing
Gold Key

All of the Above
When your mother AND your father taught you how to use your knuckles
  1. to cook rice,
  2. to count the amount of days in a month,
  3. to fracture someone’s bones,


you had yet to learn neither their Eastern magic nor how
  1. rice absorbed water one-to-one regardless of the average adult-sized first phalanx.
  2. calendars could be Julian or Gregorian, very un-Eastern, and that it worked even if February is a little special.
  3. you should never punch with your thumb tucked in.


You were supposed to be a big girl, but you couldn’t help but cry, because
  1. all three times the rice came out wrong, so you tried to destroy the evidence, but the wrinkled flesh of your index finger pointed right back at you, 
  2. you had to count your index finger twice to account for both July and August. There were too many months, too many months until you could mother yourself,
  3. your hand throbbed, long before Philosophy 101 would teach you how to put a name to your pain, and your pride must have stung more than your palm.


Maybe your tears blurred your vision, or your memory fails you, but you think their eyes
  1. went to you before the crime scene beneath your mother’s feet, and neither of you knew where you went wrong, but she pardoned you anyway, humoring your self-incrimination. She never stopped pardoning herself, which is to say she never stopped turning herself in, and you wonder who she surrendered to without a mother of her own.
  2. crinkled as your mother peeled your fists open and smiled a little smugly like she understood time as an equation instead of a device of fate, like she folded laundry and caught up to her second-favorite soap drama before she changed your life every day and week and month and knuckle at a time.
  3. softened when you ran to your father’s side, and he held you very close like brass knuckles tight against your fingers, like a ribcage heavy on your heart,


but you rub your hands together on a brittle winter day and remember
  1. the warmth of your mother’s palm.
  2. the press of her thumb counting the months for you.

Director's Cut
In some photo I am a hundred days old.
Stuck between stacked rice cakes and a gold ring,
there I am. 백일잔치, they call it, my first debut,
already performing for the camera
        though no one asked if I wanted the part.
I’m sure the camera flashed, but in that white
blindness, I should have stayed
in the delivery room
               or my country
or my mother's hold.

But I will spend every debut,
every staged smile,
chasing the sun
which is to say the camera
which is to say the audience
to look my way just once.

But what does an audience want from a body
that flies too close to it?
I wish I were Icarus
because his dogma is more American than I
will ever be
but he wished too, before he fell,
and pipe dreamers pay more than they dream
               but maybe I can keep running
and just maybe, tripping over steaming asphalt
I'll get closer to the sun
inside, burning my gut.

Pebbles
When I was young, sometimes,
I would pick up pretty pebbles at the beach.
I don't remember who I was with,
but the feeling remains here, still,
making my hands ache.

The sunlight lay low across the horizon,
and my small fern-like hands,
wet with seawater,
were cold and hot at once.

The pebbles were small and round,
no edges, so they didn't hurt
even when I squeezed them tight.

That's why, I think, I held that stone
for quite some time, turning it over
and over in my palm.

My hand remembers.
As if my heart had nested in my palm.
It remembers what it held,
what temperatures it passed through.

Maybe those pebbles still exist
Somewhere,
slowly worn smooth by currents and sunlight.
I send my regards
to all those places I left behind,
to all the pockets that once held my hands,
to the small, round, warm pebbles:
Hello? How are you… or so.

Things That Come
비가 온다.
In Korean, rain comes.
Rain is a visitor,
knocking at your door.

In English, it rains.
Rain is an event
that happens.
I am the one watching,
standing apart
from what falls.

잠이 온다.
In Korean, sleep comes.
Sleep arrives like a guest
I've been waiting for.
I never fall.
I am found.

In English, I fall asleep.
I am the one falling,
gravity pulling me down
into unconsciousness.

슬픔이, 기쁨이, 불안이 온다.
Sadness, joy, anxiety come.
In Korean, feelings accompany me.
They visit and leave
and I am the receptacle
they pass through.

In English, I possess my feelings.
I have anxiety.
I have joy.
I have grief.

화가 난다.
In Korean, anger happens to me.
I am not the source.
I am the receptacle
where anger occurs.

In English, I am angry.
I am the subject.
Anger is a thing I contain.

마음이 생기다.
In Korean, my heart-mind arises.
생각이 나다.
A thought appears.

I don't possess them.
They come to me
like rain,
like sleep,
like spring after a long winter.

In English, I make decisions.
I am in control.
I choose, I want, I will.

My therapist asks:
What are you feeling?

In English, I say:
I am anxious.
In Korean, I would say:
불안이 나를 찾아 온다.

Anxiety comes
and finds me,
not when I summon it,
but when my body remembers
what my mind forgot.
It will leave
when it's ready.

And somewhere between 온다 and "comes,"
between possessing and being possessed,
I exist:
untranslatable,
bilingual,
made and unmade
by the languages
making me happen.

© RIVER AN 2025