Characters from the movie Steel Magnolias: Ouiser, Drum, Truvy, Clairee I did this grouping because the four characters listed, Ouiser Boudreaux, Drum Eatenton, Truvy Jones, and Clairee Dukakis are my favorite characters in the movie Steel Magnolias, which is, in my opinion, the best movie ever made. Cryptids: Mothman, Lizardman, Bigfoot, Chupacabra I did this grouping because I have a deep interest in the oddities and unknowns of the world, which has led me to have a deep love for cryptids, which are unknown creatures from folklore, who may or may not exist. Ninety’s WWE superstars: Undertaker, Mankind, Chyna, Sting I did this grouping because I am a huge WWE fan. I grew up watching WWE with my dad and he would show me old wrestling matches from the ninety’s, which is why I specifically chose ninety’s WWE superstars because it is one of my favorite eras of WWE. Rock bands: Metallica, Nirvana, Ramones, Kiss I did this grouping because rock is my favorite genre of music. My love for rock music started at a young age because of my dad, who also loves rock music. We would listen to rock songs together in the car and play a game where we would quiz each other on the bands and song names.

My favorite book-to-film adaptation is The Walking Dead, and it is special to me because it brought my older brother and I closer together. My brother is twelve years older than me, which means we did not have a lot of similar interests growing up. However, he was still my hero, so I would always find ways to hang out with him. One thing we always did together was watch TV when he got off work. Most of the time we ended up watching The Walking Dead because it was his favorite show at the time. At first the show was too scary for me to watch, but my brother would tell me about the actors and the things that went on behind the scenes, which would help me to become less afraid. The show would end up being the first interest my brother and I would share, making us become closer. It also became a sort of comfort show after my brother moved away. Anytime I miss him, I would watch our favorite episodes of The Walking Dead to make me feel better. It was this connection with my brother that made The Walking Dead become so special for me. I did not know about The Walking Dead graphic novels when I first started watching the show, but when I learned about them I immediately got them to see if they were as good as the TV show. While I was reading the graphic novels, I realized the TV show took a completely different path than the books, but that did not make me dislike either form of media. Instead, it gave me a new application for the TV show, because it illustrates what I believe all film adaptions of books should do, and that is adding to the original material without changing the core aspects of the story. The TV show takes a lot of creative liberties with the characters and story lines that I feel keeps the show interesting. One example of this is my favorite character in the show, Daryl Dixion. He is never introduced in the graphic novels and was only supposed to be a short-term addition to the show. However, his actor, Norman Reedus, made the character so enjoyable that the fans and writers did not want to see him go. The show also does an excellent job of expanding preexisting characters. This can be seen with the character of Carol, who in the graphic novels dies early on and does not have any real importance to the plot of the story, but on the TV show, she is one of the longest lasting characters and her storylines integral to the plot. One would think that adding characters and changing pre-existing storylines would make the film adaption unrecognizable from the original books, but this does not happen with The Walking Dead. Instead both mediums keep the core theme of human perseverance in the face of great odds, but find diverse ways to exhibit this theme. This is something I think more book-to-film adaptations should do so that new storytellers can find ways to expand upon the ideas of narratives that they love.

Mental health impacted my academic performance and personal life by shutting me off from the world. It can be hard to learn and interact with others when you are drowning in your own thoughts. I experienced this firsthand when Covid hit. I was transitioning from middle school to high school at the time, so with the addition of a global pandemic, it is easy to say that the beginning of my high school career was difficult. Freshman year took place at home on my computer without my friends, teachers, or other students. I was alone dealing with this life altering event trying to get an education, while watching the world be put on pause. It was difficult to stay focused on my academics when my mind was filled with all the terrible things I saw on the news, and this caused my grades to decline. It was also hard to stay connected with my friends because of my mental health. That was until my friends reached out to me and allowed me to open up about what I was feeling, which helped me to get all of these awful things out of my head. It was by clearing my mind and improving my mental health that I was able to put my grades back up and strengthen my personal relationships. After experiencing this decline in my mental health, I wanted to take steps that would ensure that my mental health was a priority. One step that I take to better my mental health is having open conversations with those in my life. I find it important to engage with those around me by having these deep conversations that way I can ensure not only that my mental health is doing well, but those around me are doing well too. I also find these conversations important because they allow me to normalize talking to others about mental health issues, which in turn can destigmatize mental health for those in my life. Another step that I take to prioritize mental health is by creating a supportive environment. I find this to be especially important because the environment that you are apart of can greatly affect your mental health in both positive and negative ways. However, by ensuring that there is a supportive environment, you are able to help others feel safe and supported. The last step that I take to prioritize mental health is staying connected to those I care about. It can be so easy now-a-days to get distracted and not interact with those around you. However, I find socialization to be an important part of life that can make my day just that little bit better.

Mental health is important to me as a student because the immense impact that it has on a person's life can be most easily observed through one’s academics. This is because it can be exceedingly hard to learn when there is so much going on in your mind. I experienced this firsthand when Covid hit. I was transitioning from middle school to high school at the time, so with the addition of a global pandemic, it is easy to say that the beginning of my high school career was difficult. Freshman year took place at home on my computer without my friends, teachers, or other students. I was alone dealing with this life altering event trying to get an education, while watching the world be put on pause. It was difficult to stay focused on my academics when my mind was filled with all the terrible things I saw on the news, and this caused my grades to decline. That was until I started talking to people about what I was feeling and was able to get all of these awful things out of my head. It was by clearing my mind and improving my mental health that I was able to put my grades back up to how they were before the pandemic. After experiencing this decline in my mental health, I wanted to find ways to advocate for mental health in my community. One way that I found was to have open conversations with those in my life. It was by encouraging people to have these conversations that I was able to normalize talking to others about mental health issues, which in turn destigmatized mental health for those in my life. Another way that I found to advocate for mental health is by creating a supportive environment. This is an important part of advocating for mental health because in order to help someone with their mental health, you have to make sure they feel safe and supported. The final thing which helped advocate for mental health was increasing awareness in my community. My high school started doing an event called mental health awareness week where the school would send out emails talking about tips on how to help yourself and others with their mental health and would give resources to allow people to further improve their mental health. All of these ideas are effective ways to advocate for mental health individual, but by using them together, they can help the expand mental health awareness and allow people to better understand themselves and what they are feeling, which can only benefit people’s mental health.