A small business that has really impacted me is Kiki’s Cosmetics. She is a teenager who focuses on making lip glosses. As her business has grown, she has added blush sticks and multiple body care products to her website. I love her business because it is built on GOOD VIBES. Whenever I watch one of her video shorts, she always sounds cheery and actually excited to launch what's new. She also listens to her customers' opinions. If they don’t like a scent or think a color is bad, she will fix it. When I look at mass production, rarely do they fix what people don’t like. Kiki values her customers and wants to give them a good shopping experience. I first started watching her during Covid. I always saw her glosses but never thought I would buy one. I was scared my parents would think it was a scam so didn’t bother asking them. Last summer, she released a Baja Blast lip gloss. I know it sounds gross, but that was when my school and church groups were going crazy for Taco Bell. I asked my parents, more like I begged my Mom, and they let me get it! When it came in the mail, it was actually a really good quality lip gloss. I realized that Kiki’s business was actually a legit thing. She had quality products, great customer service, and great marketing. I started to want to build my own lip gloss business. I told all my friends, did lots of research and bought supplies, and with lots of trial and error realized it was way harder than it looked. Now that I have started thinking about what I want to do when I go to college, I think I’ll pass on the lip gloss business idea and leave it to Kiki. However, I’ve always liked the way Kiki always made me stay to watch her videos. Looking back, I know those were different marketing techniques. I now want to pursue a marketing career. I want to use similar strategies that I grew up watching her do. A higher education will teach me more. I will learn how to think of my own strategies and learn how to make people interested in whatever I’m selling. Higher education leads to endless possibilities. Who knows, maybe one day Kiki will get so big that she’ll hire me to be in charge of the marketing team!

I love my cousin, but sometimes we can’t have real conversations. We were raised in different households with different beliefs. Whenever we start to talk about something serious, she gets very defensive and I get scared and shut down. I stop debating her and either agree, play dumb, or change the topic altogether. When I saw this scholarship, I thought my cousin would be the perfect person to interview because there is so much I can learn from talking to people with similar conversational traits as her. And she’s family so she can’t hate me forever. At first we couldn’t decide what to talk about. There is so much to talk about, but eventually we landed on what success looks like for us. I think that success is having a family and living comfortably financially. However, my cousin thinks that having a good career means being successful. I asked her more questions to understand why she thought that. She said that it can build her a strong base for the future. That makes sense to me, but wouldn’t the future part with a family be the successful part? I see having a career as a tool to get you what you want. She views it more as the first step of success that determines the rest. With that as her answer, I followed up asking what would happen if she, hypothetically, couldn’t achieve this career. Like if she dropped out of college or something. She answered by finding a new career to study. That makes sense to me, but got me thinking, she has more control over her future. Me on the other hand, I can try to find a partner and have kids, but there could be reasons preventing that when my cousin can just switch majors. Having a career is probably easier to achieve than building a whole family, but a family sticks together when a career can be changed. In a career you change jobs or move. It is not consistent. But with a family, the idea is to stay with them forever. You can depend on them to be there for you. Part of the reason I want a family is because I know I can always come back to the noisy house. But for my cousin, she said she would be fine not having kids and only being successful in her work field. I still can’t wrap my head around being satisfied with coming home to nothing. Talking to her made me realize that our views are so different because we were raised differently. I was raised constantly being with my family. Whether it was my brother’s game or a day on the lake. My family is so close. My cousin, however, said they are close but don’t spend as much time together. My cousin would have musical rehearsal and be gone all day and get back so late that everyone was going to bed. She already knows what it is like to come home to an empty house so it wouldn’t phase her like it would for me. I went into this conversation nervous to see if we would fight. But I took my time and listened to her answers instead of interrupting. I learned more about her and understand why she believes what she believes. Just because it’s different from mine does not mean she has a bad perspective. It is right to her and that is all that matters. I cannot control how people think.

This isn’t adding up. I used to hate math, but weirdly, I began loving it freshman year. Math is more than just solving equations. You learn how to problem solve, a lot. Math is hard, but there is nothing like the feeling when you are stuck on a long problem and finally find the answer. It could be something small like putting a negative sign somewhere, or adding something wrong. But once I find that problem, and can actually solve it, I feel so accomplished. And math is the most useful course we learn about in school. Maybe not all the way up to calculus, but the earlier levels are very important. I need to know how to pay my receipt by calculating tips and adding it to the bill. I also need to know how to use math to budget in the future. These are just a few reasons but there are so many more. Another reason I like math is because there is only one right answer. I walk into English class and the teacher tells us to analyze the quote, but everyone has a different answer. They are all right, but which one is THE right answer? Or, I will be on a test, analyzing a quote, and two answer choices both seem right but with different wording. How do I know which one is actually correct when they say the same thing but differently? It’s also frustrating when I need to find the figurative language in a quote. Sometimes it says there are two but which one is bigger. How am I supposed to know when they both are there? At least for math it is obvious which one is right. You cannot debate it. When I leave math class after a test and people ask how it went, I can genuinely tell them how I think I did. But for English, I walk out of the class hoping I just spelled everything right.

When people ask me what kind of impact I want to make on the world, I feel like my answer has to be something along the lines of cure world hunger or solve world peace. But that is not how I personally want to change the world. It would be nice if that did happen, but that’s not the goal I have for myself. I want to change the world from people’s hearts. I want people to find joy and to treat one another with love. I live by the phrase, “laughter is the best medicine.” Anytime I am sad, finding something funny or a nice comment always lifts my spirits. I make it my mission everyday to make someone laugh because you never know what people are going through. That simple smile could have been the thing encouraging them to keep pushing through. I want to continue this trait when I go to college. I am thinking about studying marketing. I have an idea of how I can incorporate my education with spreading kindness. I want to create a social media page that will work with whatever company I work with. The page can post behind the sense of work with my coworkers finding little ways to laugh, encouraging comments, etc. You never know when someone is scrolling, hating life, and could come across our page and see something that makes them want to get out of bed. I got inspiration for this concept because of my mom and the Bible. My mom has always told me to be nice to people. She has engraved the concept into my head. People prefer to be happy over sad so why be the reason someone is sad? As I have gotten older and stronger in my faith, God teaches that we should love one another. This means helping one another when they need it. It could be as simple as lifting them up when they are down. I got inspiration for how to help by watching different influencers online. I personally see them on YouTube, but I know they are on multiple platforms. I see so many of them helping people with insecurities. Telling them they are beautiful, not to let other things determine how they feel about themselves, etc. They have really helped me when I get in my head so I know they help other people too. I might not be able to end world war, but I can help influence people to be kind to each other. I believe if more people can be nice and find joy in life, it would solve a lot more problems.

Most people plan for the future; I just trust in it. The most important thing I have learned is to trust God. I didn’t always have this thought process. I grew up going to church until Covid hit when I was in fifth grade. In middle school we stopped going and I grew distant from God. Freshman year, I entered a private Christian school and started attending a youth group with my friends. That's when I learned I could lean on God. There are so many things in my life that I struggle with, but I learned I can trust God to help me. Even though I know I can trust him, I still struggle to sometimes. The most recent was when I went to my week-long church retreat. I was very stressed about being behind in cheer practice, work, and time to prepare for college prep. I knew the trip would be good for me, but how could I block out the noise? I was also scared to go because of friend group arrangements. I don’t always feel like I belong there and I bounce between friend groups. I went praying for peace with the busyness suffocating me and for new friendships. At camp, I quickly forgot about all the noise. God worked quicker than I expected. So my first prayer was answered; no noise. Once that happened, I was able to truly focus on my relationship with God. The only thing left from my earlier prayer was to talk to new people. I tried and really struggled. I felt like I was striking out left and right. I was close to giving up when I was walking alone and a girl came up to me calling my name. I recognized her from one of the girls I talked to during one of the camp games. We walked around and she invited me to sit with them at dinner. So I sat with a group of new friends and they were so nice. For camp events they talked to me, took pictures with me, got ready for theme nights with me, etc. It was so much fun and I felt like I belonged. Later that night, in my bed, I had the realization that God put them in my life. He answered the prayer for me to make new friends. Even though I secretly doubted it would happen, He made it happen. God showing His ways makes it reassuring for me to trust him. I gave him my worries and he eliminated them. He showed up for me in that moment, so why wouldn’t he show up in other moments. I went to camp knowing that I could trust him, but I left camp with the realization that I could actually trust him. Since my eyes were opened, the noise back home wasn’t as scary. Missing cheer practice was fine because I had videos to catch up. Missing work was fine because there were other qualified workers to help. Lastly, the fear of less time for college applications. God is going to put me wherever he wants me to be. I have real trust that he has a plan for me, and that it will be the best thing for me. I feel like I am not alone in my walk with life. Having trust has given me peace which is so much better than I thought and I am forever grateful to have Him looking out for me.

Sports are more than games. They build people up. I play lacrosse and cheer. I first started playing lacrosse when I was in sixth grade. I joined simply because my friend played and simply why not. But I didn’t realize that it would get me through some really tough times. I used to get bullied a lot in middle school because I was very short. But after school, I would go to lacrosse practice and let myself breathe. I would see people that made me feel like I mattered. I grew close to some coaches and teammates. Some old teammates I get to play against for our high school teams. But that wasn’t the only good thing about lacrosse; I was shocked that it is so physical. I would have a rough day at school, go to practice and take out my aggression on the field. Whenever I was mad about a comment made to me earlier in the day, I would grit my teeth and run or play some really hard defense, using the anger to drive me forward. Lacrosse not only helped me while I was on the field, but also off. I grew closer to my brother because I had more ways to relate to him. Some days we would pass a ball in the backyard while we complained about random stuff. It also gave me confidence inside of school. Knowing that in the back of my mind I was doing a really hard sport as a small, petite, girl made me feel so tough, like I could handle anything. I’d show up with bruises on my arms and classmates would look at me like I wasn’t a weakling. I was able to walk around proud of myself when earlier I was ashamed of what I looked like When I started high school, I decided to add cheerleading to my sport list. My experience with cheerleading was completely different from the one to lacrosse. I joined because I liked being on stage and wasn’t doing musicals anymore. But the environment was way different because my teammates would put me down. They made me feel insecure for picking up choreography slower than them and that my ability to stunt wasn’t good. But when I was on the sideline, I had so much fun smiling and making the student section cheer on the football team. I had so much fun that I wanted to constantly get better. I wanted to look good in front of the school, not because of a few mean girls, but for myself. I learned discipline by practicing the cheers over and over. It felt so good seeing hard work pay off and gave me pride. Later in the season, my coach talked about volunteering opportunities. We got to teach little girls to cheer. I signed up immediately. I love kids and I love cheer so it was perfect. I’d stay after school and teach them cheers, dances, and stunts. I saw a lot of myself in them. I saw the struggle, the self-doubt, the comparison, and the determination. I had to be patient with them and encourage them to keep trying, even when it was hard. I taught them everything I knew and I got to watch them grow and it felt amazing sharing that joy. I made it as fun as possible because it could be the thing making their days or giving them confidence like lacrosse did for me. I started volunteering for service hours, but switched to wanting to make cheer a positive impact on their lives.

Tiny But Mighty By: Ashleigh Tate Please please please give me more Sabrina Carpenter! I became a fan of Sabrina Carpenter whenever she released the song “Thumbs.” It was in her earlier music career. Then I slowly drifted back into country music. I rediscovered her when she released “Please please please” and “Expresso” and was hooked again. My feed slowly became clips of her performing her concerts. The one thing that surprised me the most about her was how short she is. That fact alone made me even more of a fan because I am the same height as her. Growing up, I felt like no one else was short. For most of my life, people have always been much taller than me. I’m talking ranges from five inches to a foot taller. That fact made me feel alone and like something was wrong with me. I had no confidence in myself at all. But watching Sabrina embarrass her height was, and is, so encouraging to me. She wears the cutest and biggest platforms. She has made her shoes a signature in who she is. I watch Youtube shorts about her fans trying to wear the same shoes and outfits wanting to be more like her. It is inspiring that she was able to turn her height, something so unexpected, into a fan's necessity concert accessory. She didn’t let her height be the reason she wouldn’t succeed. Instead she used it. Literally in the song Taste when the lyric is “Oh, I leave quite an impression, five feet to be exact.” She was able to build a community with thousands of fans. She worked hard and showed me that just because you are small, you can be mighty. The other thing that I admire about her is her confidence. She goes on stage and she owns it. She looks confident to wear tight and short outfits, confident to perform at Coachella, and confident enough to not let the haters get to her. When I was younger, I would shut down when people made a comment about my height. But she has shown me that it doesn’t matter what they say. She still goes out there even when people make a comment about her. It might not be about her height, but she still keeps moving. I have loved watching her become an absolute star since the songs I mentioned earlier blew up. I can’t wait to see what comes from her in the future.