My name is Vincent. I turn 20 this year, and despite having been out as transgender since December 2017, and having stuck with the same name since then, it is still not my legal name. I will be writing about some of my experiences as someone who is LGBT+. I didnt really acknowledge the LGBT+ community until I was in seventh grade- I mean, we had a family friend who was gay but I didn’t really process what it meant until a friend started talking about not being straight or cis. I think that may have struck a chord with my sibling as well because after that we both independently realized we might not be straight. When my sibling came out, they cried. Nobody cared. I waited, because honestly- I don't think that my sexuality is anyone’s business but mine. I wanted it to come out naturally, maybe bring a partner home and that be that. My mother had a different idea. One day, our mother sat me down in the living room and told me that I shouldn’t be copying my sibling. Not with my hobbies, or fashion, and especially in sexuality. Thus, they knew I “thought” I wasn’t straight. Flash forward to eighth grade, where I was coming to terms with having gender dysphoria. I hated how I look, how I sounded, how i walked- just about everything about me. I even stopped writing in cursive because I thought it looked too feminine. In hindsight, I should have realized I wasn't just genderfluid. I had just moved back to the States, I was in a new fancy school in California, and I didnt want to lose the friends I tried so hard to make- so I said I was genderfluid but that nothing had to change. I was already going by a shortened version of my name, and I felt like that should be enough to stop feeling this way. To stop feeling so uncomfortable with myself. But it wasn’t. I kept finding times to ask hypotheticals, just “joking”, asking things like: “Hey, what if when you’d met me, I had told you I was a guy?”. Nobody took me seriously, because I was trying not to be serious. I wanted to be content with where I was, but when I learned that I was moving again in the summer I thought, what if? What if in this new place, I go all the way? What if I just ease into it and see if this feels right? Between the end of eighth grade, and the beginning of my freshman year, I found my name. Originally It was supposed to be a joke, I stole it from someone I was friend with in California, but I realized pretty soon that I wouldn’t be changing it. Things were going pretty well, most of my teachers called me Vincent, and my friends all used male pronouns for me, I only had to deal with a few cases of people stealing my belongings or throwing my backpack away until my classmates got used to me. However, just before winter break that year, my brother-who is four years my senior-decided to get involved. He told our mother. When I got back from school that day, she had ransacked my room, grounded me, and she told me she was considering sending me away. I didn’t change a thing. It has now been about six years, and I live several states away, and she has called me my preferred name once, in a facebook post. However, she has never apologized. That’s my experience.

To me, generational wealth means having resources or assets for yourself and for those you wish to spend it on in the future, even and / or especially after your own passing. Traditionally I know that the "generational" in generational wealth is typically meaning for your children and grandchildren and so forth, but I feel like It could also be taken as something else, maybe you could leave your money- or other financial assets like property or investments to a specific cause to be used by them for generations after your death. If more people did something like this I feel like the world might be a little brighter. For example, If a couple decided not to have children, and they didn't have a family they wanted to leave their assets to, then maybe they could donate them to a fund for orphans or to the homeless shelter in their area. If enough people did it, then suddenly the so-called less fortunate would have a better hand, and so many different generations are affected by homelessness, joblessness, illness, etc. so I believe that it should be considered generational to donate your wealth to such causes. Personally, I'm in a relationship with someone I love, and I plan to foster and adopt with in the future, and It would be nice to have enough assets to be considered as having generational wealth. I think that in my life, having generational wealth would be having a nice piece of land and a job that I could use to provide for my family and my community where I can. To achieve this in the future I am determined to do my best in school, and seek out opportunities for me to succeed in my chosen field. There have been a few setbacks here and there, but I've been trying my best to do good in school and be more active in my community. I will be aiming to attend graduate school immediately after I finish my undergraduate programs and I am going to apply to as many scholarships and internships to make my dreams possible. None are too small or too large! The steps I am taking currently are: I am improving my studying habits. I am trying to be more social so that I don't have difficulty in the future connecting to people. I have two jobs so I can be financially responsible for myself and pay off my loans quicker. I hope you consider me for this scholarship, and that you consider what I've said about bringing a new meaning to generational wealth.

My best back-t-school tip would be to find friends in a similar major or concentration as yourself, or even someone you like to talk to in your more academically rigorous classes. This way you can bounce notes and have a regular study partner for tests for the subjects you want another perspective on. My instagram handle is @polyvirnl

I had a hard time choosing a favorite between Millais’s “Ophelia” and Leighton’s “Flaming June”- both of which I had been introduced to through coursework in the past- but ultimately I decided upon the interpretation of the so-called ‘heroine’ of Hamlet. The painting depicts the death of Ophelia, who had gone mad when Hamlet killed her father. In the Shakespearean play, Queen Gertrude described her death to the audience, telling them that Ophelia had been picking flowers and singing before she fell into the waters of the brook and drowned. I find this painting fascinating because the process it took to make was incredible. It is a Pre-Rapaehlites painting, an era where artists would often paint from modern life and literature using historical costumes. As such over the course of the painting the seasons changed, and Millais added flowers and plants that thrived at different times. His painting was so lifelike that even botany professors would bring their students to observe his painting and the subjects by visiting the place where he had done his work. There’s also an interesting tidbit about the model in the portrait, wherein the woman who posed as Ophelia fell sick due to the cold water, and her family pressured Millais to pay for the medical bills. The painting of Ophelia seems to walk through so many different walks of life through its base in literature, the story behind the model and artist interactions, and even the grounds he had been inspired by, and that's why I chose it.

I've stayed optimistic through tough times by thinking of what's to come, and considering how even sometimes if or when a person or an event becomes unhealthy for me, there's been something that I've gained from them. This could be a lesson in trust, or it could be something more literal, like meeting someone through a person or event. For example, I left the state I went to highschool with because a good friend encouraged me to apply to the same out-of-state college she had and we were accepted and became roommates for a small time. My relationship with her has since soured, but because of her encouragement to apply to that college, I've met someone who I wouldn't mind having by my side for the rest of my life. This experience has taught me to look for the silver lining in most if not all situations, and to let things and people go, because there are special people out there- I just haven't met them all yet.

When I was in my first year of college, I made ample use of the food pantry. That is where I could get the food I couldn't afford at the time, toothpaste, etc. Since then I've really appreciated the efforts the community takes for those less fortunate, such as the food pantry, thrift stores and public libraries. I do my part in the community to be a positive change by donating books, especially textbooks from past classes to the public library among other donations- even now I have a bag of clothes that I'm planning to donate to the thrift store I've visited in town. I also try to always have a smile for everyone and give compliments to people like candy, because maybe it'll be a bright spot in their day. Lastly I try to pick up after myself and others, If I see trash or recyclables I try to take care of them if I can.

We’re shouted at in schools and by the media about greenhouse gasses and climate change, but it’s not actually encouraged that we go out and learn more. Or even that we put into effect the measures we have been taught against being part of the damage to our environment. We’re asked to recycle in our communities, but then if we watch through our bedroom windows sometimes the garbage truck picks up trash and then recyclables one after the other. Or maybe an apartment building doesn’t even pretend, and there is no place set aside for recyclables anyway. Things like this can discourage us, especially when noticed at a young age. A child will internalize that there is only one place for it to go, so why think about it at all? But there are things we can do. When considering greenhouse gasses and the like, I don’t drive- I carpool, take the bus, ride a bike, or walk where I need to go. Some other things that I do include donating clothing or extra food and taking excess papers and food (like fruit skins) for compost or fertilizer for plants. I also use the glass jars that I get sauce or dips in for holding things like herbs and beads and other little miscellaneous items. Recycling doesn't have to mean organizing garbage after all.

Sometimes, no matter how close you feel to someone, you have to let them go. From a young age, I’ve had a hard time connecting to people- I’m a military brat, and my family moved around too much to let me form connections I may have in a stable home. My excuses for not keeping the people I had been friends with were mediocre- “we weren’t that close, we didn't know each other long enough, with all the moving we forgot to call and it’s too late.” So when we settled down and stayed for longer than two-three years, I finally made a connection with someone my age. It hadn't mattered that they met my “cooler” sibling first, or that I was socially awkward- They wanted to be MY friend. I eventually felt so close to this person, that I went as far as to call her my sister. Suffice to say, that I felt connected to her. We stuck together through thick and thin- through some potential stalkers and troubles with roommates (more than once) when the line was crossed. We had been planning to be roommates at a place with apartments for students that asked you paid a deposit and your full summer rent upfront. We paid our deposits at the same time, sat in on meetings, and toured, but the day before rent was due, I was notified that she left the state. Our names were on the lease, we were legally obligated to have paid our dues, and then I got the call. “Your roommate ___ has not paid her full rent-”. The office worker informed me that if it was not paid, we would both be summoned to court. But I was the only one there. So I paid. And I won’t forget.