The first time I broke 5:00 minutes in the mile was when I won a local race in 4:58.03. I was extremely excited, after being devastatingly close the year before in a 5:01. I remember that night, through everyone’s awe and congratulations, a little girl and her father came up to me. She asked me what I did to train. A million instances ran through my mind, but what came out of my mouth, was how I strength trained in my room every night after school alone. Overall, it’s been a long but rewarding journey having to learn how to separate controlling my mental and physical health with my performance as a cross country and track and field athlete. When I was a freshmen and sophomore, school and running stayed separate in my life, and I had less drawback from them. However, when I decided to enter the International Baccalaureate (IB) program during my junior year, it was a challenging adjustment. The program appealed to me because it would teach me how to think instead of what to think and how to ask deeper questions. I’m grateful I wasn’t afraid to reach for a higher education in fear I would falter in my sports. I knew I could handle both if I was able to learn better time management. At the time, there were two senior captain boys on the team in the IB program who still dedicated themselves to incredible practices and races. They inspired me and were there when I needed to ask questions about certain assignments they previously went through. Now, I’m the senior captain in IB who checks in with a junior IB girl on my team to make sure she’s able to successfully handle the work as I have. So far, she has worked her way up to become a well rounded athlete on the team. All of our efforts has led me to believe that practicing discipline in the classroom will likely lead to more confidence and discipline on the track. Moreover, I’m so proud to have been able to find something I enjoy and cherish each day. I always knew getting to a D1 college program was my dream, and I never doubted myself. The support I received from my parents was one of the biggest reasons I believed this. Even though my dad passed in the hospital in 2023 without ever being able to see me compete in high school, I still hope he’s able to watch me wherever is. As for my mom, I always share my gratitude with her on how she knows sports and how much her unconditional support has helped me reach my goals. I learned how lonely the recruitment process was in running. I was grateful to have a family friend as a mentor when things got confusing. One thing he told me was to pick up any calls from D2 or D3 which would not only help me practice for when the nerve-wracking D1’s called, but also keep my mind open to the different options. In the end, I still can’t believe I was able to sign with the University of Washington for the next four years. The coach and I were able to form a genuine connection through our conversations, and I’m grateful for the work I put in for my dreams. Getting through each practice every day in my sport hasn’t always been easy, as there will be good days and bad days. I’m glad I stuck through everything that happened, including a discouraging stress fracture injury last season. Sports are truly amazing.

The only reason I know what a true best friend is supposed to be like comes from the beautiful and unconditional relationship with my mom. There are times we laugh and joke, but these never last forever. Despite this, we both choose to hold unconditional love and support for each other in a house with my two brothers and my grandparents. I'm so grateful to have the most valuable relationship with my mom. Nothing could compare to the work she puts in to being the best person she could be with my family. Over the years, I've noticed how well she adapts and this is helpful with my brothers and I as we grow up and abruptly transform from kids to adults. I also appreciate how much work she puts into juggling all of our schedules on her plate. It's inspiring to me to see not only my mom able to pull this off, but with women doing it around the world. I have incredible respect for women who push on, despite the circumstances or limitations put upon us due to our gender. Underneath it all, there is true strength and resilience. My mom embodies these qualities in her every day life, and I can't think of a time I've ever seen her be vulnerable or even cry in front of me. When we lost our dad during my freshmen year of high school, I was still too young to be able to process something like that. Especially when we saw his physical body slowly decline for years, eventually in a hospital for two more years, before we finally said goodbye. I try not to think about it, but sometimes, I ask my mom how she deals with it in her own way. My mom always has a ready response, and it stuns me. I couldn't imagine if I had lost the love of my life, if I would ever know how to deal with it at all. Through her experience and maturity, she handles this beautifully. My mom knows how important my dreams are to me, and has never once discouraged me from pursuing the things I love and my passions. I love the wonderful opportunities that I've had in my life, and more so when I don't have the guilt to look back in fear of what my mom would say. When it came to my dream of running for a D1 college program, she never once said no. In fact, my dad, before he passed, also hoped that my brothers and I would achieve this goal. Now, I'm excited that I get to honor his wish after committing for sports. With my mom's blessing and support, I feel unstoppable when it comes to conquering the things I want to do and be in my life. I will never forget all of her contributions of working day in and day out for my family. I hope one day to repay her, no matter how much she might deny it, because she means more than I could explain. I'm trying my best to find ways to support her in my college financial journey, so she won't have to worry about it as much as I have been. Paying for college and my dreams has been something we've been struggling with. I hope to keep persevering with that unconditional commitment and love from my mom in her own hard work. Because she deserves to see everything she's done has payed off. She shouldn't have to brave being a single parent when I'm here waiting to support her too.

As I grew up, I didn’t realize that collegiate goals, especially in sports, had such a high price tag with them. Despite the warnings from family and friends, I kept reaching as high as I could to pursue my goal to become a D1 athlete at my dream school. I was the most excited I’ve ever been in my life when I was offered a spot to run cross country a track and field for the University of Washington. However, it’s become what feels like a defeating process, as my mom and I struggle to figure out the financial means to reach my dream. I try not to regret my decision, as my mom’s hard work to support my goals has encouraged and inspired me every day. Furthermore, with my late father’s dream for me and my brothers to reach D1 sports has been another factor that has encouraged me to honor his wish. Although, with our only income coming from my mom now, it has become infinitely harder to picture myself reaching my goal. I’ve been spending late nights recently looking for financial aid opportunities to make sure my mom won’t have to worry about taking care of me and my little brother, who also hopes to go to a D1 for basketball two years after me. My mom and I only recently realized that we made a huge mistake when filling out the FAFSA form. My SAI number went from 64000 to 3223, which was one of the biggest reliefs to us. However, Washington did not change the very limited amount of loans they had originally offered us. So far, we have appealed this, but I still worry about having the opportunity to go to my dream school. This process has shown me why there is a significant gap in education across our country, and why so many others aren’t able to achieve their dreams because they can’t afford them. However, within my religion and in my Sunday school, I’ve talked with my teacher about my worries to hopefully gain ideas on how to pray about the situation. So far, he has told me that being able to apply what I’ve learned in this process to help myself in future financial struggles and situations. To trust in my Faith and in God, as that is the true source, rather than a material source that only leads to greed. This has been proven true so far with my mom and I being notified to change our FAFSA answers because it didn’t seem correct. Overall, I’m grateful for the support my mom and I have been given on this journey to make my dreams come together. I hope that I will be able to use what I’ve been given to give back to others one day when the time is right. Especially to my mom, who constantly works hard for my brothers and I, and to show I can do so much more despite the physical limitations that seem to be stopping my goals in progress.

In middle school, I wrote to express feelings, as any kid journals their hidden thoughts. However, these feelings turned into creative stories, and the genre quickly became a new concept I learned from my friends: bisexuality and LGBTQ+ concepts. I discovered stories online with my newfound internet access to queer relationships. I compared the uncomfortable way I felt about heterosexual relationships with the satisfied way I felt about the new representation of what I quickly realized was my identity. Through research hidden from my parents because I was too afraid, I continued to explore websites like Webtoon comics, LGBTQ+ manga, or other media. My friends and I fauned over characters, and I began to blend my love for female characters along with what I thought was love for male characters. I contemplated the idea of making my own Webtoon story for people to read, as there are still many that have continued to influence my high school years. I vastly enjoy the beautiful art and storytelling that inspires my own homosexual romance books and representation on the platform. The opportunity of sharing representation for LGBTQ+ romance for kids like me is something I hope to participate in as I develop my creative writing skills in college. In high school, I have my English classes, but the concepts and skills we’ve learned are completely separate from what I want to achieve with creative writing skills. There were no classes for learning how to effectively tell stories, making me unsure about how I’ve progressed in my creative writing within high school. This writing uncertainty has blended with uncertainty about my own queer identity. Due to my first girl crush during freshman year, I came out to my mom over a casual meal of Panda Express, hoping my instincts were right to trust her. I told her I was bisexual… probably hoping to keep half of her sanity with the hope that I could still marry a man some day. One year later, I casually mentioned to her that I decided I only liked women, and that bisexuality wasn’t exactly the correct “term” for myself. To this day, I continue to be confused about what I “identity” as, concerned about the external pressure of needing to categorize myself and my queer identity. Moreover, I enjoy stories more about gay romance rather than lesbian romance. Even though I’ve never exactly understood why I have a preference, one hypothesis is I enjoy the healthy representation of men. As I see more thoughtful nuances and caring relationships that fictional men are allowed to freely display, I grow to appreciate the LGBTQ+ community to help break down the toxic masculinity stereotypes that men feel trapped within. As someone with two brothers, I’m aware of the pressures in society for certain binary gender stereotypes. I’ve noticed that men are unable to be vulnerable and cry, have the burden of planning the dates while their nerves are ignored, and other responsibilities. I acknowledge that men aren’t the complete victims, as some stereotypes have been pushed by men on themselves, but these gay romance stories show how men have the ability to become more vulnerable. Additionally, I try to include this representation in my own stories of gay romance. Overall, my writing has positively coexisted with how I have discovered and cultivated my LGBTQ+ identity in school and at home. I continue to address questions about my identity, but writing has aided in how I express my own feelings and through my original characters in stories that I hope to publish one day for others to be inspired by.