When I was a baby, my mom left me alone on a mattress in a house full of drug-users. Sometime later CPS had forced my parents to hand over custody to my grandma. This is where my Nana came in; she immediately attempted to adopt me and the judge told my Nana to convince my Nana to sign the parental rights to adopt. My Mom and Dad agreed and I spent the rest of my childhood with my Nana in an okay set of apartments. She was 58 when she adopted me and is still working at 73. I wanted to be like her, a hard worker who’s stubborn and never backs down. Due to living in a single-parent household, we weren’t the richest. Sometimes I envied other kids who were able to live so elegantly in a house with multiple dogs, but I was so grateful for the people in my family. I dreamed of having a house with 4 dogs and a kid, and promised myself to never stop working hard like my Nana, but work smarter to achieve that dream. Living in a single-parent house with low-income aspired me to attempt a dog-grooming business to work hard and for myself. My Uncle was dog-crazy. When I was 15 he had around 7 dogs in one house and I visited him a lot for football games. I never cared about the football though, you could always catch me around the dogs making sure every single one of them felt loved. This made me think I wanted to be a Veterinarian, working hard all around at school to make sure I had good enough grades for Vet school. However I faced a rude awakening in freshman year of high school. I did more research on the life of Vets and decided I couldn’t handle the deaths of dogs being on my hands and the countless hours they work. After some soul-searching I decided I really liked dog-grooming, but something about it was mundane to me. The financial ceiling I always had and the lack of control always bothered me. My Nana waking up at 3 am and getting back home at 2 pm made me angry. I didn't want my own time in somebody else's hands. I wanted control over my time and my hours, so I had an idea. I loved Starbucks, Eegees, Dutch Bros, and Scented Leaf. I thought that by integrating a cafe in the dog grooming store, I could soften the blow of waiting for your dog and going out somewhere else to eat and create a safe and stable community for pets and their families.

In 2016, an 8-year-old me rushed through the theater; I was ecstatic and practically shaking to watch this specific movie. It wasn't some normal blockbuster, it was my favorite giant lizard: Godzilla. Shin Godzilla was a 2016 Japanese kaiju film directed by Hideaki Anno; a Japanese animator and filmmaker. The movie depicted a horrifying monster, this iteration's Godzilla, rampaging throughout Japan while evolving too fast for its body to handle. It also demonstrated the Japanese government's response to the catastrophe; a series of many slow, agonizing meetings trying to find a way around red tape that contrasted with the desperation and panic of the citizens being attacked. Shin Godzilla had a major impact on my life by inspiring me to think and analyze media on a deeper level than most. However, this movie subverted everyone's expectations in one way: Godzilla barely had any screentime. Despite being a movie about a giant lizard attacking Japan, the movie was packed full of what some considered "mundane" scenes of government meetings. Most found the movie boring and tedious. Its general audience thought it had too many meetings and decided it really wasn't that good; I, on the other hand? I loved it. The film was less about the monster's devastation to Japan and more about the incompetence of the politicians as they conducted useless meetings while thousands were in panic. It was the perfect example of government inaction in film. Pampered men in suits taking such a long time to attempt and save the Japanese citizens who were in danger of being killed by a giant monster. It was the proper and best possible response to the tsunami that scarred Japan. A mockery and criticism of the system that didn’t protect them when the time came for it. To me, the movie was a literary masterpiece. Shin Godzilla was my introduction to dissecting themes and deeper meanings in media while also being my first actual introduction to such public government. Giving me a head start when it came to analyzing papers in school and also inspiring me to read more deep literature like Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. I was able to look past the surface themes and properly analyze the suffering of Godzilla and how the inaction of the government ultimately ended up costing many more lives than necessary. This would prove to be an invaluable skill to have later on in high school where I was expected to have a expanded understanding of media literacy and comprehension of themes.