My dream life is what I have looked forward to for years and years. It's nothing fancy, instead it's a quite small dream that I can not wait for. Since 5th grade, I dreamed of being an elementary age special education teacher. As I have applied finishing college applications, I have come to realize that it's truly an under appreciated, underrated career choice. It's been truly eye-opening to desire the opportunity to learn how children think, specifically special needs children. Being the oldest child, even as a young kid, I have learned to love the time I spend with any younger child, It is really such a blessing to see children do what they love, no matter what it is. As I have gotten older, I have learned to understand what I love and do it. Whether it's swimming or hanging out with friends, realizing what someone loves makes life much more enjoyable.

To be completely honest, I don't feel that I have struggled a ton. A lot of my struggles have been mental and spiritual rather than physical. In the winter of 2016, I attended church camp not expecting much to happen. The days went on and it was already the last day. This is when I started to realize how much I was struggling. As my relationship with God is extremely important to me, I struggled to keep my focuses in line and maintaining a physical well-being. This has not been just a religious thing but a true relationship with God and learning about who I truly am. Although this might sound like a purely religious difficult situation, I truly believe that this experience has shaped me into who I am. I have learned to be self-aware which can help in being more compassionate, kind, and intentional which has truly made me a better version of myself.

I have a love hate relationship with swim. I started competitively swimming at 8 years old. As a competitive swimmer, I am used to swimming year round, 5AM practices, and so many other interesting experiences I wouldn't have if my parents didn't sign me up for swim. Although I didn't choose to start swimming, I wouldn't change it for the world. Swimming has not only improved my physical activities in a challenging way, more importantly, I have grown mentally in unimaginable ways. There have been so many times I felt like I was done with life. I felt like I didn't know who I was. I struggled with comparing myself to others. As a swimmer, I have grown to see that being on a swim team is not only a team sport but, in a way, it is also an individual sport. Everyone swimming in their own lane, only focused on beating their previous time. Overall, swim has not only been an entertaining passion but I have grown immensely in a physical way and more importantly mentally.

I know many high school students don’t necessarily enjoy high school, however, I would say that it’s been my favorite years of school so far. I strongly believe that whatever it is that you’re doing, it’s going to be what you make of it. For example, I enjoyed high school because I got to be involved in so many fun things like Yearbook and Swim. This is how I look at things. Now someone could think about high school and say I have so much homework and everything is so hard and on and on and on. In this situation, perspective is really everything. I can not wait for higher education, most likely college to pursue either elementary education or special education. I am passionate about so many things but a few of my biggest passions are teaching children and art. One of the ways my passion of teaching children has come to life is volunteering at church camps. During this one week camp every summer, I have learned how to teach kids in a fun way so that they can focus and understand, have fun with them, and grow in my faith which is also extremely important to me as well. Overall, I have been volunteering at this camp for around 7 years now and it's been one of the best experiences and something that I look forward to every summer. This truly wasn't just a way to get community service hours although it did help, these church camps in the summer truly changed the way I look at teaching children and how they learn which is such a valuable thing I learned which ultimately led to the passion of children and elementary age education. Now my passion for art is not as easily explained as education. Art has been a part of life for as long as I can remember. Starting with just drawing with markers on paper, art has always been something that occupies my free time. In March of 2020, right at the start of quarantine, where I live, I got an iPad as a present, and started an Instagram account where I post my digital art and lettering all done on my iPad with my Apple Pencil. This passion had also resulted in growing in my Christian faith. Although my college dreams are to pursue an education major and possibly minor in psychology, I truly believe that if whatever reason, that doesn't work out, I have many other passions that I could possibly pursue as a future career. Overall, my passions of teaching, art, and so many more result in having endless opportunities and career options to pursue in order to live my life enjoying what I'm doing and possibly having side jobs in addition to my dream job of either an elementary education or special education.