My first American Sign Language class was my second year attending Lake Tahoe Community College. I was previously a psychology major and needed to take the class to meet the requirements for my degree, and ASL is a language I have always wanted to learn. Within the first week of working with my teacher and the tutor, I immediately fell in love with the language - the way that, even though it does consist of English words, it is not English; how performative one gets when telling a joke or a story; how specific each of the signs is to make sure you're saying exactly what you need to say; and just the beauty of watching one express themselves with such a visual language. I only received four months of lessons before encountering my first real-life scenario. I had previously shown my coworker the sign for "snowboard", as we were working in a snowboard rental shop. A week later, that same coworker pointed a customer in my direction and let them know I knew ASL. With the little knowledge and skill that I had, I was able to get them the properly fitted boots and send them on their way. During the rest of my time working at this ski resort, I encountered twelve more customers who used ASL, helping them as little or as much as I could. One day, as I was at the register, my coworkers from the boots department called me over to assist some Deaf customers. I took over the contract and helped them to the best of my ability, apologizing as I went along for my broken sign language, and they did the same for their spoken English. After I finished getting their snowboards set up and explained to them when to bring back their equipment and what to do with their contract, one of the women in the group took my hand and thanked me for my help. I apologized again and told them I was still learning, only for her to stop me and say "Don't be sorry, you've completely made our day for knowing what you do. Keep practicing." It was this interaction that solidified my decision to get into the American Sign Language profession and work on getting my certification for interpreting. Since transferring to California State University Northridge and I've been introduced to a larger signing community, I've come to witness how welcoming and patient the Deaf community is. As I continue my education and expand my knowledge about American Sign Language and Deaf Culture, the more passionate I become about finding ways to integrate into the community and get to know everyone around me. While we have started implementing more forms of accessibility into everyday lives - such as providing closed captioning in movie theatres - it's still not enough. By becoming a certified Sign Language interpreter, I hope to provide accommodations that provide extra support to the signing community until American Sign Language becomes a more common subject taught in schools, and it's not as shocking when a cashier at a ski resort can sign "snowboard" and "boots".

Although I've always been a shy person, my social anxiety started to peak as I was transitioning from the 6th to 7th grade. As someone who doesn't handle big changes very well, I had a hard time adjusting from an elementary school where I knew everyone and was in one classroom while learning every subject, to starting middle school with a ton of new kids, teachers, and I had to go to the other side of the building to get from geometry to French. The anxiety only got worse when I went from middle school to high school, resulting in me skipping lunches as the idea of someone watching me eat was terrifying. This, alongside constantly receiving rude comments from a classmate, caused me to develop anorexia, a condition I'm still battling to this day. The first time I caught other people's attention was my first day of sophomore year when my family and I moved back to California after living in Wyoming for nine years. As I didn't yet know anyone, didn't have a lunch packed, and was too overwhelmed and anxious to attempt the school lunch line, I spent the time in the library and walking around the campus. By the end of the day, I had a massive headache, was shaking and struggling to stand up, and my face was pale. One of the campus security guards drove me to my mother's work, where I waited for her to get off so we could go home. I knew this wasn't a routine I could keep up until I graduated, so I found a cheap pair of headphones, found an old lunchbox, and began residing at a lone picnic table on campus for a few weeks. After a while, one of the counselors, who could see my table from her window, began sitting with me while we ate, striking up conversations, and giving me a reason to look up from my phone. Eventually, an exchange student from my choir class asked me to sit with her, and our group grew and evolved from there. I started attending community college while we were still in lockdown for COVID-19, so I didn't have to worry about where to eat or who to talk to, which was great until the lockdown was lifted. I would go to class, eat lunch in my car, complete my next class, and then go home. This schedule worked for a short time, but then I needed a change. I started going to school events such as club fairs, study and de-stress nights, and lunches - even though my heart was pounding the entire time. Going to these events alone gave me the courage to audition for the musical the college was putting on, but my anxiety got the best of me, and I volunteered to work on specialty costumes and props instead. The next year, however, I worked with the same director who gave me my first speaking role in theatre. As I continue to go through college and get ready to transfer to a four-year university, I'm realizing that the world isn't going to end when something shifts, and by pursuing my college degree, it's not only given me a purpose and the confidence to clearly define myself, but it's given me the opportunity and excuse to battle and overcome my anxiety. I'm still wary about being the one to start a conversation, but I'm sure I'll soon gain confidence as I open up my circle to new people and new experiences in this upcoming chapter.

It was the summer of 2016 in Cheyenne, Wyoming during the annual rodeo and fair known as Cheyenne Frontier Days. My parents surprised my younger brother and me with concert tickets to see our favorite band at the time - Fall Out Boy. This was going to be the first official concert he and I had been to, and we were incredibly excited. On the day of the concert, my family arrived at the fairgrounds early to enjoy the carnival rides and some overpriced kettle corn. We found a booth that was doing face paint so my brother and I enthusiastically picked out the options they had for Fall Out Boy. Afterward, we walked up the metal stairs to the top of the stadium and found our seats. They were to the far left of the stadium, causing us to watch the concert over our right shoulders. The opening band came on stage, but not too many people recognized them, so their set was mostly quiet except for applause after each song. Fall Out Boy came on stage shortly after, and the crowd exploded into cheers and screams. While I did know every song that was played, I didn’t know every word, but still managed to have a great time. After the concert, we found ourselves at the merchandise table, where my brother and I each got a T-shirt to commemorate the night. However, my favorite concert wouldn’t occur until years later. In December of 2021, I decided to gift my boyfriend with his very first concert to see his favorite band, Imagine Dragons, in March. I purchased tickets for their show in Portland, Oregon, bought the plane tickets taking off from Reno, and booked us a hotel room to recover from a night of speakers and dancing. When we arrived in Portland, we met up with my older brother and went to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and a local sandwich shop near our hotel. That same night was the night of the concert, so my boyfriend and I got changed and headed out the door. We took a very precarious Uber trip to the venue, had a Disney-like experience with the security line, and made our way around the maze of people and entrances to find our seats. As he and I were waiting for the show to start, we sparked a conversation with the couple next to us, though we didn’t see them for very long as they managed to get down a couple of rows in front of us. The show starts, and his energy is very minimal at first as he’s not one to show a lot of excitement. That is, however, until Imagine Dragons played his favorite song, “Demons”. My boyfriend gets up out of his seat, we switch spots so he’s closer to the stage, and he starts dancing in place while singing along. I sat down, pulled my phone out, and took short videos of him enjoying his favorite song being played live by his favorite band so that I could share it with him later. At the end of the show, we grabbed a handful of the confetti that was launched into the crowd and headed down to the merchandise counter. There, he picked out a bandana and a hoodie, the latter he wears all of the time. I had an amazing time providing this opportunity for him in which he could just forget his responsibilities and worries for a few hours, and have a great time with his favorite band and the person that he loves.

I’ve decided to become an American Sign Language interpreter for the love I have for the language and culture, and for my desire to help and assist people. I changed from a Psychology major to a Deaf Studies major after picking up the language very quickly and realizing how much fun I was having. I've wanted to learn American Sign Language since I was twelve years old, jumped at the opportunity when it presented itself, and can't imagine myself getting into any other field of work. I was able to use my limited signing skills at a job and had the opportunity to assist around a dozen customers with American Sign Language. After each interaction, I was left with a feeling of adrenaline, satisfaction, and a desire to further my education to help more people. Though we had limited communication, the customers that I helped were incredibly thankful for someone knowing just a little bit of sign language, which has inspired a goal to make these types of interactions less rare for the Deaf community. By transferring to a university and obtaining my Interpreter’s Certificate, I plan on taking that all the way to a Registered Interpreter for the Deaf certification. I plan to provide access to everyday necessities and experiences that hearing people take for granted, such as going to the grocery store or ordering food. My biggest goal is to become a Performing Arts interpreter and get contracted to work for concerts and theatre productions. As someone who loves this industry, I want to help others enjoy the experiences that can be found within as smoothly as possible. A goal that will help me achieve my professional passion is attending California State University, Northridge, which has the largest Deaf and hard-of-hearing faculty in all of upper education. I've heard many great things about the Deaf Studies program that this university presents, and I'm eager to obtain my knowledge from a place such as Northridge. My passion for the language and learning everything I can has kept me motivated as I take on extra classes necessary for my new major. Not only do I want to pursue this career for the community that I’ll be representing, but I truly enjoy doing it and want to put as much time and energy into it as possible.

It was 2022 when I first volunteered with Zephyr Cove. They were putting on a series of events for Halloween, and I volunteered to be one of the scarers in their haunted house. I was one of the two vampires set up in our room, and this was the first time I had ever done something like this, even though I'd wanted to be a haunted house scarer for a few years. The event had gone well with the community and for Zephyr Cove, and I enjoyed it so much that I wanted to do it again the next year. For the 2023 haunted house, I was dressed up like a doll. Doing these events not only gets me out of my comfort zone, but it allows me to connect with the people that make up my community. In 2023, my community college held auditions for Seussical the Musical. While I would have greatly enjoyed getting to perform in the show, my schedule just didn't allow it. I did, however, find the time to help out behind the scenes - I was assigned the task of making all of the tail feathers for the five bird girls. The director and his wife enjoyed my work so much that they asked me back the next year to work on Peter and the Starcatcher. Theatre has always been a passion of mine, so I was thrilled and excited to see what I could provide to help these performances be successful for the cast and audiences. The experience I'm most proud of was getting the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica with the National Society of Leadership and Success. Though it was a great chance to go to another country, I was excited for the chance to help out a small community. We had two volunteer activities, and we were asked to bring any school supplies if we could. The group's first activity was preparing fruit for an animal sanctuary and getting to feed the different wildlife. We learned about the different animals that inhabited the area, their diets, and the most common injuries for each group. The next thing we did during this trip was go to a small school and repaint the sidewalks. It took fourteen people and four hours to complete this job, but it made the school look like an entirely different building by the time we were done - I just wish I had been there to see the reactions from the children when they returned. My dream career is to become an American Sign Language interpreter, specifically working in the performing arts. I wish to provide a group of people who are often silenced and ignored the same opportunities for entertainment naturally given to a majority of the population. During my time at Lake Tahoe Community College, I’ve taken two sign language classes and one Deaf Culture class, and have since been completely enticed with that community. By working in customer service, I’ve been given the chance to use my acquired signing skills in real-life situations. After each interaction, though limited in communication, each customer thanked me greatly for my help, leaving me with an inspiration to continue learning the language and improve my signing skills. This is an experience I wish to provide for more people, as everyone deserves the right to clear communication with everyday tasks.

To have me choose only three characters from the show to form a squad with is not only unfair, but nearly impossible. There is, however, one correct answer. If I were to face a new supernatural threat and needed a team of only the best, I would recruit none other than Steve, Dustin, and Eleven. Steve not only had the best redemption arc, but he consistently stood up to bat whenever the kids or Nancy were in any kind of danger. After his breakup with Nancy, Steve worked hard to make himself a better person, and we can see his caring nature come out whenever he had to watch over Mike, Lucas, and Dustin. Although he didn't know Max very well, he didn't hesitate to protect her and the other kids when Billy burst through the door of Will's house. Steve is one of those people who would do anything it takes to protect those he's close to, and based on what he did for Eddie, he'll also protect people that his close friends care about. Even with no set plan, Steve would be by my side through anything if it meant protecting his town and his people. Dustin is intelligent and very quick-minded, and he's also good with technology - just look at the antenna he built to communicate with Suzie. He would be the one I would go to for a game plan, knowing it wouldn't take too long, or at least one to two trial runs before he came up with a successful solution. His fascination with science and Dungeon & Dragons makes a great combination for figuring out how to defeat an enemy, much like he did when the gang was first fighting the Demogorgon. Dustin was also the one to decipher the message from Nancy, find the cassette tapes, and save Max from her attack from Vecna. Eleven, although the cause of all the trouble in Hawkins in the first place, is the only one who can go against anything by herself. Throughout the show, we've seen her develop and strengthen her powers, even after her times of inactivity. At the end of the first season, she not only banished the Demogorgon, but also closed the Gate all by herself. While she did have the assistance of her friends taking care of the smaller obstacles in her way, there would be no way the gang could have done the same thing without her there. The older Eleven gets and the more she experiences from the world around her, the more control she has over the consistency and the strength of her powers. This, combined with her stubbornness and selflessness would make me confident that we could handle anything that was thrown at us.

I have been playing Minecraft since the red bed was the only option and you had to tame ocelots to get a cat, so I've gotten to try out and experience each new addition as Mojang added the updates. From digging out an entire chunk to find pirate treasure, to getting a speed boost from a friendly dolphin, I've thoroughly every new feature that's been added. There is, however, one aspect of the game that I've never gotten tired of: taking the perilous journey away from home to explore the world around me. Being an explorer doesn't require me to be good at building or strong in combat, I just go in the direction that calls me. I remember the first time I got caught in the booby traps at the bottom of the jungle temple, which led to me destroying every single block to not only get rid of the tripwires, but to make sure I found each chest that was hiding behind its walls. When the witch's hut was first introduced, I was excited to see what kind of loot I could scrounge up, only to be disappointed when the most I could grab was the clay flowerpot. As the game continued to receive updates, the more there was to explore, my favorite place being the woodland mansion. When my brother and I stumbled upon the game's largest naturally occurring building, we would spend hours going through the hallways, removing all the pillagers, placing torches to prevent respawning, and entering every room to see what kind of treasures were hiding in the corners. After he and I cleared out all of the hostile mobs, we would start renovating the house into our very own base: it already had four walls and a roof, beds, a couple of cartography tables, and some even had multiple pumpkin farms. Now that the woodland mansions have suffered a decreased spawn rate, I've had to find other landmarks to explore. With all of the updates to the biomes and the overall terrain of the land, this hasn't been too hard for me to accomplish - each of the main biomes seems to have its very own micro-ecosystems, so there's so much to discover in just one area of the world. Before the 1.20 update, my preferred place to settle down was the taiga biome, since I loved the look of a spruce wood house and had a higher chance of befriending a wolf. After the 1.20 update and the cherry blossom trees were introduced, I was determined to see them with my own eyes. I traveled over 3,000 blocks from my main base, climbing numerous steep hills, and almost got blown up by a dozen creepers before jumping into the most beautiful area Minecraft has ever created. Whenever I play with someone else, I always take on the role of explorer, and it becomes my job to find resources, bring home new seeds and saplings, find villages, and try my best not to fall into a ravine. Minecraft is a game that provides something for everyone: Redstone inventions for the practicing engineer, swords of varying materials for the knights and hunters, and over a dozen flowers for the gardeners. No matter how old I get or how long the game has been out, I always come back and look for new things to build and explore, whether as a solo player or with my friends.

I met Tyler in 7th grade when I was around eleven years old. We first met in our physical education class when he approached me under a tree, asking if I was doing okay since I was sitting alone. The more classes we had together, the more we got to know each other, so our 9th grade science class was one of the most entertaining. We got in trouble numerous times because we would rather talk and laugh with each other than do our homework. When I moved back to California, I was concerned about how we would make our friendship work, but Tyler has been the only friend from Wyoming I've talked to almost every day. Before I received my PlayStation, Tyler and I would call at least once a week to catch up, and we would spend hours talking about any and everything. Afterward, we would play all sorts of video games together. These include Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto V, Fallout 76, and Need For Speed. One of my favorite memories created while playing these games was with Fallout 76 and we were exploring an abandoned shelter, but the game decided to lag out. This resulted in his character model no longer having a walking animation and instead floating around in a "T" formation. This was the game we played all the time, and I would find myself staying up until 4 or 5 in the morning because I was having such a great. He is the only person that I'm able to talk about anything with and it doesn't seem awkward or forced. We've talked about issues with our home life, we've asked for advice about our romantic partners, we've called each other for the holidays, we've recommended songs to one another, and we even managed to watch a Netflix show together while in different states. Just recently I proofread his resume and assisted him in writing a cover letter, and he has been there for me each time one of my animals passed away. There was a brief period in time when Tyler and I weren't talking, as our lives had just gotten to be too much for us to have time for each other. During this time, however, I kept getting the feeling that something wasn't quite right and that he was in a bad situation. I contacted him a few days after this feeling occurred, and he admitted that he was in a dark mindset. I am incredibly thankful that I did reach out, and after we discussed what was going on, he and I picked our friendship right where we left it. I have known him for just under ten years, and I cannot imagine my life without him. Our connection is so strong that, for my birthday, he told me he wanted to get me an embroidered sweater with my late cat on it - something that I had been looking into but hadn't once mentioned to him. This is not only the longest friendship that I've had, but the strongest. The relationship that Tyler and I have is incredibly important to me, and I'm excited to see how much longer we'll be in each other's lives.

Who doesn't love cats, space, and socially awkward girls just trying to get by? Bee and PuppyCat is an animated series that was originally found on YouTube, but has since been moved to Netflix where they've not only added more episodes, but have also made it a fully developed show! Although this show is a cartoon, it has aspects that can connect to all audience members: a cute cat that where's a motorcycle helmet that says "2 cute 2 poot", a girl who's old wrestling partner smashes her way into the house and develops a very interesting relationship with one of the brothers, a young gentleman who is stumbling his way around cooking school, and a girl who stays positive and constantly tries to help people no matter the circumstances. The original series is still posted on YouTube, so it's fun to watch it from time to time and see what's been changed, added, or taken away in the Netflix series: one of the changes that I've noticed is that the humor for the YouTube version is a little raunchier than that on Netflix. The Netflix version, however, delves into the character development and the story progression in a way that isn't shown in the original series. We learn about Bee's father and the arcade he used to take her too all the time, we find out that Bee isn't even human, but a robot we suspect to be built by her own father. PuppyCat may seem like a cat that smells like a dog who also "talks", but he is actually a space outlaw that was transformed into his current state after he was tricked by the princess he planned to run away with. Though overshadowed with his adorable mischief, he spends the entirety of the show trying to earn money and find parts to fix his ship. He and Bee do so by going to a giant floating TV in the middle of a void, who assigns them weird and ridiculous jobs such as: babysitting a giant baby head, making space donuts with a giant cat named Mouly, helping some worm-like creatures open a can of soda, and so much more. All while be tracked down and hunted by sheep-warlocks, who might be the same warlocks that turned PuppyCat into the adorable little guy he is. If having a talking cat and working with a floating TV wasn't weird enough, Bee also has to abide by the rules of her landlord, who just so happens to be a seven-year-old boy, Cardamon. Cardamon has decided to take on this role because his mother is in a mysterious coma in their apartment. After a long time of sleeping, she starts producing bubbles from her tears, each filled with miscellaneous items waiting to be popped and set free. When she awakens, we find out that she's a co-worker of PuppyCat's, and they both pilot the ship that ends up being the island. The show has beautiful animation, each episode has a new and exciting story, Bee's costumes are adorable, and the anticipation keeps the audience waiting for more.