Four-thirty in the morning. That's the time my alarm goes off. By five, I arrive at the gym. For about ninety minutes I put my all strength into every set and every rep. After a shower and a short drive, I arrive at school. From seven-thirty to about two in the afternoon, I work away at several Honors and AP classes. The rest of the evening is spent knocking down any possible homework. After homework, I check my grades and see straight A's. On the weekdays that I don't go the gym, I go right from school to one of the two jobs I have. While my friends spend their weekend nights partying, I'm working at my second job. As busy as I am, I still find time to practice guitar for at least fifteen minutes every day. Balancing the gym, school, work and instrumental practice is busy and fast-paced. However, all of these bring together two ideas that make me unique: hard work and discipline. Years ago, I felt that I was physically falling behind my peers. Practically everybody I knew did some kind of sport and stood inches taller than me. In middle school, I was introduced to weightlifting. I realized that I had no excuse to not make the best of my own body. For two years I worked out in my room with nothing but my bodyweight and two twenty-pound dumbbells. By the time I reached the driving age, I was out to the gym before school every morning. As I said before, I put all my strength into every set and every rep. More importantly, I show up no matter what. Besides illness, I never skip a day in the gym. As much as I might not want to get out of bed or put my full energy forward, it happens no matter what. My parents are in part to credit for my work ethic, which is where my success in school comes from. As a kid, they wanted nothing but A's. As a product of that, I put my all into every assignment or test that's thrown my way. My homework gets done, no matter how many papers there are in the pile. When I was sixteen, my parents urged me to find a job and I quickly found one at a local brewery as a dishwasher. As the paychecks came in, I realized that I would need more considering that college wasn't going to pay for itself. By the time junior year had started, I had picked up another job as a front store associate at CVS. There were several periods when I worked five to six days a week, all without missing a beat in the gym or school. As much as I enjoy the gym, I needed some other form of entertainment to take some stress off my busy lifestyle. I found peace in playing the guitar. I'm not calling myself the next Jimi Hendrix, but it's a skill not many people I know possess. Like the guitar, I don't know a lot of people who possess similar hard work and discipline as me. I put one hundred percent effort into everything I do, which is also what I plan for the future. I have hopes of using a Business Management degree to start a gym of my own or possibly a nonprofit scholarship program to help kids like myself who have to work like hell to pay for college. I hope to use my unique lifestyle to build a foundation that'll last into my adult life.

In the twilight hours of a cool summer night, I was running through the darkness of the woods. Several years ago I was a Boy Scout heading off to a summer camp situated in Forestburg, New York. The camp scenery was similar to that of a movie; a lake surrounded by pine trees and log cabins. The days were mostly devoted to working on merit badges, eating in the mess hall, and doing "bonding" activities with the troop. However, as teenagers in the middle of nowhere, we used the night as a time for shenanigans. In the middle of the week, two older kids by the names of Chris and Alex convinced me along with my friends Nate and Tyler to sneak out with them. Caught up in the moment, Nate, Tyler, and I agreed in an instant. Midnight arrived and we tiptoed out of camp and into the woods. We made our way down the lake's beach where a large waterfront cabin resided. Chris suggested taking a canoe for a spin around the lake. However, there were none out in the water. Chris assumed they were all stored inside the cabin. Instead of barging in, he decided to peek through a window to assess the location of the canoes. Alex hoisted Chris onto his shoulders. Chris beamed a small flashlight through the high window while Nate, Tyler, and I watched patiently. Within a matter of seconds, we watched the face of a grown man peer back at Chris through the window. Chris fell back off Alex's shoulders as Nate, Tyler, and I bolted away from the cabin, which we realized was also a house for some of the counselors. Within a couple of minutes, we regrouped at the trading post. Looking back, it turned out nobody from the cabin tried to look for us. Alex and Chris, high off adrenaline, immediately started looking for a new adventure. Pointing to the mess hall that sat illuminated by the moon next to the lake, they tossed around the idea of looking for something to eat. Nate agreed instantly, however, Tyler and I did not. We decided that we would stay back at the trading post to charge our phones. The other three boys scoffed and wandered into the night. We watched their figures walk to the mess hall and disappear into the building. Tyler and I discussed our close encounter with a counselor by the lake, laughing at the idea of getting caught. However, not even ten minutes after the others entered the mess hall, we heard what sounded like thunder. This thunder erupted from the mess hall, instantly followed by the view of three silhouettes bolting across the lakeside. Tyler and I looked at each other and, without saying a word, started sprinting back to camp. When we met back with Nate at camp, he was ecstatic. As it turns out, he decided to build a pyramid of bowls with the help of Chris and Alex. He quickly learned that bowl pyramids aren't structurally sound, which caused the pyramid to crash down. Breakfast in the mess hall was served the morning after. The late-night crew and I sat down to eat. Several counselors stood close to us, waiting in line for their food. We couldn't help to overhear their stories of being awoken in the night by a sneaky scout and finding a mess hall floor covered in bowls. The boys and I all looked at each other and held the urge to react. By the time the counselors had moved along, we burst into tears of laughter.