A person who has a significant impact on my life is my mother. Everyone tends to name a parent, but it is obviously well deserved. Without her, I wouldn’t be in this world. A mother has many roles. Take care of children, cook food for the family, and clean the house (all of which my mother does excellently). Not only does she do all that, she takes the role of my father. Which can mean, getting money for the family, punishing the children, and even telling me my worth and how I shouldn’t trust teenage boys. My mother has worked all of her life. She was the youngest and first to graduate college in the family. She has taken care of her brothers, even if they are older than her, and she makes sure I have everything I want. My father was in the picture, but rarely. I would see him about three to four times a month. I will admit when I was younger, I felt left out. All of the other girls got to go to the daddy daughter dances while I never had a father to go with. After winning sports games, it hurt seeing everyone run to their father while I had no idea where mine was. I was hurt in many ways, but thanks to my mother I wasn’t hurt for a very long time. My mother is a single mother with two kids. The two kids rely on her heavily for everything. My mother would always take care of everything so I wouldn’t have to worry about it. If I wanted to join a club, my mother would leave work early to pick me up. I did club volleyball for 4 years, which isn’t cheap at all, and she managed to pay for everything by herself. My mother bought me my first car when I freshly turned 18. It was a newer car, because she didn’t want me to feel like I was less than the others. I went to school in Naperville, which I am not realizing is not a cheap place. As soon as we moved, my mother gave me the master bedroom, to make sure I feel as if I still fit in. I know I am ranting about how great my mother is, but she deserves it. Finally, when decision day for college came, we were nothing but stressed. As I was worried about getting into college, she was worried about how she may pay for it. I suggested a community college, but she insisted I chose a university. Later, I decided to go to Illinois State University for education and psychology. My mother was nothing but supportive, until she told me, my sophomore year I might have to transfer. I was very confused and didn’t understand. She wanted me to go to a university to not finish? Little did I know, my mother was finally struggling to pay. Illinois State charged her $2,200 every month. She never told me, and here I was assuming everything was okay. Not only does my mother pay for my tuition, but she also pays for my grandmothers house, and our house. My mother has shaped me in many ways, even if I don’t have enough money to come back to my dream school, I will have nothing but the utmost respect for my mother. She encourages me, and tells me that I can do anything I put my mind to. When I graduate, I hope to start my career and finally take care of her as much as she did for me.

Back in elementary school, I was always a good kid. I wouldn't say I was perfect, but I was definitely a student who would do anything to help others. I always felt like it was my job to help others and when I realized I couldn't help everyone, I would get sad. It first began when my mother left for long vacations. I would help my grandmother and my grandfather, who was struggling with dementia. I would always try to wash dishes and clean the house to make sure I wouldn't seem like a burden or extra space, even though they always told me I wasn't. As I grew older my grandfather's dementia got worse, and sooner my happiness started to plummet. I felt like I could never help anyone if I couldn't even help my own family. Going into sixth grade, my mother told me that we were moving to a new area which would be far from my grandparents. At first I was mad, screaming throughout the whole house and occasionally running to a friend's house to spend the night. After a few weeks, I realized my actions weren’t helping anyone but instead of getting in everyone’s way. My last day home, reality hit me. I was really leaving everything. A few years later I decided to push my sadness out by playing volleyball. I would play outside with friends, at school, and did club. I loved volleyball because it helped me release every bad feeling I had. It was also a sport that my family loved to play, which helped us get an even closer bond. We were so close that they even came to my travel games no matter the distance. About 3 years later, my grandfather passed away while I was at a volleyball tournament in Wisconsin. What really broke me was that before he died his last words were “Where is Cree?” I felt like the worst person in the world. I put myself before my family and felt so selfish. As the days passed, my mental health declined rapidly. I couldn’t feel happy with myself without feeling guilty, and I had no reason to be happy. I would miss school, skip classes, not take care of myself, and even had suicidal thoughts. As I was planning new ways on how to make myself feel ashamed, my teacher approached me and asked me to go to her office. In the office, she told me how I was barely in class, stopped talking and sometimes dozed off. I tried to keep the facade, but when she gave me a hug I broke down. She held me tight and told me it wasn’t my fault and that everything would be okay. She offered to reteach everything , and suggested that I go to therapy. Finally after weeks and weeks of studying and therapy, my grades started to raise and I finally started to find worth in my life. Therapy not only motivated me to get better grades, but to take accountability for what I can and give my all to everything. To this day, my teacher and I talk because she was the only one who understood, took time, and did everything to get me out of that depressing state. She is the reason why I want to become a teacher. She makes me want to learn more, do better in my life, and help others who may feel alone. I want to be just like her, or maybe even better. I just want her to be proud of me, and know she influenced my future.

Back in elementary school, I was always a good kid. I wouldn't say I was perfect, but I was definitely a student who would do anything to help others. I always felt like it was my job to help others and when I realized I couldn't help everyone, I would get sad. It first began when my mother left for long vacations. I would help my grandmother and my grandfather, who was struggling with dementia. I would always try to wash dishes and clean the house to make sure I wouldn't seem like a burden or extra space, even though they always told me I wasn't. As I grew older my grandfather's dementia got worse, and sooner my happiness started to plummet. I felt like I could never help anyone if I couldn't even help my own family. Going into sixth grade, my mother told me that we were moving to a new area which would be far from my grandparents. At first I was mad, screaming throughout the whole house and occasionally running to a friend's house to spend the night. After a few weeks, I realized my actions weren’t helping anyone but instead of getting in everyone’s way. My last day home, reality hit me. I was really leaving everything. A few years later I decided to push my sadness out by playing volleyball. I would play outside with friends, at school, and did club. I loved volleyball because it helped me release every bad feeling I had. It was also a sport that my family loved to play, which helped us get an even closer bond. We were so close that they even came to my travel games no matter the distance. About 3 years later, my grandfather passed away while I was at a volleyball tournament in Wisconsin. What really broke me was that before he died his last words were “Where is Cree?” I felt like the worst person in the world. I put myself before my family and felt so selfish. As the days passed, my mental health declined rapidly. I couldn’t feel happy with myself without feeling guilty, and I had no reason to be happy. I would miss school, skip classes, not take care of myself, and even had suicidal thoughts. As I was planning new ways on how to make myself feel ashamed, my teacher approached me and asked me to go to her office. In the office, she told me how I was barely in class, stopped talking and sometimes dozed off. I tried to keep the facade, but when she gave me a hug I broke down. She held me tight and told me it wasn’t my fault and that everything would be okay. She offered to reteach everything , and suggested that I go to therapy. Finally after weeks and weeks of studying and therapy, my grades started to raise and I finally started to find worth in my life. Therapy not only motivated me to get better grades, but to take accountability for what I can and give my all to everything. To this day, my teacher and I talk because she was the only one who understood, took time, and did everything to get me out of that depressing state. She is the reason why I want to become a teacher. She makes me want to learn more, do better in my life, and help others who may feel alone. I want to be just like her, or maybe even better. I just want her to be proud of me, and know she influenced my future.

My whole life, I never knew what I wanted to be. I struggled trying to find careers that would fit me. I went from meteorologist, to an actress, to a lawyer, and even to a stunt driver. I wanted to find something that would make money, but would also fulfill my happiness. Throughout my years of highschool, I asked my teachers how they knew what they wanted to do and all of them gave me the same answer. Something along the lines of, I didn’t know, I just tried a lot of things that I might like and finally settled with one. Although I didn’t like the thought of just settling with a job, I saw my time running out as I hit my junior year. Instead of stressing what my future could be, I decided to do something that I knew I enjoyed. That was helping my teacher with work around the class. That could include cleaning the classroom, grading work, finding new examples of how students might learn, etc. I slowly started to realize that I found joy in what I was doing. Not only did I find joy, I found comfort with helping other students become educated on topics they couldn’t understand. I began tutor sessions, started mini clubs, even game night regarding topics that were learned. After a few sessions, I realized that teaching is something I will never get tired of, and will want to do forever. One specific teacher I will always remember is my 8th grade math teacher, Mrs. Duncan. She would always come to class with a huge smile on her face, even if her day wasn’t going so well. It was her first her teaching, so she was a little lost on how all of the technologies worked. She was very sweet to the students, sometimes you could say a little too nice. She never used an outside voice, and when she was told hurtful things she would do nothing but smile. It may not seem like it was a hard thing to do. I mean all teachers are supposed to do is teach the subject, and grade homework but she did more than that. The class I was in wasn’t very obedient. Throughout the day, we would go through three teachers in one sitting because of how misbehaved the class was. One day during the class, we made Mrs. Duncan mad, and I mean fuming mad. She quietly stood up and walked out the classroom as the class cheered, celebrating that another teacher left. A few minutes she came back with donuts, and said if we get through the lesson everyone could have a donut. She finished the lesson in about 20 minutes with a happy class. After it was time for us to get dismissed, I went up to her desk. How can such a young, new teacher have the patience for a bunch of bad middle school kids. “How do you do you do it?” I questioned. Her response was something I could never forget. “Students only act like that when they are used to getting their way. All of your previous teachers left, so of course that’s what you guys would expect me to do. Unfortunately for you guys, I’m not leaving because I want to see you all grow and help change our future.” To this day, I always visit Mrs. Duncan. She always allows me to student teach her class, and show me ways on how to deal with different types of students. I admire her so much, and want to be like her.