I come from many different backgrounds, especially concerning where my family is from internationally. On the one hand, my mom is from Trinidad and has ancestors in India, but on the other hand, my father has a lot of German and Ukrainian in him. My grandparents on my father's side have way too many ethnicities to count. My father was born in Canada, so when my parents got married, my mom had to leave everything she knew in Trinidad and move onto my father's parents' farm with him. Not only was this move for her marriage, but it was also for the benefits of the opportunities that had opened up to her. For the 20 years following her marriage, her life was going pretty well; she had 2 beautiful babies (my older sister and me), and moved out with my dad to a new home, but this was not without its fair amount of trouble. My mom and father's relationship was very rocky even from the start. About a year and a half before my mom found out she was pregnant with me, my father had pushed her against the wall during a major fight in front of my sister, which was followed by a year of separation before they finally came back together and started living with each other again. The main reason my mom did this was that she never wanted my sister to be a single child, but she also did not want to have a baby to fix a marriage, so she came back only to give her daughter a better life with married parents. 13 years after I was born, things got worse again. My whole life was filled with arguing back and forth with my parents, but it had only gotten worse as time went on. I was lucky enough never to have had to witness my father physically abusing my mom... that was until December 16th 2020. I won't go into a lot of details, because quite honestly I do not remember much due to how traumatizing it was, but I do know I saw my father raise his hand to punch my mom and I just remember screaming in terror. I also remember having to force my mom to call the cops and get him taken to jail for the night for assault. We moved to America about 6 months after this; my mom was already going through a really tough time mentally, and we just needed to get out of there and be with family. We also moved because this had messed with my head a lot, which impacted how well I was doing with school. It does not help that the teachers were not really helpful when it came to learning; they were all extremely mean to me. I noticed the difference in the schooling system, even in just the first semester after I moved. This whole experience taught me that blood and DNA don't automatically mean love or that they want you; blood is just a liquid running through your veins, and DNA is just what links you to that person. I also realized I am really inspired by my mom; I want to have her strength, her love, he determination, and everything in between. This experience has also made me realize that post-graduate, I want to become a cop and help, especially little kids who are going through what I went through, get through it. When I had to give my witness testimony, the cops treated me like a friend rather than just a witness, which I loved.

Growing up, I was never focused on my life; I was focused on the future, but not in the way you'd expect. I was focused on figuring out my career and figuring out what direction my life was going to take, especially financially. But what's a career without a home life? Recently, I've been questioning what my world will look like rather than what my life will look like. I've been romanticizing love and marriage, rather than idolizing my career. I'm in college, which means my future is already a work in progress, but I don't have a home to call my own yet; I haven't even met the person who makes my heart beat for them yet. It's not that I'm looking for love because I know they will find me when God has prepared us both enough to find each other, but I'm also not rejecting the opportunities that God throws at me. I realized that instead of making building my career my priority, I should prioritize building a relationship and building my life as well. Also, having someone you can call your own to walk the journey with you can help even in your career because you know you always have someone to go home to and someone who supports you in everything. Continuing on the topic of building relationships, I also want to set my main priority on building with the one who has my story written out and is giving me all the opportunities I have received: God. Without God, we would legitimately be nothing, so I believe I need to build my relationship with him more and be way more grateful for the opportunities he has given me. God has stood by me for every step leading me to the life I have now, and I will forever be thankful for everything he has given me. God will also be a big leader in my future and in providing me with every opportunity in my career.

I have been a Sabrina Carpenter fan since she first released Can't Blame A Girl For Trying. At the time, I would've been about 7 years old, and I remember being obsessed with the song. And then when she came out with Girl Meets World, I found it so inspirational, especially how someone can be so talented. I remember doing concerts in my room and doing Musicallys to her song. After Girl Meets World got cancelled, I remember still listening to her song and being so upset, but then about a year later she came out with her album EVOLution, and I got so excited. To me, it is so crazy but also so inspirational how this random 14-year-old could not only get famous at 14 for a show that was super loved and is still loved to this day, but also get even more famous again almost a decade later for her music. I'm a fan of Sabrina for multiple reasons: her music is always a hit, her acting is incredible, how authentic she is, but most of all, I love how she advocates not only for women but also is a big advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. It just inspires me how someone so young is using her platform to help rather than bring people down unless she has to.

My goal in life is to become a private investigator, and there are many steps required to achieve it. I have to complete my criminal justice associate's degree, which will cost about $18 000 and take about 3 years, to become a cop. I also have to get the required training, which will take about 6 months and can cost an additional $14 000. I want to be a cop for about 5 to 10 years and then slowly work my way up to being a private investigator until I plan to retire. When I become a cop, though, I hope that once I get the job after college, they will pay for the training that I need to continue being a cop. Growing up, though, my dream was to become a teacher. I had my heart set that once I got out of school, I would go to school again, but instead of being the learner, I would be the teacher. As I grew up, that dream started to fade as I learned how much things cost and how little teachers get paid. I started to do more research and figure out what I really wanted to do in my life, and that is when I found my love for solving cases. In high school, we had a career fair where we could go up to the different stations and learn about different jobs. Everything seemed cool, but nothing caught my eye. That was until I started to talk to the officer. We got into a really good conversation, and she was telling me how her story kind of lined up with mine. When she was little, she never really knew what she wanted, and then she started to really do some research and figured that being a cop was her dream the whole time; she just never stood back to see it. As a Christian, I believed that this was my calling, and that this was just God trying to give me a sign that this was where my future was headed. After high school, I took a year off, and during this year I really sat back and made sure this is what I wanted to be. In the end, I realized this was my goal no matter the hardships or the struggles. I know that being a cop is hard, but I want to be the person who stands up for my community, especially in their hard times.

Ever since the day I was born, God has always been a huge part of my life. My mom made bringing the spirit of Christ into mine and my sister's hearts one of her main goals as a parent. I honestly can not remember a time when God was not present in my life, and that shows how well she succeeded. God has always led me to be my best self, especially when it comes to my academics, but I am not going to sit here and lie and say I didn't have a lot of rough times, feeling like God was not hearing my prayers. A part of my testimony is when I moved from Canada to America at 14 years old. Before the move, I was going through a lot between navigating my first year of high school and having to discover life without my father since we had to kick him out of our house. I was really struggling, mentally especially, and on top of that, we had no family around us to support, or at least that is what we thought. A few months into school, my father took away our car, which was our only way of transportation, so we were stuck, but after many prayers and just hoping that God would help us find a miracle, we got a car through our church family. This is when we realized we were not alone; we had our Godly family, and then this is when I, myself, realized that God is the miracle we needed, and I really started to believe in him. God also was our miracle because for years we wanted to get out of Canada and away from the depression my mom was going through without her family, but we never had the chance or an opening. Then one day, an opportunity arose, and we knew that was God's calling for us to get out. Now, back to the present day, I know God can do everything, including assisting me in my career. I believe God will open doors for whatever he wants for my future, and I believe he has already opened doors by just allowing me to be accepted and have the opportunity to go to my dream college. I know that once I am out of college and have opportunities to get a job, he will open the door he wants me to go through and wants me to pursue, even if that takes a few years. Philippians 4:19 says, "And my God will supply all your needs according to His glorious in Christ Jesus", which to me means God will provide me with the doors that he sees as needed.

When I was younger, someone that I would consider a role model once told me, "Police duty is not just a job; it's being able to protect those who are not able to protect themselves and its being a leader of community. Being on duty is not for the weak of heart, but you have to have a soft heart to be on duty," and that has stuck with me. Growing up in a home where my father was very problematic, we became quite familiar with the police. Whether that was trying to get one of my father's psychotic girlfriends to leave my family and me alone or to get away from my father himself, 911 was always on the phone. Through this whole experience, I thought that they would get annoyed or maybe even be mean/angry, but you know what those police officers did? They not only kept showing up with a smile on their face to serve justice to my family and me, but they also showed so much respect to us. Sadly, whilst this was all happening, a lot of the people around me were hating on the police in the world and that is when I started to really think about a fute career in law enforcement. I wanted to prove to all of the people that are hating on police officers that there are still kind-hearted police in the world, just like the ones that I had encountered. As someone who had to rely on law enforcement officers a lot as a child, they have inspired me quite a lot. Another reason that I want become a police officer is because my end goal used to be either being a teacher or a private investigator, but when I was in high school, we had a career fair and I was able to talk to one of the police officers there. She told me that before I decide to go into the detective feild to do some years of police work to navigate the really bad areas of the location that I would want to be a detective in. After that conversation, I started to really think about it and as a christian, I felt like God was telling me that was my path that he was leading me to be and ever since then I have been really into looking at real life cases and becoming really interested and puting all of my time into them. At this point, if my family does not catch me doing a criminal just class or learning more about criminal justice, they will catch me watching body cam footage thats been released to Youtube.

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Back in 2021, my mom, sister, and I moved to America for a better life. Although I was not alone, we had no support to move from our family that we moved away from so we had to lean on the people we had here. When I moved here though, I was just about to go into my sophomore year of high school so I had a lot to learn and transition into Americas schooling system. I am also like Maggie in the way of I love a physical challenge. I have always had problems with people thinking just because I had a little more weight on me, I couldn't fit in with them. I remember wanting to do the dance class that my school offered, but because the extra weight, I was cut from a lot of the dance routines and it honestly sucked. That is when I knew I had to challenge not only myself but their expectations of me. After that day, I worked so hard to dance like they did, and one day, they finally realized just how much work I had put in, and they put me back into some of the choreography. After a few years, it was time to go to college. I was very mentally challenging myself oof what I wanted to become. On one hand, I wanted to be an educator my whole life, it was the safe option. On the other hand, I wanted to become a cop to provide safety for my community. In the end, I chose to work towards becoming a cop which meant getting my criminal justice degree. When time came to actually start going to the college, it was nothing of what I expected it to be. My sister had been lucky that she went through college in Canada so I had my expectations of college to be like it was in Canada, but its not. It is a lot better. The school systems, the faculty members, the community were all better, let alone the material that we are taught. In Canada, they were taught the bare minimum of what they needed to be, where as here, the college really goes into depth and makes sure you are prepared for when your are actually facing the real world. Maggie and I share a lot in common. Even if our journeys did not hit the exact same route, we both hit the same finish line.

Growing up, I had to learn to depend on my mom for everything. She was the only one I had that actually supported me and loved everything I did. She had to help me financially, emotionally, and even physically when I was hurt. Every school trip, every doctors appointment, every road trip we took, she always took care of everything to where I never had to worry about where the next paycheck came from even on our lowest months. As I am now a college student, I am doing this all for her. My dream is to be a cop, which you really only need basic training for, but her dream for me was going to college and at least getting the criminal justice degree, so that is what I am doing. I strive to keep her happy and proud, if that means going to school for a couple more years, so be it. She mainly wants this for me because she never had the chance to. She grew up in Trinidad and Tobago, which is definitly not a very rich cousin. It did not help that she had 8 siblings that were all older than her, so her parents could never afford college. They also did not really have the resources for scholarships like this so she never got to go. Even though she never went to school though, she did as much as she could with the opportunities she had, and that is what inspires me to continue with school, espescially since I know shes living this life through me. I am very thankful that i have support that can always back me, not just financially, but emotionally. Whenever I was stressed out for things like school and extracurricular activities, she would always be the first to be near me and help me as much as she can to take most of the stress off of me, even when she herself had so much stress already on her. I plan on figuring out how to repay her which is why I am applying to multiple scholarships to get chances to help take the stress off of her of where she will find the money to provide me schooling every semester. I love having her support, even when I was a child. She has done her best to provide for me and support me, and she has to double all of that to make up for the other parent as well.

Growing up in a single-parent household was never what I expected it to be. It took a lot out of me emotionally when I was in middle school. I started getting terrible grades, and when I did get good grades, it was because it was just a completion grade, or it was too easy. While I was in a single-parent household, my father lived right down the street, so that made it even more of a struggle because of how bad my memories were with him. As time went on and I moved to a whole different country, it got better. I realized how I only ever needed my mom to help motivate me, and it helped that I did not have to see my dad every day, which helped my mental health a lot, which resulted in me being able to prioritize school. When I moved to America, I was just about to start tenth grade. I thought the education would be different, but it was not as different as I thought it would be, and my mom helped that transition go super smoothly. She helped me so much as we went through different stages of high school. As I got to college, though, that is when being in a single-parent household became a very hard challenge. Schooling is already so expensive, and having only one income to really rely on is difficult. It is also really hard to plan how and when I will finish college because I never know how many classes my mom will be able to afford per semester. When I am older and have a stable job to help me financially, I would love to look into helping a single parent pay for their child's college tuition, like I wish someone would step up for my mom while she is paying my tuition. Even to help them pay for half of the child's schooling would be a blessing, even though I would love to help them pay for more if I am in a good financial position to do so. I also would love to think about doing blessing bags for the homeless, maybe once or twice a month, depending on my financial position. I would just love to help my community of people however I can because in my brain, helping one person can, little by little, help the world be a better place.

The American dream is being able to live the life that you never could have dreamed of. Many people would say it is the one you CAN dream of, but it is so much more than that. The American dream is thinking that once you move here, you will be free from the trauma and the bad memories from your past, when in reality, they stay in your brain; they just don't continue. When you move to America, you get a whole new view of life. You'll dream of having the American Dream right away, but to be able to achieve the American Dream, you have to work for it; you don't just get it right when you get off the plane. You have to rearrange your whole life, remake would say, and that is never easy. Many obstacles come with it. The American Dream should be easy, but instead of getting rid of the fear, you have to learn to live with it now. In many different countries of the world, the United States is made out to be this perfect, equal country, but the reality is, it's not equal at all. Especially as a college student, the American Dream is very tough to achieve. You have to pay double for the same college 'experience' as someone who is doing the same classes but lives near the college. On that topic, almost everything is double the price, all because you don't have a piece of paper. The undocumented people are also treated very differently. They are called Aliens and are all treated like they are criminals when, in most cases, they are just people who wanted to make a better life for themselves and for their future generations. After a few years of being undocumented, and you finally either get on the road to getting your green card, or already have it, you finally remember why all of that trouble was worth going through. All in all, the American Dream is not at all what I expected it to be, but I think that is the whole point. The American Dream was never meant to be a dream. It was always meant to be a beautiful nightmare that turns into a dream. It's like when you've just had an energy drink, and it is so hard to fall asleep, and it could take hours, but once you do, you dream a beautiful dream.