“What do you want for your birthday?” my mother asked as my birthday was approaching in a couple weeks. “I want a gift card for barnes n noble or any of the books of my to read list.” I told her as i looked up from the book i was reading “The Strength in Our Scars.” I have loved reading since i can remember, my mom had always bought me books and would always take me to the library to pick some out when she was low on money. Books have always been expensive so one thing i’d do to keep a book in hand was buy books that’s were not available at the library and exchange them for new ones. As I became older, I grew into loving young adult books more than the fantasy ones. I have started to read romantic books as I was getting older I become more interested in them as well as the mental health ones. I have been dealing with mental health for some time now and my obsession with books has helped it tremendously, I started reading self care, and self motivation books, that genre is more common on poetry books, something I never really found appealing until that topic became an interest. All the hundreds of books i’ve read in my entire lifetime have all taught me something, I can remember all the books i have read, it sounds impressive right? i have found a little something in every book to help me along my journey i life, weather that has been from friendship, to love, to my future and mental health. I don’t think there has been anything bigger than how books have shaped my life. Every word in a book is something I can understand more than verbally said words. Books have taught me to live my life to the fullest and appreciate all the small moments in life that not everyone counts on. Books are something not everyone can love. But books to me are way more than just written words on pages that make up chapters. Books have shaped my goals in life tremendously, they have inspired me to have goals that seem impossible because of all the scenarios i have read, they all seem to be very realistic no matter how hard the goal is. They have helped me achieve goals that i never thought i could accomplish. When reading about a character life and all the accomplishments they have in there life, it influences me to be someone in the world like that character, it teaches me that I can become anyone i want and i can achieve anything in life that i look forward to.

Hello my name is Gissele Ramirez, I am a 16-year-old Hispanic girl. I am a charismatic, family-oriented person. For the last few years, the "tell us about yourself" question was something I wasn't able to answer. I've always struggled to talk about myself or to describe myself because I never knew myself. I have worked so hard to love myself and talk about myself the way I should because I am such a loving girl that I've always seemed to not describe. I am someone who loves to help others, someone who goes out of her way to make someone's day or help someone in need. I love volunteering in my community. I have a huge passion for baking, so I usually bake my comfort desserts donate them to my community and give them out to people in need. I wasn't cared for by others, other than my family. I was a girl who kept everything to herself because otherwise I would be made fun of or judged. In the past years, I have had friendships who don't know a single fact about me and seeing other people with big and never-ending friendships who know every single fact about them is heartbreaking to me, and because of that I am always trying my hardest to be loving to people who need it, to people who looking like don't need it, because you truly don't know what someone is going through so I am someone who gives the world for others who don't include me in their world. My world has come down crashing on me so many times in my life. I don't say this to make anyone feel bad, I'm saying this to do the complete opposite. I am a girl who has never given up on a small obstacle or even a huge one. I have never had a thought of giving up my dreams or goals. I have seen my world as grey and colorless for years, but I have always fought to see the color at the end of the tunnel. I am always described as a ray of sunshine by my friends and family, that is the best thing ever said to me. It gives me even more motivation to keep going because that goes to show I am a happy person no matter the obstacles that are on my path. My family and I don't have a comfortable life when it comes to money. I say this because my parents have given me and my sibling the world, they would always give into our cravings without us knowing if they even had money for their cravings. Every time my family and I would go out and we would cross by a homeless, no less than $5 was given to them. The heartfelt things in this situation to me was always the animals and pets in need, dogs laying in one corner with scars, burnt paws and the dehydration seen in there body, with not a single soul caring about them. Ever since I was a little girl with consciousness, I made a promise to my older self, that I would not give up on my dream of helping the animals in need. I would use this money to pay for my schooling, all my books and classes to get my master's to go into the veterinarian program, to save animals' lives like I always wished and be able to help the homeless and ownerless pets. To accomplish my goal of caring about pets who were never cared for.