I’ve read many books in my life but one has always stuck out to me. I read in elementary school “A Thousand Paper Cranes”. It’s a small story about a girl that has cancer and her trial in beating it. She hears about a Japanese belief that if you make 1,000 paper cranes you get one wish, the wish obviously being to be healed and cancer free. She starts to build paper cranes daily and soon her story get out to the community and eventually a lot of the world. People make and send her paper cranes that they have made along with inspirational notes and letters. She fights so boldly and her story inspires so many people, but unfortunately she lost the battle right before she reached 1,000 paper cranes… I remember as a little girl feeling so sad and felt as if it’s unfair. As someone who was born with a mental Illness I felt a kindred-ship with her through her struggles and stories. Her positivity effected all of those around her and the people going through the same circumstances. I learned a lot about keeping your chin up and being greatfull for the little things in our tough circumstances and moments we go through. I’ve kept that lesson and her story with me to this day.

I’ve always been told from a young age that I dreamt too big and planned too far ahead…I believed that for a long time. But I couldn’t give up on my plans for the future, I have had the same dreams from when I was two, to this very day. I have always dreamt of becoming an animator. To use my drawings and characters to tell stories, MY story, and help others create their own in the process. I want to use the stories and characters that have helped me through hard times, made me laugh, and feel joy, to help others feel the same. If I can use my talent to make others smile, I will have accomplished something truly wonderful. I aim to be fluent in the Japanese language and to move my stories to not only the Americas but eventually japan to be watched and seen world wide. To work hard and overcome my obstacles and barriers and achieve the dream I’ve had since the first time someone asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. The funny thing is, I am still growing up. I’m learning and reaching for that goal and my career. That happiness for myself and others. I wish to prove myself and my own doubts that they are wrong, and to show those who didn’t have the faith in me, that I can do great things through hard work and my own strength!

For a longtime I didn’t read. Ever. I felt forced to do so and I gave up on it ever being “fun” or personal to me. In middle school I saw a book that caught my eye, it was “Divergent” from the author Veronica Roth. The book is about Tris Prior. Tris Prior is a “Divergent”, or someone who’s doesn't quite fit entirely into a certain box of personality type, but instead has traits of all of them. In a world where people are divided into factions based on their personality types this is a BIG NO-NO. When she finds a plot to exterminate all Divergents, she joins forces with the mysterious Four to figure out why people are so afraid of “Divergents” and why their lives are in danger. It seemed so intriguing! Here I was, this young girl, trying to find herself and feeling that she didn’t belong anywhere at all, reading about this girl who is so different from what people call “normal” and she overcame everything that was thrown at her one after another. I thought she was amazing. I wanted to be strong and brave like her. I wanted to be proud of who I was and that I wasn’t quite like all the other kids around me! And so I changed. I held myself a little higher and walked a little bolder. Through the book I found strength in a girl so completely fictional…yet, the strength she held was real, and I wanted to have that strength too! To this day it’s one of my favorite books and it’s changed how I see the world since. I come back to read it when I need a reminder that just because you’re not “normal” doesn't mean you can’t do amazing things.

Being diagnosed with epilepsy at three years old, and growing up with it, was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do, and I’m still battling it today. I was in the hospital for a long time and after I got out I was told that I couldn’t do sports, eat what the other kids ate, and that I would never be able to drive. I would never have those freedoms that kids my age would. At three years old I was having one seizure a minute while on 18 pills a day. Six years later my mom and dad were presented with two choices on what would finally control them. The solution that would let me be aware of the world, rather then out of it. At 9 years old I had to chose between brain surgery, or a diet that consisted of Meals the size of a 12 year olds palm. The melas consisting of only meat, cheese, and butter cubes. It was all weighed out and pitifully enough, my favorite meal was a single green bean cut in threes. I didn’t get it as a kid. I felt completely outcasted at such a young age. I felt nothing but grief the more and more I was told what I CAN’T do and not what I CAN do. After so many constant tests, and supervision, I was tired of relying on others for my own achievements and success. I enrolled in the swim team, and proceeded to swim 8 consecutive years. I chose to do cross country and push through the physical limitations put upon me and won many awards. I had seizures through all of these, but I never let it stop me from what I wanted to do. Because of this hard work and “never give up” attitude, I struggled, but I did well in all of my schooling. I was able to learn to balance time and efforts into a job and sports. Recently, after many years of tests and hard work, I was cleared by the doctor to start driving. Nothing in my life was ever easy and I struggled the entire way through. I still struggle with epilepsy and the limitations I have because of it, but I’ve seen myself push forward and accomplish amazing things that I never would have had I lived in fear of those limitations. I have overcome every obstacle given to me in life after I have fallen down so many times in the process. I’m a stronger person for persevering and through it all I have become a more empathetic and caring person. I am who I am today not because of luck, but the decision to test the limits and persevere to the very end.