One week ago today me and my friends decided to attend an art therapy club. One of the girls leading the club decided to put on Olivia Rodrigo’s GUTS album. The song “Teenage Dream” came on, and I suddenly felt a pang in my chest that caused me to have to excuse myself from the room so I could find a quiet place to cry Since my early teenage years, I have been motivated by the anxiety to succeed. At thirteen I ran varsity on my Cross Country team, later completing the Charleston Half Marathon. At fourteen I was the only person on my team to swim the 400m Medley relay in competition. At fifteen I applied to the Governor’s School for Creative Writing and got accepted. At sixteen I left my hometown of Chapin, SC to go to school in Greenville, living by myself for the first time to hone my writing skills to the best of my abilities. At seventeen I published my writings in literary magazines and submitted my essays to numerous competitions. Winning some, losing most, but nonetheless determined to make myself noticed any time the opportunity presented itself At the age of eighteen, I have come to the frightening realization that none of these accomplishments have left me feeling satisfied with myself in the long run. The runner’s high of a half marathon eventually dissipates, the adrenaline rush of your art being acknowledged diverges into this pressure of making your next work even more exceptional. One week ago today I left the art therapy room engulfed in the realization that this hedonic treadmill was one I could no longer keep running on. The lyric that incited this realization was from Olivia Rodrigo’s “Teenage Dream:” They all say that it gets better, it gets better the more you grow. Yeah, they all say that it gets better, but what if I don’t? "What if I don’t?" That last lyric reverberated in my head as I wiped tears from my eyes using a sandpaper-textured piece of public restroom toilet paper. What if I don’t get any better at writing? What if I peaked artistically and athletically in high school? What if I wasted my youth being sad and overly ambitious? And what for? It wasn’t until two days later, after lots of self-loathing and heart-to-heart conversations with my friends and family did I realize: So? What if I did? I think this lyric perfectly encapsulates the feeling of needing to outperform expectation after expectation. It captures the feeling that many young adults experience in entering college. The pressure to succeed, the pressure to have it “all figured out,” the pressure to not let your parents down or have them worry about you. Ironically, it was while talking to my parents about my college problems did I realize this was all completely normal. Setting goals is a good thing. Having ambition is what gets things done in life. However, it is hard if not impossible to relish in satisfaction when you’re so focused on the end goal and not the journey it took to get there. Although I am still working on it, I have found that practicing gratitude for the things I have currently rather than focusing on the goal I have not yet attained, leads me to feel more satisfied with my life. A solid friend group, a side gig I enjoy, a family that supports me. These are the things that truly make me feel more secure in myself, and without Olivia’s poignant lyrics, I’m not sure if I would have truly realized this notion.

The dream version of my future self is someone who is not afraid to explore the world

Feminism in my own words is the idea that all genders should have the same rights and opportunities, especially those who are overlooked and have been historically marginalized by others. The biggest feminist role model for me is my mother. I look up to her because she is perseverant, open minded, and genuine in regards to her interactions with others. When I was seven, my parents divorced, and my mother was the one who moved out. Even though money was tight and she was suffering emotionally, she still did everything in her power to ensure that the lives of my sister and I continued in a sense of normality. She continued making us breakfast, driving me to gymnastics practice and school, and made sure to spend time with my sister and I in the evening, along with helping us get our homework done. She did all this while working a full time job. Even though she was hurt by my father, she made sure to co-parent peacefully and never say anything rude or demeaning about him. My mother, like myself, is a life-long learner. She isn’t afraid to change jobs (which she has done, three times) when her priorities and principles change. I also see this in the way she acts around my generation. I go to a very liberal residential school, and my mother, who grew up in a conservative environment, had never really interacted with people who were LGBTQ+ before. Despite this, she treated them with more than mere toleration, offering to give rides back home and assist students in getting ready for prom if their parents weren’t able to help them do so. She isn’t afraid to challenge her preconceived beliefs, and is always willing to hear multiple viewpoints before jumping to conclusions about people. Lastly, I look up to my mother because she is genuine. Her job as a real estate agent requires her to have good communication skills, and be positive and consoling if a client is feeling overwhelmed with the buying or selling process of a house. This comes naturally to her, and I see in my everyday life how she applies this empathy to her clients, my sister and me, and the people around her. Although she has her bad days, she inspires me to be a better person. For our school's feminist club, we did a tampon drive collecting hygiene products for homeless women and those who can’t afford them. I helped contribute to this by buying such products. I also contribute to the feminist movement by uplifting people of all genders in my school and personal life, making sure that everybody feels included.

The main person who has been a role model for me is my mother. I look up to her because she is perseverant, open-minded, and genuine regarding her interactions with others. When I was seven, my parents divorced, and my mother was the one who moved out. Even though money was tight and she was suffering emotionally, she still did everything in her power to ensure that the lives of my sister and me continued in a sense of normality. She continued making us breakfast, driving me to gymnastics practice and school and making sure to spend time with my sister and me in the evening, along with helping us get our homework done. She attended every single one of my gymnastics meets, and every single one of my sister's orchestra concerts. For this, she is perseverant because she made sure her children’s lives remained habitual, despite her life being tumultuous in every way during that period. My mother is open-minded because she is a lifelong learner. She loves reading, playing the piano, and watching documentaries about random subjects that interest her. She isn’t afraid to change jobs (which she has done, three times) when her priorities and principles change. I also see this in the way she acts around my generation. I go to a very liberal residential school, and my mother, who grew up in a conservative environment, had never really interacted with people who were LGBTQ+ before. Despite this, she treated them with more than mere toleration, offering to give rides back home and assist students in getting ready for prom if their parents weren’t able to help them do so. My mother isn’t afraid to challenge her preconceived beliefs and is always willing to hear multiple viewpoints before jumping to conclusions about people or current events. Lastly, I look up to my mother because she is genuine. Her job as a real estate agent requires her to have good communication skills, and to be positive and consoling if a client is feeling overwhelmed with the buying or selling process of a house. This comes naturally to her, and I see in my everyday life how she applies this empathy to her clients, my sister and me, and the people around her. My mother is a role model for me because she is determined, accepting, and emanates a natural kindness. Although she has her bad days, she inspires me to be a better person.

The first quiz I took for Pre-Calculus my senior year I got a 37/100. It was one of those moments in school where you contemplate going to the bathroom to regroup yourself because you can feel yourself about to cry. I indeed did end up going to the bathroom to dwell in my self-pity. However, I was able to regroup myself in time for the next lesson, where I took notes and nodded my head with extra enthusiasm, trying to convince my teacher and myself that I was capable of redemption. The next quiz I believe I got a 60. I saw this as a personal victory. Instead of a 55 in Pre-Cal, I now had a 61. This was the first time in my life that I had gotten less than a B in any class. It was the first time that my traditional method of cramming the day before was not working, and I needed to find a new strategy. I began to study on the weekends, even investing in a whiteboard because I felt guilty about how much paper I was wasting doing math problems. I watched Khan Academy videos, tutorials on Youtube, and asked my peers for help. I realized that to do well in this class, I needed the information to be continuously fresh in my brain. This required studying and reviewing every day so that I wouldn't forget the basic concepts mentioned in one lesson that were imperative to understand the next. Over time, I worked my way to a 76, then to an 84, and now, I have a 91year average in Pre-Cal. Even though I have been an A student all my life, I can say with confidence that this is the first time I’ve ever felt like I really had to learn a subject. Not only did Pre-Cal teach me problem-solving skills and the basics of Calculus, it also taught me that learning does not have a numerical value. Math taught me that even if something doesn’t come easily to me, that doesn’t mean that I have the right to give up and blame it on, “I’m just not a math person.” Just like there are multiple ways to solve a math problem, there are also different ways to study and prepare for a subject that conveniences each person differently. I just had to find what worked for me.

I am a senior in high school who attends a residential arts school. I have always sucked at math. It has never come easy to me like writing or drawing has. However, I have always somehow managed to get As in my Algebra and Geometry classes, enough to satisfy my parents and my pride that I was still a “smart kid” despite the fact that as a 16 year old I still had to count on my fingers while cross multiplying. The first quiz I took for Pre-Calculus my senior year I got a 37/100. I was shocked. It was one of those moments in school where you contemplate going to the bathroom to regroup yourself because you can feel your eyes tingling and it would crush your ego too much to let your teacher or classmates see you cry. I indeed did end up going to the bathroom to dwell in my self pity for about ten minutes. However, I was able to regroup myself in time for the next lesson, where I took notes and nodded my head with extra enthusiasm, trying to convince my teacher and myself that I was capable of redemption. The next quiz I believe I got a 60/100. Which to most people, is not good. However, I saw this as a personal victory. Instead of a 55 in Pre-Cal, I now had a 61. Beautiful. At least I wasn’t failing. This was the first time in my life that I had gotten less than a B in any class. It was the first time where my traditional method of cramming the day before was not working, and I needed to find a new strategy. I began to study on the weekends, even investing in a white board because I felt guilty about how much paper I was wasting constantly solving math problems and getting the wrong answer. I watched Khan Academy videos, tutorials on Youtube, and asked my peers for help. I realized that in order to do well in this class, I needed the information to be continuously fresh in my brain. This required studying and reviewing every day, so that I wouldn't forget the basic concepts mentioned in one lesson that were imperative to understand the next. Over time, my hard work began to pay off. I worked my way to a 76, then to an 84, and now, I am proud to say that I have a 91 year average in Pre-Cal. Even though I have been an A student all my life, I can say with confidence that this is the first time I’ve ever felt like I really had to learn a subject. Not only did Pre-Cal teach me problem solving skills and basics to Calculus, it also taught me that learning does not have a numerical value. There are some people who rejoice when they get a 70 or a 60 on a test, and worked very hard to do so. There are people who aren’t neurotypical, or don’t have the best home life and thus are not able to easily focus on tasks for a long period of time. Math is important because it taught me that even if something doesn’t come easily, that doesn’t mean that I have the right to give up and blame it on, “I’m just not a math person.” Just like there are multiple ways to solve a math problem, there are also different ways to study and prepare for a subject that conveniences each person differently. I just had to find what worked for me.

When I was fifteen, I applied to a residential arts school that has a pre-professional program for creative writing. I have always been fascinated by words and language. In preschool, I pretended to read books even though I had no clue what the squiggly lines on the pages meant. I love stories because like all art, they give humans a way to connect, to understand one another. Some of my favorite memories are of my parents telling me a story about something crazy they did when they were younger before I went to bed. When I arrived at the school for the first time, it was a big transition for me. I didn't know anybody, and like most writers, I have always been a more introverted person, so putting myself out there was very daunting. For our first creative nonfiction workshop, I remember shuffling through all of the things I had written that semester, telling myself, "Ok, this one is way too cliché," "This is borderline trauma dumping," "This one is too emotional," etc, etc. Eventually, I chose a hermit essay about my cat that died and Schrodinger's cat. When the day of the workshop came, I was terrified. When my creative writing class received my work, most of the class liked it. This, of course, was pleasing to me, who wanted to impress them and mark my place as one of the better writers in our class. However, there were some criticisms of the piece. Some said it sounded too academic; some said it lacked emotion; some said it had too much emotion at times. And to my sixteen-year-old self, this was a hard thing to hear. All my life I have taken criticism of my art very seriously. When I left the room to go back to my dorm, I sat on my bed for a long time, not entirely sure of what to feel. In this moment, and in most moments where I don't know what to do with myself, I began to write. I wrote in my journal how the workshop went. The more I wrote, the more I realized that the criticisms were valid. There were some spots where I was a little too nearly with the whole Schrodinger's cat thing, and didn't focus as much on my personal story. There were also moments where I got a little too mushy, and started to slope towards cliches. I rewrote the story with the advice that was given to me, and it turned out to be a lot better. This instance taught me that it is okay to turn in a piece of writing that is not perfect. In fact, it made it easier in the long run for me to be honest with my teachers and classmates when I was struggling to write something. It also helped me build a new sense of respect among my peers. I felt appreciated knowing that they weren't going to lie to me about the parts of my story that needed improvement, and that they also weren't going to deliver such criticisms in a way that was discouraging to my future writing endeavors. This workshop, and the many that have followed, taught me that criticism is not personal and that it is okay to admit when help is needed to get something done. Although praise is something every human being desires, I learned that I am writing because it is something I feel that I must do, not because I need external validation to make myself feel like a "good" writer, which is a very subjective thing anyway.

Grandmama's Garden you didn’t live long enough so that I could learn you though I remember you feeding a cheddar colored cat with white paws sitting on your head the snipping of a neon sunflower stem from the garden that grieved with us the roughness of gloves and chapped hands handing me a bouquet of yellow petals and pollen scolding my fear of brown dirt beneath fingernails when I cut my hair short grandaddy said I looked like you I felt ashamed for forgetting the sound of your voice for remembering my fear upon seeing gray paper mache a navy dress, with dolish foundation- skin that didn’t match our family’s honey beige I itch my brain to think that once it flushed with red and once your voice boomed and cracked, when I threw a tantrum in the guest room. that once you made me milkshakes, in a plastic sippy cup that you stroked by hair before I went to sleep and wrapped me in an electric blanket, while we watched The Lion King even though it creeped you out It makes sense that now your body is like a seed beneath the ground one that grew my father and tended yellow flowers now germinates the grass above I see it and think: Simba and Mufsa, “The Circle of Life,” & scratch marks on VCR tapes the cheddar cat rolling lazily in dead leaves you once tended I’ve been meaning to ask (though I’m too afraid to see for myself), Is there is a garden above your grave?

When I was thirteen years old I would come home every day from the bus stop crying My stop was the last one, and one thing I will never forget is that the bus driver always came to sit down with me at my stop and ask me if I was okay. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to” she’d say, “but I am here to listen if you need me to” I would smile and nod. She would sneak me candies and peppermints, and on the last day of school got me a king-sized Twix bar (my favorite candy). Even though I was struggling with anorexia and would throw the candy away the moment I got home, I never forgot her kindness and genuine care for me. After that school year and into the summer, my mental condition began to worsen. I began to run excessively to punish myself. Meals were no longer a fuel, they were something to be dreaded. Food was only to be consumed when necessary. Anorexia turned me into a selfish brat. I would compare myself to other girls, filling myself with a perverse sense of pride if I was smaller than they were. I would skip family dinners and stay in my room, missing out on a lot of quality time with my sister before she moved out of the house. I had to break up with my best friend at the time because we kept triggering each other. The only thing I felt I had control over was my illness. Therefore, I continued to pursue it in everything it wanted me to do. My parents would yell at me out of love and frustration. The one argument that brought me back to my senses was when my mother, a nutritionist, and survivor of disordered eating, told me that if I continued as I was, I wouldn’t be able to have children one day. I told her that wasn’t true, and then she explained to me with her superior nutritional knowledge the effects of long-term caloric deprivation on female fertility. I realized then that my eating disorder wasn’t just something that was affecting me. It was affecting the people around me, and the people who could potentially come into my life. It was then that I realized that my life is not just my own. The things I do and the way I treat myself have effects on other people. After that argument, I slowly and reluctantly began to get better. When I fully recovered, I was able to carry on meaningful conversations and relationships with people without thinking about what or how much I was going to eat next. With a healthy and clear mind, I was able to help other people who were struggling, while also knowing my limits and when to let a professional step in. I think we need more people in this world like the bus driver that handed me the candies. I came to the realization that I want to go about my life like her, unselfishly giving to those who need my help. I want to be a social worker. I want to dedicate my life to others who are struggling mentally. I want to be a beacon of light that people can trust and turn to when they are in the darkest of times, because I have been there myself and know how easy it is to get lost.

Though I was never a foster child, my parents did divorce when I was about seven years old. Growing up, I saw firsthand the effects that a dysfunctional household environment has on a young child. Following the divorce, I had a lot of anger issues. At the time, I was doing gymnastics and would constantly talk back to my coaches whenever they gave me the slightest correction. It got so bad to the point where my coach told me I would be kicked off the team if I didn’t get my act together. After some time, I began to see gymnastics in a new light. Rather than using my anger to talk back, I would put it into my training. Instead of getting upset at corrections, I would do specific exercises to help me accomplish the skill I was struggling with. This was the first time in my life I learned to redirect a negative emotion into something positive. My gymnastics teammate had a family that fostered children. I remember one foster child who had similar anger problems that I did. One day she was having a meltdown. I offered her to come with me to jump on the trampoline. She followed me outside and I began to bounce her a little. I noticed this calmed her down, so I began to do some handstands, flips, and jumps that I learned at gymnastics. I taught her some skills, and she caught on pretty fast. After thirty minutes had gone by, she was smiling and giggling, doing cartwheels and jumps in the air. All my childhood I also loved writing. During gymnastics meets, I always kept a journal with me. I wrote my scores, my mood, the things my teammates and I did or were going to do after the meet. I found that writing had a very therapeutic effect on me. When I quit the sport, I used writing to help me process my feelings. During the summer of 2018, I began playing piano and took up lessons because I found music to also be therapeutic. Two summers later, I applied to the Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities for creative writing. During the first week of school, my suitemate was feeling really anxious. One day we went down to one of the music rooms. I played the piano and she sang. We goofed around for a long time and she eventually calmed down. I thought back to my friends, foster sister, and us jumping on the trampoline. I thought about how she must have been scared and anxious too, moving to a new house every couple of months and having to constantly adjust to a new environment. I thought of myself and how anxious I got just moving back and forth between my father and mother’s house, and how much worse it must be for someone who is moving between strangers houses; that peculiar sense of uncertainty and insecurity, always at the back of your head. From my own experience growing up in a divorced family, and also witnessing other people struggling as a result of dysfunctional households, I have always felt empathetic towards people with those experiences. The arts also helped me develop empathy for people from different backgrounds. Once I arrived at school, I was able to use the healthy coping mechanisms I learned through gymnastics, music, and writing, to help my peers. Since I plan on pursuing a career in social work, I also hope to help my clients with diverting negative emotions into something constructive as I have learned to do.

When I was thirteen years old I would come home from school every day crying. Though at the time I didn’t know why. In hindsight, I can try to pinpoint the reasons. I was running varsity for the cross country against people five years older than me and woke myself at 5AM every morning to train. I had unresolved abandonment issues from my parents’ divorce. I put too much of my self-worth into my grades and would make myself stay up late to study if I got anything below a 90. My best friend at the time was struggling with anorexia, and I had to pretend I wasn’t to help her through that. My sister was going off to college soon, and I had to learn to manage things on my own without her guidance. It was too much for me to handle, so the moment I got out of the school doors and into the bus, I began to cry. My stop was the last one, and one thing I will never forget is that the bus driver always came to sit down with me at my stop and ask me if I was okay. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to” she’d say, “but I am here to listen if you need me to” I would smile and nod. She would sneak me candies and peppermints, and on the last day of school got me a king-sized Twix bar (my favorite candy). Even though I was struggling with anorexia and would throw the candy away the moment I got home, I never forgot her kindness and genuine care for me. After that school year and into the summer, my mental condition began to worsen. Even after cross-country and track season was over, I began to run excessively to punish myself. Meals were no longer a fuel, they were something to be dreaded. Food was only to be consumed when necessary. When I was thirteen, I ran the Charleston Half Marathon. I remember people praising me for doing something so difficult at such a young age. People innocently complimented how in shape I was without knowing I had a million different distorted food rules in my head pulling me further and further away from who I was. I finished the race, feeling a sense of euphoria and malicious satisfaction for having beaten my teammates that were older than me. Anorexia turned me into a selfish brat. I would compare myself to other girls, filling myself with a perverse sense of pride if I was smaller than they were. I would skip family dinners and stay in my room, missing out on a lot of quality time with my sister before she moved out of the house. I had to break up with my best friend at the time because we kept triggering each other. I blamed my entire disorder on her, telling her that she was the one that made me sick. When in reality that was not true. Many factors played into my decline. A year later, we made amends and apologized. However, at the time, I was completely unable to own up to my actions. Everything was someone else’s fault. The only thing I felt I had control over was my illness. Therefore, I continued to pursue it in everything it wanted me to do. My parents would yell at me out of love and frustration. The one argument that brought me back to my senses was when my mother, a nutritionist, and survivor of disordered eating, told me that if I continued as I was, I wouldn’t be able to have children one day. I told her that wasn’t true, and then she explained to me with her superior (and undistorted) nutritional knowledge the effects of long-term caloric deprivation on female fertility. I realized then that my eating disorder wasn’t just something that was affecting me. It was affecting the people around me, and the people who could potentially come into my life. It was then that I realized that my life is not just my own. The things I do and the way I treat myself have effects on other people. After that argument, I slowly and reluctantly began to get better. When I fully recovered, I noticed a significant change in my life. I was able to carry on meaningful conversations and relationships with people without thinking about what or how much I was going to eat next. With a healthy and clear mind, I was able to help other people who were struggling, while also knowing my limits and when to let a professional step in. I think we need more people in this world like the bus driver that handed me the candies. I never quite forgot about her and her simple acts of kindness that profoundly impacted me. I came to the realization that I want to go about my life like her, unselfishly giving to those who need my help. I want to be a social worker. I want to dedicate my life to others who are struggling mentally. I want to be a beacon of light that people can trust and turn to when they are in the darkest of times, because I have been there myself and know how easy it is to get lost. I also want to use my position as a social worker to help treat and diagnose people with eating disorders. I especially want to help those with eating disorders who are underprivileged. Although I am a middle-class white girl, eating disorders don’t only affect this group of people. People of color and those living in poverty who struggle with Eds are especially unnoticed and unrecognized. I want to use my position and privilege to help other people recover, live to have fulfilling lives, and tell their stories, just as I have been able fortunate to do here.

When I was about ten years old, I was going through my newest snack phase: Pringles. I seriously ate like a can a day. This was also around the time my dad had remarried my stepmother. I got along well with her, and I always looked forward to the weekends where she’d spend the night at my dad’s. However, we had never officially been on a vacation together. Therefore, I was pretty nervous about how things were going to pan out on our upcoming beach trip with just the three of us. Once we were at the beach, I sat down and immediately opened up my Pringles. I squeezed the can between my thighs and looked to my right to see that a seagull had landed on the armrest of my beach chair. It took me a couple seconds to process this: there was a seagull perched on my armrest, staring his beady little eyes into mine. The creature tilted his head to the side, leaning towards the direction of the Pringle can still placed between my legs. Then, more seagulls began to come towards me. They seemed to respawn out of nowhere, like Minecraft chickens in survival mode. As I watched them, my innards slowly froze into ice. I closed my eyes, wishing them away. When I opened them up again, there were about thirty seagulls, an entire herd of them. They all waddled in my direction, headed for my Pringles. The moment those little demons started waddling towards me, I bolted to my parents. My Pringle can became a baton and I became a Usain Bolt, sprinting to the shoreline to where they were seated. I could hear the seagulls squawking close behind me. They were flying. I told myself not to look back and to keep running forwards. I had enough fear to fuel myself until I finally arrived to my parents'. My stepmother pulled her sunglasses down from her eyes and stared at me and the bizarre sight of seagulls chasing her to-be stepdaughter. Without thinking, I threw the Pringles onto her and my father, tossed the can behind me, and ran into the ocean to hide myself beneath the murky water. I stayed underwater until I ran out of breath. When I came up for air, I saw my stepmother and father cursing and swatting seagulls away with their sun caps. The people sitting around us stared in confusion and concern. I emerged from the water and sat beside my parents, daring not to say a word. I buried my toes in the sand and thought of burying my entire body along with it. I looked at my stepmother’s face to see if she was mad at me. It was hard to tell because she still had her sunglasses on. She looked at me and I turned my head in the opposite direction, pretending to be fascinated with a broken seashell next to my foot. She then busted out laughing. She has one of those laughs where it sounds like she’s crying hysterically and I felt my heart flip. I ruined this vacation. Our first vacation as a new family. I turned my head to my father and saw that he was laughing too. “You know,” he said, “you’d be the worst person to team up with during a zombie apocalypse.” That funny/mildly traumatizing moment broke the ice between us, and allowed our new family to bond. Although it was horrifying at the time, in hindsight it is one of my favorite stories to tell. I now eat my Pringles before arriving at the beach.

When I was little, optimism came easily to me. My mother made a Facebook post about this incident: When I was thirteen, my school got canceled because of the weather. I walked downstairs with my bookbag on to meet my mother, who then informed me that I wouldn't be having school that day. I just smiled and said, "well, that means I have another day to study for my history test!" I studied that day and ended up getting an A on the test. However, as I got older and life got harder, optimism became more difficult to practice. During my first week attending a residential arts school, I fainted from stress and hit my head hard. I got a concussion and was not able to finish my assignments that week, which I was already behind on. I began to get grumpy, filled with imposter syndrome and pessimism. With time, my head began to get better physically and mentally. After many weeks, phone calls with my parents, and reflection about why I wanted to be at this school. I began to create a new mindset. Instead of thinking, "I hate being surrounded by people that are better than me, it makes me feel so bad!" I began to tell myself, "I have an opportunity to learn from these people, what a privilege!" Little changes like that helped me to become a better student and person. As time went on, I began to notice a change in my writing and my well-being in general. I made a lot of new friends and even got some of my works published. Without an optimistic mindset, this would not have been possible. I try to keep the natural optimistic personality my younger self had wherever I go.

My favorite piece of art is the essay, "Consider the Lobster" by David Foster Wallace. The essay discusses the Maine lobster festival, and the morality of boiling lobsters alive. Wallace discusses why suffering, even that of a lobster, is uncomfortable for humans to think about. In the essay, Wallace can argue both points of view. One is that lobsters are tasty and they were going to die anyway so who cares how, and the other point of view is that their suffering is impossible to not notice and so much to the extent that chefs walk out of the kitchen while they are boiling the lobster. Watching the creature use its claws to try and climb out of the scalding hot water is too hard for them to watch. Therefore, they don't. At the end of this essay, Wallace admits that he does not have an answer to this predicament. He also says that even though he knows that animals suffer for his "gustatory pleasure" he will probably continue to eat them anyway. This article was very controversial for him to write, but he remained honest when discussing the complexities of human moral judgment. His essay inspired me as a writer to try to write and discuss controversial things. What is morality? What does it mean to be a human? What is the point of life? None of these questions have a clear answer. Each is subjective to each individual. However, that is what makes writing more interesting and fun. This essay and many others by David Foster Wallace encouraged me to continue writing about things that interest me, even if they are controversial. It also encouraged me to regard both sides of a controversial issue, to become an even more well rounded and critical thinker.

My favorite scientific discovery was Katherine Johnson's calculations on how to get Apollo 11 safely to the moon and back. As a black woman living in a segregated workplace, Katherine Johnson not only overcame social boundaries and norms at that time but defied them. Even though her parents and teachers saw her potential, segregated America didn't. Her town didn't offer schooling for back children past the eighth grade, so her family moved 120 miles so that she could go to college. Although I am not black, I am a woman and relate to her struggles to be respected because of things she has no control over. I was named after her because my parents wanted me to see that women of all colors, ethnicities, and religions can come together to create something magnificent for humanity. That we are capable of much more than the labels society puts on us. Although I go to an art school, Katherine Johnson's scientific discoveries inspired me to pursue my interests in space and science. For my fifteenth birthday, my mom bought me a telescope. I sat outside for hours looking at the stars and being mesmerized by the universe. I use the discoveries of Katherine Johnson to inspire me as a female writer. Sometimes it can be hard when most of your peers being published are white men. However, so were most of her coworkers, and she continued to make innovations that changed humanity. I look to her for inspiration Without Katherine Johnson's discovery on how to get men safely to the moon and back, we might now have half of the space exploration knowledge we have today. Satellites, orbitals, space stations, and reusable spacecraft might not have been possible without her trajectory calculations.

Every year my mom took my sister and me to see a movie for Earth day. I remember sitting in the dark theatre, watching National Geographic films, and being entirely encapsulated with awe at how beautiful our planet is. I also remember being older and driving home from the movies on Earth day to see a bunch of brown exhaust coming out of a truck in front of us. I sank back in my seat and began to feel uneasy. It dawned on me the irony of going to see an Earth day movie in a greenhouse gas-powered car. Luckily, my stepmother drilled environmentally friendly habits into me while I was young. She encouraged me to take short showers, use plant-based soaps, and limit red meat consumption. We always bought our groceries at Whole Foods or Trader Joe's. We woke up early on Saturdays to go to the downtown market in Columbia SC to buy fresh vegetables and produce. She told us to never drive somewhere for long unless necessary. She encouraged family walks to get from place to place. We also had a compost pile. When I was little I thought these things were annoying and weird. I didn't like having to restrict my shower time or use weird soaps and natural deodorant. However, as I got under and was able to understand the detrimental effects of modern life on the environment, I came to realize that she had a point. Although I am no Greta Thunberg, I am glad that these environmentally friendly habits have become almost a lifestyle for me. I want to teach my children the same thing my stepmother taught me. And hopefully, as the generations go on, we will have a chance at improving the condition of our planet.

I started gymnastics when I was five. After my parents divorced I got increasingly frustrated with myself and my teammates. I was encouraged by my teachers not to talk about what was going on in my life at school, saying that I would scare other children. Although I understood why they told me this, it ended up making my condition worse. Every once of the anger, frustration, anxiety, and sadness I had inside me, I lashed out at gymnastics practice. I would talk back to my coaches and say ugly words to my teammates. It got so bad that my coach told me that if I didn’t straighten up, I’d be taken off the team. Despite being rude to them, it was my teammates that helped me get better during this time. I met two girls on my team who later became my best friends. We bonded through our shared hatred of conditioning and middle splits. As time passed we formed an unbreakable bond. Nearly every weekend we’d have sleepovers, go to church, text each other, etc. One day they asked me to go to their Wednesday Bible study. Although I was not the most religious person, I still agreed to go. It was there I realized the importance of community in alleviating mental health issues. Despite not believing or agreeing 100 percent with the things we learned, the stories in the Bible taught me the importance of patience, respect, and forgiveness of one’s past. I also met many lovely people my age that gave me wonderful memories. Even though I am still skeptical about organized religion, I do not regret a single bit of that experience and what it taught me. I believe that you can still live the virtues of the Bible or any religion, without being gung-ho orthodox about it. My English teacher in 5th grade also went above and beyond to not only make sure I was understanding the course material but also to make sure that I was doing well physically and mentally. The weekend after my grandfather died I cried in class. She stopped the lesson and pulled me outside to talk. When I told her what happened she hugged me and walked me to the guidance counselor's office. Another time my mother was late for orientation. My English teacher was on her way to a meeting but stayed with me in the hallway until my mother arrived. My English teacher taught me the importance of a person who genuinely cares about their students. Because she cared for me, I began to foster a deep interest in her class and writing in general. In 2021 I got into a residential arts school for creative writing. She wrote my recommendation letter. Through my writing, I was able to have a healthy outlet for my emotions. I wrote about the things that had happened in my life, good and bad. I plan to use the lessons learned from these people in my life, and my skills gained as an artist to pursue a degree in social work. I want to be a mentor/helping hand to other people. I also wish to utilize student services for mental health, to make sure I am doing alright while pursuing my studies. You can not help others if you are hurting yourself. I want to create a support group at my university for those studying mental health-related fields. You have to be in tip-top mental shape to help others with theirs. To do this we must be vulnerable and open to help from other people.

My goal in education and life is to help other people. There is a quote by Muhammad Ali that goes, “service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.” I have dedicated and continue to dedicate myself, my life, and my education to this endeavor. I have had my demons and mental health struggles. When I was thirteen I was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and wasted a year of my life trying to obtain an unrealistic ideal and fulfill an emotional void through food restriction. I know what it is like to be in the thick of your head and see no way out. I was extremely lucky to have parents that understood my needs and were able to get me to an Ed specialist to help me recover. Without access to her, I do not think my recovery would have been possible. I realized the importance of telling my story when I made a Facebook post about my struggle with anorexia, and how I got better. I got calls and messages from old teachers, classmates, and total strangers telling me how much my story impacted them. One comment from a lady at my old church read, “you should consider becoming an author, you’ve got a knack for writing.” So I did. When I was fifteen I applied to a residential arts school because I wanted to surround myself with other writers and artists. My recovered self was able to make beautiful art from my struggle, even winning notable mentions in competitions and getting one of my works published. I found fulfillment and control by telling my story and uplifting others, rather than staying in the safety bubble of my mind. I realized that I can turn the darkest parts of myself and my life into something inspiring to others. Writing also helped me have more empathy towards people as I began to read more and resonate with the struggles of real and fictional characters. Since I was surrounded by a diverse group of artists, my writing also became more varied in terms of characters and personality traits. Because of my tribulations, I want to help other people who are struggling. I want to be a social worker. I especially want to help people who have eating disorders who are underprivileged, because contrary to stereotypes, not every anorexic person is a middle-class white girl like me. Men, LGBTQ members, those in poverty, and people of every color and race face these problems too. However, many of their symptoms go unnoticed. Whether that is due to the lack of availability of mental health services, or financial reasons, I want to help those who especially need it. I believe that everyone has a story to tell. I think that art, especially literature, has a healing element to it. When I am older I would like to perhaps also travel around schools, teaching children about healthy coping mechanisms for uncomfortable emotions. I think art is a great outlet for these things. I remember when I was little, the D.A.R.E. program came to our school to teach us about the dangers of drug and alcohol abuse. However, they did not do the best job, and almost villainized those who succumbed to unhealthy coping mechanisms. I want to use my position as a social worker and my knowledge in psychology to properly teach children and adults about addictions and mental illness. I want to highlight the importance of separating the addiction from the addict. I want to give people hope and remind them that no one is too far gone.

Whenever school is out my friends and I go wading in the creek. The water is dirty, smells bad, and probably has countless amounts of trash and goose poo underneath its murky brown surface. However, it is still very stress relieving. I think simple pleasures are like this. I find simple pleasures in life by practicing gratitude. My definition of that would be, making typical or unfortunate events into something to be thankful for. You can be knee-deep in murky brown goose poop water and cry about it, or you can splash some onto your friends and enjoy the time spent in their presence. My life got significantly better when I began to choose the second option. Like most people during the year 2020, I was not having a hot time. Like a broken pendulum, I was swinging between bouts of depression and anxiety. I didn't have an outlet for it, I didn't know where to divert it. For my birthday that year, my mother bought me a telescope. I remember looking at the night sky, being able to see the stars up close, and for at least five minutes being so engrossed with the vastness of the universe that my troubles on Earth began to feel small. What's funny about simple pleasures is that they are often right in front of you. I have seen the sky and the night's stars every day for the past sixteen years. However, it wasn't until I saw it up close did I realize how beautiful and significant it was to me. Simple pleasures are like this. They are all around us, sometimes we just have to look a little closer. I look for simple pleasures all around me by living in the moment and focusing on the things and people I love.

When I was thirteen years old I would come home from school every day crying. Though at the time I didn’t know why. In hindsight, I can try to pinpoint the reasons. I was running varsity for the cross country against people five years older than me and woke myself at 5AM every morning to train. I had unresolved abandonment issues from my parents’ divorce. I put too much of my self-worth into my grades and would make myself stay up late to study if I got anything below a 90. My best friend at the time was struggling with anorexia, and I had to pretend I wasn’t to help her through that. My sister was going off to college soon, and I had to learn to manage things on my own without her guidance. It was too much for me to handle, so the moment I got out of the school doors and into the bus, I began to cry. My stop was the last one, and one thing I will never forget is that the bus driver always came to sit down with me at my stop and ask me if I was okay. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to” she’d say, “but I am here to listen if you need me to” I would smile and nod. She would sneak me candies and peppermints, and on the last day of school got me a king-sized Twix bar (my favorite candy). Even though I was struggling with anorexia and would throw the candy away the moment I got home, I never forgot her kindness and genuine care for me. After that school year and into the summer, my mental condition began to worsen. Even after cross-country and track season was over, I began to run excessively to punish myself. Meals were no longer a fuel, they were something to be dreaded. Food was only to be consumed when necessary. When I was thirteen, I ran the Charleston Half Marathon. I remember people praising me for doing something so difficult at such a young age. People innocently complimented how in shape I was without knowing I had a million different distorted food rules in my head pulling me further and further away from who I was. I finished the race, feeling a sense of euphoria and malicious satisfaction for having beaten my teammates that were older than me. Anorexia turned me into a selfish brat. I would compare myself to other girls, filling myself with a perverse sense of pride if I was smaller than they were. I would skip family dinners and stay in my room, missing out on a lot of quality time with my sister before she moved out of the house. I had to break up with my best friend at the time because we kept triggering each other. I blamed my entire disorder on her, telling her that she was the one that made me sick. When in reality that was not true. Many factors played into my decline. A year later, we made amends and apologized. However, at the time, I was completely unable to own up to my actions. Everything was someone else’s fault. The only thing I felt I had control over was my illness. Therefore, I continued to pursue it in everything it wanted me to do. My parents would yell at me out of love and frustration. The one argument that brought me back to my senses was when my mother, a nutritionist, and survivor of disordered eating, told me that if I continued as I was, I wouldn’t be able to have children one day. I told her that wasn’t true, and then she explained to me with her superior (and undistorted) nutritional knowledge the effects of long-term caloric deprivation on female fertility. I realized then that my eating disorder wasn’t just something that was affecting me. It was affecting the people around me, and the people who could potentially come into my life. It was then that I realized that my life is not just my own. The things I do and the way I treat myself have effects on other people. After that argument, I slowly and reluctantly began to get better. When I fully recovered, I noticed a significant change in my life. I was able to carry on meaningful conversations and relationships with people without thinking about what or how much I was going to eat next. With a healthy and clear mind, I was able to help other people who were struggling, while also knowing my limits and when to let a professional step in. I think we need more people in this world like the bus driver that handed me the candies. I never quite forgot about her and her simple acts of kindness that profoundly impacted me. I came to the realization that I want to go about my life like her, unselfishly giving to those who need my help. I want to be a social worker. I want to dedicate my life to others who are struggling mentally. I want to be a beacon of light that people can trust and turn to when they are in the darkest of times, because I have been there myself and know how easy it is to get lost. I also want to use my position as a social worker to help treat and diagnose people with eating disorders. I especially want to help those with eating disorders who are underprivileged. Although I am a middle-class white girl, eating disorders don’t only affect this group of people. People of color and those living in poverty who struggle with Eds are especially unnoticed and unrecognized. I want to use my position and privilege to help other people recover, live to have fulfilling lives, and tell their stories, just as I have been able fortunate to do here.

When I was in seventh grade I met another girl who shared my passion for tumbling. I remember my dad calling me outside because a new blond-haired girl had just moved in next door and she was doing cartwheels on my lawn. We got along almost instantly. The very night we met we also had a sleepover. I got to know her and her parents. I met her brother and he showed me his pokemon card collection. However, something felt off. As a child of divorce, you can sort of tell when something isn’t right in someone’s home. Her parents seemed distant in a way I wasn’t able to articulate at the time. The worse her home situation got, the more her behavior (and the way my younger self immaturely responded to it) began to affect our friendship. We stopped talking the last month of seventh grade. She told me that she was sorry for our past arguments at eighth-grade orientation where we just so happened to be seated next to each other on the bleachers. She also told me that her parents got divorced and that she needed my help in emotionally dealing with that. At that moment I still felt a tinge of bitterness towards her but decided to put that aside. As someone who has been through her situation, I knew just how hard that can be to live through. We started talking again and rebonded over what initially united us, which was a shared love for tumbling. Our friendship taught me that sometimes you have to throw away past grudges and help someone through something difficult. It also taught me the importance of treating others with empathy because as cliche as it sounds, you never really know what someone is going through.

When I was younger my grandfather had a super thick southern accent. Sometimes I didn't even know if he was speaking English. After a while, I grew accustomed to his way of speaking. As this happened, I was able to better understand his childhood and what it was like growing up in the 50s. He had gone to an all-white school in South Carolina and was notorious for making insensitive racial jokes. Because of this, I grew a sort of dread/aversion to his presence. I began to unconsciously villanize him. It wasn't until I talked with my other grandfather did I understand the importance of communication from generation to generation. My stepfather's dad explained to me that it was exactly that sort of villainization that created more hate between two opposing opinions and the people that hold them. I understood this as I got older and surrounded myself with people who were different than me. I realized that it is a good thing to have my morals, but it is also important to listen to others before labeling them as a bigot. I started to talk more to my grandfather. The more I talked to him the more I realized that his insensitive racial jokes stemmed more from a fear of the unknown, rather than an actual aversion to people of different skin color. Although I don't see my grandfather much anymore, this lesson in my life taught me the importance of not only physically listening to people, but understanding their mental processing and situation as to why they believe the things they do. I want to make it my goal in life to continue listening to people who are different so that I can learn from them and their lives, even if their opinions are misguided.

I intend to go to college for social work. Although I have never had an issue with abusing drugs or alcohol, I have had an addiction to anorexia and saw firsthand the effects that my actions had on my myself and my family. When someone you love is struggling, whether it be with substance abuse or mental illness, it can be hard to watch. Usually, the two go hand in hand. I want to use my degree in social work to not only help those who have substance abuse issues, but also help them get to the underlying problem that caused them to turn to substances for emotional relief. Substance issues do not develop overnight. Neither do other unhealthy coping mechanisms. I remember myself slowly succumbing to over-exercising and food restriction as a result of anxiety and a need for control. I was transitioning through middle school to high school, and I was also having issues grappling with the after-effects of my parent's divorce. My older sister was going off to college soon, and I had to learn to emotionally sustain myself instead of always relying on her for guidance. I was able to get better. However, I am also extremely privileged. I come from a middle-class family that was able to provide the proper counseling and therapy needed for me to get better. I have had friends that also struggled with restrictive eating and were not able to afford this kind of help. Because of that, their condition continued to get worse, or they turned to other unhealthy coping mechanisms like self-harm or drugs. Since therapy helps exponentially in alleviating mental health, I want to use my degree to make sure those struggling with addictions or addictive tendencies can get the help that they need. Especially those who are struggling financially and are surrounded by temptations to further fulfill their addictions. I want to use my degree to make sure people are allowed coverage for their medical insurance for mental health issues. A lot of insurance plans do cover mental health. I want to make sure people are getting the proper financial aid for their medical problems. Whether that is for mental health problems, or physical health problems as a result of substance abuse. I would also love to visit schools around the country, educating children on the effects of drugs and alcohol. However, I want to do this in a better way than how it was taught to me. I remember when I was in elementary school and the D.A.R.E. program came to our school to teach us about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. What they didn't get into, however, was why people turned to these substances in the first place. They made a huge mistake, which was villainizing those who turn to substances to alleviate their pain. They made it sound as if people who did drugs and drank were bad, which couldn't be further from the truth. Sadly, this impaired my perspective on people who struggled with substance issues when I was younger. It wasn't until I got older and developed issues with exercise and food restriction, did I realize how complex coping mechanisms and the cycle of addiction can be. I think that talking to someone who understands the cycle of addiction would help people recover from substance abuse issues. I want to not only help people with their situations and insurance, but I want to connect with them. I want to understand them and their lives so that I can get them the proper help that they need as efficiently as possible.

In the sport of gymnastics, getting a kip is one of the most important fundamental skills in order to advance to the next level. However, I found this very difficult to do. I remember trying the skill over and over again, jumping from the springboard and onto the bar, hoping that my momentum would somehow push me over. It never really did. The problem was that I was focusing too much on doing the skill itself, rather than doing small drills to help me get better at the minor concepts. This mindset of "do it all" plagued other areas of my life. For example, the SAT. I would stay up into the dark hours of the night attempting all the practice tests at Khan Academy. However, I should have been focusing on specific concepts that I needed help with. For example, I was pretty good at English and grammar on the SAT, but my Algebra skills were lacking. When attempting to do my kip, I had plenty of momentum. It was just that I didn't have enough upper body strength to pull myself upwards. I worked on this by staying for conditioning after practice with my teammates, who were also eager to get their kips. When you're stubborn like me and want to get everything done at once, it can be hard to be patient. Sadly, accomplishing big things usually requires patience, and it does not usually happen through one attempt. I had to fail and reflect to get better and accomplish my goals. By being patient and reflecting on what specific things I needed to work on, I was able to eventually get my kip and score higher on the SAT. Without practicing patience, this would not have been possible.

A piece of art that inspires me is Leonid Afromov's "Night Park" oil pastel painting. The bright lights and vibrant colors remind me of the Christmas light shows my mother would take me to see when I was a child. Although this is an unoriginal thing to do, we would always ride through Saluda Shoals park looking out the window and being captivated like bugs to a lamp by all the pretty lights they had on display. This artwork evokes those same emotions of peacefulness and awe that I felt when I was a child and looking at the Christmas lights in the park. When I was feeling sad in the middle of the school year sometimes it took only a few simple things to remind me that life is not all that bad. For example, I would remind myself that even if I failed a test or did something socially embarrassing, I would still see the Christmas lights at the end of the year. It gave me something to hope for. The white light at the center of the canvas begs the viewer to keep looking into something they can not see clearly. This artistic style evokes the same feeling of hope inside of me as the actual Christmas lights. When I see this artwork, I feel as if everything is going to be alright. I also like that Afromov doesn't like the idea of art exhibitions. Rather, he sells his paintings online so that they are accessible to all. As a fellow artist (writer), I find this to be quite inspiring. It shows that one does not necessarily have to be famous or have a fancy publishing company to make a lasting impression on people. I hope to the same thing with my art in the future.

If I had an extra $1,000 right now I would save it. I would save it with the rest of my college funds to help me study internationally in Canada since tuition is higher for US and out-of-province students. I have never been much of a materialistic person. Rather, I see money as a vessel to do and accomplish the things I want in life. I want to go to McGill University in Montreal because diversity is something I value. I think is crucial to not only understand but also celebrate the differences of others. I intend to use any given scholarship money to help me major in social work. I want to not only understand and have compassion for those in unfortunate situations, but I want to do something to help them. I want to see their sadness alleviated because I believe it is my job as a human on this Earth to make sure other humans are taken care of to the best of my abilities. That is what gives me a feeling of purpose and fulfillment in life. If I had $1,000 right now, I would use it to further my social work pursuits and explore the world in general. I want to learn as much about humanity and other people as I can while I am still here. Although money is not crucial to doing this, it would greatly help with my career and life goals.

My definition of success is being someone who helps ease the pain of others. To achieve this goal, I am going to become a social worker. I want to dedicate my career and life to making sure those who are underprivileged and those who live in dangerous households get to a place of safety and security as fast as they can. I find purpose in understanding humans, even across language and cultural barriers. When I was little, I always loved Spanish class because our teacher let us see pictures and videos of people who lived differently than us. This passion for exploring the world and other people's ways of life never left me, although my passion for the Spanish language did. Because of that, I would like to study internationally in Canada. More specifically, Quebec. I would like to help other people in that area while also improving myself by becoming more culturally and linguistically aware of things that are different from my old way of life. I plan to achieve success by continuing to go about my life learning about other people. I want to be remembered as not just a social worker, but as someone who went out of their way to make sure other people felt comfortable and heard. My goals for the future are to continue learning about other languages and cultures and to see how this affects the society of a certain place. Understanding an individual's cultural background is crucial in understanding their psychology. In order to be a good social worker, you have to be educated in the history the place you're working. My goal for the future is to continue learning about other people. I find success and fulfillment in making sure others are taken care of. 

Spending my time with people who share the same passions as me helps to fuel my life. When I was fifteen, I applied to a residential arts school for writing because I wanted to be surrounded by those who shared the same passions as me when it came to literature. I met one of my closest friends here, who is also in my creative writing department.  Not only did I get more excited about the things I was already passionate about, but I also discovered new things I like that might not have been possible had I not applied to this school. I started reading about astrology, the religions that use it, and the Buddhist philosophy that my creative writing teacher follows. I discovered new music and foods in Greenville and was exposed to people who thought differently than me.  Because of this exploration, I noticed that my writing got better. The more I knew and discovered, the more I had to write about. The more I learned about different cultures, the more diverse and complicated my characters became.  Learning in an environment that encourages educational exploration gave me a feeling of fulfillment. I felt fulfilled because not only was I learning in school, I was learning about life and humanity in general. This showed in my writing and thus made others feel fulfilled when they could actually relate to characters that were diverse and complicated. My curiosity and exploration helped to broaden my audience.  I would like to keep exploring and learning about the world. I would like to study internationally in order to learn more about people and their cultures. I would like to use my education and scholarship money to continue writing about characters that everyone can relate to. I want to unite people through my writing.

Nature is like a pesky child who pulls pranks when in a bad mood. I remember getting stung by a jellyfish for the first time when I was seven and being convinced that I was going to die. I remember being pulled out of school for two weeks because of a hurricane that ended up being an over-glorified thunderstorm. In these instances, nature was not the most delightful. Like a pesky child, it is hard to appreciate nature in spite of all of the pain and nuances she puts us through. However, I love nature because (as hippy-ish and flower child this is going to sound like), we are a part of it. I am not religious, but I love the quote that goes, "from dust we came, and to dust, we will return." Some people think of God. I think of decomposition. I think of the time my mom drove over a deer on the interstate, and while my sister cried I reassured her with the lyrics from The Lion King, "it's the circle of liiiifeeeee!" as we continued along the highway. Because that's the way life goes. It goes on. When things die, the living continue on until they die and new generations of life are made. I try to appriciate nature because it is my obligation as a human to give back to the things that created me. It is my obligation to make sure that future generations have the best life possible. This means clean air, water, and room for agriculture. I appreciate nature by going on walks, taking breaks from my desk to sit outside and listen to the birds chirp. This helps to ground me and remind myself that I am a part of life, and just how rare and beautiful that is.

The song that most inspires me is "A Pirate Looks at 40" by Jimmy Buffet. When I was little, my dad used to sing that song to me. Of course, some lyrics had to be changed because I was young. But I still remember my dad tickling my stomach when Buffet sings, "and in your belly you hold the treasures few have ever seen" and all the hand motions we made to go along with the lyrics. Now that I am older, a simple hug of goodnight will usually suffice. However, I find even more significance in Buffet's lyrics now that I am old enough to comprehend them. The song is about growing older, watching the environment around you change, but still being left haunted by memories of the past. The pirate acknowledges that he has made mistakes, and is on a never-ending journey trying to forgive himself and find peace with his past. The song ends with the line, "I feel like I've drowned, but I won't wear a frown" meaning that even though the pirate is depressed because of the accumulation of life events and his aging, he will not let that stop him from trying to be a happy person. I relate to this song, especially now as a young adult. It is hard to think about how quickly changes happen between childhood and adulthood. Growing up is like continuously having sensory overload, but with memories you don't know how to process. Listening to songs from my childhood like this one helps to ground me. This song reminds me of my father and the memories we have shared. It reminds me that no matter what I do in life, I will always have him behind me to comfort me in my endeavors.

"The things we do to cope with our negative emotions, are often worse than the negative emotions themselves." My mom said this while I was having a panic attack at the dinner table. At the time I was not in the state of mind to comprehend what she was saying. However, later when I calmed down, I began to reflect on that piece of advice. I was anxious because I had been deprived of my favorite unhealthy coping mechanism. When I turned thirteen, my mental health started to worsen. I turned to excessive exercise and food restriction to give myself a sense of control. My mother noticed this and asked me to eat a meal with her to try and practice letting go of my habit. I cried the entire time but eventually finished my plate of food. Surprisingly, I felt so much better after eating (crazy how that works), and was able to have a conversation with my mother about why food restrictions made me feel powerful. As I got older, I was able to divert my need for control into more healthy and constructive outlets. I began to study for tests, and feel powerful and independent after getting a good grade. I began to reconnect with old friends and felt purpose in my refound relationships. I realized (after LOTS of time and practice), that control lies in conducting your life in the direction you want it to go. I realized that I did not want to be a sad, anxious, food and fun-deprived person for the rest of my life. I wanted to go to a good college, do well in school, and have a family of my own. Without my mother's advice snapping me back into reality, my recovery would not have been possible.

Smile. When you pass someone in the hall, smile at them. Not a half-smile or awkward eye contact. Squint your eyes and smile real hard. Maybe even wave or say hello. It may seem like a small gesture, but to someone who is in the thick of a rut, that could just save their life. Humans are selfish creatures. When we are children, we have too much audacity. We make scenes in public trying to get our parents' attention, or trying to persuade them to buy the newest toy for us. Usually, this is corrected as we grow older. But yet, humans are still selfish creatures. No matter how old we get, compassion is something that has to be practiced every day in order for it to become a habit. When we smile we not only acknowledge another human's existence, but we celebrate it. By smiling you show that you are happy to see that person and that their existence means something positive to you. Picture this: if a stranger smiled at you in public and you were not there the next day, that stranger possibly would not smile as much. Smiling also helps us have more compassion for ourselves. When we make mistakes, it is easy to say things like, "agh, I'm so stupid!" Perhaps saying so in a halfhearted attempt that someone will prove you otherwise. However, by smiling at ourselves and our mistakes, we subconsciously convince ourselves that our faults are no big deal. Even more, people around us will see the way we interact with ourselves and will be convinced that their mistakes are nothing to fret about either. So the next time you spill your drink, get a bad grade or cross someone in the hall. Smile. You never know the impact you could make.

I am very privliged to go to a school in which I am surrounded by diversity. Growing up in the rural area of South Carolina where there were more livestock than people, I wasn't really exposed to those who are LGBTQ, not white, and severly low income. I was surrounded by people that looked and thought like me, and because of that many of my beliefs and thought patterns became stagnant. When I went to art school for the first time, it was a big change. The scenery of fields and miles of outstretched lands was now replaced by giant infrstructuaral buildings and people walking and doing things all throughout the street. It was overwhelming at first, but I could not imagine myself going back to living in a small rural area. However, the purpose of me writing this is not to hate on people who like land and farms and all that. I'm writing to say that it wasn't until I was exposed to diversity, did I realize it's importance. I had gone to a school where they taught us to be tolerant of other people and their beliefs, sure. But those empty phrases were never really put into practice. Living in a city, I have been able to enjoy and participate in celebrating the different cultures that are here. There are many festivals celebrating holidays such as Mardi Gras, Haunnakah, Ramadam, Cinco de Mayo, and other cultural events that I would not have been able to experience at the same extent back home. I want my legacy to be someone who continued to learn and educate themselves, even if they did not grow up in a diverse place where tolerance for those who were different was stressed and practiced. I want to continue to learn from other humans.

"I've learned real world, human-to-human contact will kill you. And that all human interaction; whether it be social, political, spiritual, sexual, or interpersonal, should be contained in the much more safe, more more real, interior digital space." - Bo Burnham When I first watched Bo Burnham's special "Inside" I laughed at this quote, thinking his exagerated phrase to be comical. I then quickly felt a sinking feeling in my stomach at the realization that I had been doing just that all year long. So had so many other people who like me endured social distancing, masking, and virtual school. Contrary to what many parents say, cell phones and technology are not the problem. Instead, it is the lack of deep and interpersonal conversation that they encourage. The human experience is continually expressed through emojis like heirogyphics, phrases are shortened to "lmao" and "lol" to signfy amusment. Not trying to hate on the Egyptians or anything, but in order to sustain our mental sanity, we must communicate in a more articulate and profound manner. We need deep conversations and connections in order to experience trust and intimacy with other human beings. Such behavior that electronics encourage goes against our primitive nature to survive in tight knit groups and bond to ward of dangers. Depending on what you do with it technology can serve as a saber toothed tiger or a fuzzy kitten for the modern man. We can join clubs, find gyms, view art, and talk to people in the click of a button. But we can also compare ourselves, envy others, and fall into the trap of self pity while surrounding by people who look happy with the things we don't have. The biggest problem that we face today, is not knowing how to responsibly use technology carefully.

When my sister was little she would talk to trees because she thought they were lonely, sitting so far apart from each other in the woods. I would watch her from the window, using my palm to hold back my laughter. When we went to Charleston, she would buy all the sand grass flowers in the market and hand them to random people at the beach. I remember telling her "stranger danger" and pulling her sleeve to guide her away from those I thought looked suspicious. The characteristic I admire most about myself was one that was not naturally present in my personality. It was taught to me by my sister. Even though I was the youngest, I always thought of myself to be superior to her. While she placed pennies in the red solo cups of homeless people in our city, I avoided eye contact and squeezed my purse. I asked her, "why do you do that? They're probably just going to drugs and shit with that money." My sister looked at me, her eyebrows furrowed in a mix of anger and disappointment, "I just don't want to be the person that is okay passing them by as if they don't even exist, the person that is okay ignoring their suffering for my own temporary comfort." She lifted her chin and walked away. I was robbed of words. I continued to watch her as we grew. I watched the way she picked up the small children on our cul-de-sac and pushed them on the swing. I watched the way the neighbors always waved to her and told my mother, "she is such a sweet thing, that little girl." My initial acts of kindness to be more like my sister were more out of jealousy than out of love for humanity. I began to try and out-kind her. While she was babysitting the neighborhood kids for free, I would write letters of encouragement and stick them in the mailboxes of my neighbors, hoping the next time I crossed their house they would wave to me, too. I'd give out random things in my house to the cul-de-sac kids while my sister was playing with them that no one would really even want, like used putty with cat hair in it and melted chewing gum fresh out of my mom's car. I would smirk at my sister as I walked back inside as if to say, "beat that, looser." To me, kindness was a competition. It wasn't until I grew up and experienced the complexities of the world by myself did I realize how much a little kindness can change someone's day. My sister's close friend died when she was fifteen, and it was the first time in my life I saw her distraught and unable to be kind to others and herself. It was then that I decided how petty and ridiculous I was being tried to "out-kind" her. It didn't happen in a day or in an instant, but around that time I began to be nicer to her and others around me. I realized the fragility of life, and how useless it is to let fear prohibit us from loving others to our fullest. I continue to watch my sister and learn from her. She is in college now and has a job, a boyfriend, and a life of her own. Even though I don't see her much anymore, she still guides me through every day when I am frustrated with people or feeling negative about life. My sister taught me empathy and compassion for others and myself.

Ever since I was little I loved writing stories, reading, making up plays and scenarios in my head. I would watch random people pass on the street and implement them into a made-up narrative in my head. I knew I wanted to be a writer. I applied to the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities when I was fifteen for creative writing. After the excitement of getting accepted faded away, the fear of what was to become began to emerge. I had never lived on my own before, I didn't know any of these people, the campus, the staff, or the city of Greenville. It was overwhelming to say the least. I also underestimated how strenuous the writing program would be. Imposter syndrome began to develop inside of me as I realized most of the kids in my class were just as good, or better at writing than I was. I began to feel interior and discouraged. I felt as if my passion was not worth pursuing. That feeling began to die down after a couple of weeks. I found that being surrounded by people who were better than me helped my writing improve. I would show my classmates and teachers my stories, and they'd give corrections and ideas as to what I should do next. I also found that being in a different environment and surrounded by different people forced me to come out of my introverted shell. Subconsciously expanding my worldview helped my writing improve, as I had a larger perspective to work with. If I had stayed at home and finished high school in a more comfortable and familiar environment, I can say without a doubt that I would not be the writer I am today.

When I went to the Governor's School for creative writing I made these "open when" cards for my two closest friends at the time. On the envelope would be a sentence that read, "open when you are sad, open when you miss me, open when you need a hug, open when you are sick, etc" and inside would be a word of encouragement or something that could perhaps help them if they were in one of the given situations. I have always loved writing. I have always loved helping people and inspiring people with my words. However, when it comes to expressing love, I've found that actions speak a lot louder. This is why I thought the letters and the stuff inside them would be a good idea. The words are comforting, and the things inside offer a temporary solution or alleviation. I knew I wasn't going to see them very often after I left and therefore wanted to do everything in my power to make sure they were cared for mentally and physically while I was gone. Around that time I also got the idea to join an organization called, "Letters against Depression." It is a website where you can send a letter of encouragement to someone who is struggling with their mental health. I remember always being excited to receive a letter in the mail when I was little. Handwritten notes carry so much love, even those from a stranger. But whether it is through letters, quality time, conversations; I think that love is something that stems from effective communication. Being able to see people on a deeper level. For me, reading has helped me develop empathy for other people and their situations, and writing has helped me do something about it to make them feel better.

There was a TedTalk I watched a while back where a man was speaking about depression. He gave an example of a man in a small village who had been beaten down by life. His crops weren't growing, his cattle had died, and he had a difficult time acquiring food and money. Worst of all, he could not confide in his fellow villagers about this out of fear that it would make him appear vulnerable or weak. It was only when he started talking about the issues he was facing did his situation improved. He had valid things to be upset about. The biggest misunderstanding about mental health is that we think someone has to have gone through something traumatic to need a therapist. However, that is far from the truth. We go to therapy and talk to people to feel less alone in our situations. Continual therapy is what prevents us from having a mental burnout or breakdown. For me, I've noticed that I feel much better after talking about my issues with my therapist. I know it sounds silly for an aspiring psychologist to see a psychologist, but everyone at the end of the day is just a human who is doing their best to get through the circumstances imposed on them. I am only able to help others the best I can when I am not distracted by issues of my own. I understand firsthand the importance of communication and socialization when it comes to alleviating mental health problems, which is why I am so passionate to do help others with theirs. My favorite way to help others is to have deep, meaningful conversations with them about their lives and perspective on the world. It is in those conversations where I find the most meaningful connections.

"The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete because they make one story become the only story." - Chimamanda Adichie This quote was given by a woman named Chimamanda Adiche who gave a TedTalk that I will never forget watching. She spoke about the danger of a single story, and why it is unconstructive for people to fall into the dark pit of generalizations. My school recently had a community meeting where we gathered to talk about the dangers of vaping and drugs on teenagers. Although well-intentioned, the PSA did not resonate with many students. My English teacher noticed the awkward glances we made toward our friends, and we spent the next class period talking about why we were acting almost aversively to a relatively well-informed PSA video. Before my English teacher let us talk about our perspective, there was only a single story. That single story is immature teenagers giggling about a serious PSA. But afterward, there was another side of the story; one where teenagers felt they were being generalized and ill-informed on a serious topic. Once we gathered both sides to a previously "single story" my teacher and my class were able to better understand the thought process of both parties. Although we didn't come up with a definite solution, we were able to respect each other more because it seemed as if our teacher genuinely wanted to know how we felt, and didn't just assume how we felt based on preconceived notions of how teenagers act. I think that conversations such as the one above can truly change the world. By adding our narrative to a single story, we are better able to understand the complexities of situations and perspectives, which is crucial in seeing each other's humanity.

1984 by George Orwell is probably not the first thing to come to most people's minds when they are asked for an inspiring book to read. However, it did leave a lasting imprint on me. I do recall very vividly this once scene where a woman is being burnt alive in her house by firemen because she was keeping and reading books. She was thinking freely and that was illegal. Of course, I do not think that in the modern-day people are going to be burnt in their houses for reading books. But when I see things like Tennessee churches burning books because they contain perceivably sacrilegious things, it does scare me a bit. I understand that morality is subjective to different religions. However, I think getting to the core as to why people want to read those books and do things that the church perceives as wrong, would be a lot more constructive than destroying the material thing itself. This applies to many scenarios. When I finished reading 1984, the pandemic came, and the election and our world seemed to become more and more like the world Orwell described in his novel. His book inspired me to have conversations with my family members about their beliefs and opinions on current events. Some things I said to them changed their minds, some things they sad to me changed my mind. However, this exchange of beliefs and respect for others' opinions despite how much we resonated with them, is a lesson from his book that I was able to implement in my life and see changes as a result.

1. I need money for school :( Sadly college is very expensive and it would be nice to have help with that. However, I am not a POC, first-generation, or low-income student. So to be honest, I probably don't deserve this scholarship at all XD. However, I thought the prompt was fun and yes, it can be satisfying and stress relieving to just submit a scholarship essay/questionnaire, even if you know it's bad. It's better than nothing. 2. I would like to go to university and have a job that corresponds with whatever major I choose. I would like to do something involving social work or psychology. I genuinely do enjoy helpings others, but honestly just having a job would be nice :) 3. (Just for context I go to a boarding school) - One time I locked myself out of the gates that surround my school (it's in the middle of Greenville, SC). Usually, we use our IDs and scan them to get back in, but I had left mine in my dorm. Luckily, I successfully climbed over the fence but got yelled at by an RLC who thought I was some creepo trying to steal something.

My dad once posted an image on his Instagram page that said, "Another day has passed, and I haven't used algebra once," and in the caption said he would repost it every day. I remember seeing that and getting a little defensive, because that is simply not true, and also discouraging to people who are learning math and perhaps struggling with understanding it's importance in their daily lives. I think algebra and math in general is important because it improves the quality of our lives, that is, if we choose to learn and understand it. I grew up with a friend who was Lebanese, and learned that algebra was originally created by Arab mathematicians trying to understand early astronomy and land distribution. In fact, most of the stars in the sky have Arabic names. By learning Algebra, I was able to better understand her culture and the history of the Arabic Enlightenment, which is something we did not cover very strenuously in school. I also felt as if I was able to connect with her and her family better after being more knowledgeable about her culture, and her ancestors, contributions to modern day technology and advancements. Learning math also helps me solve problems better in my daily life by reinforcing my logical thinking skills. I remember going to a restaurant when I was little and solving the Soduku puzzles on the kids menu. My mom explained to me that math was kinda the same way; like a puzzle. To me, thinking of math like a puzzle made it more fun, and also made me more eager to see how the things I was learning in school would be implemented in the real world. By solving these "puzzles" and actually seeing a result (software engineering, linear equations and physics, astrological calculations, etc...) I became more passionate about my mathematical studies. I also think math just helps me think clearer. I always feel like I can think easier about situations in my personal life after studying in math class. It helps me process things, and also gives me something to do if I am emotional about a situation and need a distraction (like reading a book, almost). I've also noticed that it helps my memory; therefore it is no surprise that math is a key element in preventing Alzheimer's disease and other brain-related aging ailments. So with that being said, algebra and math in general is useful for those who wish to understand it. I do not think math is crucial for everyone because everyone has different in this world. But, it can help give a different perspective as to how things work and how to solve and view certain systems in our everyday lives. It helped me understand my friend better, and also helped me think clearer about situations in my personal life. My dad also took down the Instagram post after I nerd-bombed him with all of the real world applications of algebra and how he even uses it for his job.

I volunteered at vacation bible school while being agnostic. Although I didn't believe in Christianity, I had an interest in the bible and the moral lessons of Christ. I was too old to go as a camp kid, so I volunteered as a counselor instead. While I was there I met several children whom I realized did not know much about Christ either. They seemed to enjoy the activities we did such as coloring, singing songs, and reading bible stories. However, I noticed that when it came to understanding the complexities of the bible and God in general, they were just as clueless as I was. As the week progressed I formed a bond with one of the girls I counseled there. Although I never said it out loud, she was my favorite. Her positivity was contagious. I remember one time a little boy on stage forgot the dance moves to a song we were doing, and without hesitation, she jumped on stage with him, held his hand, and danced with him until the song was over. I was surprised to learn at the end of the week that her family was actually Jewish and that she came there to learn more about Christianity just out of interest. Through her, I was able to realize that the religion one follows, or lack thereof does not necessarily dictate morality in life. Being selfless and open to new opportunities is what really matters in becoming an open-minded and virtuous human being. I am still agnostic, but I have learned with the help of the girl I counseled, that there is nothing wrong with learning more about something that intrigues you, even if you don't believe in it.

For two years I struggled with anorexia nervosa. During that time I had no ambitions or goals other than to eat, run, and lay in my bed all day. It was a sad existence, and I often look back at my past self in anger for all of the wasted time. For Christmas one year my parents bought me a telescope. I remember looking at the night sky and thinking, “why should I care to live in a world that cares so little about me?” It feels almost like a betrayal to be brought into a world in which no one is there to tell you what to do, or where to go. The thing that finally brought me out of my rut was realizing that I wanted to get better. It was as simple as that. There wasn’t some big eureka moment. It took months of my life to finally realize that, even though I don’t know what it is yet, there must be something more worth waiting for. During that time I found that two things make me most happy. That would be understanding and serving. Understanding others and seeing how their humanity relates to mine, helped me feel less alone during that time. Serving others and doing something to fix or alleviate their situation gave me a sense of purpose. I still look up at the sky and think, "what the heck am I doing here?" but really, that question will never have an answer. And I do not want to waste life wondering too much about what the meaning of life is. Life is what you make it, and success is subjective to each individual. I know that in my life I want to understand and serve, and the rest will come when it does.

It felt weird driving to see my French teacher at a coffee shop. I had known her since the beginning of the pandemic, and she taught me much more than just another language. I remember going on her zoom for the first time. I had a hair cut mishap that week and ended up shaving my head bald. Her first reaction when she saw me was, "is that a boy or a girl?" I was offended at the time, but looking back on that I smile. We studied hard, and she let us stay after class to have extra conversations with her. She told me about her life in France, moving to America, meeting her husband, being a female lawyer. We talked about everything under the sun, religion, politics, philosophy. She was a very introspective person, and at first I thought it strange that she was talking to her students as if she was one of us. Discussion was never discouraged, and at a time in my life where I had a lot of questions, she helped me find an answer, or at least find comfort in the fact that I wasn't alone in my wondering. Over about a year we developed a pupil/mentor relationship, and I would meet her for coffee about every week. I went through a nasty breakup that year too, and she was there to comfort me through that. She really helped me see that teachers are people too, with their own tumultuous lives and stories to tell. I am not sure if meeting your teacher for coffee is a "study strategy," but getting to know her on a more personal level definatly made her class more interesting. Because of her I learned another language, and the impact of genuine kindness during difficult times.