“Do you understand?” is a simple question. It is a straightforward yes-or-no question. As why did I stand there, frozen in the hallway, not knowing what to answer? Why could I not say “no, I don’t understand. Please explain it again?” Well, that is because I did not understand the question. I did not know the word “understand.” Six years ago, my family decided to leave my home country to move to the US. On my first day in a US middle school, two teachers pulled me aside and asked the simple question I could not answer. That was the first time the lack of English knowledge complicated my life, but it certainly was not the last one. Every aspect of my life was affected. I struggled academically, because how can one learn about natural selection or ancient history when they lack the most basic academic vocabulary? I struggled socially, because how long can one support a conversation for without knowing the spoken language? I even struggled with the programs that were designed to help me, because my ELL teacher chose to focus on the student whose English was more advanced. As a result, I was often left feeling like everyone was so far ahead of me that there was no point in even trying to succeed. But I also knew that I could not let those feelings bring me down. I had to keep working harder to compensate for any disadvantages that I had. Of course, it felt discouraging to realize that the assignments I spend three hours on took my peers less than 20 minutes, but I knew that I would not improve if I chose to give up. And so, I would stay up into late hours of the night, reading, translating, re-reading, and re-translating every single text, chapter, and question I was assigned. I was exhausted, of course, but as days of hard work turned into months, the results became evident. Just one year later, I achieved academic success, was attending a regular English class, and began to build more meaningful relationships with my teachers and peers. This experience has taught me one important thing: immediate results do not always correlate with effort. Despite how hard I worked during my first few months in the US, I still ended up with quite a few of below average grades. Because of this, I learned to not judge other people harshly if they do not achieve amazing results right away. Instead, I began practicing patience and empathy, and now, whenever I help my classmates with schoolwork or give advice to the freshman swimmers on our team, I make sure to focus not on the immediate outcomes, but on the efforts they make to improve those outcomes. I know from experience that, as long as the willpower to improve is there, the rest will follow, and I know that this will allow me to empower myself and others to keep going towards our goals. Personally, my long-term goal is to get a master’s degree in chemistry and become a research scientist. I realize that this is not an easy career path, but I am confident that my experience will allow me to overcome any challenges I face along the way. Because of my experience, I have learned that it is okay to not succeed in everything right away; I have learned that success will come with continuous effort. And so, no matter how many times I fail or how many mistakes I make, I will keep trying and improving myself until I reach my goal.

I was not an athlete for most of my life. I never liked gym classes or physical exercises in general, and I assumed it would just stay that way. Then COVID happened. After a year of isolation, I decided to go and get involved in something. I used to live by the sea before moving to the US, so I decided that it would be nice to join the swimming team at my school. Little did I know that this decision would greatly affect my life for the next three years (if not more), providing me with experience and important life lessons and teaching me more about myself every day. Going from zero exercise to 2 hour practices 6 days a week was not easy, to say the least. The first year of swimming forced me to change my routine in many ways. I began paying attention to my sleep schedule to make sure I got enough sleep, something that I haven’t been doing before. I also began eating better, making sure that my body got the nutrients and energy it needed to keep up with the intense exercises. Lastly, my time management got much better. I had to learn how to organize my work and use my time efficiently to keep up with my schoolwork. All of those things helped me learn to take care of myself, making me a more independent person. The second year of swimming taught me a lot of valuable lessons. One of them occurred during practice, where our coach instructed us to do a 2 minute plank but forbade us from looking at the time and told us to stop thinking. After what felt like forever, our coach let us go and announced that it had actually been 3 minutes. This fairly short exercise stayed in my memory because it showed me that once you force yourself to stop thinking about how difficult, long, or painful something is, you can exceed all expectations, even your own. Another lesson happened during one of the first swim meets of the season. It would have been my second time swimming a 200 yard freestyle race that season, and I was very nervous, since we were going against a strong school and I happened to be the only representative of our school at that specific heat. I got on the block, took my mark upon signal, and waited for the starting “beep” with my body tense and ready to dive right in. I was ready, expecting the signal to sound at the exact moment it always does. It never did. I couldn’t stop my body from moving, though, and I fell right into the water with a splash that echoed throughout the quiet pool. This would mean an automatic disqualification for the race. I was obviously upset and disappointed in myself. But, with support from my teammates and coaches, I was able to calm down and focus on the two other events I had to swim. I swam them very well, much better than usual, actually. This experience has taught me that one failure does not determine the rest of your results. It taught me that you can still succeed even after being knocked down. I can’t know what exactly will happen this next season. It would be my last season with my wonderful, supportive teammates and coaches, so I expect it to be very emotional. Whatever happens though, I know for a fact that this experience will continue to challenge and teach me every day, and I am looking forward to it.