When I was in second grade indoor recess, I had my first seizure. I remember just playing with my friends while watching a video off of YouTube. I had no idea what triggered it and I was too young to understand what was happening. Unfortunately, neither did the teachers. They were left confused when I suddenly fell and hit my head on the corner of the desk. This happened again when I was in fifth grade, but this time it was while every girl in my grade was mushed into a small room to watch a puberty video off a gritty TV screen. After I returned to school the next day, and for years after, people would tell me that they remembered me 'passing out.' This led me to announce a lengthy explanation about what epilepsy was and what really happened to me. Even with this speech, repeated and refined, my classmates still wouldn't understand it like I wanted them to. How could I make them get it? This question led me down a rabbit hole of self advocacy. I had always been a quiet, shy child. I did well in school and was great at observing my surroundings but I was never one to speak up for myself. While this kept my grades high, I had a constant feeling of timidness. My epilepsy was the topic that I always had to explain. Yes it's genetic, no you can't catch it, and I don't know if I'm going to have another seizure in class. These were just a few of the answers I had stocked up when people decided to bring it up. It was frustrating for a while but I grew into it. I learned to enjoy educating people about my epilepsy and seizures. I would first explain what happened and then I would make a joke about it. It became a lighthearted memory that I could use to both make people laugh and educate them. I love when people bring it up because it is a new chance to explain its impact on me. My epilepsy is a bigger part of me than people realize and I hope that by telling people that, they continue to research epilepsy. It is something that is so easy to talk about now, which feels weird when I remember the short responses I would give when I was younger. I understand now that opening it up to a larger conversation not only educates others, but gives me a chance to speak about my experiences. I would use this scholarship to help pay for college. My top schools right now are University of Pittsburgh and James Madison University. I am looking to be a pediatric physical therapist and in the future would love to work with kids with disabilities. This money would go towards my undergraduate degree, and I am trying to save as much money as possible to go to graduate school.