Alcohol has taken the person from me, who loved me unconditionally and I did not realize it until it was too late. My parents got divorced when I was three years old. My dad always drank too much beer. When he almost injured my little sister while he was drunk, my mom made him chose between alcohol and his family. He picked his addiction. Throughout my childhood, my dad came to visit every few weekends, and he always brought a little present or treat for my sister and me, but I mostly grew up with my mom. She was overwhelmed with being a single mom, and yelled at us a lot. She also had conditions and expectations, that were hard to meet for me sometimes. My mom and I did not have the best relationship. When I was fourteen, I began to understand that my dad was an alcoholic. I realized why my parents were not together anymore. I began to question if my dad was always drunk when I saw him, and I began to wonder if he even cared about me. Yes, he came to visit, brought little presents or money, and he always sent me a card for my birthday but he was never there when I was sick or crying because my mom was mean to me. I decided, I did not want to see my dad anymore because I did not want to have to spend time with someone who does not care anyways, My decision made my dad sad but he accepted it. Now I know that it probably broke his heart. In October 2015, I was sixteen years old and the relationship between my mom and me was worse than ever. On November 1st, a Sunday, I came home from spending a weekend with friends, when my mom called me into the kitchen. She told me my dad had died last Tuesday. While my sister started crying, I told her I was fine because it had already felt like my dad was dead. Why should I miss something that was never there anyways? When I finally started griefing after four months, my world broke apart. I started journaling during that time and thought a lot about the past. At my dad's funeral, one of his friends told me that my dad always talked about his girls, and how much he loved us. This still haunts me. I realized that my dad might not have been there for me a lot, but he never had any expectations or conditions. He loved me unconditionally. I started feeling guilty, and I regret the decision I made when I was fourteen. Alcohol has taken my dad from this world but I had kicked him out of my life. Journaling helped me through my griefing process because it allowed me to sort out my thoughts when they got too much. My dad's death when I was at such a young age is the event that influenced my life the most. I know my dad would be proud of who I am now. It would make him proud that I am going to college and want to become a preschool teacher. He would be as proud as my grandparents who are the people who influenced me a lot, and taught me to believe in myself.

There are three major reasons why I decided to attend college. I am from Germany, and grew up with a single mom, who could barely make enough money, and two younger siblings. As a toddler, I made the experience that learning is fun. The adults around me would praise me for learning new things and being smart. This praise made me want to learn more and be the smartest child in the family. I became very competitive. I always wanted to be right. I wanted to know and do all the things other family members did not know or do. The first reason why I decided to attend college is because my parents and grandparents did not go to college. I still want to be smarter than my family, and achieve more. It shows in the 4.0 GPA I made last semester, and my overall GPA of 3.6. When I was fourteen years old, I discovered my passion for working in childcare and education. I was interested in psychology and child development. Working with children made me happy, and I wanted to become a daycare teacher. For the rest of my teenage years I worked hard to achieve this goal. I got my certification at twenty-two after completing a five-year program, and worked in childcare for two years. As much as I loved my career, I wanted to become a better teacher, with better qualities and more unique experiences. The second reason why I decided to go to college, is because I want to be the best teacher I can be, and further education will equip me with more knowledge and experience. Growing up, I knew that my grandpa was my grandma's second husband, and that I had an uncle and cousins in Alabama. I grew up with the wish to meet my cousins one day, and experience life in America. The wish to meet my family came true when I was seventeen. It felt like coming home to a missing part I did not even know I was missing. After meeting my family, and getting along with everyone so well, the wish to experience American life, and spend more time with my family became even stronger. The third reason why I decided to attend college is because going to college in Alabama is the best way to experience American life, and spend more time with my family here. After finishing my Bachelor's in Early Childhood Education, I plan to become a preschool teacher or a teacher in special education. Going to college in a foreign country is hard, and because I come from a low-income household, I constantly worry about money. Everything I have achieved so far, I achieved on my own. I am proud of how far I got but I wish my family had more resources to support me. As a teacher, I want to share my love for learning, and I want to help children from low-income households by offering free tutoring. Besides my passion for teaching and learning, I am a crafter, and I love traveling. I want to have my own crocheting small business one day, and I want to see more of the world. Who knows, maybe I will be teaching in Africa or Asia one day.

Growing up, my best friend was my cousin. He is five months older than me, and we used to see each other all the time. While I did not have any video game consoles until I was almost ten years old, my cousin had a Super Nintendo. The year before I started school, I spent many afternoons at my cousin's house. During that time, he introduced me to Super Mario World and Donkey Kong's Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest. I was pretty bad at playing these games at first, and I could only do the easy levels but it was still fun. Soon we would play on the Nintendo every time I came over. Sometimes I even spent a night there on the weekends. Little children often get up early in the morning. When I used to spent a night at my cousin's house, we would wake up at 5 am, wide awake and ready to do something fun. We were obsessed with playing on the Nintendo, and it was often the first thing we did on those early weekend mornings. While Super Mario World was a fun game, Donkey Kong's Country was the game we really loved. It is still my favorite. The game has a two-player mode, in which one player is Diddy Kong and the other player is his girlfriend Dixie Kong. My cousin was always Diddy, and I was Dixie. Not only because I was a girl but also because I was not as good at the game as my cousin, and Diddy was the main character. The levels in the game have points where Diddy has to throw Dixie in oder to make it through the level. Cooperating with my cousin to get through the levels was an important bonding experience for us, and I felt so cool when I did something right. I enjoy looking back at this time. Back then, nothing was more important than getting to the next level. We did not have to worry about school, money or what we are going to have for dinner. Life is easy as a five year old. When I hear the soundtrack of Donkey Kong's Country 2 now, I get nostalgic. I wish I could go back in time, play the game for the first time again, and experience the feeling of not having any worries.

My first experience in childcare was a convinient coincidence. In Germany, where I am from, high school students often do a practicum in a career field of their choice to learn about that career, and figure out if that career is right for them. In ninth grade, I lived close to a daycare. Recently I had found out that my dream career, being a psycholigist, would probably not work out for me because I was not good enough at maths and statistics. Without any idea what I wanted to do for a living one day, I did my practicum at the daycare because I thought playing with children for three weeks would be easy. During these three weeks I learned that being a daycare teacher involves much more work than playing with children, and I learned that I wanted to become a daycare teacher. In fact, I could not imagine doing anything else anymore. After graduating from high school, I started a five year program to become a certified daycare teacher. With every practicum I had to do at a daycare, I fell more in love with the job. My interest in psychology was still there, and I was happy to learn about psychological development and child development. I worked as a daycare teacher for two years after I got my certification in 2021. In the previous years I had learned that the first few years of child development are the most important, and I definitely wanted to work with toddlers. I wanted, and want to be there when children learn to speak more, walk more secure, explore the world around them, and slowly develope their personality. I had also discovered that I like working with children who show some kind of behavioral issues. I am interested in the psycholgical and developmental aspects behind these issues, and I believe that these children need me and my patience the most. I like the feeling of being needed, and I am sure that is why I felt like I belonged in childcare. Besides working with children, my biggest passion is learning and educating myself. I loved working as a daycare teacher but I felt like I could achieve more, and I could become a better teacher by seeking further education. I am pursuing a Bachelor's in Early Childhood Eduaction at Jacksonville State University because I want to be a better teacher, and gain more unique experiences I could not gain in Germany. I plan to become a preschool teacher or a special education teacher. As an international student, paying for college tuition and fees is even harder because I do not qualify for Financial Aid. This scholarship could help me pay for my tuition, become a better teacher, and make a difference in the lifes of many children. In my future classroom, I will see my students as individuals with individual needs. I do not want to try to make everyone fit in one system. Instead I will pay attention to my students' individual needs and meet these needs as good as I can. The first few years are the most important years in child development. This is why I will provide a safe and positive first classroom experience for my future students by relating my lessons to their interests. With positive feelings towards school and learning, and lessons that relate to my students' interests and world, my students will learn more effective. Feeling like they are seen and respected will make my students feel supported, and make a difference in many students lives.

My story beginns in a small town in Germany without the best preconditions to become a college student one day. I grew up in a low-income household, with a single mom, and two younger siblings. Although I loved learning since I was a toddler, and everyone said I had an high IQ, I did not well in school most of my life. If a topic did not interest me, I did not want to learn about it, which resulted in not studying for tests, and therefore bad grades. I also did not care as much about my grades as I should have. The way how I thought about school, and my grades, changed when I discovered my passion for working in childcare. In Germany, it is common for high school students to absolve a practicum in a career field of their choice to get an idea what kind of job they might want to do after graduating from school. I chose a daycare for my practicum. After the three weeks I worked there, I suddenly had a longterm goal I needed good grades for. I wanted to become a certified daycare teacher after high school. The following years I spent working hard to achieve the GPA I needed to apply to the school, which was going to make me a certiefied daycare teacher after four years and an internship. I even worked at a daycare for seven months as part of a volunteering program by the German Red Cross to make sure I really wanted to be a daycare teacher. I got my certification in 2021, and worked as a daycare teacher for two years. I grew up knowing that my grandpa is actually my step-grandfather, and that my mom has an American father. Throughout my whole life, I knew I had an uncle and cousins in Alabama, and I always wanted to meet them one day. This dream came true in 2016 after I had saved all money I could get. I fell in love with Alabama, and my next longterm goal was to experience American life one day. The decision to attend Jacksonville State University was made when I visited my family in Alabama again in 2022. Over the previous years, I continued saving money for vacations in Alabama. By going to college in the US, I could make my dream come true and experience American life. After completing my degree in Early Childhood Education, I hope to become a preschool teacher or a special education teacher. This scholarship would help me to pay for my tuition. Even though I have savings, they will not last until I graduate from college, and as an international student, I do not qualify for Financial Aid. My mom still has a low income and can not support my academical goals. Winning this scholarship could give me the opportunity to become a better teacher, and share my love for learning with my future students.

"What could go wrong?" "What could go wrong?", I asked myself, knowing that everything could go wrong. I am an overthinker, which means I had to go through my first day as a teacher a million times in my head. I went through every possible catastrophe. Starting with a scenario in which my car would not start, I had thought about getting lost on my way to my classroom, a fire in the school, all my students hating me, and accidentally leaving the house in my pajamas or worse - leaving the house naked. For normal people these scenarios might seem ridiculous but for me every single one was posssible. The thing with us overthinkers is, we get so lost in our spiral of catastrophes, that it is hard to stop, and every new catastrophe is worse than the one before. Overthinking also means that we are prepared for anything that could happen to us, and I was prepared. During the last weeks of summer I had walked to my classroom a hundred and three times, I had memorized the quickest way out in case of a fire, I had a spare outfit in my car and in my classroom, I had everyone I know asure me that I am going to be a good teacher and the children will love me, and I had my car checked by a mechanic to make sure everything works like it is supposed to. Just in case the mechanic lied to me because I was annoying, I also had asked a friend to follow me to work in their car on the first day of school so someone could still take me to work in case my car would break down. When my alarm went of on a day in August and I asked my self what could go wrong, I tried to tell myself that I had a solution for every possible catastrophe, and started to get ready for work. I was too excited to think anyways. Usually I needed a ton of caffeine to wake me up but not on this morning. I got ready so fast that I was out of breath, and had to wait on my friend who was going to follow me. When I finally saw her car pulling up next to mine in the driveway, I got so excited about my first day, I almost jumped out of the door. Until this point, everything went right. The fact, that my dead grandma waved at me from across the street should have told me that something is off but I was too excited, and just waved back. I arrived at school a little early, but no catastrophe had happened. Every traffic light was green, and I only had to stop at the two stop signs on the way. After practicing it so much, I walked to my classroom like I never did anything else. Since nobody said anything to me, I knew I was dressed but I still looked down for a second and made sure. I prepared the room, and waited for my preschool students to arrive. It was almost lunch time, and nothing bad had happened. My students seemed to like me, two little girls had already asked me to come to their birthday party, and I felt good about my first day. Only a few more hours and the day would be over. Things started to get weird right before lunch time was over. The sky had gotten cloudy, and it looked like it was going to rain soon but instead of rain there were big snowflakes falling down. I looked down at my blue dress with short sleeves, and suddenly felt not so good anymore. Why was I not prepared for that? Yes, snow in August in Alabama is basically not possible, but I should have thought about that! While I felt more and more anxious, I heard multiple students scream and laugh. I turned around and saw what no teacher wants to see. The screaming students were standing on the tables, with nothing on but their underwear, and behaved like gorillas. I wanted too tell them to stop, but I couldn't. My mouth was open but no words were coming out. I started to walk towards my gorilla students, and suddenly the room around me turned into a jungle. I was not anxious anymore, I was panicing. None of this was in the scenarios of what could go wrong, which I was thinking about all summer. Before I could do anything else, the jungle around me started spinning around me, and then turned black. I woke up in the room I was sleeping in when I lived with my aunt. I had not slept in that room since the beginning of my Senior year in college. It was still dark outside. Confused about what just had happened to me, I took my phone to check the time. The display told me it was almost four am, and it told me something else. It was August 10th, 2023. My first day as a teacher was a dream, and I had not even started my Freshman year in college yet. In fact, Freshman Orientation was tomorrow, and the first day of class was going to be in one week. I laid down, and tried to go back to sleep. I am an overthinker, and the question "What could go wrong?" is one I am thinking about a lot. Apparently, I was thinking about it so much, that I was worried about something that was not going happen for the next four years. I was overthinking so much, that I could not even stop it in my sleep, and it influenced my dreams.

What makes a show a good show? Some might say, "The actors determine if a show is good." Others might make their decission depending on the plot of the show. For me, both of these things count but there is a third, and much bigger factor to determine the quality of a show in my opinion. A show is a good show when I keep rewatching it on a regular base. In the last few years, Orange Is The New Black became that one show I turn to when I seek comfort or when I just need some background noise. Based on a book, this show tells the story of Piper Chapman who has to go to prison for fifteen months. Piper has been involved in international drug related crimes together with her then girlfriend Alex, who later told on Piper and thus is partly responsible for Piper's prison sentence. At the beginning of the show, Piper is engaged to a man named Larry, and has a small business with her best friend Polly. She is used to a luxury lifestyle, which she has to give up in prison, and some of the women there give her a hard time because her story is not a story of poverty, violence and drug abuse. On top of the issues she is facing with everyday life in prison, and the other women, Piper soon meets Alex again, who is facing her sentence in the same fictional prison in New York. In later epsiodes and seasons, the show also tells the stories of the other women in the prison. Orange Is The New Black stands out from other shows because of the way how the writers use Piper as a tool to tell stories of women who represent a group that is usually not represented on tv shows. Druing its seven seasons, the show tells the stories of women of color, queer women, poor women, and women with mental disorders. Everyone will find a woman in the prison they can identify with, and it is easy to get attached to the characters. Even among the sometimes cruel guards are some characters who are impossible to not care about. While tackling serious issues like racism, addiction, poverty, violence and the system these women grew up in, the show has some hillarious moments like when a transgender woman teaches some other women about the female anatomy, and tells them that she had designed her private parts herself before going under the surgery to become a woman. There are also some heartbreaking moments that made me cry my eyes out. The relationship between Piper and Alex plays a major role, and the show often shows queer love. The show is nothing for a person who is uncomfortable with homosexuality but those who can handle these topics should give Orange Is The New Black a try.