After finishing my associate degree, my mother, a retired schoolteacher of 30 years, suggested I take a gap year to substitute teach, save some money and see if education was actually the career field for me. That was sound advice as I am surrounded by teachers in various stages of their careers at the public schools I substituted at. Ninety five percent of them seem to be terribly unhappy with the current education curriculum in Texas! I would say easily half of the first-year teachers I have met in three different public-school districts are not planning on returning as they are so frustrated with covid, star testing, and common core. As a long-term contract substitute, I was responsible for developing a lesson plan, meeting star guidelines, negotiating principle, teacher, parent and student issues and focusing on why I wanted to be a teacher. The answer for me was finding balance between all the obstacles and not getting stuck in the mud but making mud pies with what you have! I did not go into this gap year experience unprepared or naive, my father was a career police officer and mother a career bilingual, pre-k educator. They taught me with a foundation built on God, family and education you choose your path, it does not choose you. My folks have always provided the sound bedrock for our family and encouraged, pushed, steered and mentored by command focus dialogue. They have never pushed me to be a teacher but encouraged me to follow my dreams, be happy and choose a career that will make me look forward to going to work every day. And I believe that's what I can do because I love to teach! My goals are to obtain a master's degree in Education and work towards teaching honors English at the high school level. One of my favorite teachers in high school, Ms. Porsche who taught English of course, was my role model and mentor. She was so different because she believed in us, encouraged us, cried with us when we didn't make an A, and pushed us to be the absolute best person we could be. From National Honor Society to college courses in high school, community service projects, tutoring and UIL, she was always, always, always there for us. She had one absolute truth as she liked to call it, NOBODY IS GOING TO GIVE IT TO YOU! If you want it, work for it and make your dreams come true. I want to be a teacher just like Ms. Porsche, happy, excited to be teaching and motivating students to learn with all my best efforts. I have applied for The Future Female Educators scholarship for a simple reason, tuition money. My sister's education left my retired parents with forty thousand dollars in parent plus student loans, I will not ask them to take on more debt and am working as much as possible to help out. This scholarship would certainly be a giant blessing to me!