What are you crying about? Why are you like this? I don't understand you. Why can't you just be normal?! What am I? Why am I here, in this time, place, and condition? I hate myself, I feel as though everyone thinks I'm an idiot, I make a simple mistake or show a moment of weakness, and *BAM*, I feel as though the whole world is crashing around me, all of my mistakes piling up into a mountain of despair. Or swelling up inside of you so much it feels like an active volcano that's ready to erupt from you and all over the ones you held most dear, making you seem even more unstable than you really are. Depression, anxiety, and a vast variety of other horrible little monsters dance about in people's heads, it makes us feel as though we can't do anything right, like every step we take we are one step away from falling over the edge into an episode, spasm, or attack. It even gets to a certain point where you think you can't go outside anymore like the world is your mean kid with a magnifying glass and you're the ant that just happened to get in its way. How does it come about, mine started from a young age, I knew I was different from others, and they always made sure that I knew it, especially my family, with a father who doesn't say it but thinks I am stupid. And a mother who suffers from her own mental demons is it inherited like a bad disease, or am I just soft, unwell, weak? As the years progressed I found it getting steadily worse, and highschool is where my horrid little mind flower really bloomed, the change of my body, the comments and insults of my fellow classmates, I just couldn't take it. I felt like I was alone, even though I had my friends, I never felt like I could truly be myself with them like I was in my own little world, and they weren't allowed in, not even my sister knew, I guess I was born too kind for my own good because I always felt like talking to someone would put my burdens on them. My mental illness had not crippled me however, if anything, it has made me thrive more than ever, I am both a writer and a baker, I make worlds and chocolate curls at the same time. I found my life light in doing what I love the best, and I now know that not everything is my fault, we humans are full of imperfections, and because of such, we are all bound to make mistakes, yes, even Elvis Presly made his fair share of dook ups, but that never stopped him, and neither should it stop me because when it comes down to it, we are all perfectly imperfect.

HEY YOU!! Yeah, you, the one reading this! You're probably thinking, *snobbish British accent* 'oh no, not another one, this one is probably going to be just like all the others that tried and failed to get this scholarship.' Well let put this in terms you may understand, I. Ain't. Boring. I may have a mediocre looking profile and picture, *averts attention to upper right* HEY GET BACK HERE, I'M NOT DONE TALKING YET, EYES BACK TO THE TEXT LADY/GENTLEMAN/FELLOW DUDE, WHO RAISED SUCH A RUDE CHILD?? *Rolls eyes before turning back to the screen* Thank you, now as I was saying, being a misfit is something I try to pride myself on, now I'm not going to get into detail on some of my more famous bouts of madness, let's just say that my mother and sister's hair never did grow in right after that incident, but I digress. By being a misfit, an outsider, I have learned that it is alright to think outside of the box, to step outside of society's norms as your own person and not care what people may think of you, so long as you can look in the mirror and say that you love who looks back, follow your dreams and laugh at those who once doubted you and your strange ways. For me, my dreams can change at the fall of a hat, but I do know this, I and my crazy ways are going to change this world for the better, I may not know how, but I will, heck some of the greatest minds didn't know what they wanted to do until they stumbled on it and if I'm being honest, that may be me. *Heavy snoring from the reader* You really fell-WAKE UP!! *Snorts awake* *sigh* Look, if you're already falling asleep, then let me end it on this note, I don't know if I'm truly going to get this scholarship, heck there are some that pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for the smallest of things, so why did I even submit this you ask? Well, you tell me.

THUMP-THUMP, THUMP-THUMP, THUMP-THUMP. Do you hear that? If you're reading this then you already know what that sound is, the sound of life, the rhythm of a steady heart as it beats to its own tune, it's OWN music created by none other than yourself as you go about your life. The sound coming to us at our most stressful, and tranquil moments, it can be a heavy metal sound, similar to the music of the machinery you hear in the loudest cities ticking, bumping, and even racing. Or it could be soft and smooth as the kindest jazz sessions in a quiet coffee shop in the night. We all have it, what we look like on the outside doesn't hold a par for what we are on the inside, some of us don't think this I am sad to say, some believe that just because our hearts prefer to beat to different songs that we all just can't get along. My song? Hmph, my song is something soft, a song I discovered some time ago that seems to bellow in my ears when I most need to hear it, like that little voice inside your heads, (you know you all have it) that voice that tells you that everything is going to be alright. For me, I first discovered my song in my childhood, on the stage of one of the oldest forms of entertainment, you know what I'm talking about ye theatre nuts and bolts. Little Shop of Horror, Crybaby, Hairspray, and Hadetown too, with the Epic III of the latter being the one whom I like to chatter, a song of love and forgiveness, to which two gods and a man who loved a girl was tested, I found this on the day my sibling moved out and I was feeling a little down and to this day whenever I listen to this song, it feels like nothing can go wrong. THUMP-THUMP. Do you hear that boys and girls? THUMP-THUMP. What does it sound like to you, is yours beating like the Chant of the miners, like the steady flow of the river of your souls, or is it something indescribable, like a truth that is there, but can't be told. THUMP-THUMP...