Theatre was always a way for people to express themselves it was in acting, writing, costume making, set and so much more. I was always fond of theatre. I wanted to participate but I was scared to sing and act on stage in front of a crowd so I always took small roles or didn’t even try. In sophomore year, while looking at electives to do I saw Intro To Theatre. I got more comfortable being on stage and performing in front of others. I’ve learned about different acting methods, working with other people, how to do singing numbers, and some set builds. The acting was one of my favorite parts, something I want to continue with. There was a project we were assigned that changed my whole view on writing and acting. It was the end of the year and my theater teacher was telling us about a play script project that we would be doing, I had so many ideas flowing through and my ideas were making some sense I started to enjoy this play and felt this was something I wanted to do not just as a fun project but something I would want to do in life, write and act. The project to write out the script was about 2 weeks long until we had to turn them in for our teacher to look at and choose which two she would pick for us to perform. We all sat listening and waiting for our teacher to get to the good part. We did not care about everything else. After what felt like forever my teacher announced the two people who did the best and got to perform their play and bring it to life. I was on the edge of my seat hoping but knowing it would be someone else who had more of a talent for this I heard my name out of my teacher's mouth. It took me a couple of seconds and a little bit of talking to myself to understand I got to perform the play I spent time on. Weeks passed we got to choose our actors and set and work on it ourselves and the teacher would only help if needed. I don't know why or what part of making a play sparked in me, but while doing this whole project my world changed. I found a new passion in show work and writing. I never really liked writing before, but I felt connected to my writing and ideas when I started this. I wanted to see this play out, watch my new passion grow, and what I worked hard on with my group to make this play a reality. I was up in the stage control area and someone had to do the sound and lighting. As The curtains lifted I saw my friends so happy to show what we had been working on finally, the smiles on their faces with the lights beaming down only showing them and the set behind them. That set was hard to find and put together so I was proud of how it looked on the stage with everything lit up. My script is being performed in front of 20+ people. It's not a lot but it's more than I could imagine coming to see my play. I was proud of my crew and how everyone worked together but mostly I was proud of myself for breaking out of my comfort zone and learning new passions about myself. Theater helped me find myself and showed me how dedication can lead to success, passion.

Even though with everything going on in this world, I’ve always been proud to be an American, I hold it close and dear to my heart and I'm proud to call this place my home. The way our country had come together in the past with problems that have sadly come to our country and the bond the American people made during hard times is extremely inspiringly on how people can come together even though they might have a few differences once things have united us in the past and will again in the future is being an American. That bond is stronger than our differences and that is what makes me so proud, and the way our amazing men and women would put down their lives for this amazing country is something to admire and that is why I joined the United States Navy, to protect what I love. But there are a few things that need to be changed to make us stronger as a whole, that is working through our differences the country is too divided between each other into subjects that can easily be found in the middle. Still, people can't get around the fact of being wrong or having a different view. It's what is dividing us as a country and slowly bringing us down and lowing our strength as a country together with all of this inside fighting and our government only focusing on screwing over the opposing side. Even though I might only be one person I can still make a slight change that might change someone's views on something, so just talking to others and finding common ground would slowly be able to change the problem of everyone fighting on every matter. Even if it’s one person at a time, Sometimes it takes time to affect the county and my community. If more people believe that we can find a mutual standpoint, it will spread. The United States needs to find its mutual standpoint, all it needs is its people to work together in our community and overall government truly. I want to start a group while in college that has views from both sides and try to find a way in our community to have both ideas and both sides working alongside each other to make this country back the way It was, The days when everyone was proud to be an American.

A cold summer morning in Durbin, WV in the Appalachian Mountains. We took about thirty minutes to saddle up the horses. I was freezing so I went looking for a sweatshirt to go over my t-shirt. I finished saddling my horse Chewy, and everyone was ready to go out on our second ride of the three-day trip. As we started this ride it was fairly easy and were able to enjoy the scenery. About an hour into the ride, there was a pretty steep hill. Chewy and I took off and ran up this hill, it made it easier on the horse, but in an instant, my hand let go of the reins. I don’t know how or why my hand left the reins but I got bounced off the saddle and ended up on the horses behind. Even though my body was on his behind, my legs were still in the stirrup of the saddle and both my sweatshirt and t-shirt were stuck on the horn of the saddle. At some point, my feet came out of the stirrups but my shirts were still hooked to the horn and I ended up being dragged on the ground until both of my shirts were ripped up the middle and torn off of me. After being dragged through bushes and rocks my horse and I made it to the top of the hill where I fell in a heap. I was lying on some rocks and cold ground trying to become more aware of what was going on. I got to my knees and looked around seeing a crowd starting to form. I was very upset with myself for making this mistake and falling off the horse. I was starting to feel the pain of the accident and my own anger welling up. A woman came to help but I was all adrenaline and yelled at her and told her to “get away!” As I got up I saw my uncle run toward me and at this time I realized I was standing there with just my boots, my bra, my jeans, and a single sleeve left on my arm. As my uncle gave me his long sleeve shirt the emotions and pain of what just happened brought me to tears. In the next five to ten minutes I took the time to compose myself. As serious as this fall was, my uncle asked if I wanted to go back to the campsite or continue on the long ride. I was terrified and shaking to get back on Chewy, but in the back of my head, I knew I needed to finish what I started. Continuing this ride, I had time to think to myself, even though I saw this as a failure I ultimately gained confidence in my horsemanship. It gave me the mindset that even though there was pain and emotional damage, you need to get up, dust yourself off, and keep going. You need to surpass the challenge. This is how you learn and become a better person. You need to make mistakes and get over them to get somewhere in life. Just because of one fall, it changed my view on how to take on new challenges. The popular saying “If you fall off the horse, you need to get back up” rings true. And I’d like to thank Chewy for not killing me. That’s hard to come back from.

A cold summer morning in Durbin, WV in the Appalachian Mountains. We took about thirty minutes to saddle up the horses. I was freezing so I went looking for a sweatshirt to go over my t-shirt. I finished saddling my horse Chewy, and everyone was ready to go out on our second ride of the three-day trip. As we started this ride it was fairly easy and were able to enjoy the scenery. About an hour into the ride, there was a pretty steep hill. Chewy and I took off and ran up this hill, it made it easier on the horse, but in an instant, my hand let go of the reins. I don’t know how or why my hand left the reins but I got bounced off the saddle and ended up on the horses behind. Even though my body was on his behind, my legs were still in the stirrup of the saddle and both my sweatshirt and t-shirt were stuck on the horn of the saddle. At some point, my feet came out of the stirrups but my shirts were still hooked to the horn and I ended up being dragged on the ground until both of my shirts were ripped up the middle and torn off of me. After being dragged through bushes and rocks my horse and I made it to the top of the hill where I fell in a heap. I was lying on some rocks and cold ground trying to become more aware of what was going on. I got to my knees and looked around seeing a crowd starting to form. I was very upset with myself for making this mistake and falling off the horse. I was starting to feel the pain of the accident and my own anger welling up. A woman came to help but I was all adrenaline and yelled at her and told her to “get away!” As I got up I saw my uncle run toward me and at this time I realized I was standing there with just my boots, my bra, my jeans, and a single sleeve left on my arm. As my uncle gave me his long sleeve shirt the emotions and pain of what just happened brought me to tears. In the next five to ten minutes I took the time to compose myself. As serious as this fall was, my uncle asked if I wanted to go back to the campsite or continue on the long ride. I was terrified and shaking to get back on Chewy, but in the back of my head, I knew I needed to finish what I started. Continuing this ride, I had time to think to myself, even though I saw this as a failure I ultimately gained confidence in my horsemanship. It gave me the mindset that even though there was pain and emotional damage, you need to get up, dust yourself off, and keep going. You need to surpass the challenge. This is how you learn and become a better person. You need to make mistakes and get over them to get somewhere in life. Just because of one fall, it changed my view on how to take on new challenges. The popular saying “If you fall off the horse, you need to get back up” rings true. And I’d like to thank Chewy for not killing me. That’s hard to come back from.

Watching a guy run across the TV screen, as my dad focuses his eyes onto the screen as he grips onto the small Xbox 360 controller, I had no clue what was happening but watching my dad smile,laugh,yell, and make friends was interesting to a 4 year old me wondering what he was up to. Who knew this would be my entry into the gaming world. When I was old enough to understand what my dad was doing, Everynight I would watch him play a game called BattleField 3 on XBOX 360, and when I could he would let me play and I feel in love with all of it, I wanted to learn more and more on how to play as well as my dad and how games were made. Years later I was around 10 years old and my dad bought me the new Xbox because I kept using his. We started to play BattleField 4 together every night and it changed our relationship where that was our thing to play with a group of friends. As I played more I got the hang of things and got to be a part of a semi-pro group and played with them. When my dad wasn't playing and none was online I got bored, I wanted to find something on my xbox so I started looking around on the game store and asked my mom to buy some games. When I opened up my new game I was instantly grabbed by the neck and pulled into the deep world of gaming. I played almost all kinds of games like, COD, Minecraft, ARK, and all other kinds of games. As I grew up I made tons of friends and made bonds for life and a deep passion that I wanna keep doing in my life. I started looking into digital arts and game design. I wanted to do something with games or Art with my life so for my last two high school years I went to Live Oaks to study Digital arts, and doing that I wanted to do more and grew my passion. I'm continuing this in College doing classes in Digital arts and game Design at Miami University in Oxford OH. When my dad picked up that controller and started to play I would have never known it would all shape my life and be my life time passion. One day I want to help make my own game that would make people feel how I felt the first time playing Battlefield 3.