With years of amazing memories of playing the Mario Kart series of games with my friends, it's impossible to choose just one moment, so I've narrowed it down into two key "eras" in my Mario Kart career: playing Mario Kart 7 (MK7) on the bus during elementary school and competing in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (MK8DX) for my high school's e-sports team. Ever since I owned Mario Kart 7 for my 3DS, I would always play it on the bus ride to school, and my friends would all join me through the console's download play feature, which allowed them to play the game without owning it as long as my 3DS was in range. This form of connection was not only ahead of its time, but it is also the very reason I have many of the friends I have today. Nowadays, some of them may have moved away or mainly play other games, but I still hang out and talk with almost all of the friends I made with MK7, and my Mario Kart experiences haven't stopped there. As mentioned before, I'm on my school's e-sports team and have been playing MK8DX for the team for almost 3 years now, and even longer outside of school. The first year I played was the first year there was an e-sports club at my school in the first place, and my friends and I almost made it to the finals, even with our busy schedules. Since then, however, we haven't been quite as lucky, but the 2024 spring season is shaping up to be our comeback, despite having a few past team members leave the scene. Even so, everyone that's been on the team has been a joy to play with, and we plan to finish out the season with victory. As I've grown up, Mario Kart has been a huge part of my life in the best possible way, allowing me to make life-long friends that I can count on every step of the way.

I've lived in the same town my whole life, which has not only helped me grow into the person I am today but also into the person I want to be in the future. Every so often, my elementary and middle schools would have students' art projects featured in our local art museum, and seeing them there was always super fun because it let me know that, even if indirectly, my community supported my likely goal of becoming a graphic designer. Of course, I had the direct support of my friends and family, who were and are far bigger influences on my motivation. I also joined my high school yearbook team, which helped me learn new artistic skills, and it significantly narrowed down what I wanted to pursue as a career. Another big part of my artistic journey is all of the fuse-bead art I've made. My dad introduced me to the medium when I was younger and helped me figure it out just enough to jumpstart my passion for it. My community helped me find my interest in graphic design, but it also led me to discover the part of me that wants to care for others simply by caring for me. My other possible goal of wanting to become a therapist had to come from somewhere, and I believe it came from my community—parents, teachers, and friends—helping me out when I needed it, so I guess a part of me wants to help others the way they've helped me. One time when I was really young, my dad and I were playing a video game, and when he said it was time to turn it off, I did not take it well. For some reason, I became extremely angry, and my dad managed to cool my temper very well. Another time when my community helped me through a challenging time in my life was when I couldn't quite get the hang of improving my hurdling skills during track season. My coach never stopped believing in me, and during one of my last hurdle races, I glided over the hurdles like never before. If I didn't have my coach to train and support me, I would have never improved. Looking back on those incidents and many others has shown me that my community cares for me and that I should care for whichever community my career brings me to, whether or not I decide to become a therapist. In either case, my friends, family, teachers, and mentors have all helped and supported me in most everything I do, and I wish to extend that forward, whether it means becoming a therapist or an artist.

1. I've always grown up wanting to create things, and as most kids do, I started out by drawing and painting, but I lost interest in those mediums and got into fuse-bead art as my main outlet. To start, I mostly did flat pixel art, but then my dad showed me how to place the beads in a way that would make them fit together like puzzle pieces in a 3D puzzle, and it quickly became my favorite medium. One of the images I attached was my most complicated 3D bead art design, which is King Boo from the Luigi's Mansion Series. I've taken many graphic design classes with this artistic interest as well, and those classes have opened me up to software and creative tools that have expanded my artistic abilities. I've used Adobe InDesign for almost 3 years now in Yearbook, as well as a bit of Photoshop, which have both been very fun to use because page design is like a really fun puzzle where I decide where the pieces go, as long as they fit together and look nice, of course. For the other, more typical graphic design creations I've made, I used Canva and have become well-versed in that website and software, and it was especially fun to write and design an album review on it, as seen in my attachments. Finally, I linked my favorite Halloween costume of Thomas Bangalter as a part of Daft Punk, which I crafted most of with painting help from my dad while I was at school, and it was a super fun project to make. 2. I want to pursue an education in art for a career in design so I can find a job that I enjoy doing as well as be able to hone my artistic design skillset. It also seems fun to be able to learn about things that I know I can apply to my career because it gives me that sense of autonomy that really drives my motivation as an artist and as a person. After college, I don't have a super-specific type of graphic design that I would like to pursue, but jobs in advertising and web design have always stood out to me as apparent job opportunities. 3. I don't necessarily have anything particular in mind to create in the digital art space for my own enjoyment; that usually comes and goes with how I feel at the time. If anything, I plan to create whatever my job would present to me, and then anything I feel like on the side afterward.

The anime movie that resonated with me the most absolutely has to be Ponyo. It was one of the first movies I ever remember watching as a little kid, and each time I watched it again, it gave me so much joy. The second time I watched Ponyo was on my last day of school before switching schools during 4th grade. It was the day before Spring Break (a great time to change schools, I know), and as far as I knew at the time, it would be the last time I saw any of my friends. We watched the movie, and I was once again enamored by the story, visuals, and music of Ponyo, although I wasn't exactly old enough to appreciate all of it just yet. The next time I watched Ponyo, however, I realized what I liked about it so much. Sosuke, one of the main characters, is an only child who partnered with Ponyo, the namesake of the movie, who just wants to make friends. Both of these aspects about both of these characters have been huge parts of my life, and in a way, I felt seen; even though those aren't drastically devastating traits, it felt like someone knows what I'm going through. Ponyo showed me a promising outcome of my friendships before I even realized it, and looking back on my life so far, with all of the friends I've made, it seems that Ponyo impacted me in ways I couldn't even imagine.