I’ve always had a deep love for food. When I was a little kid the only books I was ever willing to read were cookbooks; I was fascinated with the recipes and loved the food pictures. My love for food only grew when I was able to travel to China. My family is transnational because my sisters and I were adopted from different parts of China. Since our parents wanted us to stay in touch with our Chinese roots, we were able to visit China a few times. All the sights, sounds, smells, and flavors were eye-opening to me. I loved the different cultures – especially the food. I can still remember the moment I realized that I wanted my future to be linked with food. During one of my family’s visits to China, I was fortunate enough to visit my old orphanage. As soon as we drove through the gate, we were greeted with thousands upon thousands of firecrackers exploding – this was to show us respect, love, and hospitality. We spent the day talking about everything, but the real highlight was dinner. The owner of the orphanage treated us to a nice meal at a restaurant, and it was by far the strangest and most intriguing food I’ve ever eaten. There were century eggs, vegetable dishes with vegetables I didn’t know exited, noodles, cooked duck tongue, and so much more. This memory is such a happy one, it makes me want to cry. I was surrounded by the people who took care of me during my primitive years, and we expressed our happiness with food. Being surrounded by so much good food and love made me fully aware that I wanted to be able to bring this much joy to others through food. After that experience, I started looking for ways to start gaining culinary experience under my belt. I took a handful of culinary classes from the Culinary Center of Kansas City, but that wasn’t my long-term goal. When I started high school, I found out that I was able to enroll in a vocational program for culinary during my junior and senior years of high school. I enrolled and was accepted! Once I got there, I learned so much about so many things. From knife skills to food costing sheets my knowledge exponentially grew. So, my primary goal after I graduate is to eventually open an Asian-fusion, seasonal, fine dining restaurant. However, making great food is just part of cultivating a successful kitchen; it’s also being able to create a healthy work environment and a community able to respect one another and minimize conflicts as much as possible. Unlike many chefs in the past demonstrating the motto of “hear me roar”, I’d like to take a more peaceful and patient approach. I want to bring people together around common goals while valuing the differences in everyone. With my passion and love for food, I’d like to impact the culinary industry by leading in a positive and peaceful way, and valuing diversity in both the culinary staff and the menu.

Mental health, in my opinion, greatly reflects on how successful someone is. Not just because the fact that people with better mental health tend to perform better, but also that people with better mental health seem more content. A person's entire world perspective teeters on the state of their mental health. With a good mindset and mental heath, one could double their productiveness and block out society's toxicity. High school, however, is a different story. People struggle a lot in high school; most teenagers there get caught up in drama, stereotypes, and cliques. Many are negatively affected by society's social standards. Because of this, mindsets begin to spiral downward and go into tunnel vision. These tough conditions are what students face every day and is the reason why mental health of high school students is so low. I used to struggle with those types of things; however, during the start of my sophomore year in high school, I had somewhat of an epiphany. My sophomore year was the year when Covid hit hard, so while I was in quarantine, I had a lot of time to self-reflect. My grades were less than perfect the year before, so I knew I had to greatly improve if I wanted to become an independent and successful person. I dedicated myself to exceed my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual standard. Each day, I would wake up 6:45 am (sometimes earlier) and workout. After that, I would plot a time chart of 45- and 15-minute increments. This was to manage my stress and anxiety; I was very worried about not being able to get homework done and the fear of failure was suffocating. So, with my new time chart system, I had everything planned out. For 45 minutes I would do homework for one class, then I would get a 15-minute break. I would give myself a longer lunch break, but this routine would go until 6-7pm. Working out helped my physical and mental health exponentially. Because of that intense daily routine, I was able to significantly increase my everyday productivity. Having a working routine is all well and good, but it was only half the reason I excelled during that time. My family helped me tremendously ever day (and still do). They kept me sane during quarantine and cheered me on when I was feeling low. My parents also helped me into the start of my spiritual journey. I practice the Christian faith and having had so much time during lockdown to just pause and think without society's eyes was astonishing. That time provided me to realize where my values and priorities lie. Resulting from my growing faith, my relationship with my older sister improved as well. Now, my sister is my best friend and I love her more than anything. All of these developments contributed to my own mental and physical growth. Through all of the struggles and the doubting I've risen to be a motivated sister, daughter, and student. Now that my mindset has been given the chance to grow, I'm the most productive and content I've ever been. These reasons are why I take good care of my mind and body and why I find mental health to be so important.

My health journey started around the time I started cross country in middle school. During that time, I constantly felt super self-conscious about the way my body looked and being a middle schooler, I was convinced that everybody else was just as disgusted with me as I was. I had a binge eating problem and a self-image problem; those two problems combined result in an endless cycle of disgust, disappointment and bitterness. The fact that I knew I had a problem was one thing, but not knowing what to do to fix it was infuriating and made me feel hopeless. That is, until my parents made me participate in cross country. Of course, I fought tooth and nail against this decision, but to no such luck. When the dreaded day came, I changed into my athletic clothes and headed out for the field. Things started off pretty easy; my coach began by explaining what cross country was, how we were going to improve, and what he expects from us. After that, we began our warmups, however, it wasn't your typical warmup. We all got into single file lines and did about 20 different warmups all while counting at the top of our lungs. It was very uncomfortable for me at the time, but later I would learn it was worth every minute. One of the most vivid cross country memories I have was when my leg cramped up and got trampled by everyone. This was the turning point to my motivation towards cross country. During a practice, we partnered up with someone and took turns running increments of the field. When I felt the cramp coming, I thought I could just ignore it and keep going, but I was deeply wrong. My calf spasmed and threw me into one of the worst pains I'd ever felt in my life then followed by other runners plowing into me. Coach ran over to me once he saw me start to cry. He moved me to the side of the field and told everyone to start running laps; once he calmed me down I was allowed to sit out for the rest of practice. It was so humiliating and I never wanted it to happen again. I went home and told my mom, but instead of feeling sorry for me, she started to think of conclusions. She told me that I needed to start eating the right kinds of foods to reach peak performance. So every morning I would eat a banana and started incorporating better foods into my daily diet. Sure enough, it started to work! I felt less fatigued and more motivated to do things. My moral grew the more I improved during practice. My running times got better, I was binge eating a lot less, and I started to feel more confident with the way I looked. I had never felt more strong and capable than I did in those few moments. So now, I still love to work out and I still love to eat healthy. Thanks to the little push that my parents gave me, I was able to become stronger both in body and mind. My journey started off slow and uncoordinated, but with the right mindset, I learned to love growing.

I currently have one Labrador Retriever named Tex. He is 5 years old, has a strawberry-blonde coat and has a deep hazel color in his eyes. I love him dearly but fun fact, Tex isn't actually my dog. Legally, he's my little sister's. My sister, Ruby, has cerebral palsy and was interested in finding a service dog before she started middle school. Over the course of a couple of years, Ruby trained and created relationship with multiple dogs, but Tex was the one who stood out. The day that was long awaited finally came! Tex first stepped into my home on March 6th in the year 2019. I had never had a dog before, so watching him scurry about and smelling everything was an interesting sight. He was so much more rowdy and curious than my cats. I knew right then and there that this was going to take a lot of time to get used to. Tex was of course mostly bonded with Ruby at the time, but slowly, he started to warm up to everyone else. The next person he fell in love with was my mom, then my dad, and then me. I remember the first time I actually felt connected with him: Once when the whole family (except me) was away, I saw Tex curled up by the front door. He seemed to be patiently waiting for them to return, but he also looked lonely. I crouched next to him and sat with him for a while; he acknowledged me but didn't seem thrilled by my presence. Then, I took a risk and petted him for the first time. When he leaned into it, I felt my heart swell a bit. Now, every day when I get home from school Tex runs up to me and happily greets me. I've noticed that I've become less stressed and happier with Tex around. Dogs constantly pursue love and attention, therefore, they're constantly around you wanting to play. While some might see this as annoying or unwanted, others would see it as a loving companion who just wants to be known. When dogs ask for affection, most of the time humans comply. So, each time humans give affection, they open themselves up to be vulnerable. That's extremely healthy and is probably the reason why people with pets are, on average, happier. Because Tex came into my life, I've learned a lot about dogs. I've experienced the amount of unconditional love a dog can give you and that's greatly impacted my mental health. Opening myself up to dogs has been one of the greatest decisions of my life. Dogs are a man's best friend for a reason.

Knowing that I'll be able to grow in the field that I want to study is why college is so appealing to me. I hope that when I go to college and enrolls in culinary classes, it's guaranteed that I will run into many people who share the same interests and goals as I do. Those types of connections will become better relationships and potentially even lifelong friends. College, for me, involves a community created by people with common aspirations. High school, however, has been a different story. People struggle a lot in high school; most teenagers there get caught up in drama, stereotypes, and cliques. Many are negatively affected by society's social standards. Because of this, mindsets begin to spiral downward and go into tunnel vision. These tough conditions are what students face every day and is the reason why mental health of high school students is so low. I used to struggle with those types of things; however, during the start of my sophomore year in high school, I had somewhat of an epiphany. My sophomore year was the year when Covid hit hard, so while I was in quarantine, I had a lot of time to self-reflect. My grades were less than perfect the year before, so I knew I had to greatly improve if I wanted to become an independent and successful person. I dedicated myself to exceed my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual standard. Each day, I would wake up 6:45 am (sometimes earlier) and workout. After that, I would plot a time chart of 45- and 15-minute increments. This was to manage my stress and anxiety; I was very worried about not being able to get homework done and the fear of failure was suffocating. So, with my new time chart system, I had everything planned out. For 45 minutes I would do homework for one class, then I would get a 15-minute break. I would give myself a longer lunch break, but this routine would go until 6-7pm. Working out helped my physical and mental health exponentially. Because of that intense daily routine, I was able to significantly increase my everyday productivity. Having a working routine is all well and good, but it was only half the reason I excelled during that time. My family helped me tremendously ever day (and still do). They kept me sane during quarantine and cheered me on when I was feeling low. My parents also helped me into the start of my spiritual journey. I practice the Christian faith and having had so much time during lockdown to just pause and think without society's eyes was astonishing. That time provided me to realize where my values and priorities lie. Resulting from my growing faith, my relationship with my older sister improved as well. Now, my sister is my best friend and I love her more than anything. All of these developments contributed to my own mental and physical growth. Through all of the struggles and the doubting I've risen to be a motivated sister, daughter, and student. I'm extremely grateful to my family and the blessings I've been given because now I can walk into college fully confident that I can give it my all.