My father is the chief of police. I always understood that his job came with risks but never imagined it could imperil my life. At least, not until an officer who my dad fired decided he wanted revenge. He released a manifesto with plans to murder those who wronged him. His targets were ordered by priority. My family lay on top of his list. It was one night after our discovery of the manifesto, and I found myself scrunched up against my bed frame with my comforter pulled to my eyes. My pounding heartbeat drowned out the deafening surrounding sounds of gunfire. I realized my short, eleven-year life was about to end. I felt powerless. I lost all ability to move or breathe or think. All I could do was wait, helpless, for someone to either shoot or save me. The waiting was the scariest part. Fast forward two weeks, I was still waiting—no longer in my own bed but in a cousin’s. We sought refuge in his home, 2,600 miles away. I stared at the ceiling through the pitch-black darkness and wondered if I'd ever return to the comfortable life I knew. Months later, the waiting finally ended. The coward was captured and took his own life. I decided I'd never wait again. In one moment everything I knew ceased to exist. Surviving this set my soul on fire. I felt this new obligation to pursue a state of living, instead of going through the motions as days pass. I committed to chasing opportunities that cultivated growth. Waiting for them to find me wasted precious time. I now live a life packed with optimism and ambition. I’m done holding back. The broken man looking to destroy me achieved the opposite. His evil taught me how to truly live.

One personal finance lesson that I've prioritized in my life is building up an emergency fund. You never know what could happen—a car accident, a natural disaster, or any unexpected expense that takes you by surprise and drains your savings. Life is completely unpredictable and things happen, so it's very important to take a small amount of your income and put it into a separate account to keep for emergent times. I've made this a reality in my life by allocating twenty dollars of each of my paychecks to my emergency fund. The reason I began doing this in the first place is because of an event that took place a few months after I moved out of my parents' house. I was struggling a bit financially and didn't have any room to spend extra money, and then I backed my car into a pole in a parking garage. Looking back, it's funny now, but at the time I was really struggling financially and subsequently severely damaged the back of my car. I didn't have the money to fix it so I had to drive around with major damage to my car until I had enough to take it in. From then on, I've been building an emergency fund to protect me and my finances in unexpected times like that one. Life is unpredictable and it's important to try to solve problems before they even come up.

Age six, adorned in a miniscule white lab coat embroidered “Dr. Sarah”, I scramble through the storage closet in search of two things—my Fisher-Price doctor’s kit and the craft bin. I have a patient on the line. As I furiously gather surgical rods (paper clips), sutures (duct tape), and gauze (pom-poms), I am confident that with a steady hand, my patient will be better in no time. Twenty minutes later the operation is complete—my beloved stuffed panda is good as new, resting in my bed once again. I breathe a sigh of relief. That was a close one. Captivated by health science from a young age, pseudo “patients” enriched my adolescent years. I devoted playtime to fixing dolls and teddy bears, driven by an inherent, compelling desire to heal. As playtime became a part of my past, this tenacious passion remained. My fascination with science coupled with my propensity to heal planted in me a profound passion for medicine. Entering high school, I avidly sought opportunities to further this passion. Though entertaining, spending copious hours binging Grey’s Anatomy was simply not sufficient. With the new opportunity to curate my course-load, I decided to enroll in the honors anatomy class. This course was my clinical introduction into the human body and its functions. Searching for opportunities to practice this new knowledge, I was accepted as a volunteer at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance. I left each shift electrified, thoroughly inspired by the nurses I assisted and the patients I supported. My experiences in this program confirmed my ambitions to work in medicine, filling my spirit with eagerness and enthusiasm. As I continue through college, my zeal remains a driving force. In my future, I will once again proudly slip into my uniform, name tag on my chest and equipment in my grip. But this time, I’ll leave the paper clips and duct tape behind. I began my first year of college unsure what field of nursing I wanted to pursue but after the past two years of working closely with children, I've wholeheartedly decided on pediatrics. Our children are our future, and they deserve compassionate and gentle healthcare providers who will treat them with respect no matter how young they are. Additionally, I've watched my best friend go through severe health struggles for the past ten years, and the only place she's found solace in is her nurses. Watching them support and encourage her inspires me to do the same. Pursuing a career in nursing has been the greatest joy and I truly cannot wait to watch my dreams become reality.

Scratchy sheets. A faint but constant beep. I blink an eye open and my morning routine begins—kicking off with the daily, yet still shocking, realization that I lay not in the comfort of my queen size bed, but in the cold darkness of Room 311, on the third floor of a hospital I’d only visited once prior for the birth of my baby sister. It was day 21, but I was no less afraid than I was 21 days before. Not victim to a car crash, an electric shock, or a shark attack. At the raw age of fifteen, diet culture had its fiery claws wrapped around me so tightly I began to suffocate. Anorexia rehabilitation, the white board across from my bed read. Goals: stabilize heart, increase caloric intake, lessen orthostasis. I was no stranger to diet culture before my diagnosis with an eating disorder. Watching my godmother cut out sugar at eight, taking advice to lose weight from gymnastics coaches at twelve, learning the “benefits” of counting calories and tracking macros at fourteen. Billboards and magazines and television ads preaching the newest rapid fat-burning pill or low carb pancake mix. Celebratory comments made by adults regarding how “good” they were eating until the cookie after dinner. How “bad” they were for gaining three pounds on vacation. Diet culture, a system of beliefs that “worships thinness and equates it to health and moral virtue, promotes weight loss as a means of attaining higher status, and demonizes certain ways of eating while elevating others,” has leverage so strong in our society we often fail to recognize its presence (Alissa Rumsey). Five years later, I find myself still unlearning the lessons I so tightly clung to deep in my eating disorder. A seemingly harmless attempt at cutting my calories eventually progressed into anorexia, sending me off the edge and almost taking my life. If I’d gone on for three weeks longer than I did before my family intervened, I would have lost my battle. For many less fortunate than myself, diet culture wins. We owe it to them to rebel against the system telling us to change. We owe our bodies celebration for working so hard to keep us alive. We owe activism to future generations, so they don’t feed into the lies we’re so consumed by. And we owe it to ourselves to find peace where we’re at, regardless of the number on the scale. If I’ve learned anything through my journey, it’s that life has so much more to offer than the calorie-counting app on my phone does. Life can be embraced and lived to its fullest in a body of any size. Dieting is not worth missing out late night ice cream dates with friends, weekends away with family, going out to dinner or going to the beach. In old age we won’t celebrate skipping out on cake on our birthdays, but we’ll celebrate experiences like these. Your body is not the problem. Your food intake is not the problem. Diet culture is.

Playlist Name: Me & My Vyvanse Against the World "I'm Tired" — Coffee Times (feat Labrinth) "this is me trying" — Coffee Times (feat Taylor Swift) "Where Did the Time Go" — Coffee Times (feat Lord Huron) "Lonely" — Coffee Times (feat Noah Cyrus) "Night Shift" — Coffee Times (feat Lucy Dacus) "Me & My Dog" — Coffee Times (feat boygenius)

I came out as a lesbian to my family and friends two years ago and faced extreme backlash from various communities, most notably my church and my religious family members. This was a journey I had to navigate on my own, and I didn't really have anybody who I thought would understand what I was going through. It was a painful time of loss and heartbreak but also the very first time in my life I'd felt true freedom. That's why when my thirteen year old sister came out a year later, I knew I had to have her back and defend her in every way possible. Knowing she was about to face what I had just gotten through broke my heart, especially because she had to deal with it at thirteen rather than eighteen. I'd learned so much about who I am and what my community deserves through the intense rejection I faced just so I could be myself and I could not let my baby sister go without this, even though I knew it would throw me into the waves once again. Sure enough, my family was not happy with her identity and reacted even more harshly than they did to me. This was because they truly didn't believe her and thought she was just trying to copy me and be like her big sister. However, I know my sister better than most, and I also know that sexuality is never a choice and people don't just go through the coming out process for fun. I chose to dive right back into the devastation I'd faced in order to be there to get her through it. I called my parents out on her behalf and did everything I felt a big sister should. I comforted her through rejection and pain and never made her feel invalid or dramatic. Today, we are both as liberated as ever and truly happy with ourselves. We've dedicated ourselves to standing up for other LGBTQ+ youth and spreading the message that you don't have to be a certain age to know who you are. Nobody questions a ten year old girl with a boyfriend or tells her she's too young to know she's straight, but there's an intense double standard when this situation involves a queer relationship. Being gay is not inappropriate or too mature for children, it's a topic that should be normalized and taught from a young age just as heterosexuality is. Standing up for my sister in this way gave me confidence that I didn't know I had and taught me that even though I'm just one person, I have a powerful voice. I found that the people who rejected us served no positive value to our lives and instead filled their spaces with new, supportive, and accepting individuals. There's nothing wrong with being who you are and nobody deserves to have their life torn apart for it.

It was 5:21 AM when my life flipped upside-down. I don’t know why I remember the time, why the image of that bright pink alarm clock is still burnt into my mind. It was 5:21 AM when the deafening sound of gunshots jolted me from my sleep, when I pulled my blankets to my face and hoped with my whole heart that what I thought was happening wasn’t. As I laid helplessly, buried in my sheets, I listened to the loud bangs and the heavy footsteps and the shrill screams and realized that my short, eleven-year life was about to end. The sounds grew louder, closer, enveloping my entire being until my door knob turned and suddenly all went silent. A large male figure stepped into my bedroom. In his arms lay the most enormous gun I had ever seen. The man began to yell but his words jumbled in my mind and I was too terrified to sort them out. I held my breath, my heart pounding louder than the gunshot sounds ringing in my head. This is it, I thought. This is it for me. But that wasn’t it for me. I survived that night. What didn’t survive was my naivety, my immaturity, my lack of gratitude for the goodness around me. The man that came for my family, angry at my father for firing him, did not end me but instead made me new. The period that followed this traumatic night was one of the most transformative of my life. My family packed up our belongings and uprooted, moving across the country for safety. We didn’t know if we’d get to come home, if it’d ever be safe enough to return. I felt like my life had been snatched from me and the thought of starting a new one was absolutely terrifying. I missed my friends and my cat and my bed and my mom’s minivan. But I put my brave face on and persisted, because I knew that was my only option. Fast forward one month, five states, countless breakdowns and an abundance of prayers, we received news that the coward was caught and committed suicide. He was gone; we were free. We cried and cried, this time tears of joy. The overflow of love and support my family was showered with when we returned home was unbelievable. I was filled to the brim with gratitude, not only for these people who cared for me so deeply but for everything the past month had been. The life I felt so comfortable with was snatched from beneath my feet in seconds, plunging into chaos but then ascending into tranquility. Making it through this radically altered my view of the world. My lens shifted from that of an ingenuous eleven-year-old to that of a valiant survivor. I felt conviction, a new duty to take advantage of the life I was so lucky to have. This experience opened my eyes to the power of positivity—of looking for a bright side even when the whole world seems dark. The sparks of hope in my heart were what got me through seemingly endless days spent hiding and waiting. Years later, my heart is still filled with this hopefulness. The broken man looking to destroy my life in fact achieved the very opposite. His evil taught me peace.

Age six, adorned in a miniscule white lab coat embroidered “Dr. Sarah”, I scramble through the storage closet in search of two things—my Fisher-Price doctor’s kit and the craft bin. I have a patient on the line. As I furiously gather surgical rods (paper clips), sutures (duct tape), and gauze (pom-poms), I am confident that with a steady hand, my patient will be better in no time. Twenty minutes later the operation is complete—my beloved stuffed panda is good as new, resting in my bed once again. I breathe a sigh of relief. That was a close one. Captivated by health science from a young age, pseudo “patients” enriched my adolescent years. I devoted playtime to fixing dolls and teddy bears, driven by an inherent, compelling desire to heal. As playtime became a part of my past, this tenacious passion remained. My fascination with science coupled with my propensity to heal planted in me a profound passion for medicine. Entering high school, I avidly sought opportunities to further this passion. Though entertaining, spending copious hours binging Grey’s Anatomy was simply not sufficient. With the new opportunity to curate my course-load, I decided to enroll in the honors anatomy class. This course was my clinical introduction into the human body and its functions. Searching for opportunities to practice this new knowledge, I was accepted as a volunteer at Little Company of Mary Hospital in Torrance. I left each shift electrified, thoroughly inspired by the nurses I assisted and the patients I supported. My experiences in this program confirmed my ambitions to work in medicine, filling my spirit with eagerness and enthusiasm. As I continue through college, my zeal remains a driving force. In my future, I will once again proudly slip into my uniform, name tag on my chest and equipment in my grip. But this time, I’ll leave the paper clips and duct tape behind. I began my first year of college unsure what field of nursing I wanted to pursue but after the past two years of working closely with children, I've wholeheartedly decided on pediatrics. Our children are our future, and they deserve compassionate and gentle healthcare providers who will treat them with respect no matter how young they are. Additionally, I've watched my best friend go through severe health struggles for the past ten years, and the only place she's found solace in is her nurses. Watching them support and encourage her inspires me to do the same. Pursuing a career in nursing has been the greatest joy and I truly cannot wait to watch my dreams become reality.