Though I was born a bibliophile, I never took an interest in writing until I went to a conference for the New Jersey's Educators Association when I was nine. Context: after relentlessly soliciting her, my mom took me to one of her NJEA conferences. However, midway through, a man walked on the stage and performed what I now know as slam poetry. At the time, it only registered in my mind as him giving a speech. I don’t remember what that "speech" was about, but what I know for sure is that his words triggered a swirl of emotion within me that I could not, and still cannot distinguish. But yet, I craved more of it. I was nine, young and impressionable. So naturally as most kids do, I decided that I wanted to do what he did. I wanted to make someone feel something with words. To this day, I still do. My journey for feeling has been a rocky one. I have produced pieces that I hated, I have changed my career path and style thousands of times, and I probably will change it a couple thousand more times in the future. I am very inconsistent, and I have wanted to quit more times than I would like to admit. Yet, my drive and desire to share my emotions and ideas has somehow kept me on this path to create. To create something that means something, to use my art for change. To stir that same swirl of emotions in someone else's heart, and share that love with the world. Some have called this almost baseless dedication, childish, foolish even, to which I agree. However, I also believe that sometimes you need a fool's dedication to succeed. Throughout this essay, all I have given you is an explanation of why I do what I do. To answer the question, I say this: I still have no idea what I'm doing. Despite my years of storytelling experience and cultivation, I still find it difficult to engage in other aspects of the process due to financial constraints and other factors. Though the fundamental basis of the art of storytelling is actually putting your pen to the paper and telling the story, I also believe that the time you spend learning techniques, networking with people in the industry, and practicing your craft is just as crucial. Realistically, it's near impossible for me to nurture these skills in front of my computer through my own means (at least within a reasonable time), however I believe that with the aid of this scholarship, you can help me do just that.

Picture this: you are down by 10 points and have about 45 seconds left in the match. Your head is pounding, overlapping screams reverberate throughout the gymnasium. Your coach, who just so happened to be your dad, calls a timeout. You're frustrated. You take a sip of water and try to clear your head, but in your mind, you're sure that there is no way to win. Looking back on the experience, I can think of about five ways to turn this around off the top of my head, but at the time, I thought that all hope was lost. Before I stepped back into the ring, my dad clapped his hands in front of my face and said: "Snap out of it. Calm down and listen to me. There is a way to turn this around. Don't stay stiff". In the heat of the moment, what he said only frustrated me more. However, he had the answers, and despite my frustration, he would help me improve, so I listened to him. During the match, I managed to recover, and eventually win. From this, I realized that you don't need o know all the answers, and you're going to fail more times than you succeed. This makes it all the more important for you to be honest with yourself and accept help from others to improve. This aided me in accepting many failures over the years and has simultaneously driven me to many successes.

I like legos. As a kid, playing with legos was my thing. I would come up with the most convoluted stories, which always resulted in someone either getting married, their house burning down, or turning into a god. Now, I didn't have friends as a kid (shocker, I know), as connecting with people my age was/is a challenge for me. To cope, I learned to take solace in stories, I filled my bookshelf with every book imaginable, I had boxes stuffed to the brim with crude doodles. However, nothing made me feel as content as legos did. Sometimes the highlight of my day was building rainbow houses for Aquaman or having Dora the Explorer teach Red Skull how to ride a bike, or if I felt especially creative, fire-breathing dragons would swim underwater. The autonomy of creation gave me a medium to express my thoughts, ideas, and feelings in a way that words and speaking couldn't. In a way that nobody could see. I don't want to play with legos anymore. OK, I lied, it's still pretty fun... but I do other things. Over the past decade, my medium to tell stories has continued to evolve: from art to writing to music to theater to writing again, and now we're back to theater AND writing ... again (and maybe directing? we're figuring it out). Currently, I'm sitting on countless sketchbooks, poems, scripts, and books. Stories that might never see the light of day. Despite everything I've created, despite my "evolution", I still couldn't share my story. In all honesty, I am less qualified than 90% of your applicants. I don't have money to throw at voice or acting lessons or writing workshops. However I have put in the time and effort, I have ideas and emotions and stories to share, that are just as good as anyone else's. There are people whose lives I want to change, the people who are too scared to share their stories with the world. Hopefully, if your program gave me a chance, you could help me do that.