Option D: culinary My favorite part of going to a restaurant has always been getting appetizers, I would rather get a few different appetizers instead of a meal at all! A couple favorites of mine are mac and cheese balls and jalapeño poppers. I love mac and cheese, it's been one of my favorites since preschool but I've recently found that it can be a bit plain to my matured palette, and so I thought, why not just add more flavor by combining two of my favorite appetizers into one? Option D of the Mad Genius scholarship led me to make my own creative culinary recipe for melty mac poppers. It's a jalapeño popper inspired mac and cheese that uses diced jalapeños, crispy pieces of bacon, cream cheese, and hot sauce to imitate the spicy and cheesy appetizer. Then, it is scooped into balls, breaded, and deep fried before being served with a cool and creamy garlic herb ranch dip that cuts through the warm and rich flavors of my new favorite mashup, the melty mac poppers.

When I was 9 years old, I was with my family when I was given a diagnosis that would change my life. I was diagnosed with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis, a rare form of cancer that appeared as a brain tumor in my pituitary gland. From then, I had received chemotherapy treatment. I would get treated once a week before the chemotherapy became even more aggressive than it had been, turning from every Wednesday into 1 week straight every month. A milestone came in December 2018, it was the end of my first year with my tumor, and happened to be my 10th birthday. A major event, not only because I was turning 10, but we also weren't sure if I would reach it. I wanted to celebrate, give back to the community who had supported me through it all. I held a fundraiser called the Shirt and Share Drive to give chemotherapy shirts to other kids in the hospital. In the end, I raised enough money through my family, friends, and the entire school district to distribute over 700 chemotherapy shirts throughout different hospitals. Throughout the next few months, I continued to be treated for my tumor. I was on multiple different medications. Some were for treatment, others were due to the fact that I would never produce certain hormones again that I still take today and will for the rest of my life. At the end of June 2019, my mom received the news that my scans had come back clean with no sign of my tumor. We were ecstatic, receiving the news a month previous to my Make-A-Wish trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. Since the news, my cancer center has recently moved from a small place near the hospital to an extension of the hospital, and I get to enter for my survivorship appointments to a beautifully renovated place that I have never received chemotherapy in, a place that I have never been sick in. Now, nearly 7 years cancer free and a junior in high school, college has been on my mind. Depending on which age you have asked me, my answer varies by a lot. From ice cream truck owner to pop star my answers varied. Until, during my treatment, I was asked what I wanted to be. I had decided to be a pediatric oncologist, taking after my doctor who also had a form of cancer as a young girl. I had felt this way and still do, until high school when I had thought about the pathway to get there, and had continued to spring around, with jobs including child life specialist and pediatric nurse. Even now, I am not completely sure, some I have thought of include being an occupational therapist, or a physical therapist like my mother, even a medical researcher, a child life specialist, and again, a pediatric oncologist. While I don't yet know what to spend the rest of my life doing, I found some common ground for my education, majors in biology and health science. For now, these are the majors that I am considering, but I know in my heart that the main thing I want to do is help people. Has my answer been said by others before me? Why yes, of course, but why should that mean it is false? I have a generous heart, sometimes to my disadvantage, but with the help of education funded by this scholarship, I will always want to care for people in need, like I was all those years ago.

How do you know what someone else is going through? While some believe that they can see through every person they come across, it simply is not the true self of all. I, along with a variety of others, wear my heart on my sleeve, but only the good pieces of my broken self. Although it can be difficult to see warning signs for mental health, communication with your loved ones is important because those with worsening mental health tend to mask it, until it worsens to the extreme. My mental health has not been the best, the climax of these emotions getting bad was around 4th grade. I was visiting the Eiffel Tower on my Make A Wish trip for my family, recently becoming cancer free. Yet, through all the things to be celebrated as we climbed the Eiffel Tower, I wanted to jump off. Since then, I had, rarely but still, regretted not completing the act during the worst moments of my life. I’ve got a journal to write in. At times when my parents may be arguing, especially with my brother, I would stay in the corner of my walk-in closet and just write, just write until it was over. I would write things in it about wanting to kill myself, or about how it was my fault that I was in a certain situation. I still write in that journal, not only for me to do a repetitive activity (writing) until I calmed down, but also to reflect on my problems and even later on, I could look back on how my emotions could impact me. I have not gotten over my struggles with mental health, they haven’t simply gone away since then. But I have been able to see, not how strong the situation made me, but that I am strong and I had the opportunity to show that to the world, my loved ones, and mostly myself. I have had many goals in my life, including those that are effects of my mental health. Previous to his passing, Robin Williams said, "the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it's like to feel absolutely worthless and they don't want anyone else to feel like that.” This is something I relate to, as well as noticing and reaching out to people as I do not want them to continue suffering the issues that I may also go through, silently. Throughout the adversities I have overcome and will continue to come across, I have not emerged without wins. I have not made myself stronger, but instead was able to show how strong I really am. Also, my relationships have strengthened as I have gone through my troubles in life with my loved ones, showing the people that are my real family, not only by blood. My closest family and friends have been with me in the lowest valleys in the rollercoaster of life. It is important to remember, not only that life has highs and lows just as a roller coaster, that the cycles of life won't be the same. Some loops and turns are simply longer than others, or with a higher drop. Others may be at the top of their coaster and enjoying themselves, but that does not deny your position when on the lowest point of the ride that is life. My mental health is, in no fact, perfect or "cured". There are those that may feel at rock bottom could be doing things that others dream of, nonetheless feeling unwell. Whether in the span of a day, a month, even a year, emotions can widely vary, person to person, one moment towards the next. But, I now understand, simple sentences do not have to lead to a dead end in your tracks.

Adversity, a word of familiarity. While to some of the youth, it may symbolize arguments with their parents, low scores on report cards, or moving away, breaking childhood friendships that could have lasted a lifetime. However, for me and many others, its meaning is tremendously more complex, with traumatic memories coming to the surface just by the mention of the word. On the 9th of March, 2018, I was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor, LCH or Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis. While it was some time ago, and even though I may not remember every explicit detail of the exchange, I remember how I felt. Still, I didn't know how to feel. As a 9 year old, I wasn't worried about something like cancer, instead maybe worried about my homework or what to play during recess. Not cancer, no, and it was rare for me to hear the word mentioned, or so I thought. In the hospital, though I was fully unaware of the course of treatment, what this would mean for my life's story, if I would go to school, etc., it wasn't only me. While my entire family worried, they knew how strong they needed me, a strong face so I would not be scared through a time that was, in fact, terrifying. No matter what happened, I would be with those who truly cared for me. As time progressed, more was revealed through tests and scans with a plan established. While those are definitely necessary in medical terms, I had established my own proposition as well, mostly my mental perception. I didn't want to be negative, as it would not assist me in any way. I was positive, bringing fun activities to the cancer center for chemotherapy, including a coloring book, my iPad with a variety of things to watch online, books, and snacks to pass the time, although I enjoyed passing the time talking to my parents and the nurses. As I have grown, having a personal fundraiser, a make a wish trip, speaking for different companies that assisted those like me, through all my joyous moments and facing adversities, I have come to a couple conclusions. For one, while cliche, I had realized that life is short and to appreciate each moment. You can't get so hung up on where you would rather be that you forget to make the most of where you are, it is best to just live a little. Maybe not as extreme as some, "live every day as if it was your last" but simply appreciating life and all it has to offer us, even if those offers are not as apparent as one would assume. Due to the trials I have overcome, I now understand how important those who assist caring for a child are in their development. Due to my previous circumstances and having those in the field inspire me, I want to major in medicine, either a pediatric oncologist or a child life specialist.