Because I am the oldest of my siblings, I am the first of them to try many things. I am the first to learn to ride a bike, the first to experience high school, and the first to move out and go to college. As a person who comes from a background where individuals don’t leave home until they marry, going to college out of state feels frightening. While this feels overwhelming at times, thoughts of my future in college excite me. I will be studying among other students of various backgrounds. I will be learning new things. I will be on my own, building my own routine, making my own choices. I will be independent. I am excited to meet new people and grow into the best version of myself, which I know will consist of living a healthy lifestyle. A lifestyle where I eat healthy, exercise, make friends, build new talents, and especially prioritize church. In past experiences, I have always found that my spiritual and physical health are directly correlated to one another. When one does well, so does the other. From there, my mental and academic health follow the trend. As a result, when I am struggling or facing a challenge, I lean on my faith. As someone who has grown up going to church, I’ve learned to take my fears to the lord when I am in a troubling time. While this does not work for everyone, it has helped me understand that the hard times are for our best interest. They help us grow stronger and make the good times more meaningful. Life isn’t perfect; it is many times painful and difficult. We all struggle with different things; money, health, friends, family. Among all these things, people continue to live their lives. Experiencing what it is like to lose a loved one, struggle with colorism, have few friends, all while going to a new school and juggling a full schedule with AP classes, has helped me learn that you can only do what you can. You can only give your best. You can only control what you can control. Do your best and give your all. Adopting this mindset has helped me to endure hard times, especially when it comes to school. School is hard. Waking up early is hard. Completing assignments you may not understand is hard. Staying up late to do homework is hard. However, among doing all of these things, I have learned that it is always worth it. There is satisfaction in doing hard things; there is power. You feel accomplished. You feel success. It drives you to keep going because at the end of the day, you know who you are and what you’re capable of. As someone who constantly strives to do their best, I know who I am and I know what I am capable of. I know that I can get through any hard time, if I have the attitude of giving my best.

As the oldest, I often find myself under much pressure and stress. For one, I have the responsibility of leading and taking care of my siblings. Second, because I am the oldest, I am often the first among my siblings to try new things. I am the first to learn to ride a bike, the first to experience high school, and the first to move out and go to college. It is overwhelming to be an oldest child and a first generation student. While my family supports me and pushes me to do my best, I must often figure out things for myself, especially when it comes to school. Particularly in my junior year, I struggled most. I had transferred to a new school where I was encouraged by my mother to take advanced courses. Wanting to please her and challenge myself, I did. I quickly found myself to be one of the few minority students and the only Polynesian student in my classes. Trying not to feel out of place, I did my best to collaborate with the others and to make friends with them. We completed assignments together and discussed class concepts. As I got to know my peers, I soon found out that we had very little common ground. It was difficult to connect with them, we could hardly relate our experiences to one another. Struggling to keep up with the class and understand everything that we were learning, I felt like I was by myself. Even after my own efforts of studying and receiving help from my classmates and teachers, I felt like I was hardly understanding school assignments. I doubted myself. Eventually, after giving my best for so long, thoughts of giving up tempted me. No matter where I looked, it felt like no one understood me. Asking classmates, teachers, friends, and even my family at home for help seemed pointless. Despite that, advanced classes would only help prepare me for the future. I only thought of family and my cousins who had completed school. I envisioned a life that I wanted give back ; A life where I could take care of them and give back to the community. As a result, I kept pushing and eventually grew confident in my ability to understand and work in the advanced courses I was taking. I gradually noticed that my skills in the class were improving. I was capable of doing more than I thought. This experience has proven to be a valuable lesson to me. I understand that challenges make us stronger and help build us into who we need to be. As a result, as big of a transition this is for me, I am blessed with the examples that my older cousins have set for me. Watching them complete their education and pursue their careers has inspired me to do the same. At the same time, my mother's family has also influenced me; many of them organizing and planning events, others expressing themselves through business. As much or as little stress as it was for them, they loved it; it was who they were. From both my mothers and fathers family, I learned the importance of education, of work, of having a love for what you do. I know for myself that I must be happy in whatever I choose to pursue in my education. In fact, nothing sparks my interest like entrepreneurship. Because I am a creative and artistic individual, I envision myself creating my own products and sharing them with the world. I aspire to build and own a successful business.