Our environment shapes us. My parents were never married. For a while, it was as if there was a straight line through the middle of my world: One side was my mother who, despite having a big family, had to leave before finishing her last semester of college due to lack of help. My mother who prioritizes academic excellence. Who worked a 12-hour rotating shift at a plant for most of my early years. Whose entire world revolves around me and my brother. And, on the other side, there was my Father who had finished high school but had been unable to attend college. Who joined the Marines when I was around three years old. Who has a family just as big and problematic as momma’s. My father who was trying to form a connection with a little girl who he saw only a few days throughout the year while still growing up and into himself. Watching my mother I have learned the meaning of hard work and resilience and of sacrifice. Her aspirations of a better life for me and my brother have resulted in hours at the kitchen table even on weekends; in tv bans on weekdays. Her inability to be two places at once has resulted in having to leave ceremonies early or slip in late; in not having a parent in the audience. Reviewing her life, relationships - familial and otherwise -, and my relationship with her, I have come to see clearly what I want and do not want out of life itself and present in my life. Who I did and did not want to be. Despite stigmas placed around single-parent households, I have been able to achieve great feats in my school and community. I am in the top ten percent of my class and I am the President of our biggest on-campus organization, Beta; Beta is a nonprofit, service-based, academic youth organization. During the school year, my club provides structured events to our members and any members of the community who want to participate. Additionally, I am a team lead of the Jackson Student Leadership team, a leadership development program whose goal is to increase student involvement in my community. Our environment shapes us. Mine made me want more; more for myself, more to give, and more for the world. “A goal without a plan is just a wish,” before I heard the quote I understood the principle and have been planning ever since. Giving back to those who have given so much to me is my number one goal. To do that I plan on continuing my education after high school at a four-year university to achieve a job with a stable income in one of my areas of interest; after which I plan on purchasing a home for my mother and assisting my siblings in paying for college. This scholarship can take me one step closer to achieving my goals by helping me with the financial aspect of going to college.

Newton’s third law tormented me as we trekked up the road with the hot sun beating down on us. One minute we were in the store browsing the book aisle and the next my mom was running back urging me to come out to the parking lot and help her find her car. “It’s out there you’re just looking in the wrong place,” I told her laughing, “Come on I’ll find it.” The laughter was short-lived. The car has been repossessed. Lesson #. A car title loan is a “secure” loan that uses one’s automobile title as collateral. The lender lends you an amount of money equal to the value of your vehicle. You agree to pay back a “little” more than what is lent to you plus interest. For many, it seems like a good deal and for some, it works out just fine. In regards to taking out a loan one should have at least two things: Confidence that they can pay back the loan and a great deal of accountability. “The worst part is…there were so many times that I had the money. I could have paid it back.” She was laughing but she looked tired, and not just because of the hot sun and humid Georgia air. Aloud I say, “At Least we’re getting our steps in!” Mentally I’m revising the list: We don’t own a house, We don’t own a car. Lesson #. Trade-offs are a concept in economics that can be summarized as the comprehension that when you choose to do and/or buy one thing you are virtually giving up another. Being able to efficiently evaluate trade-offs is necessary if one seeks to live shrewdly. While the immediate satisfaction you get from seeing the Barbie movie with your friend may seem tempting, if you take off work you are trading the money you would have made from your paycheck. After cooking in the sun for thirty minutes the first thought in my mind after sliding into the air-conditioned backseat of my uncle’s car was: I can’t wait to take a shower. My second thought was: My friends will love hearing about this. My third thought was: How am I going to get to school? And that thought led to the question that would be hanging over us for the next six months: What are we going to do now? Lesson #. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction in other words, our actions have consequences. “Some people need to learn things the hard way,” is a saying I have heard and read numerous times. I have witnessed, firsthand, enough people run into brick walls that I have no desire to collide with one myself. To ensure my list is filled with “do’s” and not “don’ts” I will continue taking what I have learned not to do and learn what to do; using my knowledge to execute the latter.

The first class I ever struggled in was math due to the level of attention you must pay to avoid small mistakes. In math if you have a four-step equation but you miswrite a sign in step two your answer, in most cases, is bound to be wrong. Math demands my complete attention which is one of the reasons I love it. I am an anxious overthinker who is involved in numerous things so at any given time my mind is in three or more different places. Math class has always been the one-hour period of the day where I can clear my head and focus on one thing. In addition to that, math is never boring. Even if I grasp a unit early on but still have three more pages of practice to do I never dread it, there is not much more exciting than getting an answer right. There is not much more pleasant to look at than a page of simplified polynomial equations in red ink. Math is beautiful and it makes sense, at its core it never truly changes, more methods are just made. My interests are not confined to just math. I love to write and read, I enjoy working out, I am an avid chess player, and chemistry and anatomy fascinate me; however, all of those things are based on math. Poets use math to determine how many syllables and lines are required to produce their desired flow. Math is used to engineer optimal workout routines. My younger brother excels in mathematics and thinks of each chess game as an equation. All sciences are founded in math, so without math, there would not be science - nor much else for that matter. Mathematics has long been called the Queen of all Sciences, but it rules over much more than that. Math is the foundation upon which almost anything can be built. I am still mostly undecided on what I want my future to look like, but studying math opens a door to endless possibilities.

A crepe pink Victorian-style house with two large turrets sitting symmetrically on either side, sitting atop the clouds; A arch door made of black glass -to match the also black glass roof- leading into an open style interior. On the exterior, sitting on either side of the door, sit two large bay windows with crepe detailing to match the walls. In the interior part of the house, when first entering, you are met with a hallway lined with thousands of books that bisect the house; directly in the middle on both sides of the hallway lay an arched doorway. Whether you go into the left or right archway you will be met with an almost identical sight: a semi-circle room with five doors lining the wall. Each door will be engraved with an illustration indicating which area of the house it leads into. The left-most door on the left side and the right-most door on the right side leads into the two turrets, one holding the library and the other holding the master bedroom. With trap doors and hidden rooms, my guest can find adventure by either flipping through pages or turning corners in the library. However, unlike the library, guests will not be allowed in my room in the right wing, which will be filled with flowers, mushrooms, and other plants some of which may be dangerous to the untrained eye. Next on the right side, we have the cottage-style kitchen with pink marble countertops, a huge island in the middle for preparation space, and shelves covering the walls to hold my latest baking creations. Moving from the kitchen to the dining room you'll find that the cottage style continues with long dark oak tables, and benches to sit on; the entire back wall is just a huge glass French door granting a breathtaking site to look at while dining. The sitting room design is heavily inspired by Barbie and the twelve dancing princesses - my favorite Barbie movie - with a chair designed after each princess and the walls a rainbow of colors, the instrumental soundtrack of the movie plays throughout the day; however, with no speaker in sight, it must be magic. The guest rooms are by far the most curious rooms in the house because they are an exact replica of whoever is staying in said rooms' own room; when no guests are present the door to that area of the house remains closed. Shifting back to the left side of the house we have the pool; there is no roof on that particular area of the house so natural light is always shining in and the floor is not marble nor wood but is instead made of pink sand. If not for the lack of fresh water it would be a beach. The roller rink pays homage to one of my favorite Barbies, the 70s Disco Barbie. In my opinion one of the underrated Barbies, the 70s Disco Barbie definitely deserves her own themed room. The Theater is styled after your typical AMC but when a movie isn't specified it will default to either the Labyrinth or the Barbie as Rapunzel movie. Last but certainly not least we have the runway room filled to the brim with the most Iconic Barbie outfits from the last 100 years. Although the interior of the house is enchanting, with such a lovely view just outside, it is only fitting that the house walls be retractable so that no one misses seeing the sunset from up in the clouds.