I come from a single-parent low-income family. Fast food was the only option my mom could afford for both my sister and me up until I made it to high school. My doctor's office started providing free fruits and vegetables for any family who signed up but after my mother's death, my sister and I were not able to receive those healthy foods. This loss leads us back to fast food and saturated fats. Growing up, there were no real exercise opportunities. When I made it to middle school I joined my school's field hockey team which I played in, up until my senior year of high school. Now that I am in college and am employed in a supervisory position, I can afford a gym membership (which I am currently looking into at my local gym) and will soon be able to participate in college sports, once I transfer to the University of Vermont. Although I was never able to consistently eat fresh and healthy foods, my hope is to plan a budget that will allow me to incorporate more fruits and vegetables into my diet. Despite what people say, eating healthy is more expensive than the alternative and that is a reality I've learned to accept over my lifetime. As prices keep rising that testament stands to be true, eating healthy costs more. I have found many Instagram accounts and YouTube channels that have demonstrated ways to make healthy eating affordable for those who don't believe they cannot afford it. With those resources, I am optimistic I will be able to start cleaning up my eating habits. I have heard how difficult it can be to turn healthy habits into a permanent lifestyle, but I have also heard how the support of friends and family can help overcome the hardships faced by many. Working out, especially for the first time, induces more pain in the beginning than euphoria. It can take months before an individual feels confident in the gym let alone sees results. Having a support system can make those months of struggles and sadness less discouraging and detrimental to one's goals and progress. The same goes for eating healthy. It may take a little while for one to develop a taste for greens, especially if that person has eaten fast food their whole life. But if they have a battle buddy to partake in healthy eating alongside them, those greens may be easier to get down and become something that is enjoyed rather than dreaded. Will my friends, family, and my own determination, I am hoping to make a change from an unhealthy lifestyle to a healthy one. Starting off with smaller goals to create sustainable change rather than getting caught up in weight loss and food cleanse fads.

1. I went to my psychic the other day and asked what I should do with my life. My family shot down my dream of going to clown college so I needed advice. She told me I should apply to the nearest college, I applied, and was accepted immediately. She only accepts scholarships as payment so applying to this scholarship was necessary! 2. My dream was to go to clown college. I think with the right training I could send Ronald McDonald packing and take his job (I could so be a better clown than him!), but when I discussed my future aspirations with my family they told me “you will be going to a credited university or else…” I’m never allowed to watch McDonaldland ever again. 3. There was one time my sister fell off the top bunk in the middle of the night. I had woken up to go to the bathroom and since we had a night light in our room I was able to see her silhouette on the floor, but being half asleep I thought it was a toy we didn’t put away. In fear of peeing on the floor I hurdled over what I thought was an obstacle and made it to the bathroom.

My favorite artist is Banksy; he is a street artist. Despite others thinking his art is illegal or degrading, I believe his art forces Society to identify their short comings and life threatening behavior (racism, bullying, closed mindedness, etc.), then reflect on them and decide if they will continue their selfish ways or change for the betterment of the human race. We need more people in this world that understand that the human race will forever have room to improve and aren’t afraid to showcase things that need improvement in a way that establishes a call to action instead of bully society.

Friendship means having people in your life that feel like your extended family. There are people who support you and keep it real, love you not matter what but aren’t afraid to be truth especially in important matters. Friendship means putting in the work to build one another up instead of tearing each other down. Despite the fact friendship is such an abstract concept that differs for everyone, there are many universal concepts of friendship that remain the same no matter where you live or what your background is. Friendships falter and face many challenges, but those challenges not only make the individuals stronger, but they also make the relationship stronger. In order to maintain a strong friendship you need to trust one another or else a positive progression cannot be made. Friends push you out of your comfort zone and show you apart of the world that you may have never seems before. Friendships provide valuable experiences that last a lifetime; even though friendships come and go the impact they have on your life will always remain.

Have you ever seen with your own eyes what the power of music can do? Like have you ever truly seen it? I’m going to get the sob story out of the way and tell you that my mother died of cancer in 2019. She was in the hospital for a little over 3 months straight and then she went to a respite house for palliative care and that’s when she passed away. I’m teelibrg you this not for sympathy but so you can understand how powerful music actually is. A few months before my mom was admitted to the hospital my school held an event we call Rock Project where any and everyone can perform in front of friends and family and have a grand old time. I sang Rise Up by Andra Day with a good friend of mine and it was an amazing experience. Fast forward to when my mom was in the hospital. Whenever my mother was in pain or wanting to give up she would play the recording of that song from Rock Project and not only would her face light up but her pain would go away. She would sing along and show all the nurses that came in the room to check on her; she was a proud mama but a healed mama. No music didn’t have the power to save my mom's life but it gave her moments of pain free peace and if that isn’t amazing then I don’t know what is. Even when she was exhausted, my mom would take the time to encourage me to pursue a career that would allow me to help people in only a way I knew how, through music. Her encouragement is what directed me to pursue psychology, not so I can sit in a chair and listen to people problems, but so I can listen and provide healing through both words and music, a very power combination.

Have you ever seen with your own eyes what the power of music can do? Like have you ever truly seen it? I’m going to get the sob story out of the way and tell you that my mother died of cancer in 2019. She was in the hospital for a little over 3 months straight and then she went to a respite house for palliative care and that’s when she passed away. I’m telling you this not for sympathy but so you can understand how powerful music actually is. A few months before my mom was admitted to the hospital my school held an event we call Rock Project where any and everyone can perform in front of friends and family and have a grand old time. I sang Rise Up by Andra Day with a good friend of mine and it was an amazing experience. Fast forward to when my mom was in the hospital. Whenever my mother was in pain or wanting to give up she would play the recording of that song from Rock Project and not only would her face light up but her pain would go away. She would sing along and show all the nurses that came in the room to check on her; she was a proud mama but a healed mama. No music didn’t have the power to save my mom's life but it gave her moments of pain free peace and if that isn’t amazing then I don’t know what is. Even when she was exhausted, my mom would take the time to encourage me to pursue a career that would allow me to help people in only a way I knew how, through music. Her encouragement is what directed me to pursue psychology, not so I can sit in a chair and listen to people problems, but so I can listen and provide healing through both words and music, a very power combination.

Have you ever seen with your own eyes what the power of music can do? Like have you ever truly seen it? I’m going to get the sob story out of the way and tell you that my mother died of cancer in 2019. She was in the hospital for a little over 3 months straight and then she went to a respite house for palliative care and that’s when she passed away. I’m teelibrg you this not for sympathy but so you can understand how powerful music actually is. A few months before my mom was admitted to the hospital my school held an event we call Rock Project where any and everyone can perform in front of friends and family and have a grand old time. I sang Rise Up by Andra Day with a good friend of mine and it was an amazing experience. Fast forward to when my mom was in the hospital. Whenever my mother was in pain or wanting to give up she would play the recording of that song from Rock Project and not only would her face light up but her pain would go away. She would sing along and show all the nurses that came in the room to check on her; she was a proud mama but a healed mama. No music didn’t have the power to save my mom's life but it gave her moments of pain free peace and if that isn’t amazing then I don’t know what is. Even when she was exhausted, my mom would take the time to encourage me to pursue a career that would allow me to help people in only a way I knew how, through music. Her encouragement is what directed me to pursue psychology, not so I can sit in a chair and listen to people problems, but so I can listen and provide healing through both words and music, a very power combination.

My mother was an RN. She was the most kind, compassionate, and accepting person I knew, not only on the job, but off the job as well. Even to this very day, I will run into some of her old patients, who without fail, can recall the time when, “your mother stayed by my bedside until we got word from the doctor after my surgery” or “she always stopped by to make sure I was doing alright.” Every time I hear stories about my mom doing what she loved I can’t help but wonder how amazing it would be to follow in her footsteps; to work alongside people I consider guardian angels and superheroes. When my mom was in the hospital for her cancer diagnosis we met some pretty amazing nurses that took care of not only her, but anyone in the room alongside her. Some brought us food, some brought us games, some stayed in the room with us simply just to talk and keep us company. By the time my mother moved to the respite house to receive palliative care there wasn’t a nurse we didn’t know. What I find amazing is that I am still friends with some of them to this very day! During her time in the respite house, my family and I met most, if not all, of the palliative care nurses working throughout the entire facility. Since I stayed with my mom from the time she was admitted in the hospital to the day of her death I had the privilege of meeting every person who took care of my mother. Despite the bad reputations that some may give nurses, I am here to say that none of them are true. Nurses are more than what is in their job description. Nurses have some of the biggest hearts, brightest personalities, and understanding minds. Ever since I was a little girl I had always wanted to help people and make their lives even the slightest bit better. I’ve experienced hardships and circumstances that many will never have to go through, but those experiences help guide me and help everyone I encounter along the way. I want to become a traveling nurse because I don’t want to limit my ability to help and heal others to just one hospital, one city, or one place. I want to be able to be where I’m needed and encourage others in every place I visit. The one thing I discovered when spending time with my mother in the hospital was that there was a major need for nurses. I met a good number of nurses who had traveled from all over the country to help out any and every department in need. Everyone was thankful for the help they provided and at the end of the day made new friends and gained a second home. I want to experience that feeling, I want to help any and everyone I can, I want to be a changemaker and becoming a traveling nurse is the way I hope to do it.

When I was 15 years old, my mother was diagnosed with uterine cancer. It was the year I received my permit and started drivers-ed; I drove her to every appointment. She went through radiation treatments for upwards of a year before she was deemed cancer-free. She hit a gong with a wooden mallet in front of the other cancer patients and the hospital staff with a huge smile on her face. Her battle was over. She had won. It wasn’t until an emergent late-night ER visit that our lives had changed forever. At 3:05 am the doctors transferred us to a hospital room, and less than 30 minutes later another doctor came in and diagnosed her with a type of cancer they weren’t certain of. It was either uterine cancer or cervical cancer. She had entered the hospital that cold, late-night and only left when she was transferred to the respite house in the town over. My mother died on September 1st, 2019, and life hasn’t been the same since. Although my mother was the one with the diagnosis, I was right there with her, fighting side by side, with a disease that always wins. We started visiting our family in Plattsburgh more often, going to more family events, such as parties and restaurants lunches and dinners, my sister and I started hanging out with friends less due to our growing obligations at home. There were a lot of doctor’s appointments that I drove my mother to. Our lives seemed to be growing busy, yet our timed seemed to be running short. My mom became the number one priority in our family and that never changed, even after her death. Priorities shifted because that’s how it needed to be and there were few complaints about it. During this time, we started going to church more consistently. Instead of just going to church on Sundays, we began going on Wednesdays, and any day special events were taking place. But it wasn’t until she was diagnosed with cancer for the second time that things really changed. Everyone started looking for the miracle doctor that was going to fix her; my Aunt Diana and Uncle Don eventually found a doctor in Boston, but even he couldn’t save her. I started looking at studies online to see if I could find something that the doctors were missing, but everything I suggested was something the professionals had already considered and ruled out. There came a time where my mother said in her hospital room that she was scared to die, and I knew at that moment she was beginning to accept the inevitable. Soon after my mother was transferred to the respite house in Essex. I was by her side every day and night-- until the night she died. She died seven days after her birthday. On the day of her birthday, the whole family got together at the respite house and had a mighty fun time. Everyone laughed and smiled and cried because of how much there were laughing. It was really beautiful. Together as a family, we dealt with death through happy memories, laughter, and acceptance. My family doesn’t fear death or the pain death causes, because we know that in the end, everything works out for the better. Since my mom was our only parent, my sister and I moved in with my Aunt Stephie, Uncle Todd, and my cousin TJ. We are a happy family and I know my mom is happy with the five of us being together again. A little more than two years later I can proudly say that we are all okay; we still experience our sad days, but sadness isn’t a bad thing, it is a part of the beautifully tough process of grief. I am going, to be honest with you, I am going to be living with the fact that I lost my mother at a young age for the rest of my life. But overcoming such a hardship for me means that I am able to make my momma proud and myself proud. I live every day trying to better myself and learning from the mistakes I have made the day before. I never quit on myself or the people I love because I know how important it is to have someone in your corner. While I was with my mother in the hospital, I was able to see a therapist who specialized in cases such as my own. I was able to talk to her, and even though she wasn’t able to relate to what I was going through, she was able to listen to what I was going through and tell me that everything I was feeling was valid and normal. Do you understand how good it feels to hear someone tell your feelings are valid? Do you understand how good it feels to hear someone say that you aren’t crazy or losing your mind? If hearing that in such a troubling time in my life was able to help me overcome the negativity surrounding such a time, imagine how helpful hearing that during a smaller scale troubling time would be! During the final years of my mother’s life, it became more evident that mental health was a very important part of the healing process for both the patient and their family. Personally experiencing the importance of mental health has encouraged me to pursue a degree in Psychology, and it is something I am very proud of. Although it is something I wouldn’t wish on my greatest enemies, experiencing the loss of my mom proved to be a very critical and important time in my life. The strength and knowledge that I have gained have helped make me the person I am today and I wouldn’t change that for the world. I miss my mom every single day, but I know she is proud of how far I’ve come and how far I will continue to go in my future.

My whole life I have countered adversity. From a very young age, I was bullied for my complexion and my kinky hair. In elementary school, I was dragged across the playground by my hood (I was wearing a sweatshirt with a zipper on it) because I had failed to get rid of my ugly curls. Around Christmas time, I was punched in the arm for failing to go to the back of the line because "that's where I belonged." I came home with bruises all over my body, zipper marks across my neck, and a soul that had been broken time and time again. My family grew concerned with the abuse that I was facing every single day at school and they were determined to do something about it. After multiple conversations and desperate pleading, I convinced my mother to let me handle my adversaries in my own way. It was these times in elementary school that encouraged me to begin writing music. I wrote about my feelings, I wrote to the people who were hurting me both physically and emotionally, and most importantly, I wrote in hopes that I would be able to gain a life of freedom, safety, serenity, and hope. A few months after I began writing, my teacher had announced that the school would be hosting a talent show to showcase all of the amazing talents our small school had to offer. That same day, I told my mother about the talent show, and she encouraged me to sing one of the songs that I had written to my bullies. The next day I had signed up for the show and began to prepare and practice for that upcoming Friday. The night of the performance, many of my classmates who had bullied me were in the audience. They all were in a group, laughing and giggling at any and everyone who had signed up for something so "utterly lame." As the night progressed, my turn was drawing near, and my nerves had begun to increase steadily after the end of every performance. Soon, my name was called, and it was my time to showcase the song I wrote about my classmates in the audience. I began to sing. Almost every face in the audience had glowed up with a smile except for the faces of my classmates. They began to look down and around and sideways; they looked every place in the auditorium that allowed them to avoid me. After singing the last stanza of my song, I received a standing ovation from the audience, but there was a group of students who lacked the strength to come to their feet. The students were stuck in a state of disbelief and regret for the actions they had committed and could never take back. Roughly a week after the talent show I had received an eight and a half paged letter from the same group of classmates that had attended the show on Friday night. Not only had every single one of them apologized for the pain they had caused me, but they even offered to do my homework for a whole year and serve as my personal bodyguards, just in case there were still kids who were seeking to hurt me. I accepted their apologies and had a discussion with them about ways they could adjust their thinking and learn from their mistakes for future reference. And as tempting as their offers of protection and no more homework seemed, I kindly declined them and expressed how much more meaningful their apologies were. Shortly after, my classmates faced repercussions for the way they treated me and even faced weeks of in-school suspension. Although the school took matters into its own hands, I was able to provide something to my classmates that an in-school suspension never could; I taught them how to be inclusive, respectful, and understanding of everyone and not just the people who had the same type of hair and skin color as they did. I was able to give them food for thought instead of a slap on the hand. I helped change their lives for the better and that is very important. I now speak up for my brothers and sister and teach others about equality and acceptance through my words and my music. I am able to change the lives of everyone around me, and if it wasn't for my experiences in elementary school, I wouldn't be able to do any of that.

This was the bold moment my sister and I spent time with our mother during her last birthday on earth. My mother was diagnosed two years prior with a rare cancer that has yet to be identified to this very day. On the day this photo was taken I had spent two months straight by my mother's side both in the hospital and the respite house where she died a week after her birthday. I will forever consider this a bold moment due to the fact that everyone in this picture chose happiness and joy instead of sadness and discouragement.

I want to pursue a career in psychology. Growing up I had lost many family members which devastated me and caused me to become very sad, introverted and worried about losing everyone I cared about. My mother introduced me to a friend of hers who was a psychologist that specialized in helping children dealing with grief who I soon began to see every week. Over time my mother's friend taught me coping mechanisms, exercises, and activities that I still use to this day that help me remember how thankful I am for the time I shared with my loved ones. I've earned to live life to the fullest without feeling bad to live life without my loved ones being here with me, I've learned how to acknowledge, remember and move forward whenever I am faced with a debilitation memory, and most importantly I've learned how to write down my feelings and deal with them in positive ways. My mother's friend along with the other psychologists that I've had the privilege of learning from have encouraged me to become a psychologist myself. My driving forces are giving back to the community that has helped me greatly and wanting to help people in every way that I possibly can to help improve their quality of life.

Turning Out by AJR is the song that inspired my youtube playlist. AJR uses their song to explain that it takes time for people to figure out who they are. A person isn't born knowing who they are or where they are going to go in life. Although I am becoming an adult and should know the direction I want to go in my life it is important to know that I am still finding my way. The songs in my playlist have helped me find the person I am today and remind me that I am still turning out.

My everything is something that I have been fighting to achieve since the day I was born. Bringing happiness, peace, and love to everyone I meet through the gifts and talents that God has given me. I’ve seen first hand how negatively this world impacts the human beings who live in it. People take their own lives every day because they feel lonely and unloved, children grow up in foster care until they are 18 because they “weren’t good enough to have a family”, millions of homeless people wander the streets wallowing in their failure even if their demise wasn’t their fault. Within all the negativity and darkness in this world, I want to be a light that helps show people that joy and happiness exist. I want to bring goodness and light to people who deserve it the most. My everything is to pursue a career in psychology to help people defeat the negative thoughts and feelings that jeopardize their happiness and prevent them from seeing the good in this world. Pursuing psychology will give me the tools I need to bring hope and positivity to the people I can help. By helping people rediscover who they truly are and where they want to go in life, I hope to give them the courage they need to reach the stars without feeling ashamed or undeserving. The mind can get clouded and fill a person full of darkness but with the right tools and support system, the mind can be freed from all of that darkness and be filled with love and positivity.