It's Me Again

Where to begin. So by now, most of you know a bit about me. I am pretty typical for an engineering major. I've always been inclined in math, physics, and other sciences. I enjoy hands on repair and try to do things myself first before ever asking for help. In junior high school, I was pretty quiet and awkward. I think a lot of that is still because I was still getting used to living in Ohio. I had lived in Arkansas until I was 8, so when I moved to Bowling Green, Ohio, I was a little shy and embarrassed about my accent. Then I slowly started meeting people and becoming more open and outgoing. Having two older siblings who were always crazy and outgoing definitely helped too. Then there was the awkward junior high phase where everybody is awkward. I loved sports at the time and buried myself into soccer and baseball.

High school came around and I would say this was finally the time I stopped worrying too much about what other people thought of me. I learned to just be myself and let other people live with that. I started to feel a little cocky. I think that is because I was constantly performing in front of rooms full of people with my band and in orchestra and always starting on our soccer team. I started to care a little more about my grades too, although I definitely could have done better. Right before junior year, on the first day of pre-season soccer conditioning, I cut past somebody with the ball and when I did, my knee collapsed. I was sure that I was being a wimp and needed to just suck it up, but my dad wouldn't let me play in the soccer tournament that weekend and I had my knee checked out instead. Unfortunately, it turned out I had torn my ACL entirely. I actually ended up doing this two more times, each a year apart. This was an incredibly humbling experience for me. I was heart broken at first. I missed my last two years of the sport I loved most. I definitely could have gone on to play at a smaller school if I hadn't been injured, but I realized during this time that music was a big passion for me and that I was much more interested in engineering than I was in playing soccer. In a sense, I am almost glad for what happened. It led me here instead of a small school where I would've played soccer. I learned that nothing in life comes easy. And I learned that I am always going to have to work hard to recover from any mistakes and to avoid making them again.