When I was little I was always a curious kid. I was around 6 months old when my parents found out I had a heart condition called VSD, ventricular septal defect. In simple terms, it’s a hole in the wall that separates the two ventricles which results in the heart doing a lot more work than it needs to. I don’t really remember the illness as a whole except for the scar I still have. However, a story that never gets old at family get-togethers is how when I was being tested as a baby and was getting blood drawn I never cried, I just stayed calm and observed. I was just happy to be a part of it. 

This curiosity has not only stayed with me as I have grown but increased immensely. I maintain this curiosity with me into my daily life and especially into school which has led me to greatly enjoy science classes. Furthermore, learning I might want to go into something either in healthcare or environmental biology. 

Knowing this I wanted to narrow it down so I used my school's resources and got involved in the youth apprenticeship program and became a pharmacy technician my junior year. Through this I learned many valuable things: how to deal with customers, technical things like insurance, and also how much you have to pay attention to detail and stay focused while also keeping your head up and being present. Although it taught me a lot, it also taught me that I did not want to go into pharmacology. Understanding that I’m very grateful because sometimes it is better to know what you don't want to know than what you do. Since I didn't want to do this, I looked for other options and found a program my school offers that allows you to attend a local firehouse and take a year long class to become an EMT while getting school credits. I had to do this, every time I even thought about it it made my heart start pumping faster. I worked hard and got the recommendations, and got accepted into the program. I am currently doing it now and from learning to give CPR to learning to give shots of epinephrine I love it. I get to learn so much and it really satisfies that curiosity that always lies within me.

That curiosity that I cary also displays itself in a whole different way. Through many different vacations, fishing trips, and just exploration in my backyard I have found my passion for studying and finding animals. One of my favorite memories is one where my dad, brother, and I were in Florida and we caught some hermit crabs and just observed them. We had to have found at least ten of them and it wasn’t even just catching them, it was watching them in their natural habitat that was so cool. I got to see how they were in their own worlds and how they interacted and something that simple just blew my mind.

The curiosity that drives me is one of my favorite things about myself because it makes me passionate about what I’m learning and want to do. The whole situation shows how a traumatic and hard time for not only someone in the situation but others around them can sprout something so amazing, that the person, like me, leads a life based on a concept that was found in those hard times.