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2001-2006
I loved reading from an early age and remember reading books aloud to my stuffed animals as if I was their teacher. I also read aloud the Junie B. Jones series to my mom. -
2007
This was my first time speaking in front of a group of people. My moms were very insistent on my sister and me developing good public speaking skills, so I had to read a poem to my church with my mom about Easter. I was a little nervous, but my mom was with me so I felt better about speaking in front of my church. -
2006-2012
One of my favorite events to go to in school was the Scholastic Book Fair. My mom would take my sister and me to buy some books we really wanted to read and then I would go home and read them for the rest of the day until dinner. -
2012
This was the first time I really succeeded in school. I had done okay, enough to get by before fifth grade, but that year all of my hard work started to pay off and I was really happy with my grades. -
2014
When I was in eighth grade, we had to read Shakespeare for the first time. I had a very hard time understanding Shakespeare's language which made my confidence in my comprehension and reading skills drop a little bit. My twin sister was able to understand it naturally and she fell in love with Shakespeare's work. I used my comprehension and reading skills to understand what the story was about and once I was able to do that, my confidence returned. -
2015
I joined the Happy Hounds 4-H Club. Before I joined 4-H, I was not a very good public speaker and was also very scared to speak in front of people. Throughout my time with the organization, I grew into a confident and fearless public speaker. -
2017
I took my first honors English class and my confidence grew as I learned how to be a better writer and read more books in that class. I was a little intimidated at first, but then I was able to rise to the challenge and get an A. -
2018
I competed in my first public speaking event through 4-H. I was a little nervous because I had to speak within the time limit and I had also been told that I talk too fast, but I spoke well and took home Grand Champion in my division. I also was chosen in my Career Research and Development class to give a speech at the CRD awards ceremony. -
2019
I had an English professor my very first semester of college who told me that I wasn't a good writer. It made me think that if I couldn't write a paper in her class, then I wasn't capable of writing anything at all. It really made my confidence drop until I wrote something for fun after the semester was over. It was really good and my confidence was restored after writing that piece. -
2020
During quarantine, I was able to read more than I was able to during my very first semester of college. This made me really happy because I love reading and I missed it when I wasn't able to read for pleasure while working on school work.
