When I was six years old, my mother picked me up from school, and she noticed my head jerking. When my mother turned toward me, she had a curious look on her face and she immediately questioned my odd behavior by asking, “what are you doing?” and I replied, “I don’t know”.Then my mother said, “Wherever you picked that bad habit from, stop it.” Fortunately, I did stop, but another habit started. Then my mother began to notice other strange behaviors through the years. I started blinking my eyes rapidly, snorting, moving my legs, and moving my whole body in which my mother still had no clue of what was going on with me. Finally, when I was sixteen years old, I was diagnosed with tourette syndrome. Not only was I diagnosed with tourettes, I was diagnosed with a language disorder. All through my academic career, I struggled with certain subjects such as math, science, and spanish. Through my wonderful school, Key, they were more than willing to help me to be successful and most importantly to maintain good grades. I was eligible for testing accommodations such as having a reader, access to notecards, and extended time for exams and assessments. In addition, I was offered a language waiver which I did not accept, but I did switch languages to Arabic. Through the hard work in Arabic, I have accomplished maintaining an A and I feel very proud of myself because I did not have to take a language and I continue to persevere.

I have always been self-consionsious of my condition until my mother told me that she was quite sure that there were other children that had the same condition at Key. Once my mother told me this, I became aware of others with the same condition and I was not negatively impacted and it made me feel like I was not alone. Now, I’m proud to say that I will be pursuing mortuary science at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania. I am a self-confident, compassionate and caring person and feel that my personal qualities and determination will help me be the best funeral director I can be.