Roller Derby
I feel that as an individual I show a lot of maturity and independence through playing roller derby. I played roller derby for the San Diego Derby Dolls from 2011 to 2017, then Angel City Derby Girls from 2017 to 2018. During my time on the San Diego Derby Dolls I helped younger skaters improve their skills, and help them learn how to play roller derby. I also was nominated as co-captain of my team which meant I held a lot of responsibilities such as, coordinating when and if people would show up to practice, who we would nominate as MVP after a game, come up with team bonding ideas, and so on. During the beginning of March my Junior year of high school I switched roller derby teams. I went from The San Diego Derby Dolls to The Angel City Derby Girls (ACDG), a team based in Los Angeles. ACDG is ranked 3rd in the Junior Roller Derby Association (JRDA) in the all female division, and ranked 12th in the open division, which are very high rankings. Part of being on this team is commitment. Missing a practice affects if our coach will play us in the next game and since I live in San Diego I had to commute two to three times a week for three to four hours to Gardena, Los Angeles in order to make practice. It has been very hard but so far I have never missed a practice. Another part of being on this team was travel, Angel City travels around the United States for tournaments and games. I Have gone to Oregon, Seattle, Santa Cruz, and Colorado for tournaments. Roller derby is such an amazing sport that has really changed me from the inside, I have learned a lot about teamwork, also how to lead a team to success. I have learned the difference for when you need to be direct and when you also need to leave speaking space for others too.
Positive Change
I have had a lot of experiences that have shaped me to who I am today. When I started high school the fall of 2014 I had been diagnosed with an anxiety, depression, and ADHD. I started to spiral into a lot of unhealthy behaviors. I started to think a lot more about what people thought about me, I cared a lot more about what I looked like and who I was. For those behaviors I went to a lot of groups and started therapy but nothing was really working and my issues were just getting worse. During the fall of 2015, my sophomore year of high school I was pulled out from my home and sent away to a therapeutic wilderness camp in Utah. I was sent there to learn coping skills and how to improve my home life. When I was first sent there I was always blaming my family, I was angry, sad and I took no responsibility for my actions or why I had been sent away. Throughout my time there I learned how to work deal with my life at home. Our daily life there was waking up and doing a morning group where we set goals for the day, then we would pack up, and hike for the rest of the day to a new campsite. We would walk about 6 miles a day every other day. I went there during the fall and it was snowing. When we got to the new camping site we would have to unpack everything and set up camp which would take about 3 hours. Depending on the amount of time it would take us to hike we might get there later with less daylight which meant we would have to set up camp in the dark. After camp was set we would have to bust which is basically making a fire with sticks. We would have an hour busting time. If you didn't make a fire in that time you would not be allowed to cook food on the fire with everyone else. Busting fires was really hard to learn how to do and when I would try and fail it was even harder. Busting taught me a lot about perseverance and mostly about how to rely more on myself and not to be dependent on others. Before going to Outback I never wanted to trust myself but rather depend on my to fix everything for me.I learned responsibility, Accountability, courage, independence, integrity, and authenticity, but most of all I learned how to be grateful. I believe to truly love and experience life to the fullest you need to have everything be taken away first.