This year in the cheer squad I was awarded the title of senior captain. Being captain, I was given a lot of responsibilities and had to be an example to the other girls. I had to show leadership and take over any task my coach put upon me when she was not there or had other things that need more of her attention. To create more of a bond between the girls we decided to have a sleepover in the high school gym. There are 23 other girls on the team and having that many different personalities and levels of maturity, there were bound to be issues. The sleepover highlight obvious issues between the upper and underclassmen. We tried to play games, but the girls just didn’t want to come together as a team. The coach knew this was going on, but hoped if we ignored it, it would go away. However, it continued getting worse and the coach stood by and asked me to resolve the issue.Even though at first I thought it was best to stay out of it and remain neutral, I said yes because I felt they would respect me more and that was the role of a leader. My idea was to talk to them separately and just let them know what the goals of the sleepover were. While talking to the girls I showed them how to overcome our differences and have a fun year. After I talked to them, we all came together at the center of the gym and talked, danced, and played games all night long. Overall it was a fun night and we created a great bond that has unified the team. Now our routines and stunts are more insync and we as a group have fun in everything we do. This was a big task to take on and I learned a lot from solving problems and making mature decisions. It was the first time I actually felt like a leader, it helped me throughout the year to take on other responsibilities as important as this one. My greatest talent would be my organizational skills. My organizational skills came from my mom and living with her has made me pick up her organizational habits that I have applied to my everyday life in and out of school. I have a place and label for everything in my binders for school and in my room at home. I hate looking for things in my backpack and dumping out all my stuff to look just for a paper. I like to keep everything in certain places, so that I am not stressing over things I can’t find. Labeling everything and creating lists for notes helps me organize my stuff and mind. At home we have our garage filled with boxes labeled with all of our memories decorations and paper work. My parents own their own small construction business and my mom quit her job to file paperwork for my dad's business. She has helped my dad a lot by having his office and cabinets labeled and very well organized. Since my mom is the only one who does the paperwork she sometimes asks me to help her, so I make folders, label them and place them in ABC order in her cabinets. Working for her, I have picked up all here habits and have found myself labeling everything and constantly reorganizing my room and backpack. Being organized is a family trait, so I am away getting new ideas how to keep my world in order. Being organized has become more than a talent and has become a honed skill. It has helped me a lot in school and at home. Also it has become a real stress reliever not having to look for my things. Because of my mom I have gained many skills and habits from her with my organizational skills and I am grateful for her. In my four years of high school my favorite academic subject would be Accounting. I have now taken Accounting for three years and have excelled to Advanced Accounting faster than I ever imagined. I started Accounting my sophomore year and learning a whole new topic like this wasn’t so easy for me. The course itself was really hard for me and at times I considered dropping out and choosing another elective. But luckily I had an amazing teacher who pushed me to do my best and she would help me if I wasn’t understanding the materials. She taught me that accounting is the language of business, so if I want a future career in business I would first have to learn accounting. One thing that made me appreciate this class is when I would tell my friends about taking this class and my aspiration in life, they would laugh at me and say I wasn’t smart enough to be in accounting. But, my teacher taught me to believe in myself and reach for my goals. Now I have had three years in this course and it has helped me in everyday life, as well as my plan to be a Business major and help my parent’s business. This class has developed my math skills, as well as how to manage my own money. This class helped me to develop new ways of learning and helped me overcome the negative thought process I once had. Because of my struggles in this class it has made me appreciate it more. I have become more analytical in organizing certain aspects in my life by problem solving as I do in math problems. I never thought taking this course would lead to me knowing exactly what I want in life and lead to the path of my future goals. My biggest motivation to work hard in this class was the fact that if I continued this path I could be the first in my family to go to a four year university. During my high school years, I have done a lot of community service and have tried to sign up for everything. I’ve been involved in many clubs like FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America), ASB (Associated Student Body), and Key Club. Within those clubs comes opportunity for the betterment of the community. The one club I feel like I had the greatest impact on our community is FBLA, it is a club that helps students compete in professional events to become business leaders. Every year around Christmas we as a club organize a food drive and a toy for tots type fundraisers. The students buy and wrap gifts for families who have had a hard year and can't afford to buy presents for their families. We also donate canned and storable foods to families who are struggling to put meals on the table. The best part of this project is we actually go out to the homes of some people and give them the gifts and food to help those families in need. We all go to preselected homes that we are told that are having a hard time and give them gifts and foods, we do this all over town. Seeing the families we helps faces of hope and joy brings a satisfaction in my heart. Especially when one year a women hugged me so tight and looked into my eyes and said the most heartfelt thank you I will never forget. All of our clubs in Lindsay have tried to include some sort of community service to participate in. Just the satisfaction that I am helping those in need and trying to make our community a better place by showing caring and kindness is reward in itself. I think helping in my community has helped me become a better person and to be more involved in my school and community.