My personal philosophy was Open Your Mind and Experience Life. If you couldn't tell I drew and painted a peacock feather for the base of my collage. I chose a peacock feather because they to me are just such a exotic and unique animal with such beautiful striking colors. Also because the feathers look like eyes. So the purple and pink sticky notes have my goals on them. A lot of them deal with learning and experiencing new things. The green around has my attitudes, beliefs, and values. Just some of them are I value knowledge. I value experience. I value will power. I value difference. I value perspective. I'm open-minded, dilligent, non- confrontational, and independent. I believe in God. I believe that faliure is not an option. I believe we should see the good in the world. I believe in finding our own path.

All these really relate to my personal philosophy and who I am. I am always trying to progress and learn and become better. I'm always trying to make my time learning or doing something. Even when standing in line for recital I brought a book because I didn't want to be standing there wasting my time. I am always looking at a situation and saying, What can I learn from this? Often if there is no benifet for me to progress from the experience I don't want to waste my time on it.

Sometimes that makes me think I'm selfish. I look at everything and see what it can profit me. I have one cousin my age and I think we are about 15 days apart. I remember being mad because I really didn't have anyone to play with my age because he had down- syndrome. I remember thinking how it was unfair that the only cousin my age had to have that. I also remember being scared of him. I remember keeping my distance.

Open Your Mind has to do a lot with my love with knowledge and learning. I want to take everything in. And Experience Life has to do a lot with how I am always looking for life to be an experience for me to grow.