This is a very wordy post, but I hope you all enjoy reading a little about how I got to where I am now..
I'm proud of many things in my life! My amazing family, brilliant friends, I'd be here for ever telling you everything. But my biggest accomplishment in my eyes is following my dream.
I don't have many memories from primary school, but one year, we gave an assembly to our parents. We all dressed up as what we wanted to be when we grew up. There were the expected doctor, fireman and of course, a train driver.
But then there was me, I've never done things by halves and there I was dressed all in green carrying a stuffed monkey. I stood up there and said "When I grow up I want to be a zoologist".
As I got older and learnt more, I went through phases of wanting to do other things but it always came back to working with animals and zoology.
I'm a firm believer that if you want something enough, no one should be able to discourage you. And trust me people have tried! Everytime I think back to my meeting with the guidance counsellor at the end of high school, I can't help but laugh. When he asked me what I wanted to do, I simply told him I wanted to read zoology at university and work in conservation. The reply I got? "Everyone wants to be the next David Attenborough. They can't be".
The look he got from my parents and I definitely made him backtrack a little!
I never aimed to be the next Attenborough, I have my own dreams and thing I want to experience. But that moment when he said I couldn't do something, well it was like a catalyst for me.
I wanted to work harder. I wanted to prove him wrong.
After 3 years of horrid A Levels that I thought I would never escape, my dream had honestly never seemed further away. When the day rolled around for UCAS results, I couldn't sleep for nerves. The moment I read that I had a place at my first choice university to study the course I had worked for, I cried so hard my parents couldn't tell if they were happy tears or sad!
As I write this, I'm preparing to finish my second year of studying zoology.
So all in all, my dream came true. I'm doing something I love which has sparked many new dreams for me!
And I can now say, I am proud of myself for never giving up on my dream till I made it come true.
