Assignment 8- Kayla Conrad

Fears: being a disappointment, the dark, the ocean.
Annoyances: Fake people, rude people.
Accomplishments: hiking the Great Wall of China, completing a Tough Mudder.
Confusions: why everyone in this world isn't treated the same.
Sorrows: thinking about the children all around the world without food, clothes, or a family.
Dreams: become fluent in Chinese, help people in need.
Idiosyncrasies: all my classes are color coordinated, I make this horrendous goose noise when I cough or laugh.
Risks: going to China with people I had never met before.
Beloved possessions: my baby blanket my grandmother knitted my before she passed (then), a bracelet a little 4-year-old boy made on a mission trip (now).
Problems: I am very blunt to people's faces which can get me in trouble. I am REALLY loud.

A Tough Mudder is a competition that is 10-12 miles which include 25 obstacles to challenge mental grit and physical endurance. My father has now completed three while I just competed my first one back at the beginning of September. I originally planned to start one right after my sixteenth birthday (the minimum age requirement) in the first weekend of June. I started training at the beginning of last year every single day going to the gym, whether I was running around the track or attempting a pull up, I was always there because I wanted to prove everyone wrong. Everyone saw me as the little girl who played soccer that couldn't even do a pull up. That's all I heard for months was everyone except my parents telling my I wasn't strong enough, or I would never be able to complete 12 miles, let alone with obstacles made for the British military in boot camp. So I used it as fuel.
I made a shirt. With everyone's name on it that told me I wasn't strong enough to complete such a difficult course. I wore it to the gym all the time and every time I wanted to give up, I looked down as my shirt and I would do one more lap, one more push up, just to prove those people wrong.
When June came around I got an email saying the age requirements had changed for just Kentucky, you had to be 18. I obviously wasn't so I had thought all my training had been for nothing. My dad and I signed up to compete in one down in Nashville in September but to be honest I basically stopped training. I went through a rough patch and I never went out of the house or worked out so when the weekend came around in September, needless to say I was far from prepared. But I did it.
I ran through electrical wires and 33 degree water. I proved everyone wrong except for myself. And I'm stronger for it