Hey! If you're new to my page check out my Biology Honors Project in the 11th grade. I just finished it for the semester and think it's really cool. Check the sub-navigation menu under 11th Grade. Enjoy!
Hi there! My name is Emily Everett and I am currently a Junior at High Tech High International in San Diego, California. As a way to prepare for my impending future in college I have taken Honors Classes in American Literature, Biology, U.S. History and two semesters of Math III. I am also planning to take a college level math class during my first semester of my Senior year. Now that all of those boring logistics are out of the way, LET'S LEARN ALL ABOUT ME! (This should definitely be the most exciting part of your day)
One of my main reasons for living in this crazily complicated yet beautiful world is reading. When I was a little girl I was absolutely inspired by the movie The Beauty and the Beast. It sparked my intense love for books and reading that would only begin to grow as I grew older. My favorite part was when the Beast showed Belle his library and she was so in awe of the collection that it seemed as if the world had stopped. Ever since the first time I watched the movie I’ve dreamed of having an identical library with floor-to-ceiling windows that give off natural light and beautiful mahogany bookcases that give the books they hold even more character. Every single time I think of it I have to refrain from releasing any little girl screams that might scare off any strangers in a five foot radius. I spend most of my time at libraries and second hand book stores sitting on the floor like a toddler with tons of books surrounding me. Which is completely extended to spending almost all of my paychecks on used books. I can spend hours upon hours leafing through new volumes until the library closes. Of course, the limit on a library card is 40 books so on occasion I have to borrow my dad's in order to check out all of the books I need. Don’t even get me started on what I must look like to all of the other people in the library when I try to carry all of the books I plan on checking out up the stairs. I have to thank my dad for being the most patient person in the world while waiting for me to find the right volumes.
One of the great pleasures of being a book fanatic like myself is watching the expressions of my classmates throughout the years as I pulled out book after book from my backpack. I read extremely fast so I always try to bring multiple books with me to school just in case I finish the first two, I always have a third and fourth backup. At the end of every semester I treat myself to a little personal holiday I like to call, “Congratulations On Not Having A Mental Breakdown Every 5 Minutes: Here Are Some Awesome New Reads”. Of course this holiday is completely exclusive to me, something that my family has never really understood but nevertheless embraced for my sake.
My love of reading is what inspired me to begin writing during my Freshman year of high school. At this point in my academic career I felt as if I wasn’t being challenged in class so I decided to spend my time more wisely by investing every spare moment brainstorming and revising all of my writing. I also spent a majority of my time bugging all of my close friends until they agreed to read my manuscript. Unfortunately, at the beginning of my Sophomore year academic and personal challenges arose in my day to day life and I was unable to keep up with the routine I’d developed over the previous year. Although my writing was sidelined, I was able to draft over 250 pages of my first book. I know that one day I’ll kick my butt into sitting down and polishing an idea from one of my many “thought journals”. Over the years at random moments a thought would enter my mind and I’d try to find one of my thirteen journals to write it in. I literally keep them everywhere, which occasionally makes it difficult to find the journal with a specific idea in it. Nevertheless, if I had all of the time in the world I’d spend it brainstorming new book ideas and playing with my dogs.
Like my books, my dogs are my family. Which makes my volunteer work another one of my main reasons for living. I've been a part of Second Chance Dog Rescue and St. Paco's Second Chance Dog Rescue since 2008. At the ripe old age of nine years old my surrogate grandmother convinced my parents to let my sister and I foster a dog in our home. Of course we were ecstatic over the idea of another dog and couldn’t wait to get her home. Obviously my parents were absolute suckers for literal puppy dog eyes. And that one decision changed my entire world for the better. I’ve spent the past eight years physically and emotionally nursing dogs back to health. Some of them had been beaten, caged, abandoned, and even forgotten. As a little girl having to learn that an owner basically tortured their dog for fun made me sick to my stomach and gave me a real definition of the word “ruthless”. I learned that patience is a mighty virtue when it comes to healing a living creature. It can take weeks or even months to get a dog to the point where they’re comfortable enough to be touched on the head and to not attack you out of fear. When the life of another living being literally rests in the palm of your hand, it’s hard to fight the sense of loyalty and responsibility that you feel. And because of that devout sense of loyalty and responsibility it can be especially difficult to give them up. I doubt my parents can count the number of times I said, “Please? Please? Please can we keep him?” on their fingers alone. I usually calm down once I personally review the applications of all prospective “parents”. I want the best for my dogs, all of whom have already been through enough in their lives. The least that they deserve is a loving home and family.
[Warning: If you do not want to read about my emotional challenges please skip to the next paragraph] Every dog that has crossed through the threshold of my home has become a member of my family. Which is why it’s so difficult to emotionally heal after a member of your family dies. When I was in the 7th grade I received the most difficult challenge of my fostering career. Six fourteen-day old puppies whose mother had passed away from unknown causes. I didn’t know at the time that my experience with these puppies would be one of the most heartbreaking in my entire life. I completely devoted myself to the puppies, spending every two hours bottle feeding each of them. After two weeks of nursing the puppies to health I got an urgent message from my mom at school. As soon as I got home I found my mom crying in the kitchen and pointing to a cardboard box resting on the kitchen table. Biting back tears and mustering up some courage I slowly opened the box. Inside was one of my male puppies, Bruno. I remember running to find the rest of the puppies and locking them along with myself in my room for the rest of the night. I don’t know how long I cried for, how the other surviving puppies didn’t understand what was wrong with me but were trying to make me feel better anyways. A few days later another one of them died. Four days after that two more died. This was the point when I only had two of the puppies left, my favorites. I thought maybe God wouldn’t be so cruel as to take my last survivors away. I was wrong. I wasn’t even allowed to bury them and give them a proper funeral because they were sent to the vet to be cut open and examined. Apparently the unknown disease the mother died of was passed on to her offspring. There was nothing I could have done.
This experience offered my little 12 year old self some perspective into the deep inner-workings of all of the obstacles I’d probably face later on in life. Although I’ll never be able to think of these puppies and not cry and feel guilty, I realize that the work I’m doing is still important. Even though this event broke my heart, it won’t keep me from continuing to help the defenseless dogs that come into my home hoping to find some love. Over the last eight years I've fostered over a hundred dogs and I’ve gotten them all adopted. Many of my own dogs have been fosters of mine through the organization. I would never trade in the work I do for any other kind. The feeling I get when one of my dogs gets adopted is one of the most unbelievably rewarding. I highly suggest getting into volunteering yourself! Learn more about my volunteer work and how you can get involved in the subcategory of Clubs and Organizations!
I wish to go to an Ivy League University with some kind of scholarship to pursue an MBA in Finance and a degree in Law. I'm so excited for the future!
Travel
These are pictures of the beach in Croatia about 15 yards from the house I was living in.
These two pictures are others from Venice. I would have more pictures but my camera broke on the trip.