Personal Statement
As an individual I go by the idiom that I would rather be a small fish in a big pond than a big fish in a small pond. The small fish has the world ahead of it, a place to grow and experience everything. The small fish has opportunities beyond anything it can imagine and one day will grow up to match them.
My driving factor is to impress myself. Rowing, for me, has become a place where I fit in, where I can lay myself down as an athlete and learn, perform and achieve to the best of my abilities. The decision to start rowing, for me, has become a life changing one. The need to overcome the toughest of the toughest and to go way out of my comfort zone is now a common thing throughout all of my rowing. I believe that rowing is a precise and extraordinary teacher of important life lessons such as self-belief, teamwork and never giving up. These are all very common lessons that we hear about often in day-to-day life, but the difference between normal life and rowing is that these lessons became a key part of my character and I was bound to them ever since I started. My first outlook on rowing was in junior school, when I said to myself that there wasn't any harm in giving it a try and that, if it didn't work out, then I could always move on. Little did I know that rowing would open so many opportunities for me. I am so grateful to have the ability to row, and this is why I make the most of every single second of my training, racing, defeats and victories within this marvelous sport.
