“I spend 4- 4 ½ hours every weekday at  [Eagles Wings Athletics], plus 3 hours on Saturdays. [Since] I spend so much time at the gym, I don’t get to participate in school events as much as I want to, nor do I have time to hang out with friends outside of school. It’s pretty much a balancing act for me where I have to decide if training is more/less important than my friends and family. I find that balancing school and gym starting to get harder and harder as I progress in both gymnastics and in school. I chose to take more advanced classes this year, knowing I would be stepping up in gym as well. I’m starting to feel the workload and exhaustion piling up. I get home from practice around 9 p.m., and don’t get started on homework until 9:30 p.m., meaning that I’m usually up doing homework as late as 1 a.m., or 2 a.m. As of now, I want to take gymnastics to the NCAA level, and earn a scholarship in a gymnastics program at a university that will support my pursuit in a medical career. There’s no guarantee that I will stick with this ambition or even stay with the sport at all, but I know that my career in gymnastics has taken me this far and stopping now would be stupid to say the least.”