(poems go here)I understand pressure. Pressure is the feeling that you get when your eardrums pound and your heartbeat races and your legs tense up, ready to spring into action. It's adrenaline coursing through your veins, pumped out by two tiny glands on top of your kidneys, initiating the "fight or flight" response. I choose to fight the fear of failing. I choose to win.

I know this feeling all too well. It has been ingrained in me throughout childhood, as I grew from infant to the woman I am today- standing straight and PROUD as I read my words in from of my gracious audience. Pressure...is a common ingredient in the recipe of my life's goals and ambitions. Pressure...at the starting line of a race, when hairs stand on end and legs quiver with anticipation of hearing that starting pistol go off and eyes travel faster than legs to the finish line ahead. Pressure...in the dry mouth and watery eyes as I try not to blink as I watch my conductor prepare to drop her arms and allow me to brush my horsehair bow over steel strings and let blossom the soul of sound in orchestral perfection. Pressure...squeezing me on all sides until I lose my rough edges, forming me into a predetermined shape that will embody the very characteristics that I have tried to chase and capture and tame and call my own. I was a lowly piece of carbon, common and worth little...until pressure formed me into a diamond. Clear and determined, flawless from every angle, cold to the touch, and only able to be marred by the work if its own hands.