Homeschooling, Horses, and Hopes

 

     When I look back on the years I have already spent, so many things come to mind as significant, it would be hard to put them all into words. However, today I will give it a try. I was born and raised in Ventura County, and have been homeschooled since kindergarten. Whenever I told people that, the response was usually something along the lines of, "Oh, how nice. Do you have any friends?". Yes. I did have friends. Although, because I was very shy and difficult to approach, my group of friends was small. Thankfully, we were close-knit and cheerful, so the size of our posse never mattered. I have one sister, who is two years younger than me. As a direct result of being homeschooled, we are eerily in tune with each other, and as children we loved to display our synchronized speech and movement. The year I turned thirteen, a long time dream of mine was realized. Horses. I began riding with a woman from Texas, and within a year, her daughter and I were an inseparable and unstoppable team. We began racing our horses in endurance, going twenty-five to one-hundred miles in a day, on horseback.
     Currently, I have two horses in training for endurance, and I am waiting for our racing season to start. While I am waiting for the next few months, I am focusing on my studies.  I have just started my senior year of high school. Since I am home schooled, I am allowed to take college courses as a special admissions student. Taking classes at the college had been nerve-racking, because I have little experience in a classroom. However so far, I have had a very successful experience, and I am crossing my fingers it continues that way.
     I am working hard in my studies and my equine endeavors, hoping that in the future I can attend Cal Poly San Louis to study veterinary medicine. Before attending a University, I plan to take a gap year. If things go as planned, I would like to go to Abu Dhabi to train the Sheik's race horses. When I return home, I would like to travel the U.S. to meet some of the best known horse trainers in the nation. Projecting a few decades into the future, I want to own a ranch where I can treat, train, and breed horses for a living.