My name is Minela Guster and I am a senior at Sport and Medical Sciences Academy (SMSA). I'm an honors student, and will be the first to graduate from high school and head to college in my immediate family. I was born in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is rare for Bosnians my age. I came to America as an 8-month-old baby. I’ve been told my whole life to be a good girl. To go to school, to excel in all classes, to respect my religion, family, friends, and world, to go further in life than my parents ever could. A capstone project is, in the simplest way I can describe, a way to give back to your community while at the same time showing the world you are no longer a child. Some will brush this project off as just that: a project. Others will take personal matters, something that truly affects them as individuals and make strides in this project. I, sadly, am not one of them. I have no personal connection to my project. I’m afraid to even say it is simply a project for me. My true passion will never lie in this world but in the worlds of fiction. For fiction has always been my escape from reality. However, no matter how good the fantasy, one can not leave reality behind. Reality is what keeps us all together. So, that is what I wanted to do. I wanted to stare reality in its face. I volunteered at a church that hosts breakfast for those in need. It is easy to overlook and drive by the homeless man begging for change at your local traffic light or stop sign. But it is not so easy to overlook them when you serve them breakfast. When you talk to them. When you realize that could be you. I could have done so much more for this “simple project”. I could have made it so much more. And that may be a regret I hold for the rest of my life. Or it could be something I continue. But that is the beauty of it. The future is unknown. Reality holds so many possibilities. More possibilities than a story that’s already been written and set in stone.