Help Meh, Peeps.

I am applying for a scholarship to make massage school $1,000.00 cheaper. So I wrote an essay (they don't have any particulars, so I just wrote a generic one until I get more details) and would like everyone's feedback on it. Here it is, in all it's 'written five minutes ago' glory:

Why I chose Massage School 

                When I was three, I walked into my mother’s room and found my older sisters both holding one of my mother’s legs. I was confused, but I had seen it before, so I just walked over and added my hands to one leg, and started squeezing. That was the beginning of massage for me. Over the years I got a lot better, and could sense where and how hard to apply the pressure. My increase in skill also meant my mom started paying me to do it, and I could make 20 dollars a week working on her back, her legs, her arms, and sometimes even her gluts. I wanted to be a massage therapist, but when I consulted my mom, she worried me, telling me my hands would be exhausted within five years, that I wouldn’t make enough money to support myself doing it, and that I had a bright future ahead of me already so I shouldn’t jeopardize it for a hobby. I gave in, but never got the urge to massage out of my blood.

                In Japan, I massaged my upperclassmen and they taught me some neat massage tricks. My host mom told me I should charge about 5 dollars for a massage at school and I would make a killing, but it felt wrong to charge strangers for massages when I didn’t have any kind of credentials. I pulled some muscles in my back while doing Aikidou over there and a friend gave me a ‘sports massage’. It was the first time I realized massage could actually do more damage than the injury when done wrong. So I stuck to what I knew and kept my massages safe and free of charge.

                Since then, I have graduated from college with a degree in Japanese Language and Culture, gotten married and moved far away from family to be with my husband while he gets his Masters in Chemical Engineering. I have found that while my language skills have not found me any jobs, there are jobs everywhere for massage therapists. I have learned that there are ways to circumvent wearing your hands out. I have also found that I can’t imagine continuing to live without massage. I have needed massage to counteract the effects of minimum wage jobs. I have needed massage to comfort my body and decrease the tensions caused by financial worries (and isn’t that ironic) and physical ailments. I have even needed massage to help me deal with frustration and give my hand something productive to do. So I have decided that if I can’t live without massage, I may as well embrace it and become a massage therapist like I wanted to be when I was 16 and wondering what to do with my life.

                My mom may continue to worry about the financial stability of a massage therapist, but my husband understands how important it is to me, and agreed to my returning to school. After all, he’s going to school full time and working three jobs besides, just to support us. I am finding it difficult to work while I recover from my ACL reconstruction surgery, but if I can decrease the costs in any way, I will reach out and do my best. I want to make things easier for him and help push the worry away, so I am applying for a scholarship to help keep school from eating into our savings too much. If I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that if you don’t try, you won’t succeed. So I will try and excel at school, and I will try and find a job that won’t interfere with schooling or take time from my studies, but a scholarship would make it easier and give us some needed breathing room. I hope you will consider me; thank you for your time.