From the time I was young to now, I have always been inspired by Rory Gilmore. I grew up watching Gilmore Girls and I always found myself comparing who I am to Rory - but never in a negative way.

Rory taught me to work hard. Rory was a student, just like me. She lived a pretty average life in a pretty average town. However, she always worked to be more than average. Rory went to a public high school and always excelled. But when she transferred to Chilton, she struggled. Rory went from being one of the smartest - if not the smartest - student in her school to an average student. She was getting low grades on tests and was drowning in her assignments.

For Rory Gilmore, the perfect student, to be struggling, it was refreshing. Rory eventually worked her way up to being the Valid Victorian amongst several other high achievements and later attended Yale for journalism. Seeing Rory failing was really important because it taught me that if you fail, you just have to keep working harder. If Rory can manage to have a thriving love life, time for friends and family, as well as working for her school paper and attending classes, I can too. All you need is a little time management and motivation.

She taught me to appreciate my mother and our relationship. I won't lie and say that I have always truly appreciated my relationship with my mother but once I turned 16, I really started to appreciate her. My mother and I's relationship is very similar to Rory and Lorelai's (she says Lorelai's cooler). We're best friends but she still makes the rules and I still have to respect her decisions. My mom is everything to me and without her I would be nothing. Rory taught me that my mom is the greatest thing to ever come into my life and I need to cherish her as such. Also, that first night at Rory's dorm at Yale bit? Where she makes her mom come back to Yale after getting home and then spend the night at her dorm? Yeah, that's me. Have never forced her to stay the night but I never want my mom to leave once she's here.

Finally, Rory taught me that it's okay to change and evolve as a person. So often you hear people say "You've changed." in a negative tone but to me, it's not negative. We saw Rory grow up over seven seasons and boy did she change. But you know what? We still loved her through it all. Through failures and successes big and small, through new love interests, new schools, temporarily dropping out of Yale, graduating from Yale and even saying "no" to a proposal, we loved her and accepted her. If you can accept a character on a tv show through some of her craziest decisions while trying to find herself, then you can accept real people changing, too. We all have to grow and find our place in this world. Be YOU.

Rory Gilmore truly changed my life and I am so glad that I grew up on a TV show that provided me with a positive role model. To Rory Gilmore.