Maraya

**Maraya Star Adams** was a high schooler with many conditions that went to Northgate High School and was also known to be the leader of the 158M Crew as she was the smartest one on the bus. She was also the creator of three podcast-recording series including the series *Welcoming Our Students on 158M*, *Lots of Fun on 158M*, and *The Ms. Carolyn Show*. She co-founded the 158M Crew on September 7, 2016, when she met special needs school bus driver Ms. Carolyn.

## Maraya

### Born

Maraya Star AdamsDecember 8, 2000 (age 20) Forest Park, GA

### Occupation

Leader, student at Northgate High School, creator of podcast series, co-founder of the 158M Crew

## Early Life

Maraya Star Adams was born on December 8, 2000, in Forest Park, GA, with her mother, Brandy Cahoon-Adams and her father, Ryan Adams. She had an older sister named Haley who was born on February 20, 1999. She is known to be diagnosed with six types of conditions including high-functioning autism, severe visual impairment which felt like a profound one to her, OCD, epilepsy, anxiety, and depression. Most of her conditions weren't diagnosed until her preteen or teenage years. She moved to Palmetto, GA when she was seven years old for a month and then Newnan, GA, where she still lives in today.

### Education

Maraya started going to school when she was three years old. During her seven-year stay in Forest Park, she went to Fountain Elementary from preschool to second grade. Then when she moved to Palmetto at seven, she went to Palmetto Elementary for only the first four weeks of her second grade year. Because Maraya and her sister got bullied by their skin color, they had to switch schools, so when they moved to a home in Newnan, they went to Northside Elementary for one year. Once Maraya finished the rest of her year there, she switched schools again as she went to another elementary school for third grade called Arbor Springs Elementary because Northside was too far from her house and back. She went there until fifth grade and then officially graduated from there once she was finished.

In 2012 of August, Maraya started going to middle school at Madras Middle School and her first year of middle school was also the first year she entered special education, which didn't happen until mid-October. She finished middle school in 2015 of May where she had the most stress.

Then in 2015 of August, she started high school at Northgate where she was in regular ed classes for her whole first year and a little bit of her second year and then switched to a special ed class again due to almost all her classes being too hard for her to take. She took special education for three blocks worth of school time and was reduced down to only one regular ed class, which she couldn't take until 1:50 in the afternoon. She did school days like this everyday until she graduated in 2019 of May where she was the first and only one in the special ed class to graduate at 18 like everyone else that wasn't in the special ed class and was also the youngest student to do so as every other student who was in the special ed class graduated in between ages 19-22 while she graduated at 18.

### Becoming Visually Impaired

Maraya lost almost all of her sight at age 10 in her sleep. The next morning, she woke up like that and mistook her visual impairment for blurry vision since it was normal for people to have blurry vision when they first woke up. Her mom took her to the eye doctor for an eye test and was told that she needed glasses, so she chose some herself. But one week later, they weren't helping her vision at all due to her vision loss. In early September, somebody scheduled her to go down to Macon, GA, for another eye test at the low vision evaluation. At the evaluation, the eye doctor became more detailed as he told her that she was diagnosed with a visual impairment and that visual conditions included optic nerve hypoplasia (ONH), esotropic strabismus in the right eye, bilateral amblyopia, and nystagmus in both eyes. Her ONH was known to be bilateral as well, but people kept mistaking it for unilateral since she could only see out of her left eye a little bit and not at all out of her right eye. Ever since for the rest of her fifth grade year, she has been a handheld magnifier and a monocular to help her with reading small font and distance. She wore glasses until her last day of senior year where she graduated at 18 like everyone else. At age 19, she started learning Braille, but because her memory was so good, she learned how to read and write Braille in only a whole week. Despite her vision getting worse because of her epilepsy, she still can do anything like everyone else can.

### Her Life Now

At 19, she lives with her dad in his house and her grandmother, Debbie, in her house and would visit her for only once a month to spend a few nights there for her vacation. Maraya thinks it's her "vacation spot" as she does go there for once a month. Since August 23, 2019, Maraya has been talking to her best friend, Carolyn, on the phone at least once a month to do speech therapy with her. Each session usually lasts 10-25 minutes but sometimes can last longer than 25 minutes depending on both of their current moods. After doing the session, she would have a 16-minute "good luck boost" dance party (lasts up to a half-hour if at her grandma's house) to boost up her good luck and confidence. She takes a virtual Spanish class Mondays through Fridays and a multi-language class on Saturdays. She also works as a YouTuber as she makes and edits a new video each week.

## Quotes

* "I love Carolyn." (Tomodachi Life and Collection)
* "Yeah, baby!"
* "Heck yeah!"
* "I went to (imaginary place) to (insert activity here)."
* "Just joking!" ("Just kidding!" in episodes 13-30 of *The Ms. Carolyn Show*)
* "Oh, crap." (only at home)
* "Oh, my God."
* "What the (freaking) heck?"
* "Screw myself!" (only at home if mad or frustrated)
* "This is autism, not 'normalism'." ("This is autism" in Tomodachi Life)
* "I need some sugar." (Tomodachi Collection)
* "Anything is possible and the sky's the limit."
* "Girls rule, boys drool."
* "C is for Carolyn, C is for \_\_\_\_\_."
* "You are my eyes and I am your heart."
* "'Cause (insert pronoun here) wanted to." (when answering someone's "why" question)
* "'Cause I love you." (only to Ms. Carolyn)
* "You're the best (insert Carolyn-related words here), (Ms.) Carolyn."
* "I'm your cheerleader, I'm your angel."
* "Of course I wouldn't do that to you, I'm an angel."
* "I'm the only girl (on Ms. Carolyn's bus)."
* "(Oh), we're in Daytona." (episodes 13-30 of *The Ms. Carolyn Show*)
* "Welcome (back) to the (magic) rock and roll (school) bus."
* "Thank you for your service, on Ms. Carolyn's (insert school bus's special name here)."
* "You are currently flying on Carolyn Airways with your pilot, Carolyn." (in later episodes of *The Ms. Carolyn Show*)
* "Did you have a good time in la-la land?"

## Personality

In the three podcast series, Maraya had a fascination for school buses (specifically school buses with wheelchair lifts), any type of music, anything old such as cars or technology, art, and history. Now that she's a graduate, she is also fascinated with old people due to her obsession with Ms. Carolyn and anything else that lifts up and down with a remote besides a wheelchair lift. She is known to be very funny as she likes telling funny jokes and stories to her bus driver and her friends. This makes her the entertainer of the group. Maraya might also be in a homosexual relationship with Ms. Carolyn as she does love her more than any woman out there because she is her best friend. She is in a heterosexual relationship with her boyfriend, Anie, who was another former team member on 158M and has been since 2016. Maraya is known to have a loud voice as she knows the big soundwaves in her online video editor is her voice. In her free time, she also plays on her Nintendo 3DS and binge-watches YouTube on her phone. Like Ms. Carolyn, she also has two special abilities, which are long-term memory and great voice and sound recognition all because of her visual impairment.

## In the Podcast Series

### Welcoming Our Students on 158M

In her original podcast series *Welcoming Our Students on 158M*, she was 16 in episodes 1-68 and then was 17 in episodes 69-76. She was a junior for that whole series.

### Lots of Fun on 158M

In all six episodes of the sequel podcast series *Lots of Fun on 158M*, Maraya was 17 and a junior.

### The Ms. Carolyn Show

Maraya was 16 years old in episodes 1-8 of *The Ms. Carolyn Show*, then was 17 in episodes 9-12, and then 18 in episodes 13-30. In the first two episodes of the series, she was a sophomore, then a junior in episodes 3-12, and then a senior in episodes 13-30.

## Trivia

* Maraya appeared in every episode of all three of the podcast series with Ms. Carolyn because she was the protagonist.
* She was diagnosed with depression and OCD at 12. This was also when Maraya found out that she had autism.
* She was diagnosed with autism at 2.
* Maraya was diagnosed with epilepsy at 17 because of her anxiety. For nearly two years, she's been taking medicine to become seizure-free, but when she restarted taking the medicine in late October 2018, that was when she started having pixelated vision and her less-than-a-minute "vision blur outs/blackouts".
* From the day she met Ms. Carolyn to the day she graduated from Northgate, she called her Ms. Carolyn, but once she started talking to her on the phone after the 2019-20 school year began, she just calls her by her first name "Carolyn".