I never truly considered myself a “writer." All I knew was that I was among the small percentage of students who didn’t mind analyzing the symbolism behind the green light from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby." I’d pretend to moan and groan along with the rest of my classmates, but being the nerd that I am, I always got a little bit excited.
The high school I attended was considerably new, and my 11th grade English teacher was introducing a new journalism/ student newspaper class for the following year. I remember her walking up to me one day during class and asking if I had any open spots in my senior year schedule to be a part of the new class. I thought it was odd of her to ask, but I unfortunately did not. A.P. Spanish—which I inevitably ended up dropping—took up that spot. But it didn’t matter, because I wasn’t a writer anyways. I continue to regret not taking that class, even now.
Skip forward a year or so and boom I’m a big, mature, knows all the answers, college freshman (hah.) One of the first Fridays of school was the activities fair, where all of the different clubs offered on campus put up booths, and try to lure potential newbies to join by offering them (every college student’s favorite word) free candy, t-shirts, and even (wait for it) bacon! It’s truly a magical, free-for-all that even if you don’t walk away with the intentions of joining a new club, you will leave with pockets full of fun- sized Twix bar wrappers and a youth ministry t-shirt probably not in your size.
Anyway… I honestly went in really wanting to join a club. But I couldn’t identify with anything offered. I liked gardening but I’m not a gardener. I thought dancing was fun but I’m definitely not a dancer. The internal battle continued as I peered through a wide variety of clubs and organizations.
School was going by quickly and before I knew it, second semester had hit. I didn’t even bother attending this semester’s activities fair, sure that I would find no interest in anything, yet again.
I was starting to feel a bit more homesick this semester, and in all honesty, I was in a bit of a slump. I wasn’t getting any good sleep, I missed my friends and family, the weather was a glum, and I detested nearly all my classes—except for my English 112 class (College Writing.) I’m not sure if it was Fr. Hannon’s inevitable cheery mood or the fact that I was exploring different ways of writing and reading, but I looked forward to going to this class every single Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Being that the class was a requirement for business students (such as myself), as well as pre-med and education, there were many different personalities, views, and opinions that were shared each class, and I simply loved it.
We had peer review groups that we got together with every time we were about to turn in a big paper. Each time I was extremely nervous to share my work with them. No one wants to be judged by pretty much strangers on anything, let alone a (very) personal narrative! But I was more than pleasantly surprised with the feedback. My professor even asked me after reading my first paper if I’ve ever had anything published—because he enjoyed it that much. I was shocked. I always knew writing was something I enjoyed doing but wasn’t super aware of the fact that I was actually not too bad at it. People liked what I had to say and how I said it. I suddenly began to crave the idea of sharing my voice with a wider audience.
A few weeks before school came to an end, I stumbled upon a Facebook post, talking about applications for writers for a website called—you guessed it—Odyssey. Curiously, I clicked the link and noticed the application was nice and short, so I filled it out and got right back to watching probably my seventh episode of "The Office" when I should have been studying for accounting.
I heard back quickly from the UP Odyssey’s Editor in Chief (shoutout to Brooke Hintze) for an over the phone interview and just like that, I was going to be a writer for this website I knew little to nothing about—and I had to submit something that night.
I was feeling excited but a bit overwhelmed. I had seen other articles from the site before, but what was something that could be relatable, interesting, and fun in my life that people actually cared to read about? I was beginning to regret signing up. How was I going to submit something every single week? I could hardly get the work I needed to do done in a timely manner, and now I had to—no volunteered to—write something every…single…week…
I was starting to think this is why I don’t join anything when I got the sudden urge to talk to my sister (who is two years older and also attends my school.) And just like that, I had an idea for my first article—a list of why I love attending the same school as my sister. I was off. I had so much to say on the matter, and I loved finding the perfect gifs for every reason. I finished and submitted it.
A few days later my first article was published. I was feeling nervous, and a little excited, but definitely mostly nervous. I got the email saying, “Your article is now live!” and I wanted to hide in my dorm in case anyone I knew had seen it yet. Right then I logged into my Facebook to see the damage. I clicked the bright red square at the top of my screen to find quite a few people were responding to my article—with good things! The notifications continued to roll in, and I was feeling more proud of myself than I had in quite a while. I finally had something I enjoyed doing that I was pretty good at.
I was now, officially, a writer.
