Ah, journalism. Talking about this class makes me feel like an old woman, sitting on my back porch in a rocking chair, reminiscing about the good old days. When I joined journalism my freshmen year, it was for the sole purpose of appeasing my dad’s desire for me to become a writer. I agreed to take the class, mostly because it sounded better than doubling up on math, but I quickly realized I did not know the first thing about journalistic writing. I slowly learned the rules and discovered that being a journalist was nothing like being an author which was quite an adjustment.

Towards the end of my sophomore year, Jordan Snyder and I found ourselves thrown into higher positions as a result of the overwhelming amount of graduating seniors that year. Jordan became in charge of editing while I took on layout. We quickly discovered that producing a paper with such a small staff and little to no experience was going to be different from the previous years, especially since the articles were now going to be mostly online. As if such a shocking change of roles was not enough, we found out our advisor, Ms. Andrews, was not returning. HOLY MOLY! A girl can only handle so much change.

In the words of Evan Ringel, I was bitter about all these changes. I do not care what people say, change sucks. I stuck with journalism even though I was extremely frustrated, and that might have been one of the best decisions I ever made in high school.

The newspaper became more student-run, which made for more fun but also more frustration. Even though we practically had to sift through the dirt for change in order to print a few issues, we were able to do it. The staffers and I learned that it was better to laugh off our obstacles than to get all worked-up about things we simply could not change. The last four years in this class brought me some of my best memories of high school, and I really cannot imagine replacing them.