Hey guys! I know you all have been missing my articles this quarter… or this year. Maybe my writing has been a little scarce this year. In my defense, this is third period and I have Sampselle fourth so I may have taken time from this class to do Samp’s homework that I should have finished at home… ooops.

I have been thinking of my senior reflection ever since I read Dennis Ventura’s  two years ago. Such a good writer, so cynical, I do miss him. 

Looking back on my time in journalism, I was really lazy. I mean I used to write articles and edit, but this year my productivity really dropped, like 100%. I thought I used to know what senioritis was, but this year it hit me harder than a train. I just want to graduate, this whole year that has been my thought. I’m tired of putting in effort. I was a straight A student for 4 years, so this year I allowed myself some Bs…maybe even a C.

Regardless of how productive I have been, there is one person whose dedication to the newspaper and students has never stopped. Mrs. Sara Confino, or Conman as I call her. When I started journalism, we had four paper copies a year, there was no intro to journalism course and deadline was known as the worst week of the quarter.

I only survived with the help of my great friend and newspaper mentor Catherisa Apostal. This girl taught me everything I know. She walked me through the inverted triangle structure, helped me deal with Conman’s stress levels during deadline, and literally wrote my first few articles for me because I could not write news. I really could not have done this without her.

The newspaper program has grown a lot since I started back in sophomore year all thanks to our amazing leader Conman. She worked her butt off against the administration to get us out of that cycle of quarterly current news and onto this mobile site….I’m even hearing things about an app.

So looking back, I’m really thankful I joined journalism. It’s a great class for people who like to be left alone with their work. We get an article idea and we just write. No help from anyone else except for editing. It’s all student run which was daunting at first, but I really value how much independence journalism has given me. It really helped me become more responsible, which is something every teenager needs. 

So if you are thinking of taking this class, I 10/10 recommend it. In the end if you don’t like writing, you still get to work with Conman and get cupcakes, so it’s a win/win. 🙂