There are so many creative people in my school who are talented and unique. Whether they sing, dance, act, or paint, they channel emotions and feelings through their medias. In my case, I use my creativity in Paw Prints (my school’s newspaper). Instead of singing by using my voice, I use a computer. I create layouts and write stories instead of notes and melodies. It’s one of the things that I feel like I am really good at. When I sit down at my computer seventh period and open Publisher, it somehow seems easy to translate words into images and create a body for thoughts so people will be enticed to read it. Sure, much of the time the stories we do are silly, and aren’t always serious, but that’s the fun of being able to just express yourself and have fun doing it.
I always knew that I’d do Paw Prints because my sister did when she went to my school. From all of the fun stories she’d tell about it, I couldn’t wait until it was my turn to have those experiences. So when the time came, I signed up for Journalism 1 freshman year (which is apparently not a requirement) and joined the staff one year later. Since then I have had the best (and sometimes most stressful) times of my life.
It was like joining a sports team that went all year round. Once I was made an editor, I made a commitment to always work my hardest and sometimes to pick up other’s slack. Yes, deadline nights, where we would have to stay in the back room, hunched over our keypads for hours on end were sometimes painful, but it’s always worth it the next week when we can finally distribute our finished product.
There’s always a risk when you’re putting yourself out there where people can judge you, but I still found it annoying and sometimes hurtful at first when we would hand a copy to someone who ended up throwing it down the stairwell or ripping out pages. Didn’t people realize how hard we worked for the past few months? But now I’ve learned to just be happy that those who do read it enjoy it, and that in the end it didn’t matter what they thought; I was proud of it and so were my classmates. Whether you express yourself with art, sport, or printed pages, you should be proud that you have a talent that makes you happy and adds something extra to who you are.