It was temporary ignorance and stupidity that overwhelmed me a week before the first day of school. When I went to see my guidance counselor to select classes for my first year in Penn Manor, somehow I landed myself in CP journalism, just the place, I thought, for someone who doesn’t like to write.
You may be asking yourself ‘how does that happen?’ Well, stupidity is the best word to describe how it happened. As I walked into the office that warm August morning, my mind was racing with both fear and excitement. I would soon be going to a public high school. This was huge coming out of my lonely lifestyle in cyber school.
I was given two options, CP literature or CP journalism. I wasn’t very excited about either one, but I didn’t really think about exactly what we would be doing in either class.
It was more of a decision as to who would I be if I was in that class. The first thing that came to mind when I heard the counselor say ‘journalism,’ was a line from the 1998 film “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” In the movie, the character Duke gave his reason for going to Vegas to a hitch-hiking stranger that they had picked up. “I’m a doctor of journalism, man,” said Duke. That wasn’t much of a line and not the best movie, but at the moment it was enough to convince me that CP journalism was the way to go.
As the first few days of school went by, I can honestly say that journalism was really agonizing. Remember, I’m someone who does not like to write. But that eventually changed. As time passed and my writing skills improved, I’ve come to not mind journalism so much. The only thing that I hate now, which I probably will suffer from forever, is that dreaded writers block. I’m sure I’m not the only one that has a hard time with those first few sentences… right?
By Mike Stokes
Riveting tale chap.