? Seras’ Top Photo ?
Each time we publish a new issue of The Hawkeye , I will share one of my favorite photos taken in this space.
Oh… we’re back. Hi, Hawks.
How are we all feeling? Stressed? Nervous? Tired? Yeah, me too. This summer was very hectic for me, but I won’t get into that. On the bright side, I had a few job interviews, so hopefully I will become a #employedwoman. (Please laugh.) I met a lot of people, went to the University District, and procrastinated on my summer homework for AP Language & Composition.
What did you do? I’m gonna pretend I heard your answer now: Wow! That’s so cool!
Anyways, back to my summer. Call me selfish, but I really want to talk about it. From July 25-28 I went to Washington State University. Why, you may ask? Well, the Washington Journalism Education Association (WJEA) held their annual journalism camp there. We were sorted into groups for a simulation and the general theme was finding the joy in different things.
My favorite story there was one about our own Ms.Christina Lewis, actually! The design layout and photos were beautiful; the designers did such an amazing job. If you want to learn more about what I mean by ‘design’ though, I suggest you pop into room 130 and ask yourself. *Wink!*
Another part that I loved was the KUOW RadioActive listening party. If you don’t know what RadioActive is, it’s the youth program for the KUOW radio station in Seattle. While I wasn’t a peer mentor, I stopped in once to just see how the summer workshop was going.
And I must say, I was more than impressed. I have to preface this by saying a lot of the participants in the summer workshop this year were older than me, but I was impressed nonetheless. I was a participant last year – RadioActive brought me a sense of belonging that I’ve never felt anywhere before, and it was absolutely amazing. Especially to see a whole new group of students go through the same process and have the same feelings I had at the end of it. They were joking together, complimenting each other, helping each other out. It made me feel very heartwarmed.
Now, back to the listening party I was talking about. It was held at Seattle Opera, and to say the least, it was AMAZING. All of the stories I listened to left me in awe, and taught me so much. While I couldn’t relate to every aspect of the stories, I understood all of the themes. I’ll name a few in specific.
A quick disclaimer: dear readers, you won’t be able to listen to these radio stories until later this year, but you should definitely listen once they’re published.
One story was about the journey of Jehan Hashi and her friend when it came to wearing their hijabs and feeling confident in it. I, myself, am not a hijabi, if you weren’t able to tell, but listening to Hashi and her friend talk about finding themselves in communities that they didn’t feel welcomed in, resonated with me as a person. I can’t say that I am the intended audience, but if you’ve ever found yourself struggling to find a space for yourself, I can suggest this story for you.
Along with the stories I heard at the RadioActive listening party, I also read a few on different media sites. One of them specifically being Ground Zero Radio! If you don’t know what it is, it’s a non-profit youth-led organization. If I’m being completely honest with everyone, radio podcasts/news stories were never really my cup of tea while growing up. Ironic, seeing how you’re all reading something that I wrote.
Despite that, I’ve come to adore both written stories for publications and novels. If you would’ve told me about three years ago today that I’d be a writer for the school newspaper, let alone the co-editor-in-chief, I would’ve asked what a co-editorin-chief was. Yeah. Anyways, back to GZR.
My favorite story from this summer that was published by GZR is probably a story written about this extremely underground movie that I’m sure you’ve never heard of before. Barbie. All jokes aside, this story was about a five-minute read and Dominique Morales’s funny approach to the silly beginning as well as the controversy surrounding the Barbie movie made it a read that I enjoyed more than stories that I’ve written.
Before I close out for the next month, I want to have a really good talk with you, Hawks. Well, more like a lecture because you can’t really respond, but nonetheless, I want to inform y’all on a little something.
If you like literally anything, and I mean anything. even if you have a miniscule amount of interest in it actually. You should try pursuing it. While I say that, I don’t mean “drop every other opportunity you have,” but just try everything out if you’re interested in it. Hey, I liked telling stories, and here I am. It’s worth it, I promise.
Till next time, Hawks. Now, where was I?
