A week ago, an old friend asked me for help regarding campus journalism, prompting me to wrack my brains for the next hour trying to recall whatever stock knowledge I have regarding the subject.
Along with the rules, that simple request brought back so many memories, both pleasant and unpleasant, that I associate with being a student writer. I did not set out to become one, and my foray into campus journalism was simply following orders to avoid being reprimanded by my English teacher. I used to draw a lot way back in high school. Doodles, sketches of anything and anyone that I come across with. My notebooks were filled with them because it was an unconscious habit of mine to draw while listening or engaging in a conversation even. The memory that I have of how a teacher looked is now reliant to those sketches. Im pretty sure not all of them looked that cartoony, but the obvious features were there.
Anyway, to make the long story short, I became the school paper's cartoonist. You could say I was a reclusive cartoonist because for the entire year that I was one, I have never attended a single meeting of the school staff, nor had any session with the rest of the writers.
My assignments were delivered to me by the editor, sometimes by a contributor along with the editorial. It was understood that I knew how to read, and thus I would be able to come up with the appropriate illustration. I guess my interpretations were okay because all of them got published in the issues that came out.
By the time I was in second year, I was still the "silent" cartoonist from the newbies and nobody paid much attention to me. I can never did recall how it came to be that one day, I just found myself being given an assignment wherein I only did not have to draw, but I had to write a few words as well. Following this up was putting captions on pictures. I used to think that perhaps, these are odd jobs that the other staffers were too busy for, that they delegated it to me. Since it didn't interfere with anything, I obliged.
I formally entered campus journalism when I entered my third year. Along with the subject Journalism, I finally learned how things worked in a school paper. It's actually pretty funny to think that I've been part of the school's paper for almost two years and yet I have only set foot once or twice inside its office. So, I wrote what was asked, I submitted my assignments and got the surprise of my life when some of them got published.
But these in no way prepared me for the shock of being called by the campus paper adviser one day to be told that I shall be assuming the editor-in-chief's post. I recall wondering if madam was cracking a joke at the time or was sloshed. Either way, I have never expected it to happen, and looking back I still think that she was pretty hasty in picking me for the position. After all, what experience did I have to make her think that I could handle the responsibility? Apparently, she thought otherwise because the next time the staffers had a meeting I was introduced to the group.
Needless to say, my entry was met with varied reactions. I didn't get punched, nor denounced to be a fraud, but my work was cut out for me. The rest of the days passed by hazily. I found myself staying at that small office more and more everyday, especially when deadlines neared. I got excused from my classes a lot and my teachers didn't seem to mind. We entered into competitions but that national gold never got to be mine, reinforcing my thought that Madam adviser must have confused me with someone else when she appointed me to the position.
In a nutshell, my stint as a student writer made me realize that I loved writing afterall. More so than cartooning for although that habit continued well into my college years, the urge to write stayed with me to adulthood. Looking back, perhaps, it was an unconscious acceptance of maturity that I stopped drawing funny faces of my instructors, and yet I continued to find joy and fulfillment in writing whatever mundane thing came to my head.
These days, I don't write as much, with work and my family taking precedence over it, but from time to time, whenever I punch the keys and see my thoughts take shape, I realize that the writer in me did not perish along with my student days.. It merely took a backseat, and yet always ready to take over the wheel when needed.
Along with the rules, that simple request brought back so many memories, both pleasant and unpleasant, that I associate with being a student writer. I did not set out to become one, and my foray into campus journalism was simply following orders to avoid being reprimanded by my English teacher. I used to draw a lot way back in high school. Doodles, sketches of anything and anyone that I come across with. My notebooks were filled with them because it was an unconscious habit of mine to draw while listening or engaging in a conversation even. The memory that I have of how a teacher looked is now reliant to those sketches. Im pretty sure not all of them looked that cartoony, but the obvious features were there.
Anyway, to make the long story short, I became the school paper's cartoonist. You could say I was a reclusive cartoonist because for the entire year that I was one, I have never attended a single meeting of the school staff, nor had any session with the rest of the writers.
My assignments were delivered to me by the editor, sometimes by a contributor along with the editorial. It was understood that I knew how to read, and thus I would be able to come up with the appropriate illustration. I guess my interpretations were okay because all of them got published in the issues that came out.
By the time I was in second year, I was still the "silent" cartoonist from the newbies and nobody paid much attention to me. I can never did recall how it came to be that one day, I just found myself being given an assignment wherein I only did not have to draw, but I had to write a few words as well. Following this up was putting captions on pictures. I used to think that perhaps, these are odd jobs that the other staffers were too busy for, that they delegated it to me. Since it didn't interfere with anything, I obliged.
I formally entered campus journalism when I entered my third year. Along with the subject Journalism, I finally learned how things worked in a school paper. It's actually pretty funny to think that I've been part of the school's paper for almost two years and yet I have only set foot once or twice inside its office. So, I wrote what was asked, I submitted my assignments and got the surprise of my life when some of them got published.
But these in no way prepared me for the shock of being called by the campus paper adviser one day to be told that I shall be assuming the editor-in-chief's post. I recall wondering if madam was cracking a joke at the time or was sloshed. Either way, I have never expected it to happen, and looking back I still think that she was pretty hasty in picking me for the position. After all, what experience did I have to make her think that I could handle the responsibility? Apparently, she thought otherwise because the next time the staffers had a meeting I was introduced to the group.
Needless to say, my entry was met with varied reactions. I didn't get punched, nor denounced to be a fraud, but my work was cut out for me. The rest of the days passed by hazily. I found myself staying at that small office more and more everyday, especially when deadlines neared. I got excused from my classes a lot and my teachers didn't seem to mind. We entered into competitions but that national gold never got to be mine, reinforcing my thought that Madam adviser must have confused me with someone else when she appointed me to the position.
In a nutshell, my stint as a student writer made me realize that I loved writing afterall. More so than cartooning for although that habit continued well into my college years, the urge to write stayed with me to adulthood. Looking back, perhaps, it was an unconscious acceptance of maturity that I stopped drawing funny faces of my instructors, and yet I continued to find joy and fulfillment in writing whatever mundane thing came to my head.
These days, I don't write as much, with work and my family taking precedence over it, but from time to time, whenever I punch the keys and see my thoughts take shape, I realize that the writer in me did not perish along with my student days.. It merely took a backseat, and yet always ready to take over the wheel when needed.
posted by tiks at 6:08 PM
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