Growing up, my mother instilled in me the importance of language. Now at first, it was annoying, and I dreaded her checking all my English assignments and correcting my grammar, punctuation and more. I even had a yearly project in elementary and middle school, where I had to read 25 books and write a book report for each. Being forced to read and write was immensely irritating. In the 4th grade I entered an essay contest and wrote about drugs. To my amazement I won a spot in a book of children’s essays. Eventually, my mother’s persistence payed off, and those 25 annual reports led to a natural passion for reading and writing.

It all started with poetry. I wrote from the heart about things that were important to me—family, love, friendship, culture and the list goes on. The beginning of my peak was in the 8th grade, which was when I met the best teachers. They not only taught me writing skills, but they taught me life skills, and self-value. The fact that they both taught language was only a bonus. My essays always got great grades and their feedback on how to improve was always welcomed and well appreciated. That was when I knew for sure that I wanted to pursue journalism as a career. I knew that my greatest strength was English and that I had to go for it.

Watching abc 7 news, Tyra’s talk show and Anderson Cooper’s talk show was what made me realize that not only do I want to write for newspapers, magazines and books, but I want to report. I want to experience a little bit of everything. I want to become a radio personality, a news anchor and then a talk show host that spreads knowledge and guidance and positively influences as much people as I can. I have a mission and having my own talk show would give me the leverage I need to spread as much awareness as I can to the deteriorating factors of our society. I want to stand on the shoulders of giants like Newton did—stand on the shoulders of the great Ms. Winfrey, the amazing Diane Sawyer, the unrelenting Robin Roberts and the vigorous Edward Murrow.

My sophomore and junior year have been phenomenal, and that is solely because I have received the opportunity to study all types of literature in depth. Two of the best teachers there taught me how to analyze literature, and also the devices to form my own great essays. They always saw something in me and pushed me to write from my heart and soul. Recently, my AP English teacher recommended that I send one of my pieces to “Teen Ink” and so I did. Two weeks later I received an e-mail saying that I had won the Editor’s Choice Award and my piece has been featured on their front page. I was ridiculously excited, because writing means the world to me. Letters, words, and punctuations come together to form sentences that is the foundation upon which the world communicates. Though this may be lengthy, my passion cannot be compressed into a paragraph or two; a passion as great as this one takes time to explain.