A Man of Many Myths

As a child, I read early and I read often. I remember being in first grade, and my teacher had to bring in books from home so that I could read during “Silent Reading” time —I had logged every other book to memory. From this time on, I was considered one of the advanced kids. I got special treatment.

Up until high school, I never took this “advanced” label for granted. For lack of a more creative phrase, I soaked up every piece of information like a sponge. I had a genuine thirst for knowledge. Then, somewhere along the way, my thirst became satiated. Maybe it was the result of forced assignments that I deemed superfluous. Maybe my sponge became temporarily full. Maybe I just realized that I could put in a “D” effort and still pull “A’s” and “B’s.”

Whatever it was, I lost my focus. My commitment to academics slipped. But a curious thing happened: my grades didn’t. My academic record kept my grades up. My report card and my reputation became my myth.

I am convinced that if I had seen an immediate impact in my grades my efforts would have picked up again. But they didn’t, so I didn’t. This is not to say that I dropped academics altogether — quite the contrary. I merely dropped (or nearly dropped) everything that I found uninteresting. The sciences of biology, chemistry and physics were the first to go, followed shortly by math. I maintained a strong interest in history, geography and especially the German language. But my real passion was writing.

Freshman year I was lucky enough to have the newspaper advisor as my English teacher. She was brilliant and, more importantly, she pushed me like no other teacher ever had. She didn’t care about what I had done before; she wanted to see what I could do now, and what I could do better the next day. I worked hard to prove to her that I was a writer, and not just any writer, a great writer. I realized under her tutelage that writing was something that I needed to take pride in. It wasn’t good enough for me to just get good grades, I had to be proud of every piece of writing I turned in to her.

My sophomore year I took the journalism class offered by this same teacher. It was from that point on that I knew I wanted to be a journalist. I loved the news writing process, I loved doing interviews and, admittedly, I liked the prospect of seeing my name in print. My junior and senior year I worked for our newspaper, first as a reporter and later as an editor. I was smitten with journalism, which led me here to Mizzou.

My first week at school provided plenty of lessons. Remembering names was much more difficult than I previously imagined. Keeping your door open all the time made it easier to make friends. College classes weren’t much different from high school classes. And, most importantly, I wasn’t “the best and brightest” anymore.

I was on a floor of honors journalism students, all with academic accolades more impressive than my own. And, they could all write! Really well, I might add. I found myself sucked into this ultra-competitive vacuum that only existed in the journalism school. Being someone who spent the last four years worried about how good I personally though my work was, I felt a little bit like a fish out of water. I was never competitive when it came to my grades, but now it seemed I had to be. My roommate had already been published in the Washington Post, worked in the summer for a daily newspaper and was attending Maneater meetings. I just wanted to meet new people and transition into my new life 600 miles away from my old one.

Looking back, this might have been my biggest mistake. My roommate’s currently on internship number five — I’m still hoping for my first. I’ve come to realize that one of my limitations is that I don’t fight for myself enough. Sure, I’ll fight like hell when it comes to changing a word in one of my stories, but I have never been aggressive enough in searching out jobs. Part of me fears the rejection that comes with putting yourself out there, and part of me just thinks I’m not good enough. The confidence I exude is often a myth — like most everyone else, sometimes I just need someone to tell me I’m doing a good job to believe it.

As I hesitantly approach graduation, I feel strongly that my four years here has taught me a lot. I’ve learned about my strengths and weaknesses. There have been times when my resolve and abilities have surprised me, other times when they’ve disappointed me. I’ve learned I really enjoy crime reporting. I’ve learned I want to write a book. Most importantly, I’ve realized that graduating from Mizzou, from the best journalism school in the country, doesn’t entitle me to anything outside of its confines. I’ve expended a tremendous amount of energy here between classes, Vox and the Missourian, but it doesn’t mean anything if I can’t produce outside of Columbia.

I’m working to live beyond my myths and limitations — I want to write and will not stop short of accomplishing that goal, but I realize it’s a process. And a process that won’t be handed to me — I’m going to have to work for it, and I’m going to have to fight to convince someone to give me a shot.