“Sophomore year, oh, sophomore year you have dragged me, kicking and screaming into the dark, lonely abyss known as school. Forever will I mourn the loss of all the days and nights I could have cherished. Forever will I blame you, and forever will I dislike you.”

A plethora of mistakes and bitter lessons happened this year. In addition to that, I dealt with countless slackers, my first failed course, and the stress of my favorite class engulfing me at the end of the year.

When people give up, so do you. You could be the president of a company, a student, or the king of the world. Everyone knows that when you begin to see the negligence to fulfill tasks, you do so yourself, as well. It is only human nature. This is what happened this year in my favorite class, Journalism. And boy, did I see failure. Each day, I would walk into the room, and be surprised by the seniors (who are normally spunky and happy) being taken over by senioritis’ last signs and symptoms. The Journalism I kids, in their normal groups, were rambling on and on about anything but journalism.

As for the second-year kids, well, they were just sitting. And, for a while, all they did was sit. Stories were not posted, photos were not taken, and deadlines? What are those again?

The thing about Journalism is that we are never able to have breaks. You are sick with the stomach flu? Where is your story? You are on family vacation? Where is your yearbook spread? It is summer? You’re definitely coming to the summer meetings. The fact that this year everyone decided to have a break mid-year is absolutely embarrassing on our part.

I will admit that there were many times when I walked into the journalism room and conveyed awful juju to my classmates, editors, and staff writers. After a while, though, I realized that I am a role model to the staff writers. I love my Journalism family, and they did not deserve to be treated in a negative way or be ignored when they addressed me.

Perhaps this is an analogy to life itself: Always approach situations with a positive attitude, no matter how annoying or rigorous. My friends always ask me how I deal with such a hard elective class, but I love it. This is what I do. I write columns and people read them. It is rewarding and it feels good to know that I am affecting the student body in even the slightest of ways. Despite the procrastination and the tension, at the end of the day, it is all worthwhile. And despite how badly sophomore year went, I think Journalism is the only class that made it all worthwhile.