Never stop …

Whenever something even mildly eventful occurs when I am babysitting, the four year old girl I watch continuously asks the question: Why? She keeps asking this question until I answer it, and then will continue to repeat the word “why” until my answers become less and less interesting. While this can become very repetitive and vexatious fairly quickly — one can only explain why spoons are u...

If someone would’ve asked me what extracurricular activities I would be doing in high school as a sixth, seventh or eighth grader, or even as a freshman, my response would probably be playing basketball. Ever since I began playing basketball, I thought it was something I would do for a long time, or at least through high school. However, after taking 21st Century Journalism and Photo Imaging classe...

When I leave high school next month, one of my biggest regrets will be something I can’t change — I wish I could have taken more classes. I’m not a masochist who enjoys the stress of school, and I’m not wanting to have been able to trade a science class for an elective. Instead, I just want to have learned more. I can’t imagine a day without learning. Sometimes, my learning comes from an insig...

As a kid, my older sister had a Polaroid camera that she would run around the house with. The pictures she took were never good, but I still followed after her in awe of the camera. Twelve years later and nothing has changed. I’m still amazed by photography — getting to see how it’s changed over the years is incredible. People used to stand for hours to have their portrait painted and now...

Usually, when a conversation turns to politics, most people become passionate messes or are too afraid to stand up for their opinion. Both of these reactions I see in everyone I talk to — the uncontrollable gesturing, stumbling over words and the uncomfortable recoil of someone who does not want to be talking about this. It’s the passionate messes that I actually enjoy having conversations with...

If my daughterhood was an essay and I was being graded on Mrs. Swafford’s Pre-AP English 10 rubric, I’d probably get a solid C-. I don’t clean my room, I stress my parents the heck out with my procrastination, I overuse data on the family’s cell phone plan pretty much every month and constantly forget to tell them how great they are. But wow, am I lucky to have two parents who love me immen...