It was just a regular day in 9th grade and I was getting ready to go into English class. I walk in ready for another basic day however, it was far from basic. Our teacher walks in with a large stack of paper in his hands. As he is passing them out, my friends and I frantically look at each other wondering what this could be, was it a pop quiz? As we are handed the paper we all froze, it wasn’t a pop quiz but it was something worse. Our palms were sweating, our hearts were racing and the look of fright swept over our faces. It was a syllabus for a research paper, but what caught our eye was the 10-page criteria. I have never written any paper near that long. Our teachers knew this so he explained that he will be there every step of the way, guiding us through this new journey, but still, the task was daunting.
As I started writing my paper, I kept emailing my teacher and meeting with him with new questions. I would stay up late at night on my soft bed writing away while my eyes were drooping. I would fall asleep mid-sentence then wake up in the morning, still in my school clothes with the computer still in front of me. I would go to the library, scrolling through the many books they had, trying to find the best one for me. I would worry and panic, not knowing if I would finish on time.
Finally, the due date came. After so many dark, dreadful, dead-eyed days, I was done with the paper, ready to turn it in. I woke up that morning feeling unstoppable, I walked into school, printed my final draft then handed the still warm papers to my teacher. It felt like a giant weight was lifted off my shoulders. However, this paper was a turning point in my writing. It taught me so many skills I have never used before and on a whole new level. I took those lessons I learned and applied them to many similar assignments I had in high school. That ultimately is what made me a better writer, and has made me the writer I am today.
Me during my freshman year in high school. On the left is my oldest sister.