“Ich Bin Ein Berliner” episode on Pan Am. and my lifelong mantra.
lexington & highland, west hollywood
a shiny piece of pre-interview encouragement spotted while walking over a mile—in heels—from jimmy kimmel’s red carpet to a quiet coffee shop on melrose.
abcdfacbdfdbcafdbfca pnppnpwiwiwnppwip
so I finally checked my grades for the fall quarter: evaluations from three writing classes based entirely on quality of work…right?
and class participation.
and workshop critiques.
and tardiness.
and attendance.
and god knows what else actually matters.
honestly, im not sure why i even bothered to check. because at the end of the day, i know that i can write. the goals of my college education are not automatically met when my GPA reaches a certain decimal point value or when the diploma is finally mailed to my home - all of that could happen before any graduate actually knows what the heck they’re doing with all this “knowledge”. these days, the twenty-something is both the most idealistic individual in progressive thinking and the most devolved generation in traditional work ethic, and it’s gonna take a lot more than a degree and a test score to make a difference in this world. does anyone ever remember what the third lecture of any class was about?!
with another birthday already only a week away, i’m approaching that age where I could actually become what I wanted to be when I “grew up”. and when i was little, I actually dreamed of being a writer. i flipped religiously through the pages of ym magazine and felt more understood by a pack of paper every month than i ever did by any of my classmates. i let my imagination run wild as i wrote stories about my stuffed animals’ adventures on faraway planets. and as I spent these past weeks wrapping up two amazing editorial internships, reading my first page-long personal profile in regional ink, editing a friend’s article for her school newspaper, compiling a letter of rec for another friend’s business program, and proofreading another friend’s personal statement for graduate school apps, i realized that my childhood dream to write for print magazines is worth fighting for. and i will not let a handful of letters and signs on some transcript define me or my abilities or my creativity or my future! i know that what i do with all twenty-six letters of this alphabet is the true sign of my potential to contribute something substantial to this world as a writer.
clearly, i’m not at the level where I want to be at quite yet, but I know where I want to be - eventually. im gonna continue to try my best and study hard, but grades aren’t my goal, grades aren’t who i am, grades aren’t everything. and whether in class or otherwise, I hope I never stop learning, never stop improving, never stop working towards my dream.
p.s. for the record, i didn’t get my grade in lower division poetry because i can’t write sonnets and villanelles. it’s because my morning (mandatory) discussion section was all the way across campus, and because i maintain a lifelong love affair with the snooze button on my alarm clock.
a creative writer typing from LA & SD.
