A year that none of us had expected. A major virus roaming around the world, who would ever want that? Especially here at OCSA, no student would ever survive something like that, or could they? My year at OCSA has been one of my most interesting ones so far.

Hoping that my high school year was going to be the best thing ever, having a life like the high school students in stories, I was excited. Figuring out in 8th grade about having to stay home for the rest of the year, I was shocked and confused. I would never have thought I would be learning from my house, it all seemed like the impossible had come true. I struggled but climbed right back up to where I needed to be in those last few months but surely I would fall back down to the bottom occasionally. It was at this moment I realized that not everything was going to be so easy, seeing as I would go into my first high school year, with a disturbance like COVID-19 lurking behind everyone’s shoulders.

When I found out I was going to be apart of The OCSA Ledger,  I was shocked to see how much potential the teachers and staff had seen in me to even put me in the newspaper. I never thought someone like me could write stories and articles to show the world. It was scary to think about, but soon enough, I was up for the challenge to begin something new in my life.

The school year had begun, and I was nervous about how it was all going to roll out. Starting out my day with my morning classes and figuring the flow for the year, I felt normal. However, when I opened the door for my journalism class, I knew this was the beginning of something that would soon be apart of me for the rest of my high school years. Learning about the flow of newspaper, and how to write an article, the inverted pyramid technique, interviews, I knew I was going to struggle the first few months. With other classes to keep up with and me having to quarantine for a whole month through the months of December and January, I had gone to my lowest. I thought I would not be able to do as good as I usually did, but after having to stay home for such a long time, things had surprisingly gone back to normal. I resumed my classes once again and was able to keep writing articles and have them edited to hopefully get at least one published every month.

For next year, I’m hoping things will look as normal as it was back in early 2020, but for now, I’m happy I was able to get through one of the toughest school years ever.