Tag: Douglas Anderson

Senior Year

r-HIGH-SCHOOL-COLLEGE-COSTS-large570Being a senior, it’s often hard to think of the last time something was not beginning. A new test, a college application, a new email, etc. But I have recently been trying to teach myself that beginnings are not always troublesome; they happen for a reason. I was recently accepted to the college of my choice. I was attempting to create a password for my new account with them. I had so much trouble with it that I had to call the help desk. I was so entirely frustrated and ready to give up, but the girl on the other line was kind enough to set my password for me. It was a two minute phone call. So, you are asking why I am telling you this? Because it took me that long to figure out how lucky I am to be able to go to college. There I was, sitting on my nice couch, in my warm home, complaining to no end about something out of my control. I had to stop and think about my life this year. Have you ever counted how many times a day you complain about anything at all? For me, the number would be astronomical. I have decided to do more with my days as a senior than complain constantly about trivial things. I will complain about math tests for sure (that cannot be avoided), but I will try to focus on all of the beginnings that my senior year has brought to me. I can’t wait to graduate and start the next part of my education, but for now, I want to take each day as it comes. I want to focus on the opportunities that I receive and I want to learn to be more thankful for what I learn from this year.

-Sarah Buckman, Editor-in-Chief 

Beginnings Aren’t Definitive.

imagesBeginnings are weird. They stare at you, straight in the eyes and say, “Yeah, I’m here,” and they either excite or frighten you. Recently I have been staring at a big beginning in my life: starting college. This beginning does not only mark the beginning of adulthood for me but also the end of high school, the place I have found myself as an artist. Beginnings are scary in that way. They are the start of something but the ending of another. I think that’s why I have such an odd feeling when I think about starting college. It’s beautifully bittersweet.

But every story has a beginning. Looking back on my writing, beginnings were never hard for me to write. If anything, the ending was hard. From the first day of freshman year I knew how to hook a reader with a quote or an interesting fact. I knew how to grab their attention with a character or scenario. I’m good at beginnings. Yet when I look at my future, I think of everything that is about to begin and I just turn into a big ball of anxiety. I can write the beginning of a poem or an article but I can’t write my own life.
It’s so frightening when you think about it, because in your life you have control over a certain amount of things but at the end of the day you are not the one in charge, you are at the mercy of the world around you. Recently I’ve started to think of my beginnings this way. When I sit down to write something I don’t want to follow that formula I’ve had for years. Frankly, that formula is boring and I only use it for English class.

Beginnings shouldn’t be generic, they should be interesting. In real life, beginnings happen all the time. High school doesn’t really happen until you meet the people that will shape your experience there for the next four years. The truth is, when I start college there will be a multitude of endings and a multitude of beginnings and I won’t even realize half of them are happening. So why should I write like I know when these things are happening?

Beginnings aren’t definitive. You can start something but it doesn’t begin there. There’s always something arbitrary in beginnings. So the best advice I can give you is to start writing from where the story really starts. The beginning is never simple. Let it be complex.

-Grace Green, Poetry Editor

On What’s to Come

1392390538DouglasAndersonThe first semester of my senior year has just finished. I will never have another first day of high school, I will never be scared of my school’s mascot -a hideous puffin- at orientation, or be forced to take another Douglas Anderson-style mid-term again. I will also never have another poetry class with Mrs. Melanson, never hear “So, my children…” with a flourish of her hand as she explains just how synesthesia reflects on life as a whole. It’s bittersweet.

I’ve just started Senior Fiction, it is day three and I’m already waiting to see my prose grow the way my poetry did in the semester prior. Writing story starts, reading flash fiction- it feels weird. So far, what I’ve realized is that the most interesting part to every beginning, is the ending it leaves behind.

I first realized just how true this was when I began “Casual Vacancy,” by J.K. Rowling. The story starts when a man dies, and the entire town learns about his death. They feel things about it, their lives are changed by it and new things happen to them through it. The end of a man’s life became the beginning for so many other things. After this realization, I started thinking about other stories I’d read, other myths and parables I’d been taught. Adam and Eve begin life on Earth after their lives as angels end; monarchies are squished to bring forth republics, if Hester Prynne is going to raise her child, her good reputation and even her infatuation with the baby’s father has to be over. Sometimes good endings lead to bad beginnings, and sometimes it takes a little tragedy to bring the dawn in.

I’ve often thought about being a history teacher after school, and with that idea in mind, it’s really hard for me to “leave the past in the past.” We, of course, shouldn’t hold onto the past, we should grow from where we’ve come. But at the same time, as we start a new year, a new semester or job or relationship or short story, I think it’s important to reflect on where we -or the character’s we’re writing about- have come from. It’s important to know how all of the things that are constantly ending, relate with what’s to come.

-Savannah Thanscheidt, Web Editor