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After I finished third grade at the private school I attended since I was two years old, the way I viewed the world changed. The curriculum that I had been accustomed to revolved around religion so I was never exposed to any other kind of reading or writing in school. Of course, I had read things at home that strayed away from religion but when I finally set foot in the library at my first public school, the sky opened up. I checked out so many books and read more than I can count which gave me the inspiration to begin writing my own stories. This was my first turning point.

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This was the first book that I fell in love with. When I found this book in the fourth grade, I checked it out for the next two years because I thought I would never get to read it again once I went off to middle school. This book was also the first book to break my heart.

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Although I was reading “big kid” books, the first big story that I remember writing, if you can call it that anyway, was about a little girl named Lila. I don’t recall many details from the story but I do remember that she was walking home from school when she saw an opening in the forest. She went to investigate but ended up becoming unconscious and when she awoke, there were magical, talking unicorns. I wouldn’t say it is my best work to date, but this piece of writing kickstarter my tingly writing fingers.

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Like most young girls my age in 2008, I was obsessed with Twilight and I am not ashamed to admit that I still enjoy it even though it is filled with toxic behavior. However, Edward is a vampire so there’s a lot more to that story. At this time in my life I was reading in overdrive. During a single weekend, I read all four books in the series back-to-back with very little sleep and I don’t think I could do that now even if I tried. During this phase of my life, I really learned that reading was an escape where I didn’t have to deal with events that were taking place around me, and there were a lot.

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Like I mentioned above, a lot was going on around me that I kept bottled up so I didn’t have to deal with it. I had written poetry before but in eighth grade during my Algebra class, I wrote one of my favorite poems. It isn’t perfect by any means but it was the first poem filled with meaning and emotion that I had ever written and it fueled the need to write all of my emotions down in the form of free verse poetry.

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I’m going to be completely honest, besides the required reading in my classes I didn’t do much reading in high school. I still continued to write what I consider now to be horrible poetry, but my junior year of high school introduced me to a different kind of writing. I don’t know what possessed me to join my journalism class, but I ended up becoming Features Editor for my school newspaper my junior year and was an Editor-in-Chief during my senior year of high school. Writing for a newspaper is drastically different from any other type of writing but I learned so much and am thankful for the experience.

(IMAGE: I interviewed a writer from The Walking Dead who had graduated from my high school. At the time of the interview, I hadn't seen a single episode of the show!)

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I have always known that I’ve wanted to be a teacher and it was through all of this, and more not mentioned, that I decided I wanted to teach English. Along the way, I have learned that I will always continue to work on my writing because it is one of my weaknesses but we are forever students that will always continue to learn. Reading and writing is something that I am passionate about and I want to be able to share that with students and show them that English isn’t a scary subject in school. There is something out there, in English literature, for everyone to enjoy.