Blog 7/11/2023: Hello, Is This Thing On?

*taps micrphone nervously* 

Hi, I'm Sal. I'm a 20-year-old college journalism student from New Jersey, and my passion is telling stories.

It doesn't matter how, although I primarily do written work and photography. But no matter what format or medium, a story is a story, and we all have stories that need to be told.

I started telling stories when I was in the third grade, sometime in October. The homework assignment was (or so I thought) to write a spooky story. So I scribbled in my binder a story about a family of ghosts who went around scaring people. Nothing too crazy, but I remember getting a happy little buzz writing it.

My mother had checked over it later that night. "This is really good, Sal," she had said.

Nine-year-old me beamed at that comment, and I went into school the next day excited to see what my teacher would think.

Well, it turns out that I had gotten the instructions wrong, and so had most of the class. We were supposed to write only the setting for our story. Only one girl had done the assignment correctly.

Still, that little bit of validation I had gotten from my mother was enough to spark my love for writing. From that point on, I was obsessed with creating fictional worlds and characters and letting them do whatever they wanted in my head.

Later, in high school, I got into politics and the news. I also took TV production classes and learned how to use cameras and video editing software. It was a combination of all these interests of mine that ultimately led to me becoming a journalist.

I joined my college newspaper in the fall of 2021, and things took off from there. I discovered my love for feature articles and became the assistant editor for that section. I learned more about multimedia storytelling and even joined my campus radio station, something that I would have never done in high school.

Also, last year I began to develop a serious interest in photography. So I found a 10-year-old Canon EOS Rebel SL1 off of eBay for cheap and began using it regularly. Now, I'm taking my skills even further with a Canon EOS R50.

I'm entering my junior year of college. This will be my second year as feature editor for my college newspaper, and I will have plenty of professional clips under my belt thanks to the amazing opportunities I've had. I've also won awards for my collegiate work. Plus, I'm starting as a photographer and videographer at my university's recreation center.

Things are looking up. I'm grateful for that.

So that's a little about me and why I'm here. I'll be posting on this blog regularly about what's going on in my life. More often than not it will center around a photo that I've taken, but there will be other topics discussed as well. This blog is to better myself and hold myself accountable for being productive. It's also a place to connect with you all, and that's something I'm really looking forward to.

See you next post.

-Sal