Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Transition blog


Question: What kind of stuff is posted on a travel blog after the trip is over?


Answer: Whatever I want.


My brazilian experience may be stuck on To Be Continued, but my life is far from being on hold. Currently, I am sweating through a semester of journalism ethics, magazine writing and Portuguese Literature while working late nights as the sports editor of the Indiana Daily Student. I also get to be the men's basketball team's biggest fan and critic as an IU columnist.


My mind is consumed with deadlines but far from dead. Case in point, below is a little self-narrative I wrote as part of my application for a feature writing contest. Sometimes it's important to remind yourself why you're putting yourself through hell in the first place.




I've always been a reader -- even before I could read by myself. As a child, I would ask my parents to read to me at every opportunity. I could never settle for one book, of course, so inevitably a stack of illustrated tales would end up at the feet of the nearest literate person with me anxiously awaiting to begin. Even today, few things are more exciting to me than opening to the first page of a new book.
In addition to reading, I've always loved sports. Well, not always. But ever since that day in the schoolyard when I discovered catching a football could lead to making a new friend, sports have been my thing. They help me relate to other people and, in turn, to myself. At an early age, however, it became evident that my athletic aptitude was far inferior to my skill with words. So when a relative gave me a book entitled The Best American Sports Writing of the Century which combined two of my passions in an articulate and inspiring way, I discovered a new goal in my life: to make it into the 21st century edition of that book.
It's a rather lofty goal. Even the best sports writers of the past century needed a little luck to land a spot in the 816-page collection. I'm still looking for my big break.
As a journalism major at Indiana University and a staff member at the Indiana Daily Student, I have covered IU athletics as a columnist and a reporter since 2005. Currently, I am one of the sports editors at the IDS. The experience has been challenging and rewarding at the same time. Earlier this year, I was awarded a national sports journalism scholarship by the NCAA partially based on my work as the IU sports columnist in the fall of 2006. It was quite an honor.
At IU, I've had the pleasure of covering a variety of sports from field hockey to men’s basketball. It’s the interaction with coaches and players as well as the response from readers that have made the experience memorable.
Sports are just a gateway, however. The more I write about them, the more certain I become that I am not writing about sports at all. I'm writing about people, and -- through people -- I am writing about life. The best of the sports pages -- or any page, really -- tells tales of defeat and triumph, mystery and discovery, guilt and love. In this way, the stories I write today aren't that much different from the ones I adored as a child.
These stories are everywhere; they are the product of life being lived. As a journalist, I've taken it upon myself to seek them.