Part of creating history is taking chances. Setting goals, taking chances, seeing how different risks pan out. Almost every speaker touched on trying everything, doing what scares you, putting yourself in situations that aren’t comfortable. That, in itself, is a scary thought. Yet, it’s something everybody is going to have to do eventually, and knowing what I know now, it’s better to learn to do this earlier in life than later. It’s better to get ahead of the game than to be behind.

      I feel like I am ten years older after these past five days. I’ve learned so much, not just about journalism and media, but where I am and who I am, and where I want to go. I’ve learned the personal stories of my peers, I’ve taken insight from some of the most respected people in the news world. I leave this week bursting with ambition, and no longer just hope, no longer a dream, but a plan. A plan to rise above expectations and make my way to the top. I realize now that being told “no” is nessasary, not something unique to just me. I didn’t do anything wrong, I’m not the only one who’s ever been told “no.” As harsh as it sounded, I needed to know it.

      I needed to know alot that I didn’t before. This has honestly been one of the best experiences of my life, and I’m so glad I got to share it with the people I did, listen to the people I did, and just have the experience I did.

       I’m creating my history, I’m leaving my legacy, and I’m on my way to a great career in something I love.

    Walking through the Newseum today, I saw alot of newspaper headlines. Bold, black type screamed headlines like, “Diana Dead”, “Earthquake Takes Haiti”, “Bastards!” (9/11). I started to think, after a while, this is us. We make the news, we tape, write and capture the news. If it weren’t for us humans, there would be no news. It took centuries of insane people, innocent people and wrong place at the wrong time people to get us where we are today. If Natzi Germany had never happened, would we be any different? If the Berlin Wall had never gone up, how would peoples’ lives changed?

      Everything did happen though. It’s in print, in pictures, on film. It’s proof we have a past that we cannot forget to remember, even if we don’t want to. How can we, as aspiring journalists, document this life without seeming like we’re working on a novel or a movie? How can we convey that the crashing of the twin towers is not something formulated in somebody’s head and shown on a screen, but an event? How can we show how devistating Katrina was, how tear jerking Kennedy’s assination was, how sick minded some of these people were? We get facts. We take pictures, we sell stories. What else can we do?

     Pulitzer Prize photos are one of the most interesting things I have ever seen. There, in that press of a button at just the right moment, a pure, raw image of human emotion errupts. Poverty stricken children. Faces gleaming with tears after Colombine 1990. Humanity when we don’t want to see it. Humanity when we have to see it.

     We document real life by going through the news in our minds. We document by going out and getting what’s happening now. The starving children in third world countries. The dying homeless. The struggling families of Katrina or 9/11. We, who understand that life is not fiction but is, in fact, life, need to go out and do something. Tell somebody. Help somebody. Maybe no major story is breaking right now, but does there really need to be one? Major stories, stories splashed all over newspaper and magazine covers aren’t the only news. Things are going on right now, and it’s our turn to cut the rope that ties us back, and get into the world. We are the ones who know that fiction and real life are two very different things. Who have the ability to seperate movie content from actual world events, no matter how difficult they are to face.

      Get ready to start documenting. As crazy as real life gets, it’s what we are living and it’s what we will always be living in. Welcome to it.

           I was wrong. This IS what I’m ready for. After all those years of scribbing words on paper with crayon, staying in from playground to write, typing for endless hours, this is what I’m ready for. I’m ready to go out and set the world on fire. My ambition is burning- I feel like here, at George Mason, with the staff and peers around me, I can really break through my shell and discover who I am and where I am in my writing. By the end of the week, I’ll see if I have enough drive in me to become a journalist one day.

      “Keep trying to do things you are nervous about”. On the evening of June 10th, 2011, Chris Cillizza gave a little speech and said that one line that really stuck out. Journalists and writers need to push boundries, break down the walls that confine them to their own little comfort zones. In life, we don’t always get to be comfortable, and, last night, that hit me like a ton of bricks. It’s not just me who feels like they’re tredding in deep water here- it’s everyone. And that is a good feeling, to know you are not alone and never will be. There will always be people before and people after that are just as nervous, or as nervous, as you are.

      If I’m going to be a writer, and you bet I am, the world better get ready for it. If I have to break barriors, defy gravity and swim across oceans full of sharks to get there, I will, if I have the ambition to. So thank you, Mr. Cillizza, for telling me the truth I’ve needed to hear. And thank you everybody at George Mason- this is going to be a great growing experience.

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