More Than A Class

More+Than+A+Class

I am Isidro. I am from Mexico and I have lived here in Lenoir City Tennessee for 2 years. It has not been easy for me not having my family with me while having to take care of my brother and seeing if he needs something and if he is okay. When I first started school here, I did not know any English, I did not know what to do, and I also felt excluded from all of the people. After one year here and learning to speak some English, Ms. Corbett mentioned to me about this class called “Journalism,” and I was not sure if I was able to take it, because I didn’t know a lot of English. However, I finally decided to take this class. One day, Alexis Moats (one of our yearbook editors) came to my physical science class and she gave me a letter and she said “Congratulations.” By that time, I didn’t know what was happening, so I opened the letter and saw that Ms. Wallace accepted me in the Journalism staff. That honestly made my day. We came back to school from summer, and I was excited but I didn’t know what to expect about this class. At the beginning, I didn’t like to talk to people because I am the only Hispanic here beside Lupita Castillo (12) and I didn’t know anyone.

I am not going to lie, it was very hard doing the spreads and newspapers articles, sometimes I was just tired of the class and the only thing I wanted to was give up. We started seeing how NONSTOP was looking good, we had a lot of birthday parties on deadlines, we ate pizza and 20 minutes later we would be stressing out. After months of not talking to anyone, I started talking to one of my closest friends in journalism Riley Childress (10). She is always there for me laughing about dumb stuff, and even if she is mean to me sometimes (not really) she always tries to help me.

My favorite moment in journalism was when we had our Thanksgiving party, I felt part of a new group and it made me feel very happy that day.

Being in journalism helped me a lot with my English skills, but it also helped me because because I was (and sometimes still) shy and I did not feel confident about talking to people in English. One of the days that I will never forget in my life is Distribution Day. Waking up at 5 am and then going on a field trip to Walmart at 6:00 A.M. was awesome. After that, we got breakfast and finally at 11:00 A.M. of that day, we presented NONSTOP, which is a book that represents our school and its students and how we are constantly in movement and we never stop. That day was awesome. I would like to thank everyone in journalism for being so nice to me and always trying to help me when I was about to give up, but I want to specially thank Ms. Wallace (Wally) for always understanding my situation and always asking me if I was okay. She is a very nice person with good feelings.

Casey White, Alexis Moats, and Kayli Martin (12), our yearbook editors, did an amazing job on working with us through the year. I honestly admire how they handle stress, and they always smile to us even if they feel bad. I appreciate them a lot.

Journalism taught me that life is not easy, but everything is possible when you are around positive and good people.

-Isidro