Growing up, I absolutely despised reading and writing. I was always the slowest to finish, and yet I still couldn’t comprehend the book right before me. The 30-minutes of required reading each night was utter torture, and my mom had to quite literally pin me down to the floor for me to finish a mere chapter.

Coming to Redwood as an incoming freshman, I thought my luck would change. I saw the plethora of stem classes available and nearly fainted from the excitement. Up to this point, I thought I would never use English in the future and wholeheartedly believed I could fill my schedule with math and sciences while only taking the required languages. To my chagrin, my dad and I did not see eye to eye. He explained to me that my brother had taken non-fiction, and the class improved his English skills immensely, so I should follow suit. While I was not happy about taking non-fiction—I was self-proclaimed illiterate—my dad had a pretty ironclad argument.

Taking non-fiction and Bark was, in short, the best decision of my life. While I could talk for hours about the incomparable community or my most memorable relationships formed in the class, the largest impact Bark had on me was showing me how to love something I’d hated forever: English. 

My love for writing was not immediately apparent after starting the class, but instead, arrived by an epiphany when writing one of my first investigative features. In an interview I conducted on the shutdown of San Francisco businesses, my source broke down in tears describing the boards placed on the windows of a long-loved restaurant. While she spoke, I realized why writing was so powerful. This woman had a heart-wrenching story, and through journalism, others would be able to hear it and make a change within our community. To me, writing means telling stories and sharing unforgettable moments of someone’s life, and there is no other action as meaningful as that. 

As I continued writing for Bark, I found my niche within reporting. To this day, I have never written a review and rarely write sports articles; instead, I opt to highlight as many personal tales as possible with lifestyles stories and investigative coverage. Bark has, without a doubt, become my favorite class, even though I am still a die-hard STEM student at heart. 

As we seniors depart from high school half-matured and ready to embark on the next stage of life, we’re all hoping to leave a legacy or mark on Redwood. I’m not entirely sure if I’ve made any lasting impressions at this school, but I can say with certainty that the Bark left the best impression on me, and I’ll cherish my new mindset toward journalism and writing for the rest of my life.