I used to hate writing. In middle school, my writing assignments were always my least favorite. I used to cry every single time I had a writing assignment. Either I was afraid that I would fail it or I just didn't want to be bothered with it. The writing was a chore for me back then. I think what I didn't like was that every time we were forced to write about something. For example, one year when we did poetry we had to write about social issues (drugs, alcohol, racism, abuse, etc.). I never really had the opportunity to be creative and I think that's how school made me dislike it so much. Also, I was doing it for a grade and from what I learned in AP Psychology is that you lose your love for doing something if you are doing it for a reward. I was also a little crazy about my grades at this time. If I got anything less than an A then I would cry and call myself a failure and dread the next assignment in fear that the exhausting cycle would repeat itself.

As I went through high school I started to notice that writing wasn't as much of a hassle as it used to be. I wrote some pretty good essays throughout my career. I was absolute trash at AP World History, to the point where I would get 50's and 60's on my tests, but on the essays, I would surprisingly get 90's and I even got a 4 on the AP exam on which I felt the essays really helped my score. I also wrote some beautiful poems in my English classes. When finishing those poems I felt proud of my writing for the first time. I felt that they were well-written, beautiful, and deep. And then came my college essays. A part of the application process that was daunting for many of my peers was pretty enjoyable for me. I wrote about my grandmother's death for my common app essay and I wrote about this 10-year-old kid with diabetes who I looked after as a camp counselor for my Villanova essay. These essays were very deep but it felt good to get my emotions out and recap important parts of my life that helped me become who I am today. I was enjoying writing for years but I still didn't notice it because I was still doing it for a grade or for college. I never really wrote for fun but little did I know that that's all it would take for a new passion to be born.

One day while I was in the shower, thinking deeply, I considered the idea of writing a short story. I had a great idea in mind; my story was going to be about a boy who has a pretty miserable life until he meets a girl who becomes the first person to ever truly care about him and she helps him enjoy life by always being by his side and they fall in love and the boy learns to love and cherish life no matter how bad it may seem because it takes just one person to make a difference and turn things around. I was so excited just thinking about it. I started writing and I loved it. I was never so happy writing something in my life. It soon turned out that it wasn't going to be a short story at all; the introduction itself was 18 pages long.

I ended up writing 50 pages which was the most amount of writing I ever did. However, the story itself wasn't even close to being finished and that's because I didn't like how it was turning out. As I stated the boy has a miserable life but when writing this story I focused way too much on the miserable part of it and not the happy parts. This is because I started it soon after my mom had major brain surgery and wasn't doing very well. I was also very lonely in high school and my depression was getting pretty bad. I kinda used this story as a way to channel my negative emotions and as a result, my main character became a punching bag with a plethora of negative emotions of his own. I have recently been thinking about rewriting this story with the misery toned down and many of the negative plot points removed. I can't wait to get started on it but unfortunately, I have to wait since I'm in college now and don't have much free time.

And that segues me into writing in college. This very article that you are reading is a result of me wanting to stitch my passion for writing into my college experience. Odyssey at Villanova is the first club I ever joined. In high school, I never really wanted to do anything and I would have to force myself to sit through extracurricular activities without participating. I was always reluctant to try new things even if I might enjoy them, especially if they involved *shudders* interacting with other people. But as soon as I saw the Facebook post for Odyssey and after having a wonderful conversation with our incredibly kind president I was excited to be doing what I love and sharing that love with other people who feel the same love for writing. I am so happy with my 5 articles for Odyssey so far and I can't wait to see what I am going to write in the future.