Honing Journalism: The Scenes of Conducting Seminar for Young Writers (DAY 1)
When I was just beginning to write for this platform, I shared multiple times how being a thief led to my passion in writing. In my eleventh year of living, I was just a simple kid stealing books in his school library and scribbling notes he couldn’t understand but felt as if it was his native language. I wrote little poems and painted pictures in my mind that were not vivid but made sense to me even if the words felt strange. By high school, I still wrote those little stories that gave magic to me and felt the gradual formation of my purpose. Though it was not as clear as it is now, it started making sense to me.
When I first stepped foot in college, I saw a ripped catalog pasted on the wall of the university's gate and read it aloud to make sure I was reading correctly these letters: “We Are Hiring.” I quickly searched for the exact place this office was built and visited it as soon as I had my sample outputs printed. Fast forward, I became a Senior Writer in our school publication and discovered my purpose that expanded across the years of being a student journalist. At first, I thought my sole purpose was to write the stories that would possibly represent everyone and bring them to places they could not go in real life. I wrote everything that I could, from simply scribbling notes to dodging deadlines of my works to be published in the magazine.
My purpose started in writing but little did I know, it was far bigger than I thought. I started receiving news last year about schools inviting our team to conduct seminars and workshops for young journalists. In my first blog, after my introduction, I shared my journey in my first seminar and it was later on followed by my next blogs about my second seminar, and now I’ll be sharing my third time being a speaker in an unfamiliar conference room but one that felt like home because the passion was similar and loudly vibrating in synchrony. We received another invitation after that, but because we started our class last week, we had to decline it and hope for another when a long vacation comes. For now, I am focusing on my academics since it demands a lot of my attention even if it is still in the early months of the school year.
Recalling a memorable experience last week is a break I have to do today because I don’t have a class. Writing this blog gives me a poignant feeling and a bittersweet take on how much happiness I could get in the fleeting nature of life.
Last week, we had our third invitation for a seminar and workshop and made it for two days. In this blog, I’ll be sharing how my first day went and try to make sense of the memories I kept from those experiences.
In the vibrant morning of Saturday last week, we had an assembly time outside our school by 6:30 in the morning because the driver would fetch us at that exact location. We were very early because the program would start by 8 in the morning and we had 1 hour of travel before reaching the school. Our Editor-in-Chief was having trouble in her commute so we had to wait an extra time before departing.
While waiting, I was practicing my script for emceeing since I would be handling the program for two days. That was only my second time being an emcee for a program and it took a lot of practice—especially the energy—before I mastered the speaking. Done and dusted, I successfully handled the program during the two-day event.
A little while later, we were finally complete and had to leave the school as soon as possible because we only had a short time left.
After an hour, we found ourselves standing at a humble gate with the name of the school overseeing us between its railings. That is where the magic and experiences happened.
We headed to the conference room right after the head of the publication saw us. We prepared our equipment for documentation, brought out the PowerPoint presentations, and befriended the microphones we used just to make sure we were comfortable using them.
The school is just a simple school. An arena and a battlefield for the students committed to their studies. It is widely different from the other schools we visited because this one felt old, unseen, and rusty. Despite its haunting aura, it was promising to meet its students who, in that poorly supported school, were passionate in their ideas and narratives, hoping it would best give the voice they long before lost.
We started the program with a prayer and I picked my very friend @anniesty, who was also my co-writer, to lead it. She has this sincere way of speaking words and it made her the best candidate to have the floor.
Our first day was all about the writing fields in journalism, so it was only a discussion the whole day. During the morning, we had News Writing, Editorial Writing, and Feature Writing. I enjoyed listening to my co-writers, especially when they echoed the spirit of writing through their words of encouragement and bravery. Among the three, my favorite writing is the feature field, because it has this beautiful way of making an equation between human emotions and facts, and the way feature writing touches the human condition is just phenomenal, especially if the craft is carefully written with heart and soul.
These were the students who participated in our two-day event. I was able to talk with a lot of students during the seminar and it gave me firsthand insights about writing. They were young but the way they saw the world was as massive as their dreams in writing. I really observed them during the seminar and they were very keen on listening to every word our team offered. It may have been a long discussion since it was a whole-day event but no eyes felt tired because the light they had was so bright.
One silly part of conducting a seminar is the tiredness you could feel whilst waiting for your turn to discuss. We all had this moment of finding ourselves lying on the table and hoping that time would pass faster. But with the tiredness we had, there was still the spark that drove us to keep moving and focus on the discussion.
We had our lunch after the morning session and there we met the family of our adviser. It was rapport for me because on that day we had to temporarily stay in our adviser’s house. The school that invited us was far from our town so we had to find a place to rest our restless body. We had a bunch of conversations and my favorite was the reminiscence that on that very day was the first anniversary of our seminar in Masbate (you can read it in my second blog). We looked back on how far we had come, the best people we met on the island, and the transformation we had after the experience that helped us do our best in the present seminar.
The afternoon session was all about sports writing, copyreading, and science writing. We initially had included literature but we ran out of time and placed it in the second day’s program.
Of course, I was the first speaker during the afternoon and talked about the concept and information I could offer about writing sports articles. I am not an athlete nor a coach but being a micro-athlete is essential to be a sports writer. Knowing the rules of the game and how the game is being scored are the first things I had to examine and explore before I made myself a sports writer.
But until now, I am still in the making so I can still claim myself best in literary writing which I cannot write in this platform because it would be boring to post something like that here. I am now just trying to be conversational and hope that readers would still enjoy my way of writing.
I talked about the different verbs a sports writer should use and introduced them to the long list of sports lingos. To make their work easier, I had to give them headline formats they can use depending on the context of the game and the play-by-play account in sports writing. Actually, I consumed two hours of discussion which is why we ran out of time and altered the program.
I was followed by science writing, which was the hardest discussion to grasp—and then copyreading that consisted of a long list of symbols you cannot just dream of memorizing.
The quite poetic part of our discussions were the quotes we always gave to the students before passing the mic to the next speakers. A set of quotes we prepared that could inspire the writers and change their perspectives.
We ended the program by 5:00 P.M. and had a photo opportunity in their graceful flag ground. We were the parents of these little Einsteins during those days and even if we felt restless because seminar is all about body and mind working, the smiles we saw were the best payment we received.
We were like a little family with the same intention and passion—believers that words can change the world.
A group of athlete I saw beside the court. After the photo opportunity, we all left the school and I know with all possibility that they were very happy to hear our words. I was also happy to meet those kinds of innocence because it gave sense to my purpose in the field of journalism.
We immediately headed to the parking area and waited for our adviser’s car and then moved ourselves to their house. It was our shelter for two days and it felt the same as our home because the family had this generous way of accepting us.
We had our dinner with the family and I tasted the best halang-halang (a chicken recipe known for its very spicy feature), halang means spicy in direct English, in my whole life and enjoyed the food without being embarrassed. I just loved the food they prepared and it gave us the fuel that would drive us for tomorrow’s second day event.
We edited the photos by night, wrote different articles for the event, and finally had the session we were all waiting for—the “drinking” session, with all the restlessness we had and laptops on the table for work.
This was our setup that night: street food, a beer, a cup of coffee for my friend @anniesty, and a laptop for our unending work. It was a fiesta of different things and the table looked like a little world full of ironic things. We ended our day by 12:00 midnight only to blame ourselves for being late for tomorrow’s event.
It was a really long day of discussion and break but a satisfying one. A tough experience but a grateful one. I saw my purpose before in the ink of my pen written in my old journal, but now it changed—it was in the looks of these young writers that gave me promise for the future years ahead as a journalist.
That is all about this blog and I’ll be sharing about our second day in my next blog. It is a long narrative so please leave one of your belongings in this blog and come back for it when I post the next day of our event. Thank you dearest and I'll see you!