My Story
By Izabell W.
I wanted to share myself with NSA. My real self. Not the “ahhhhh xd xd bahahhah” texting Izzy. I wanted to share the actual face behind those quirky, cute messages. The broken, sometimes sad, thoughtful Izzy that loves her dog like crazy and is really passionate about life. I loved writing. I love making blogs. Everything seemed simple. I started a Blogspot blog and began writing. I made an introduction and shared that introduction with the Student Body.
Mrs. Meyer contacted me, telling me she would love to have me on the Navigator staff. I had such mixed emotions at first. I was nervous. I’m not a great talker, and EVP live sessions are the scariest thing for me. Yet, I loved writing so much that I was willing to embarrass myself on Zoom. My mom signed me up and I immediately felt the stress. The live sessions, the due dates, everything! It was such a learning curve to not miss the live sessions, not mess up the due dates, get good grades and still be a good writer. It was hard at first, but soon I learned the balancing act. On one hand, there are due dates and effective time management and on the other hand, is quality of writing and word count.
I started out slowly. It was an odd place to be in as a very new NSA student, who didn’t know anyone and who honestly felt like she had no place here. Writing for the Navigator has made it a lot easier to reach out to people and not be afraid of what others might think of me. It was definitely a confidence booster once I realized that people weren’t going to judge me based on how technical my writing was or how fancy it was. It’s very freeing to have a creative outlet with zero judgment.
I finally felt like my writing was being seen by people who actually wanted to read it, not just my friends being nice to me. I felt like my writing was finally real because it was being “published”. I didn’t feel like a fluke anymore. I was an author. Whether I was a good one or not didn’t really matter, because I was writing and having a good time doing it. I still strive to become a better writer every day, but I changed my mindset of “if I’m not a perfect writer, I shouldn’t publish anything”. I lacked motivation while having this mindset because I knew I could never be perfect enough or good enough, so “Why try?”. The Navigator was a wake-up call for me that, trying and failing is better than never trying at all.
Sure, live sessions still scare me, and yes, I miss due dates sometimes, but I have loved writing for the Navigator and that’s what really matters. Knowing that information about projects and events is going to the right people in a beautiful way called writing is the most fulfilling thing. It gave me an outlet to say, “I’m gonna show up, try my best, have fun and see what happens, because I love writing.”
Columns: 🗞️Staff Stories
Izabell W. has been attending NSA for two years now and this is her first year writing for the Navigator. She has always loved writing and from a very young age, she was writing short stories and children's books. She loves to make videos and always has a creative outlet. Although she is still in middle school, she plans to become an environmental lawyer.