Stepping into Garcia’s portable freshman year, I didn’t have any idea I’d be staying past the spring semester Ezine course I had yearned for after a torturous semester of SciTech. At the time, I had a multitude of varyingly realistic career paths planned out. But then, Ence, the lead editor of the Lib at the time, came into class to tell us about the paper with short hair, winged eyeliner and Doc Martens, and being an award-winning journalist shot to the top of that list. Ironically, in three years, this is the first time I’ve ever written for the paper. 

So coveted is the job title of graphics editor that I’ve been the sole official member of the section since I started in my sophomore year. As an underclassman, I tried quite a few extracurriculars, attempting to make the most of LASA’s many clubs, but newspaper was the only one that stuck. Walking out of Late Nights each evening during the week before deadline and hearing a chorus of cheerful goodbyes and cries of “We’ll miss you!” was the first time I felt I really belonged anywhere at LASA. 

I won’t lie; there have been times I’ve looked at the graphics spreadsheet in despair — anguish, even. Possibly devastation, when the requests got past row 30 on my lovingly crafted spreadsheet. Still, it doesn’t compare to the mood in Portable 5A at 7:30 on a Wednesday night, complaining about Mr. Garcia’s music choices and tuning into the six or seven wildly different — though equally impassioned — discussions happening in the same 20-foot space or the feeling of picking up a finished issue. I’m so grateful to have been a part of the paper, and more than that, a part of the group of people behind it.