20+2: As if wandering an endless plain

Three months have passed since I left Ewha Voice. It is no exaggeration to say that Ewha Voice was my everything for the past two years of college life, as I right away became a reporter here as soon as I entered Ewha.

I did struggle and wander a lot while working as a journalist for the first time in my life at a school newspaper. I have even given it some thought about quitting, blazing a new path for my future instead of remaining in Ewha Voice. But when my proposed item was adopted and the article was designed all by myself, when I succeeded in contacting an interviewee who I longed for and finally conducted the interview, and when I witnessed the very article completed and published in the newspaper, I soon got a great deal of energy and felt my heart swell and filled with joy.

Objectively and bluntly speaking, Ewha Voice was not very well known on campus when I first joined. People around me were just simply aware of its existence and not completely familiar with what we do and what we write about. So my Ewha Voice members and I tried harder and harder in diverse ways to publicize Ewha Voice among the student body, and fortunately the efforts we made paid off and bloomed. I was proud enough to see the number of followers on Instagram increasing, the growing participation of school community members while preparing for campus articles, and frequent mentions about Ewha Voice among students. These are the reasons why I cannot help but love and respect my Ewha Voice colleagues who shared all the joys and sorrows with me for two years.

Ewha Voice was synonymous with both love and hatred to me. The tight deadlines, the work that made me stay up all night, the anxiety and nervousness that I felt when I failed to secure interviewees – all these things overwhelmed me for over two years. On the other hand, however, when everything was resolved and each article came out to the world every two weeks, it gave me irreplaceable happiness. It has always been the way. And that is why I did not leave Ewha Voice for over two years.

After putting an end to my story of love and hatred at Ewha Voice, I have been enjoying the freedom of no more repeated deadlines every day and been studying hard enough during the vacation. I also experienced a heartbreaking breakup and am trying to get through its sadness.

Now that I left, I am standing here as if I was left alone in an endless wasteland or plain. It seems like a lost wandering, but also like a frontier where anything can be built up any way I wish. From now on of course, it will all be my choice, my opportunity, and my direction. Sometimes it could be a failure, sometimes a regret, but soon it would be a history of my success.

I am very much looking forward to my future and cannot wait to face it. What kind of life will I hold in my hand? What kind of college life awaits me during my remaining two years? Nobody knows everything about life, but I am not at all afraid of it, but rather feel giddy and excited like a child standing up with white drawing paper and crayons in her hand.