The Path to Becoming a Journalist. Part 1

I just had this wonderful idea that I would catalog the journey that I have taken from a job in human resources sales to that of professional journalist. The only problem is that my journey started over a full year ago, so I have missed-out on reporting all of the interesting and crazy and scary things that have happened to me in the last 14 months. I won't try to recap it all, but i will provide just an outline of the last year, both for the selfish reason that I want a record of it and just in case anyone else might want to read it (though I doubt it).

I've always been a writer. I've always been a writer. I've ALWAYS been a writer. I was a writer when I was barely able to write the entire alphabet. I used to scribble stories in pencil on those wide-ruled pages that they gave kindergartners to teach them how to write letters. I remember one story was about big, mean, dragon-like creature that crept into little boys bedrooms in the dark of night to scare them. Funny a kid's imagination.

I continued to write all through middle school and through high school, where I actually wrote a really good poem called "Evening Watch," which I am still crazy about and which still pretty much expresses most of the emotions that define me.

But that's not what I am writing about. I am writing about writing, and the poem that I wrote in high school was some damn good writing, and for that I was proud.

I wrote all through college, too. Got a degree in history and creative writing, and promptly got a job in sales.

Seven years later I decided it was no use hiding from the fact that I was and always will be a writer. But how does one get into writing? I had barely picked up my pen in years, with the exception of a few brier periods of creativity. I didn't know where to start, and how someone could make a transition from sales to making money at writing. I knew how to write, but the business was just so alien.

I enrolled at Georgetown University in the fall of 2008 at the age of 30. In January of 2009, I started classes, exactly one week since having knee surgery. It was snowing that first day of class, and I was hobbling through slush on crutches, wincing in pain, with a metal brace on my leg. I made my way up to the doors of Walsh Hall, which is just across the street from the basement bar, The Tombs. I took the elavator to the third floor, and found my first class: Covering Other Cultures.