A student voices love letter: Missing my favorite thing at camp

I have been talking about you, more often than I would like. I mention you to my peers and they reply with: “girl, I feel you.” It makes me feel much better about these dreadful days without you.

The first day is always the hardest they say, and it is true.

My first day at The Oregonian’s High School Journalism Camp, we did a ropes course but it was more extreme, built for college students who run on five Red Bulls a day. I know: scary. As I entered my first course, I gasped and held on for dear life. I thought about you to ease my anxiety. I continued with the frightening course, but I couldn’t reach the top ropes because I am not “vertically blessed,” as my new friend Molly likes to say, and you became a good coping thought.

I will admit that I stopped thinking about you for a couple of hours. I started to build friendships, something that is out of the norm for my introverted self. It was much easier to make friends at this weeklong camp in Corvallis since everyone came from different schools. We are all new to each other and have the same intention: to chart a new future in journalism. That was something I was excited to see develop as we went through the week.

Fast forward to dinner, it was pretty good on our first night. However, it would’ve been legit if you were here. I tried to replace you, but we all know how that works out…it didn’t. However I will say, the dulce de leche Dutch Bros drink was still pretty good. (Thanks to my mentor Sami for buying, by the way.)

Day two was somewhat better, but everything reminded me of you. During lunch, I heard some small chatter about you and I almost broke down. I actually did, internally.

I mustered up the courage to finally ask Aiden, our chaperone, if I could see you. I’m sure I was driving him insane.

“At last!” I exclaimed, as I drank my beloved matcha.

As I took a sip of my matcha, and another, I pondered. I realized that I was so invested in my matcha that I didn’t take much time to think about the memories I have made at camp. Surprisingly, I became sentimental over this place instead of matcha. That was a first.

I especially loved our after-work hours. We played a couple games and had some movie nights. I will forever remember how we started off playing volleyball and it only took us about 15 minutes to switch it to ‘touchball’ because we couldn’t ever get past one hit. Even touchball was too hard, our high score was four. (That is why this is a journalism camp and not a sports camp.)

I also enjoyed my walks. During walks with my peers to and from places, I got to speak to all my peers and yap about anything and everything. I did the same with my editor Sami. My favorite part from these walks was the time we spent sharing laughs and thoughts. They remind me that this is my favorite part about journalism: I truly crave having deep and meaningful conversations with people from all sorts of backgrounds.

I learned many things about journalism this week and about what “high school journalism nerds” – as my chaperone Naia called us – had to say about the world and about our lives.