“I’ve been doing journalism for three years now. It all started in the eighth grade, [when] I got mail from [the] high school-a little pamphlet and a letter telling me that my English teacher had recommended me for the program. At that point, I didn’t have many electives I wanted to do, so I thought it would be good to try it out and see what I thought. I wound up involved in CJ1, and I loved it. I did like my first couple of stories, as bad as they were. It was fun writing about people that I knew and things that they’re doing. I will say one tough thing that happened at the end of [last] year: I had to juggle two stories at once because COVID had messed with the whole schedule. I struggled a lot to learn how to draft and do everything online. I work a lot better in person. I like having [face-to-face] conversations. When we were online, Brinda, my section editor, took time out of her day to talk with me after school, work with me on stories, and help me with my sentence structure. She’s been one of the writers at the forefront of my mind when I talk about people who have inspired me. Her advice has pushed me to become an even better writer; I’ve even won two Best of SNO awards with some of her advice, which I’m happy about. [Earlier] this year, I wrote a story about gifted kid burnout. It affected a lot of my friends since they were a part of the gifted program. I could tell they’ve been struggling recently because of all the pressure put on them. I thought, ‘Okay, I want to write about this issue.’ It’s something that’s not raised all that often. So what I did was I got on [the computer] and started drafting, and I ended up loving it. When I posted it, I doubted I would win anything with the story, but I was happy because it was something I enjoyed writing. It ended up being my first Best of SNO, which I was really, really proud of. Winning [the award] was a goal for this year, to be able to get to this point. And I did it. It’s one of my favorite memories.” – Madi Michajliczenko, 11