I haven’t been neglecting my writing. On the contrary, I’m writing constantly. I’m writing papers for my classes, writing blogs for Vox, editing stories for Vox, writing headlines and decks and sidebars and intros for Vox. Seeing a theme?

It’s not too bad. Sure, the beginning of the semester was impossible, and I still spend the majority of my days in the Vox office. But the year is winding down, and I can see a light at the end of the tunnel. A light of full nights of sleep and eating meals at home and doing my homework at a reasonable time of the night.

Yes, Vox is hard, but it shouldn’t be easy to graduate from the best journalism school in the country. And it’s not as if we weren’t well prepared for it. Every time I called home to tell my mom how hard my current journalism classes were was always just preparation for what lay ahead.

And now I’m prepared for the world. We have critiques every Friday at Vox, and every Friday, our critiquers tell us how impressive the work we’re doing is and how awesome our qualifications are going to be right out of college. Everyone has encouraged me to pursue whatever I want, and I’m going to.

Next semester is looking bright, and the time following even brighter. Come spring, I’ll be taking the Magazine Publishing capstone, interning at The Missouri Review a second time, TA-ing for my favorite class, Magazine Editing, and serving as the editor of Vox’s blog, VoxTalk. Things are looking up!