Max Sotelo Final Portfolio

MAX SOTELO

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MAX SOTELO

SUCCESS is a journey... not a destination.

I could write a reflection about all the work I put into the newspaper this semester and lie about how motivated I was and what I did. But I feel like my growth was more personal than on a newspaper level. This was my last semester in high school. I feel beyond ready to put the last four years behind me. This school year solidified this as the worst experience of my life. But my best friend, Gloria, once said, “You have to get through the bad to get to the good.”

In my reflection from last semester, I feel like I barely only touched the surface of how I really feel/felt. I still had not processed what really happened to me, it all just happened so fast.

“It all happened so fast,” is what people say after something traumatic happens that changes the trajectory of their lives.

The traumatic event in question is the entirety of the 20202021 school year. Mostly just the first semester.

Honestly, I am kind of being dramatic. But I will remember this unique experience forever.

Like Ms. Hart said at the Quill and Scroll induction, I took

on a role that no student should ever have to take on. However, I learned a lot through it all and I am thankful for that. It was all hard, but I made it to the other side.

I remember early in the beginning of the year, Mr. LaVigne said this school year would fly by. I blinked and this semester was almost over.

In my last portfolio, I mentioned a moment on the first day of in-person instruction where I felt the spirit of leadership awaken in me. I now realize that that was not a “spirit of leadership.” It was a survival instinct.

It was a fight or flight moment. I had a choice: fight to keep the class under control and successful, or I could have just backed off and let it all fall apart in front of my eyes, much like the world did in these past 14 months.

I chose to rise to the occasion. It all fell on me to make this class successful. I never really stopped to think about how much was on my plate or process any-

thing that was happening.

I remember getting back from winter break and the virus was absolutely out of control. So many deaths every day, so many people I knew personally who fell ill. From that surge alone I knew of two people in my extended family and family friends who passed away.

I still felt the same immense amount of pressure from the beginning of the year to be there for the newspaper class, even on the days there were more empty chairs than people. At this point I began working in my new position as bookkeeper at Safeway and with that came the 40 hours a week I spent working. I remember being so hopeful they were going to cancel school again…

February 5th was the day I was at work doing my silly little tasks when I saw a load of missed calls from my mom.

I had been notified that I “may have been” exposed to COVID-19 at school.

Production day was the next day. I felt differently than I thought I would.

I thought I would be so worried about the paper. Truth is, I was not. I was relieved, ecstatic, and at peace. When I got back, I realized it did not matter if I was there, the newspaper would still find a way to prevail. Much like a cockroach when you think it’s dead.

After the December issue distribution was a failure, my motivation and effort in the newspaper really just hit the floor. I sat in the back of the classroom, I slept on the floor, I explicitly told people I did not care. I just wanted so badly to move on with my life. I still loved the newspaper, but I had absolutely no motivation to do anything. I was a slacker.

Maybe it was a chronic case of senioritis, or maybe it was something deeper.

For the past four years, Newspaper has been my escape from the cruel world of high school. I will forever be grateful for this.

This semester was a lot better than the last for the newspaper, and I’m glad I got to see it back to some level of normality.

When Ms. Hart came back, I just felt a lot of weight get completely pulled off

my shoulders. I no longer had to be the glue keeping the class together and now I really got to sit back and just relax.

At the end of the year, I still needed to tend to responsibilities that come with being editor-in-chief. Even though I was only supposed to be online editorin-chief, and I never even applied for the print editor-in-chief, I had a lot of those responsibilities. We completely abandoned the online newspaper this semester. I wish I could have had the motivation to work on both editions, but circumstances change and things happen that we can never predict.

I realize that my high school experience is not normal. I will never be the same after any of this. I have changed so much since my freshman year in this class. In good ways for the most part.

I’ve matured, worked on bettering myself and living life to the fullest. Things happened throughout this school year that should not have happened. But they did. And I had no control over them. One thing I do have control over is where I go from here after all of this.

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My most significant piece of written work was this article for the March issue about lawmakers attempting to restrict voting access. It was very interesting doing the research and finding out the reasons for these bills. It was interesting getting interviews from people with all different perspectives. It is also baffling how people just outright believe the 2020 election was won unfairly or illegally. I guess some people just get really mad when they do not get their way.

Like many things in the past fourteen months, researching this story and the process of writing it opened my eyes to the ways of the world.

F E B R U A R Y

MARCH

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MAY