“Hello, world!” This is a quote from a friend I met in Lebanon during an entrepreneurial competition. I felt power when he said it. It sounded like he has the world in front of him, yet he was strong enough to stand there, face to face, and pitch his idea.
To me, writing is like pitching an idea. It is as hard as facing the whole world with your idea. It is as hard as standing in front of a bunch of judges to pitch your one and only idea. It gives me the same amount of excitement as winning an Oscar does.
Many say words are solid. Well, the story is different to me. When I write, I do it with passion. I turn my emotions into words. I turn my thoughts into viable letters. I can see the alphabet dancing. Sentences run faster in my mind than my fingers on the keyboard.
I wonder how people can’t feel the magic when they read.
I write when I’m happy because someone else will read and remember he or she was once happy for the same reason. I write when I’m sad and depressed to let those feeling under the weather know that they are not alone and someone is sharing their pain. I write to let world leaders know how life looks like from a youth perspective. I write to be the voice of the voiceless. Finally, I write because I believe that one day, just one day, I will be able to change the world.
These were all reasons I applied to the VOY Blogging Internship. My friend Eyad Al-Khayat called me screaming: “You should apply!” At first, I didn’t care much. They will only pick 20 young people from 197 countries. “What makes me good enough to be one of these outstanding 20 writers?” I asked myself. And indeed, I kept postponing the application until Eyad called again and said: “ Apply today!” He wasn’t kidding. It sounded like an order, and I obeyed.
I never expected to be accepted. I didn’t even wait for their email.
My everyday routine includes: waking up, having a hot cup of coffee while going through hundreds of emails in my inbox and checking the news. Seems like a typical morning, ha!
24 November 2015 was not one of these typical mornings. That morning, I received the email I never expected. They told me that they chose me due to my captivating and well-written writing sample from over 3000 other samples. They also told me that they assume my contribution to the Voices Of Youth community will be enriching.
Enough about me and my passion to write. Looking closer at the one who mentored my 12 blog posts - Mischa. Mischa is the Voices of Youth Manager for the English cohort of blogging interns 2015/2016. He made me realize how much I still have to work on my writing, then he helped me through a very long journey of blogging.
I first thought it is easy to write every week. I’m good at English, so what’s the heck, right? He advised me many times to work harder and pay attention to simple and short sentences. An advice I started spreading among my friends when I read their articles.
Mischa wasn’t only someone who read my blog posts and made some comments. He was someone who read in between my lines and helped me deliver powerful messages.
Now that the internship is over, it doesn’t mean I'll stop writing. I will continue to write with more passion. This time I won’t be an amateur writer anymore, but a skilled one. And if I want to thank anyone for this wonderful experience, it would be 2 people: Mischa and my friend.
