College Essay

For my Vanderbilt and Yale applications, I chose to write a short supplemental essay about this website and how passionate I am about keeping it alive. I thought I would share it here to talk about the journey that has led to the blog you know today as well as express just how proud I am of this website and why I continue to blog. 
xoxo
Hannah
*****

Ten 12-year-olds sat on top of their sleeping bags, wide awake despite the ungodly hour. Our host’s parents had come downstairs 3 times now, telling us to go to bed, but keeping our voices hushed proved harder than expected: we were excited.

Instead of playing a menagerie of card and board games like we normally did, we had decided to make our own virtual magazine. Our mission was to provide advice, quizzes and games, and style tips, from middle schoolers to middle schoolers.

The first edition of “(In) Parenthesis” was published about a month later and we were immensely proud of it: no one else our age (that we knew of) had attempted something like this. Alas, our editor couldn’t handle compiling 20 articles between homework and band practice. The first edition of “(In) Parenthesis” was also its last.

The fashion and interior design sections splintered off and started our own magazine, similar to (In) Parenthesis, but focused solely on style. This too fizzled after a few months, but writing about my style and reflecting on my daily life was something I came to truly enjoy and I wasn’t about to give up on something I had come to be so passionate about. Thus, “Twirl”, my blog, was born. It got, maybe, a view or two a day, but that didn’t deter me. I wasn’t writing this blog for views or for popularity to begin with, I was writing for the same reason I loved making those virtual magazines: my work, my original content, was being published.

After asking my friend to co-write with me, we changed the name to "Freckles and Olives", changed the appearance countless times, and gradually improved our content quality--scrolling through our archive is like watching us grow up. 

We now get about 50 views a day instead of 1 or 2. This past summer, we were invited to join the Her Campus Blogger Network. While we've changed and the blog has changed, its purpose has remained the same: the blog is my excuse to make time in my day for creativity. I love how writing for the school newspaper challenges me and I love running the website for my school's creative writing magazine, but there's nothing more rewarding than the pride that comes from watching something that I've created grow and evolve.