Intro Into Who I am

Olivia Hoag
Aug 31, 2018 · 5 min read

Hello, I am Olivia Hoag and I’m a Junior in the Electronic Journalism Arts Department here at Lyndon. You would think that my experiences with social media would be excellent but that isn’t entirely true. Yes, I have Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram but still have new things to learn about social media. Some things I could learn are; live tweets, Instagram stories and Facebook Live.

When thinking about where I am in my time at Lyndon some things come to my mind. Is it really my third year here, am I going to tough enough or cut throat for the industry?

When I think about the work I’m doing in this degree, I can’t truly say that I’m 100 percent proud of myself. I haven’t gotten there yet. To be truthfully honest, last semester I failed Visual Production 2 and couldn’t proceed into News7. However, I am not really that torn up about it, since I need the extra time to get myself ready for the world of the newsroom. Another reason, I can’t say that I’m proud of myself is because sometimes I question if I’m good enough, or do I work hard enough and other times I do believe that I’m good enough. But those times that I question myself and sometimes my life, are hard and I struggle with it, because it affects my depression and anxiety. I realize that sometimes I can be too hard on myself, but how else can I strive to be better? Sometimes it’s a daily struggle especially around finals and midterms because my Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Depression are like bulls fighting with my soul and motivation. I try to never let the bad bulls win and it’s hard some days, but I’m learning everyday how to relax a little bit better.

When I am challenged, I can respond in two ways; irritated or inspired. I will explain how I respond in each way. I may respond, being irritated by becoming defensive. I might also respond, being inspired by truly taking on the challenge in front of me. Now, I will take you on a blast through the past, back to almost six years ago. Six years ago, I was in the end of my ninth grade year. At that time, I was signing up for classes for the next year, and I signed up for an Advanced Journalism class. My guidance counselor and parents warned me not to take the class because I would fail the class. I wanted to prove them wrong and I did. I passed that class with a B and took the class again in the twelfth grade.

I am at my best as a storyteller, when I interact with the “average” person. Of course, average is subjective. What really is average? I know for sure that I am not average, I am different in many ways. Besides, no one is actually average, they just have different circumstances, backgrounds and personalities. However, I enjoy being empathetic and telling the full story as a storyteller.

I am at my most creative, when I’m outside or in nature. Other times my creative “juices” just come out onto paper, or in my dreams at night. Sounds weird, right? It just happens to sometimes make its way into my dreams at night.

I need for you to be understanding that I am like a squirrel. I know that sounds weird but let me explain. When I say that I am a squirrel, I mean that I can get distracted easily, focus on something intently and my ADHD makes me energetic sometimes randomly. Oh, and one more thing I can be chatterbox, believe or not, it’s true.

My strengths as a reader and writer are figuring out how to word/say something differently or think of questions that need to be answered.

I want to learn how to write about difficult topics in a way that is approachable without sounding insensitive. I am curious about how writing or posts on social media can come across as being sensitive.

I want you to know that I am really empathetic and that’s just a part of me and my personality. I struggle with sometimes being too caring and unfortunately this made me a target for bullies growing up. I will ask a ton of questions and I sometimes have troubling expressing my opinion about things. I have trouble with seeing things in gray, meaning that I see things very “black and white” a lot of the time. “Black and white” is the equivalent of good and bad. I get focused on a topic and want to know as much as I can about it.

I’m not entirely sure what other questions you should be asking me, but I believe that answered the questions asked truthfully and thoroughly.

I thought that the podcast was a great tool. The podcast made me think differently about social media as a source for news.

    Olivia Hoag

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