Not another teen diary

SpunOut's newest diarist! Hi, I'm Miriam, 16, from Manorhamilton...

Miriam is part of the 'School Journal' team: a project where 16 teenagers work together to produce a fresh and funky book that acts as a school diary, a source of handy info and a health and lifestyle resource. They write and edit all the articles and they are responsible for directing the format and design. There have been 2 versions of the journal to date and it's gone on to receive international praise.

I got started in this whole school journal thing one Thursday when I got out of Art class to go listen to Ruairi give us a talk about it.

He handed out the journals that the last group had done and everyone flicked through them. I absolutely love writing (except for English essays and discussion of Irish poems and physics questions that don't make any sense) and said exactly how much I wanted to get into this journal thing to my friend Catherine who was sitting beside me. This turned out to be a mistake as she started going crazy trying to make sure other people wouldn't enter so I wouldn't be disappointed.

It turned out only about 7 other people were interested (this is little when you consider how many people were in that room!) but only 4 would be going so I still wasn't assured a place.

Our “entrance examination” was to write about why we wanted to be in the journal. Now here was my time to shine. Have I not always said how much I love writing? Did I not win some competition, a while back, for something about a cat? Was I not surely going to write an excellent piece, full of witty exclamations and modest self-complements?

Who was I kidding? I couldn't write, I couldn't –

So after a feverish panic attack, I calmed down, stuck my fingers in my ears, and tried to think. Then I wrote a blackmail letter threatening to set hounds on Ruairi if he didn't take me on.

And what do you know, it worked! They took me on! I'm here!

You know, thinking back, I'm really wondering what sort of people they are …

Read part 2 of Teen diary.

By: Miriam Needham

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