Times Are Changing

In a matter of five months my life has went from incredibly depressing to surfing the skies on cloud nine, and the rapid shift in my life’s progression has left me with the strangest time-elapsing whip lash. So much has happened that at times I feel I can’t comprehend the amount I’ve accomplished in this period and, oddly enough, I feel I haven’t finished this trend of quickly occurring positive changes yet.

Recently, while sitting in my comfy office chair, located inside the Bakersfield Californian building, I was offered to cover a quick feature story on one of my old high school teachers. After getting in touch with him via email, he responded to my inquiry and agreed to be interviewed by his former student.

Hi Jasmine,

 Thank you for the email. I am very humbled by your request, and I would love to participate. Let me know when you would like me to be interviewed for the story, and when you want to do the photo-shoot. It will be exciting to work with you again. On another note, I am very proud of where you are at in life, and I am glad that Bakersfield has a writing talent like you.

Talk to you soon.

Ryan Coleman

I responded a little later that day finally comprehending how really telling this situation was to the both of us.

Hey Mr. Coleman,

Thank you for agreeing to participate in this article. I’m really glad I was able to take this assignment and work with you again. You don’t know how awesome this is to be able to work with one of the people who have helped me get to where I am at today.

I look forward to your call.

Jasmine

I never learned to break the habit of calling my high school government teacher and Centennial We The People coach by his sir name (and I don’t think I ever will), but I have realized how much Mr. Coleman had influenced me as a person five years ago and how he has pushed my interest in societal issues and politics to the point that I had to write it all down in articles and shove it all in people’s faces.

In these five years I was an architecture student turned English major and freelance journalist who spent her summers at the most interesting, inspiring and life altering internships and jobs before graduating college. I had loved, lost, ventured off and learned so much about myself and the world around me. I have met some wonderful people and worked with many talented individual such as the amazing editorial staff at Bakersfield Life Magazine and Bakersfield Wellness Magazine, the  amazing women who work with me on Miss Millennia Magazine, our Lady Lennia for the month of March, Alejandra Pulido and our Lady Lennia for the month of April, Mina Khan, who also sent me her book, Dead: A Ghost Story, and I have begun to confidently forge my own path and go my own way even now as I occasionally glance at my BA degree from Cal Poly Pomona and my acceptance letter into the graduate program at Cal State Fullerton (and yes I know I’m totally boasting about myself).

So much has changed in this short amount of time, and I expect many more changes to come in and propel my life further into a wonderful future. I may not know what is to come, but if it’s anything like the last five years, or even the last five months, then I’m all for it, and I can’t wait to see what the universe has in store for me.