I came into the National High School Institute journalism program with a mission. I was going to be the most fabulous, yummydelicious and determined journalist since my husband, Anderson Cooper.

I was going to be so successful that I’d be able to install three Jacuzzis in my money-themed castle: one for $500 bills, one for 3 billion thread count sheets and one for strawberry pudding.

I was going to have cult-like groupies that would follow me on my investigations to the most exotic of locations like Beirut, Amazonia and Janesville, Wis.

I wouldn’t need an editor because my stories would always be perfect the first time they were turned in. Oh, how I would move the masses with my heart-wrenching tales. I’d have Christiane Amanpour hatin’ on my mad skills.

Basically, my life was going to make other lives jealous.  I had it all planned out, and I didn’t really need any instructors to tell me how to write or talk. My mom already thought I was super.

Instructors, on the other hand, will not love you unconditionally or bake you cookies just because. No, they prefer the tear-your-soul-apart-and-devour-it-giddily approach.

I got all sorts of comments on my assignments. Confused ones, annoyed ones about remembering proper grammar, you name it. Did they not know who I was? I’m me. ME! I just took this journalism gig to brush up on my superior knowledge.

The lectures could be total downers. Almost every journalist that came in talked about how we’d be rich in our experiences and our emotions, but not in our finances. That’s adorable and all, but me gusta dinero mucho. Muy mucho.

I was getting really discouraged. When do I save the world and ensure that justice is served? When do I get that pudding Jacuzzi? The impression I was getting that no matter what I did, my brilliance would never be recognized and I would be doomed to a loft above a bowling alley with stray cats.

And the awesome part of journalism is where?

Life of non-existent fabulosity aside, I began to wonder why I wanted to be a journalist in the first place. I often returned to the dorms too exhausted to partake in all the wild shenanigans of the girls on the first floor. I had called countless people who hadn’t bothered to respond. But this was definitely the life of a journalist and the life that I had been dreaming of since sixth grade. It just wasn’t as I expected it to be at all.

It took some serious soul searching à la Lifetime television to remember my purpose in coming to the program. 

I had become fascinated with human rights in Africa after being educated about the continent’s modern day struggles in school. I wasn’t sure how but I had to make trade fair in Africa, had to stop the genocide, had to stop the pain. If this was impossible, at the very least, I had to expose the wrongs. So I went to the only person who could sort out the mess in my 11-year-old head, my mom.

“Be a journalist,” she said. “Watch Anderson Cooper. He reports on the kind of things that would interest you.”

Geez, my mom is smart.

I fell in love not only with his persona but everything that he stood for. No spin, no cover-ups, just the truths that people should be paying attention to. Yeah, this was my calling.

Fast-forward six years, and I’m typing away in Fisk Hall on a 2:30 deadline and it’s already 2:03. No doubt I complain, but I’m so proud of myself for going through it all.

I love journalists for risking their sanity and safety on a regular basis and I want to join their ranks. I’ve found that journalism is not at all what I expected, but it’s what drives me to delve deeper into the truth. Pudding Jacuzzi or not, who wouldn’t crave such a life? It’s like Roger Boye always tells us: If your mother says she loves you, check it out. But I know my mom thinks I’m awesome.