Every Sunday evening at the National High School Institute - Journalism, Liz Sawyer sits in Fisk Hall and waits for the festivities to begin. She sits through the technology tutorials with instructor Sarahmaria Gomez and the Club Vlog video of the week. But Sawyer is distracted.
She waits impatiently in her chair for Blog-o-rama.

Sawyer of Michigan is one of 12 students who participated in the Blog-o-rama, a weekly event that gave students have the opportunity to read their blogs entries on stage in front of their 82 peers.

“I will sit there, shaking with fear before-hand, but I have fun once I get up there and people start laughing at my jokes,” Sawyer said.  

Blog topics ranged from the death of a family pet to a crazy roommate. Some chose to speak about their lives at home, while others focused on life at Northwestern.

By blogging, cherubs such as Sawyer learned a lot about themselves.

“I’ve learned that I’m more confident than I originally thought, and I’ve learned that people like you to be honest with what you are saying,” she said.

Clemence Kim of California is happy he participated in the blog readings. He improved his writing and developed his own voice for his news articles.

“Writing my blogs helped me to make my articles better because I learned to write how I speak, which is something they always tell us to do here,” Kim said.

Rachel Bracker of California wrote her dog that died during the five-week program. Reading her entry to her fellow cherubs helped her to learn that the people at NHSI were much kinder than she originally thought.

“When I wrote the blog about my dog dying, people came up to me and talked to me about it that I never thought would have,” Bracker said. “I was so happy to figure out that people were touched by my stories and what I was saying.”

Hana Engroff of Florida learned about the personalities of the bloggers just by listening to them.

“You get a sense of who people are because they open up. It’s really informal, and everyone just goes up and talks, so it’s easy to listen,” Engroff said.

Students vote for their top three favorite blogs. At the end of five weeks, the blogger with the most votes wins a prize.

Kim said he was not in it for the reward. He appreciates the opportunity to tell his friends a little more about himself.

“I could get close with everybody here because I was literally sharing myself with everybody on Sunday,” Kim said. “I’m happy I did Blog-o-rama, whether I win or not.”