I love to talk to people – I always have. From the age of three, I have found them interesting. I invited strangers to my birthday party and kept up with the news and current events. I have always been an extrovert. My gift of gab was first discovered during my 13 years of Girl Scouts and 11 of them as a top elite seller. I have sold over 2000+ boxes every year and 27,000 in my lifetime, and received my Gold Award. I found my love and passion for broadcast journalism when I entered high school. Within this small community, I honed in on my craft. I wrote articles and interviewed fascinating people such as restaurant owners, an entertainment lead from SeaWorld who gave me free tickets to Howl-O-Scream, and even a real-life paranormal researcher. I learned the importance of meeting deadlines, the art of camerawork, editing articles, and broadcasts. My favorite has always been the broadcast element: writing scripts, anchoring, and making packages for our school’s weekly shows. I have received nothing but accolades from my time in front of the camera. My engaging scripts and professional demeanor captured my audience of bored teenagers and tired teachers. I had the opportunity to visit a real news station to promote Girl Scout Cookies. I was interviewed by news anchor Teresa Sardina of KUSI. As we chatted off camera, I said to her, “I would love to work with you one day,” and she said to me, “you will.” As an only child, I find solace in solitude, and come alive when I meet new people. I am a first-generation student putting myself through college. I just received my first degree, an AA-Transfer Degree in Journalism at Palomar Community College. I will transfer to San Diego State to fulfill my ambition of becoming a broadcast journalist in the fall.

Taylor Swift is one of the most notable music figures in the pop industry. Her music has inspired numerous generations from the die-hard “swifities” to those reluctant fans who listen to her lyrics in secret. She is an artist whose music deals with real, raw, and emotional material from her breakups to enjoying the uncertainty of life. Swift has been dominating the charts for nearly 20 years with 12 albums released. All of her albums and songs have complex and artistically-styled lyrics all formed to create a lyrical masterpiece. Her latest album, “The Life of a Showgirl” released in October of last year is a 12 track album celebrating her long fruitful career. Met with mixed emotions, Swift’s new album still dominates the charts with the fan favorites, “The Fate of Ophelia” and “Opalite.” This latest work of Swift’s represents a new “era” in her life where she is happily in love with her fiance and most of these songs were written during the time she was performing “The Eras Tour.” While all of these songs express her love of the future, the one song that pays homage to her past, “Ruin the Friendship,” is the most sentimental and nostalgic of all. “Ruin the Friendship” is one of those harmless songs that you come across that ends up bewitching you and soon becomes the top song on your Spotify repeat playlist. In this song, Taylor Swift reflects on her high school years and the crush she had on her childhood best friend. This is a song of longing and regret and all the things she wished she said and did. She writes how she “should have kissed you anyway,” (Swift, 2025) towards her friend who passed away. This song is powerful because Swift is powerful. She has the talent to formulate a song with lyrics that don’t rhyme, yet still creates a harmonious flow. Wishing she would have taken the chance to kiss her best friend and “ruin the friendship,” she now lives with regret and the question of what might have been. This song is a way for her to cope and serves as a PSA to her listeners to never have any regrets. “Ruin the friendship” in your life because living a life with unanswered questions is no life at all. “My advice is always ruin the friendship, better that than regret it for all time,” sings Swift. “My advice is always answer the question, better that than to ask it all your life,” (Swift, 2025). Swift is a storyteller and her most influential songs are the ones where she is vulnerable with her audience and exposes her humanity. This song is relatable to many girls as it expresses a common feeling girls might experience throughout high school. Swift in this song expresses the pain of losing a friend and mourns the time lost. She has made other songs like “Ronan” from her re-released 2021 album “Red” where she sings a eulogy for a little boy who died of cancer around 15 years ago. “Come on, baby, with me we’re gonna fly away from here, you were my best four years,” sings Swift. As long as Taylor Swift makes music that sings to her audiences’ heart and souls, she will forever remain one of the best artists of all time. Her songs tell stories of her past and all the lessons she has learned along the way. Her best ones remain that no matter what happens in life, one must have no regrets because it always is better to ruin the friendship.