One day, when I found myself alone in the Charlatan office, I decided to place several dozen miniature plastic ducks all around the room.
In the coming days, as people started finding them on their desks, all over shelves and in the pairs of shoes they had left in the office, the prank became my best-kept secret.
My coworkers tried to uncover who the ducker was for the rest of the year, while I sat quietly at my desk with a smirk on my face. It wasn’t until the last Volume 52 staff meeting when I told everyone I was the culprit.
I was the last one anyone suspected — who would think to blame the little second-year arts editor, who didn’t say a lot and was still trying to figure out who she was?
I often look back on my time as the undercover ducker as the time when I started discovering myself as a person. I learned that when I let my true self shine and embrace the unserious moments, I would be celebrated for exactly who I was. I learned to gradually break down the emotional barriers I’d been putting up around myself my whole life.
Until very recently, I never saw myself as a leader. But as I learned to open myself up, genuine connections and friendships blossomed. People started seeing leadership traits in me that I had never dared to see in myself.
As I think back on my four years at the Charlatan, I wonder how first-year Natasha would react if she could see me now. If she saw me reflecting on a successful term of leadership as the Charlatan’s Volume 54 Editor-in-Chief, she surely wouldn’t believe her eyes.
To first-year Natasha who took a chance on the Charlatan, I’m writing this for you. When times get tough, this newspaper will be your home. Not only will it ignite your passion for journalism, but it will shape who you are as a person.
This year was difficult, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise. More than 450 stories crossed my desk and I found myself up until 3 a.m. more nights than I can count helping editors shape each article into the best version it could possibly be.
This year was full of difficult conversations and tough leadership calls I didn’t fully trust myself to make. There were days where it felt like the news never stopped, and it was all I could do to keep up.
But through it all, I find myself bursting with pride. I came into this role with a focus on stability and community outreach, and I am so proud of what this team was able to accomplish. I’m particularly thankful for the intentional conversations we’ve had as a team and the shifts we’ve made to ensure every student has a voice through the newspaper, particularly through the brand-new Culture & Community section.
Above all, we proved we’re unbreakable. Through burnout, backlash and threats to our independent press, we never stopped publishing.
To every Volume 54 editor, thank you for believing me to lead this team, even when I didn’t believe in myself. Thank you for allowing me to learn, make mistakes and find my confidence. Your hard work and relentless dedication to this paper inspires me to be better, and it’s been an honour to work alongside every one of you.
To the more than 100 volunteer writers who contributed to Volume 54, you are the backbone of this paper. Thank you for bringing your eagerness to tackle stories important to the Carleton community. I hope that you develop the same obsession for student journalism as I did, and that this is just the beginning of your Charlatan journey.
To my parents and friends outside of journalism, thank you for reminding me that every problem just needed a little perspective and some deep breaths. You may not have been privy to our relentless publishing schedule or the heavy weights we carried, but you always listened and provided a space for me to escape when I needed a distraction.
Thirty years from now when I look back at my time in journalism school, it won’t be the hours I spent in lecture halls that I’ll remember. I know that memories of sitting within the yellow-painted walls of the Charlatan office will be the first to come flooding back.
To the Volume 55 team, I’m so eager to follow along and see you thrive. This year will go fast, so remember to savour every moment and to be proud of yourselves.
It will be hard to find my identity outside of student journalism, but I know I’m coming out of university as the best version of myself I could have possibly imagined.
As I move on to this next chapter of my life alongside the other graduating editors, I never could have guessed how a spur-of-the-moment purchase of 200 plastic ducks would change my life for the better.
Featured image by Owen Spillios-Hunter/the Charlatan.
