MY MEDIA AUTOBIOGRAPHY

UNEDITED SAMPLE FEATURE ARTICLE
By Erine Emmanuelle Cawaling Hetrosa
IV-Sir Isaac Newton


“Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.”

-Elie Weisel

I grew up having that insatiable appetite for writing and letting my thoughts out. The queer thing was, my parents never really liked writing. No one in our family that I know loves writing. So it is always a marvel for them how I came to have my passion.

I was born on the 17th of August 1993. I was the first-born and the first grandchild from my Father’s side so anyone can say that I had been spoiled, but in a good way.

Being an only child for 5 years, I had been showered by attention and all my whims had to be attended to. My aunts and uncles piled me with gifts that I came to appreciate very well. Some of those, I play with tirelessly. Others, I don’t pay much attention to. Still others were kept behind the closet, not to be seen again.

At an early age, I had been exposed to rules and discipline. I was on strict schedule. I had to eat at this particular time or to do this or that in certain terms. I had learned to bargain with anyone because of that.

My daily routine was to have breakfast, take a bath and then have some free time until afternoon. I had to sleep early. That was how my day would go. My dad was a disciplinarian (he still is by the way) so we had to go by his rules. My mom was a stickler for rules too. So I grew up obeying them. I won’t say that I did not dare rebel, though.

Anyway, my mother exposed me to educational television shows and the likes so I grew up watching “Sesame Street”, “Batang Batibot”, “Bananas and Pajamas” and a lot more. The result was that I was so eager to go to school even if I was barely three years of age.

My mother told stories about me, to the whole family’s amusement, having tantrums whenever someone won’t give in to my request every night. And that simple request would be to read me a bedtime story. I had a collection of “Winnie the Pooh” stories, happily-ever-after fairytales and even not-so-popular children stories. The bottom-line was to read to me. And that was it.

I entered school before I turned three so by the time that I was four, I knew how to read. I didn’t have to have somebody to read to me. My experience with media became more on broader. I learned how to read the paper even if it was only the horoscope or the comic’s page.

As for the television, I remembered watching those Mexican telenovelas like “Marimar”, “Rosalinda”, and “Camilla”. I recalled how their stories all seemed to be alike. And then, there were the cartoons which were aired over and over again like “One Piece”, “Slamdunk” and “Ghost Fighter”. I soon got tired of the local channels so I switched my attention to our VHS or VCD and DVD players. We would rent movies or go to the movie house every Sunday or so.

I can’t remember a time that I skipped watching the evening news. It was a permanent show for us. We would crowd before the television to watch the news and eagerly wait for the upcoming teleserye.

As I entered my 5th grade of schooling, I started to lose my interest on television but the passion for reading and writing remained the same. I entered an inter-school competition for Journalism under the category “Copyreading and Headline Writing” during the same year. I won first place in the District Level but lost in the Division Level.

The following year, I was placed under the category “Feature Writing”. I liked it better than Editorial Writing because I get to express my emotions freely, play with the words and symbolism and delve deeper into the topic given, be it politics, holidays or just plainly letting my thoughts out. Another thing was that I have always considered Editorial Writing too serious and Feature Writing more colorful and interesting.

I love writing because I am able to express my inner thoughts, suppressed emotions and hidden views. It gives me my freedom to let other people know how I truly feel inside. Whenever I feel down and out, and there’s no one available to understand, my pen and paper is there, always ready to ‘hear’ me out.