I woke up groggy and checked the time. It was 2:40 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 9, 2012. I threw on my lived-in slims and my too-tight Belle & Sebastian t-shirt, which had a picture of a girl and boy chemist working in a lab together with a drawing of dopamine above them. Maybe I would have a happy relationship with the newspaper, but at the time, I was already 10 minutes late to my interview.

By an act of God, or by my lovely editor (and eventual editor-in-chief) Laira Martin, I was hired as a Lifestyle contributing writer my freshman fall quarter. I ate and drank, wrote and edited, published and printed, all the while moving up to staff writer my winter quarter. At the end of that quarter, I was promoted to become a co-editor for the Lifestyle Section with the ever-talented Jean Lee. My freshman year came to a close, and I would steer the section alone for my second year. It’s a daunting task, truly, and I admire and respect every editor that has been, or is currently, with the UCSD Guardian.

What makes the Guardian such an amazing experience to go through is that we aren’t a family. We aren’t, really. I look nothing like Lauren Koa or Zev Hurwitz (okay, maybe a little like Zev). Taylor Sanderson could be my mom, but she isn’t. (Actually EmKu should be our mom, if anything.) Kelvin Noronha isn’t my brother or my nephew or my uncle. And Teddi Faller isn’t my little sister.

We’re students, and we chose to be part of the Guardian. You are born into a family, but with the Guardian, we are born out of our own ambitions and passions. We crave to make a name for ourselves, to put in hard work and long days to be something greater. We collaborate as a team of inspired individuals who work to, well, tell it how it is, straight-up. We edit and rewrite, pore over texts and pages on InDesign, and as we change our product, we ourselves are changing.

I couldn’t say any less of myself. Without the Guardian, I don’t think the same doors of opportunity would have opened up to me anywhere else. And this doesn’t go without a few shout-outs to the people who helped me get to where I am today.

To Lair Bear, my big and the one whose footsteps I strived to follow. To Allie Kiekhofer and Rachel Huang, you two were the firm voices in edits and the anchor to my section (and hilarious — that, too). To Dorothy Van and Zoe McCracken, design is tough — I’ve tried. But my section would be a blank page without your creativity and perfectionism. And to Teddi Faller, my successor, my little, if you will. You were the first writer I hired in the fall (ever, actually), the first writer I hired as an Editorial Assistant and you were the first writer who I knew, from Day One, would eventually take the reins to my beloved Lifestyle Section. It’s all yours now; I know you’ll take care of it.

And here I am now, out of space and out of time. The memories have been good, the nights have been long and the people I’ve met through the Guardian will always hold a special place in my newspaper-inked heart. I could never really say goodbye to the Guardian, so I’ll keep it casual: It’s been dope.