Life update: Where have we been?

Sometimes life can move you onto some unpredictable paths

Okay, let’s cut to the chase and answer the question on everyone’s mind—where have we been for the past six months? Well, to put it simply: life happened. 

For me, I made the impromptu decision to switch gears in my journalism career and turn toward teaching. Surprisingly, pursuing teaching can be demanding. Or maybe not so surprising if you have already undergone that process of acquiring experience with children and applying to an Ontario teacher’s college.

It was a total overhaul of my life when I decided to quit writing for a bit and become a children’s program instructor where I’ve been working with kids in the arts and science streams. But next month, I will return to my writing roots as I begin to teach creative writing and performing arts programs geared toward young adults. Of course, I will also do my best to slip in some journalism and blog writing to really solidify my writing comeback. 😌

Alongside my career shift, I have also decided to go back to school. In just a few days, I will be attending the University of Toronto as a non-degree student taking a few English courses. These classes were a necessary step for me in my newfound teaching ambition as I aim to be an English teacher. It should go without saying that I will also use my Media Studies degree to teach as many media and journalism classes a middle school—and eventually high school—allow.

When I think about my life thus far, teaching writing has always been somewhere deeply rooted in my future. While in my undergrad, I was always drawn toward literature courses when it came time to choose electives. And once I started working, I wrote for a parenting magazine that focuses on articles about pregnancy, and of course, children. It was as if for so long the career path of teaching young adults literature was a tarot card dangling above my head—everybody else could see it but me.

But enough about my life. When Paper & Lore was created, it was conceptualized by the brains of two people: me and my best friend Emma. We first thought about creating a blog during the first wave of COVID-19, when the terms “new normal” and “stay at home” were still fresh in our minds and were hurled at us from every social media platform. It was at this time that we found ourselves as newly grads struggling to begin our media careers in a world that was shutting down. Such a situation was enough to make anyone feel like they had to simply take matters into their own hands. And that is exactly what we did.

We created our own sliver of space in the media realm where we could write about our love of books, produce our own recipes and simply talk about our lives. The idea behind this blog was that we would just keep writing until each of our professional careers kicked off. And boy, did Emma’s really flourish. Alongside working as a contributing editor, writer and eventually managing editor at an up-and-coming magazine produced entirely by students and recent grads, she pursued an overseas internship that saw her packing her bags and flying to Tel Aviv, Israel for six months. 

The seven-hour time difference between us made the sporadic WhatsApp calls difficult as one of us was going to sleep, while the other was just waking up. But we made it work the best we could. And now Emma is thriving in Tel Aviv as an associate producer at a news station—how amazing is that?! I think very 😌

With all that being said, we find ourselves in the present. Despite our worlds being oceans away, Emma and I are finally ready to delve back into blog writing. But if you’ve been following us on social media, you probably know that we never stopped creating media content on TikTok (be sure to give us a follow if you haven’t already!). We have garnered a whole new audience by producing our baking videos and for that we would like to extend a very big thank you! 

So what exactly can you expect from our new blog content? Well, there will certainly be plenty of book reviews and, with spooky season just around the corner, we’re foreseeing a whole catalogue of ‘killer’ lifestyle articles (see what I did there?). From fall decor finds to the trendiest Halloween costumes this year, you’ll want to stick around for it all. 

We’re back, ghouls—and the haunting is just about to get started! 👻