Hello, my name is Danyka, and welcome to my e-Portfolio!

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I grew up in a hectic household, filled with a plethora of sisters (six of them), good food, and creative games that usually involved costumes or theatrical performances with no audiences. My house was never quiet, sometimes because of laughter, and other times because of screaming. I give my childhood credit for all of my creativity and eccentricities, as well as my ability to work in incredibly loud environments. 

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As a child, I despised reading. I deeply, deeply despised reading, so much so, that my mother had to bribe me to do it. She promised me that if I finished a book, she'd buy me a cat. I completed the book. I got the cat. I hated the cat. But eventually, my dark dislike for reading faded, and brightened, and turned into an adoration for words. By the time I reached middle school, I was religiously putting down 300-page-books in a day or two, and by the time I got to high school, I discovered that I didn't only like consuming sentences, but creating them.

 

My true love for writing didn't develop until my junior year of high school when I joined the Miller Integrated Nature Experience (MINE), a class that incorporated journalism with backpacking. Through this program, I found a place that inspired me to write, a place I truly didn't expect: nature. Something about eleven mile hikes, bloody ankles wrapped in duct tape, mountains, and lots and lots of trees awoke something slumbering inside of me. I yawned. I opened my eyes, and I wrote.