Family, French, fiction.
These are the elements that make up senior Lily Saylor’s life. One of these elements, family, has had a large impact on Saylor, especially her bond with her sister.
“So the first person that’s had a huge impact on my life is my sister, Jada,” said Saylor. “She’s 23, and she is my best friend – she’s been my best friend since I was born, and she is the person that motivated me to do everything.” Although there is a significant age gap between her and her sister, their relationship was never affected by it. Due to her sister being older, Saylor has gained a lot of inspiration from her, from the hobbies she enjoys to her sense of style.
“She’s a person who has always inspired me,” said Saylor. “I started playing soccer because she played soccer, I stole my fashion sense from her, I stole my music taste from her. She’s everything.”
Another thing that Saylor shares with her sister is her love for languages. Despite her sister taking Spanish, Saylor has decided on another route: French. As a fourth-year student, Saylor has fallen in love with French culture. Because of this, during the past summer, Saylor took a trip with her sister to France.
“I went with my sister for two weeks, and everything about it was so much cooler than America,” said Saylor. To her, lots of things in France were vastly different from what she had experienced in the United States. One of these things was the food.
“From what I had, the food was also so much better,” said Saylor. “Specifically, there was one dish that was incredible. Honey goat cheese arugula pizza is the most amazing thing I’ve ever eaten.”
Also, because France is the country of fashion, from the multiple designer brands to the annual fashion week, Saylor couldn’t help but be awed by how fashionable day to day outfits were. “I felt really inspired to dress better because people in France generally always look put together and more professional than the average person—in Indiana at least.”
Though studying French is something that Saylor enjoys, she has another subject in mind: writing. “I’ve been writing since I was about three,” said Saylor. “I love writing so much. I didn’t think that I would be a journalist, but I always knew I wanted to do something with writing.”
To practice writing, Saylor has done a multitude of things, from journalism to publishing short stories. “Last spring, I published a little story that I wrote. It was 3,000 words on this website that gives you a prompt every week,” said Saylor. “It was the first time I’d ever released something, and I got 10 or 15 comments from people that read it and said they loved it.”
In the future, Saylor plans to pursue journalism at the University of Chicago or Northwestern University. “I feel like writing is such an end goal for me,” said Saylor. “I think I’m really good at writing and I love it, so it’s either that or nothing.”