Hey, my name is Wesley Nathaniel McLaren, but I just go by Wes. I grew up in a military family and have been everywhere. For example, I was born on an air base in Okinawa. That’s in Japan. Crazy, huh? I’ve lived in Florida, Michigan, South Carolina, California, Oklahoma, Germany and Saudi Arabia until my dad retired and moved us to Shreveport, Louisiana just in time for freshman year in high school. Despite all the moving, our family has stayed together and I’m happy that my family has strong bond.
My dad was Air Force pilot and my mom just stayed at home, but she was always obsessed with photography and filming me and my older brother and younger sister. Pretty much every part of my life is on film, which is sort of how I got interested in keeping a record of everything in my life, whether it was through photography, film, or writing. Mainly writing. I pretty much wrote every chance I got at school, I was even editor in chief of my high school’s newspaper senior year.
Finally, after all the hard work, I get into the University of Central Texas. Look at me, a CenTex Hawk. I really thought CenTex was going to waitlist me or something, because their communication school is bar none, the toughest in the region. My GPA wasn’t the greatest in the world because I was either writing something for the newspaper or working at the local grocery store. Must’ve been the essay. Anyway, as a freshman, I started writing for the newspaper at UCTX, The Hawk’s Call as an entertainment writer. I think its pretty cool, going to movies for free. Writing just sort of came naturally to me, so it was really no big deal every time to write an article.
I like to think that I am a good person. I’ve always been branded as sort of a nerd because I never was able to have a girlfriend. It’s not my fault that I just find myself too busy to have a girlfriend. Or maybe it is my fault? I don’t know, I try not to overthink. Bad for health, or so I’ve heard. But there are times where I just can’t help but think things through. Anyway, yes I do like girls and I try to at least keep my eye on one every chance I get.
However, I always make sure that I have a good friend or two around. For example, when I began my sophomore year, I became friends with this freshman girl, Mia Barnes, in my Biology class. She is such a tomboy, so it’s pretty much like I’m hanging out with a guy who gives out good advice. That class was such a joke and Mia and I knew it, so we just either fooled around on our computers or just skipped the class in general. I don’t usually make a habit of missing classes, but that’s the beauty of college sometimes. As long as I keep the GPA at a good number, my parents don’t really complain about footing the bill.
Because of that class, Mia and I are teammates. She’s my Robin to my Batman. My Abbott to my Costello. You get the idea. Anyway, when she joined the student television station, HawksTV, to work on an entertainment news show Close Up, I joined up with her. So now, along with writing for the newspaper, I’m also working on a television show? Amazing. All I can say is that the girls are prettier at the TV station than at the newspaper. I thought I could get a girlfriend through the station, but my parents warned me against having a girlfriend in the “workplace,” so I decided against trying to find one at the station. It’s not like any of them showed any interest anyway.
But yeah, that’s me, Wes. A globetrotting, sushi-loving, Coppola-watching college student who is pulling double duty on TV and in print. I love my life.
MIA BARNES
What’s up, my name is Mia Barnes. No middle name. No nicknames. Just Mia. I’ve lived in Houston, Texas all my life, had the same friends, same neighbors, same neighborhood. So you know I was stoked when I finally graduated so I can experience freedom in the form of college at the University of Central Texas. Yessssss!
I grew up in a pretty weird family. Unless you consider having seven older brothers (including a set of twins) normal. My dad works as some financial thing that I can’t really describe and my mom is a middle school science teacher. Because of my dad’s job, I never had a job. All I had to do was ask my dad, show that I’m responsible enough and done, I get what I want. That is why I’m a bit closer to my dad than my mom, especially since she thinks I’m too spoiled. Psh, whatever.
And then, there are my seven brothers. I was always forced into playing sports with my brothers, mainly because without me, they won’t have even teams. Football. Soccer. Baseball. Basketball. Street Hockey. You name it, I probably played it. And they didn’t take it easy on me either. I didn’t want them to anyway. I like to think I got as many scrapes and bloody noses as I dished out.
Despite the fact that I was known around high school as a major tomboy, I still had a bit of a girly girl side. I was on the dance team, I (regrettably) giggled every time a cute guy would pass by and say hey, and at least once a week or so, I’ll wear a skirt or a shirt that shows off my boobs. Not bad, considering that a majority of the clothes I wore were actually hand-me downs from my brothers. Nevertheless, my closest friends in high school were always guys. The closest thing I ever had to a best girl friend is my gay friend named Adrian. Hahahahaha.
More so later in my high school life, I became more into getting a boyfriend. The girly girl side of me was taking over, and I was completely fine with it. Out with my brothers’s old clothes, in with the dresses, skirts, short shorts, and tight fitting shirts and jeans. I managed to be in two relationships in the last two years of high school after my “feminization,” if that’s even a word. But I still like that a part of me is still that tomboy.
So after graduating at the top of my class, I headed over to UCTX so I can learn how to work in the television and film industry. I took a film class in high school and I really liked it and I felt like that was the thing I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
Once I got there, I instantly clicked with a sophomore named Wes in my biology class. We pretty much had the same outlook on life as well as a common appreciation for all things Coppola. You can say that we’re pretty much best friends. But, there’s this one guy I met in my Intro to Media Studies class, Matthew Walsh. Oh my god, he is so cute! I would do almost anything to make him mine…scratch that, ANYTHING. I hear that he actually has a full ride at CenTex or something, so he must be really smart, on top of the fact that he is soooooooo fine. If he loves The Godfather and sesame chicken like me, he is perfect!
I saw a flyer to volunteer for HawksTV, the student television station, and I took particular interest in working for this entertainment show, Close Up. So after convincing Wes to come with me, we both went to the station. It is pretty impressive, complete with professional looking cameras, a decent studio, and some cool people. I was already pretty won over by the station when who do I see? Matthew Walsh. This is going to be an interesting four years.
MATTHEW WALSH
Yo. Matthew Walsh here. When people look at me, all they see is a pretty face. That “oh, he must’ve got everything because of his good looks” attitude. It was never that easy for me.
I was born in San Antonio. I remember very little about my parents, except that they were young and tried to give me as much as they can. However, at the age of six, my parents died in a car accident after going out to a movie theatre while my grandmother babysat me. A couple months later, she passed away and for three years, I was passed from foster home to foster home across Texas. Every time I thought I found a home, child services moved me again.
It wasn’t until I was nine when an older 50-something year old retired couple took me in and let me live with them in Spring Branch, a little country town outside San Antonio. They had grown-up children who had their own families and they missed being parents, so I took their last name and for the first time in a while, I was happy.
In high school, when I wasn’t driving my parents around, picking up their medicine and doing my homework while they played bingo, I played football as a quarterback and occasional wide receiver. By the beginning of senior year, our team was second-ranked in the state and amongst the top 25 teams in the nation and I was named one of the most underrated college football prospects in the state, with scouts stating that I had “Division I speed with Division III height”.
I was starting quarterback in our first game against another nationally ranked team from Shreveport, Louisiana until an awkward tackle made while I was crossing the endzone tore my ACL, effectively ending my football career.
A week later, my father won a camcorder in a game of bingo, and gave it to me. While my leg was still in a cast, my coach hired me as the team videographer, as I taped all the football games for my former teammates to watch. Utilizing this, my team slaughtered the competition and paved a way to an undefeated, state championship season. It was bittersweet to see my team win the state championship, knowing that there could’ve been more that I could’ve done for the team.
Anyway, outside of football, school was school. I found the classes pretty easy and I never made anything lower than a B. I always liked to hook up more than engage in a relationship. Especially with high school. What good is a relationship when you’re just gonna break up in three weeks, I always believed.
During the spring semester senior year, I had numerous academic scholarship offers from the most prestigious of colleges. Harvard. Princeton. USC. Stanford. The local congressman even promised me that he would see to it that I get appointed to either West Point or the Naval Academy, if I so desired.
With the exception of the military, all the offers were partial scholarships. I didn’t want my adoptive parents, with all they did for me, to spend money I know they didn’t have on my education. I was about to talk to them about going into the military when I learned that the University of Central Texas offered me a full scholarship to their prestigious communication school. I quickly accepted the offer.
So here I am at Central Texas as a freshman in college. I don’t know what I’m going to do after I graduate, but I want to keep close with sports. I volunteered at HawksTV, the student television station, to work on the sports show, Hawks SportsZone, but it interfered with my class schedule. I mean, I find college so easy at times, I could of just skipped class just to do the show, but I felt it wouldn’t be worth the trouble. The only show I could work in is Close Up, an entertainment news show. I just auditioned for host, and I got it.
I like the potential for hook-ups at the station. There are a lot of good-looking girls here. Even this one girl, Mia, who I met in my Intro to Media Studies class I would be down to hook up with. But then I met the one girl who I am convinced that she means more to me than a casual hook-up: Caitlin Santos.
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