Governor’s Honors Program attendees Logan Huntsman, Max van Wagtendonk, Liza McPherson, Anna Shaikun and Sarah Thomas (from left to right) pose on the Georgia Southern University Campus on July 2. Shaikun found confidence and community with a group of kazoo-playing GHP attendees. “Now, my time at GHP serves as a mental anchor for me when I feel isolated. I’ve made a vow to march to the tune of my own kazoo, with confidence that the right people and opportunities will find me,” Shaikun said. Photo courtesy of Logan Huntsman
Digital Editor-in-Chief Anna Shaikun describes her experience at the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program and how it improved her confidence.
My most prized possession is a kazoo.
I would have to pay someone to take the cheap plastic instrument off my hands. Yet, it symbolizes the most influential period in my life: the month I spent attending the Georgia Governor’s Honors Program.
While the English language has been a true love of mine for years, my high school English experience was often a one-note song.
Kids in the back row snored through Shakespeare while the same three people spoke in underwhelming Socratic seminars. My passion dulled to pianissimo.
Everything changed when I attended GHP, a summer enrichment program at Georgia Southern University, as a Communicative Arts major.
Everything changed when I attended GHP, a summer enrichment program at Georgia Southern University, as a Communicative Arts major.
My Comm. Arts classes improved my existing literary analysis and writing abilities and pushed me into areas I’d never studied. We delved into African literature, wrote five genres of short stories in one week, and analyzed film as text through an extensive viewing of “The Godfather“.
Meanwhile, I bonded with the most passionate people I’d ever met. A boy distributed plastic kazoos to a few lucky individuals, and the first five of us formed a tight-knit group that we dubbed the “Krewzoo.”
From enthusiastic film nerds to engineers who used rocks and napkin dispenser springs to invent machines, everyone was outstanding in their own field. Parading around campus kazooing en ensemble, we also stood out as a group. There was no need to fit in.
As my confidence developed, I decided to audition for Coffeehouse — an event where Comm. Arts majors competed to present their prose and poetry to the GHP student body.
While I considered myself a strong writer before GHP, I realized that I constantly limited myself. I had written sonnets and news stories alike, but they were restrained by the structures of iambic pentameter or a word count. If I could free myself, what could I write?
My Coffeehouse submission fell outside my comfort zone — I wrote a combination of an inspirational speech, stand-up comedy, and commentary on the human condition.
I emphasized humankind’s innate desire to create legends and lore, and how that need manifested at GHP through the deification of William, our kazoo supplier (we called him the “Kaziah”).
I emphasized humankind’s innate desire to create legends and lore, and how that need manifested at GHP through the deification of William, our kazoo supplier (we called him the “Kaziah”).
As the audience cheered, I realized that a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to attempt to write this piece, let alone perform in front of 300 students. I wouldn’t have dreamt of sticking out more than my neon green kazoo. GHP allowed me to be shamelessly strange.
As my friends and I wandered the GSU campus warbling “Seven Nation Army” on our kazoos, we garnered quite a few stares. But others joined us, whether fellow “kazoo majors” looking to duet or people who clapped in time with the music.
Through my GHP experience, I learned that to conform to expectations is to kill the magic that lives inside each of us.
Now, my time at GHP serves as a mental anchor for me when I feel isolated. I’ve made a vow to march to the tune of my own kazoo, with confidence that the right people and opportunities will find me.
