I have been writing my column for the Reporter for nine weeks now. I have enjoyed the experience of being a small player in the fourth estate.

As a columnist, I should not be mentioned in the same breath with the likes of David Brooks, Thomas Friedman, or Leonard Pitts Jr. However, the one thing we all have in common is the receipt of comments on our columns.

I have not felt as though my columns have been particularly controversial, but I have received comments and I would like to respond.

As an intern, my responses are limited to nothing short of professionalism in relation with standards and practices of such a publication. Thus, a typical teenage response to parental suggestions or criticism will not suffice. Being an anxious adolescent, this is proving to be difficult.

In a Dec. 7 column, I endorsed certain gift ideas, those tending be pricier, and recited a Chanukah gift horror story. My original intention was to inject a little humor and to make parents aware of the presents teens sought after, but in retrospect, it seems that I may have alarmed certain individuals 1,811.9 miles away, in the good City of Des Moines, Iowa.

Scrolling down the online version of my column, it is weighted with comments of discomfort from the aforementioned citizens of the Midwest. I like to think that I’m a people person and I believe this column corroborates that notion. I mean, all these people banded together over the general consensus that my writings were ill-advised. That’s got to count for something!

However, upon scrutinizing some comments on the page, I myself became disgruntled. Wading through the various “you are so ungrateful” ones, Rebecca Lenox’s “What a little brat. I kind of want to slap him” jumps off the page.

For a group of people discerning my generous holiday giving ideas, I find it incongruous that they are advocating for corporal punishment. Well Rebecca, in your case, I find that your Christmas funds would be much more appropriately spent on anger management classes than a fancy new touch screen (no disrespect intended).

In light of that, if I have to choose, I would rather pick my own poison and get an iphone in Kirkland rather than a slap in Des Moines.

It’s exciting to know that people across the country are reading my column, even if it is under fire, because as we say in the news industry, a publication is “better read than dead.”

On a side note, due to the fact that I have been loving my stay at the Reporter, I am branching out into another endeavor in addition to “On Track with Zach.”

Becoming sustainable is the task that our generation must strive for, and while I am environmentally aware, sometimes striving for sustainability can be a bit of an inconvenience.

If you’re like me, stay tuned for the upcoming Green Teen blog on the Reporter website, where I will be sharing easy ways to make the necessary changes for our earth.

Reporter intern Zach Shucklin is a senior at International Community School. Email zshucklin@kirklandreporter.com.