Music has an effect on people that feels unexplainable and magical. It has a mysterious way of making you cry, laugh, and recall long forgotten memories. It has the power to make you feel.

This issue of The Corsair is about music. I didn’t see that it was until just before the morning of production day, when my News Editor, Gavin and I were laying out pages on the whiteboard in the newsroom, which made me do some research.

Before I joined The Corsair, I was just Ashley. No particular job title. No claim to fame, really nothing to sneeze about. During that time I searched deeply for who I was, what I wanted to say, and who I wanted to be. For most of my life my thoughts were chaotic, confusing, and didn’t have a lot of rhyme or reason to them. They got much worse when I turned sixteen and was kidnapped by a family friend for almost a year. It's not a topic that I openly speak about much, and I try not to think about it more often than not.

With the news breaking of a large oil spill in Huntington Beach, CA and the fate of women’s rights still up in the air, autumn remains the same. It comes to us every year, and brings with it a cool breeze of change.

As the weather dips below 75 degrees in Los Angeles, the summer blues that I am doomed to every year, vanishes without fail. The focus and mental clarity that the cool weather brings adds to the empowerment that I am trying to embody in my own life, and for The Corsair.

When I joined The Corsair as a Staff Writer, I never thought that I would be sitting here, writing to you, talking about the years past, and making the decisions of an Editor. It goes to show that life, while it can look bleak, takes twists and turns that no one could foresee. With the first day of fall behind us and October breezing in, the concept of this week’s PDF came to me in the middle of the night. Friday Night Rights is on the forefront of my mind this week. How can I implement them? Bring them to light?