Emerly Lee – Week 14: Not Very “By the Book”
Every year, on the last week of school a line forms outside Room 712, in hopes to get their hands on the latest release of that year’s yearbook. Everyone collectively will rummage through the book looking for embarrassing photos of their friends sharing a short laugh in between. They will then pass it around to everyone they know asking for a signature. This ritual happens every year. As someone who grew up practicing this, I hadn’t really known the process and the difficulty it took in assembling them and capturing the memories of every school year.
It wasn’t until last year that I began to even get a lick of the long and strenuous hours of dedication that went into crafting the yearbook. Hours outside of class learning how to work a camera for the first time, hours in class spent filtering through thousands of photos to find a select few that turned out well, and then hours more spent stalking the people to name them in the yearbook, and surprise surprise it didn’t end there, staffers then have to find the layout that best encompasses their page. To me this new dimension of yearbooks brought about a new found appreciation for the yearbook that I hadn’t previously had. Maybe it's because I now take on a larger role in editing and honing the meanings behind each page or because the memories associated with crafting a, at most satisfactory, yearbook.
As an editor this year, and an editor-in-chief next year, creating the yearbook is not an easy feat. From deciding the theme, to the color scheme, to making the vision come to life and creating a coherent meaning that persists through the book is one of the many challenges. Then, having to meet many deadlines and ensuring others around you meet them as well, it is definitely stressful and time consuming making sure everyone is meeting their expectations. However, while crafting memories, we also create memories and that to me makes the whole process a lot more worthwhile. While crafting these books can be stressful enough to make me go bald, I believe that the end result no matter how good or bad is something I look forward to every year because it is representative of the blood, sweat, and tears I put into it.
Hello, Emerly! This blog was interesting to read as I had never previously considered the amount of hard work and dedication that goes into producing a school yearbook. I relate to the signing and sharing of our yearbooks, as I look forward to it every year! I think that yearbooks are an important part in the remembrance of our youth as we get older. Sometimes, when I am feeling nostalgic, I like to go back and flip through my elementary school yearbooks. To think that, when I am older, I will probably look back and reminisce on my high school yearbooks reminds me to continue to live in the current moment and enjoy being a teenager while I can. I appreciate how descriptive and detailed this blog was, keep up the great work!
ReplyDeleteHello Emerly! I enjoyed reading your blog, it helped me gain insights and behind-the-scene work required to create the yearbook. When I was a freshman, I used to think yearbooks were not important, somehting people like to keep as a memory. I used to think that I would not need it, I mean like we have our phones why bother buying a book filled with students you probably don't even know? but as a junior this year I think my thoughts were foolish. Every little things holds memory and a big book like a yearbook most certainly does. it creates that "Oh that person" moment and it is something I wish to do in the future. It is a book that I know I will keep most carefully, my high school yearbook. This year, however,I am glad that I have changed my mindset, and I am looking forward to see how this year's book will turn out!
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