Thursday, January 15, 2004

   Stepping Up to the Plate

Well, today was a pretty non-productive day. It is the last day of the semester, and we do not have any finals or anything. So it was just pretty much coming to school ... We have tomorrow off, though, as well as Martin Luther King Day. So, four-day weekend! More or less anyway ... There was some shocking news when it came to my Newspaper Production class. It turns out three of our staff (which only has about 11 people, though we do have some new recruits coming in next semester) are quitting. It is not just random "Joe Shmoe" staff member, either. It is three of our best members. I only saw one of them coming. Pretty much, our best writer quit, another one of our better staff members all around quit, and most shockingly our graphics and overall layout person quit. I saw the first one coming, because she kept talking about it in English class (which we have together). The next person, I did not really see coming. I am more or less confused about him. Though, I think the biggest hit we are going to have is with the loss of our graphics and layout person. I mean, this guy did all the graphics for the paper, and a majority of the photos. He was the person who would fix up layouts that needed tweaking, or just do them by himself. This guy, as far as I know, had absolutely no reason to quit either. It was just out of the blue. o_O So, needless to say, our Adviser is really pissed off about this. I am just shocked as hell. I actually planned on staying after school today to work on some things, but he did not want to even do that today so we left at a normal time. However, we are going in tomorrow, from 7 a.m. to at most 7 p.m. I have a previous engagement with some friends at 2 p.m., but I am going to see if I can at least go there from about 7 a.m. to about 1:45 p.m. I am more than willing to start working with graphics and photos, and learn how to play with layout more and such. It is actually what I prefer doing, there was just never any need for me to do so. So while I am a bit mad at the guy for quitting, I am taking this as my chance to do more than just write some stories and do editorial cartoons and illustrations. This is pretty much a chance I have been waiting for, heh. It is probably better I start now than later anyway. Currently we are just doing 24 page monthly newspapers because we are not preparing for any competitions or anything. Our first issue was a 52 page specialty issue, our second was a 40 page issue (which is usually as high as we go), our third was 24 pages, and we are working on another 24 page one. I do not think we have any more competitions for a bit little while, so at least I can start out small and work my way up. Our Adviser knows I have a lot of talent, but I am just slow with it (I have never hit a deadline this year ... >.>). I was talking to him today about all this crap, and he said if I could just become quicker and quicker with it I (quote) "would be dangerous." That is really what I am kind of striving for anyway, and now I finally have the chance to do so. I think what was mainly holding me back before this was the fact we had someone better than I am already. However, now that he is gone, I think I am the only suitable replacement. o_O The only other guy is one we call "Lem Sheboygan" (because he is a lemming and over-used the "sheboygan" joke we had last year in journalism), but he works on yearbook. I am not sure if anyone else on staff has a decent understand of Photoshop, or at least to the point I do. I know some might, but just enough to design an ad. Even then, the ex-graphics guy helped out. The only other person I can think of that could do something would be the Adviser himself, but he really should not have to do that much. He is an Adviser, he is supposed to "advise." Anyway, now that I have room to grow, hopefully I can get my roots planted and stay in the sunlight. I am rather excited. ^_^

Comments (2)