Another School Year, Another Yearbook

The 2014-2015 school year is over, but more importantly, the 2014-2015 yearbook has been delivered! On Friday, months of building the book and weeks of organizing the delivery of 355 books to 355 kidlets in about 25 1A classes culminated in a lot of happy 'tweens and one tired yearbook adviser.

It is our yearbook staff tradition to come to school at 7 a.m. on the last day of school to organize the books for delivery after the last final has been given. We count books, put them in boxes, count them again, and then have breakfast while we sign each other's books.

We still met at 7 this year, but before we could sort the books, we had to take a last minute addition into each one: a tribute to our sweet Chance who was killed in an accident in April.

I was a little worried about getting everything done before school started at 8:25, but the yearbook minions were awesome.

They got the pages glued in, books sorted, counted, recounted, and boxed with plenty of time to spare for a pre-test breakfast.

Two tests later, the yearbooks were delivered to all 1A classes via carrier-kidlet.

Forty-five minutes and twelve But-I-Know-My-Mom-Paid-for-One-back-in-September near-meltdowns later, the books were gone, the kidlets were gone, and I was excited to go home and have a night of of yearbook-nightmare-free sleep.

So as soon as my grades were finalized and I had turned my checkout form in at the office, I grabbed my yearbook and then went home.
 For twenty minutes.
Then I got bored and went back to see if Valerie needed any help with her checkout stuff.

The rest of the afternoon could have been mind-numbing start to the summer. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE vacation. It's just that I tend to suffer from a bit of whiplash going from the craziest school day of the year to no school at all.

Lucky for me, I had niblets around to keep me busy for the rest of the evening. I think the summer is off to a good start!

A Post About Yearbook T-shirts

This is my fifth year as a yearbook advisor and, in five years, I have learned a few things about cameras, kidlets, and online publishing programs.

 

I have also learned a few things about t-shirts.

 

You see, in the junior high universe, personalized t-shirts are right up there with in-class pizza parties, free candy, and snow days. Kidlets have been known to join clubs, run for office, and try out for sport teams just to get a t-shirt with their name and/or nickname on the back.

 

On the yearbook staff, we start planing our t-shirts during the first week of school. The shirts serve the dual purpose of advertising the book and unifying the staff. Every year I have a goal to get the shirts designed, ordered, and picked up before the first parent-teacher conference in October. And every year I end up handing out the shirts the week after Thanksgiving. The kids are always really sweet and understanding about it, never once suggesting that the back of my shirt should read "Slacker".

 

This year's staff is very unique because it is made up entirely of girls. It has been interesting to see the differences in the yearbook creation process without a male presence. Somehow, between the giggling and hair braiding, those girls have managed to get more done on this book in one quarter than some previous staffs have done in three.

 

And because this is a very unique staff, they needed to have a very unique staffer designation. After advising groups of Yearbook Jedi, Yearbook Ninja, and Yearbook Minions, I thought it would be fun to emphasise the femininity of this year's staff by calling them Yearbook Princesses.

 

 They thought that was 50% of a good idea.

We ordered the shirts in two colors, lime and candy pink. We also requested that the nicknames on the back be printed towards the bottom of the shirt to better accommodate the 90% of our staffers with long hair. And because the Ninja Princesses are, in fact, princesses, we are delaying our staff photos until they can finish their matching tulle tutu's.

 

I have to admit, the kids aren't the only ones who are fond of the t-shirts. I always put some serious thought into the nickname that will grace the back of my staff shirt for the year. This time I decided to go with a moniker that makes me smile, even though the majority of the kids don't get it.

 Now, if you will excuse me, I have to Google "How to make a tulle tutu."

 

Previous yearbook shirt posts...

Here (2012)  and Here (2008)

 

Not My Best Moment

I had a fight with another teacher this week… in my head

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, the entire argument was imaginary.

It’s not the first fight I have fought within the confines of my cute little brain. In the world of figmental fracases, I am a contender for the heavy-weight title. But this time, for this delusional duel, I was in rare fighting form.

The source of contention was a computer lab, THE computer lab that my yearbook princesses need during 4^th hour every A-day. The other teacher, Mr. X, had already made himself very comfortable in the afore mentioned lab, prompting some of my less than charitable qualities to rear their ugly heads.

I imagined presenting my problem to Mr.X. I visualized his response, and came up with an impressive counter argument. Then I anticipated what he would say next, and came up with several well-thought-out retorts. And so it went: He will say this, and I will say that. He'll argue this, I'll argue that. And so on and so forth.

During the thirty-five minutes it took me to change the screen resolution on 17 of the lab’s computers to teensy tiny (which was only a slightly passive-aggressive act because teensy tiny is the setting recommended by the yearbook site), I did my best mental Don Quixote impersonation, titling at 35 minutes worth of windmills. 

After thirty-five minutes, I came to three realizations. First, because the powers-that-be at my school love me best, the computer lab was as good as mine. Second, because of Mr.X’s class schedule, there really wasn’t any conflict or competition for 4A at all. Third, this fight, the fight that I had been rehearsing in my head for the last 35 minutes was NEVER EVER going to happen. Like ever.

So you would think, at that point, I would smack myself on the back of the head for being silly, change the resolution on the other three computers my yearbookers would need, and go on with my life.

But you would be wrong. Instead, while changing the resolution on the other three computers, I continued to fight the fight that I knew I was never, ever going to have.

A waste of time? Yes. A waste of energy? No doubt.  

But you should have heard my closing line. Assuming Mr. X was still going to fight my rightful claim to the lab, I was going to storm off to talk to those powers that be, but not without getting in the last word… or, in this case, a series of words.

“Well, we may have already picked the yearbook theme for the year, but it’s not too late to change it to Mr. X sucks!”

I’ll admit, it’s not exactly a Shakespearean retort, or anywhere near the level of Churchill’s elegant verbal backhands, but in junior high world, that is one heck of a dis.

Which is why I should spend a little less time with junior high kids.

And maybe a little more time with a licensed therapist.

Saturday School

In one week, the first 34 pages of our yearbook are due. With our deadline looming, I decided it was time for my cute little yearbook minions to come in for a Saturday workday.

The purpose of our weekend interment at the junior high was yearbook mug-shot related, but the kids still picked up a wealth of knowledge in other subjects as well. Hence:

The Top Ten Things You Can Learn at the School on a Saturday

10. Dress warm because the heater’s aren’t running and, even though Miss H loves you, she doesn’t love you enough to share her gloves or her blankey.

9. It takes three times as long to type in quotes when you have permission to use your Ipod and/or cell phone.

8. Everything tastes better when eaten in the teacher’s lounge. #forbidden fruit

7. Don’t ask Miss H, “What else can I do to help,” unless you are prepared to help her beat tricky levels of “Where’s My Water?” for hours on end.

6. The school really is haunted, especially the rooms in the east corner of the upstairs hallway.

5. Playing hide-and-go-seek in the pitch black hallways is a lot less fun after you have learned in information in number six.

4. Racing down the ramp on computer chairs is worth all of the stress and suffering of being a yearbook book minion.

3. There is a good chance that whoever is haunting the east corner of the upstairs hallway became a ghost after a failed attempt at racing down the ramp on the computer chairs.

2. Miss H wasn’t joking about there being only one way to come in and out of the school on a Saturday without setting off the alarm.

1. The police work on Saturdays too!

The Saga of the Yearbook Staff T-Shirts, 2011-2012 Edition

When a new school year begins, the first order of business for any seriously journalistic, impressively professional, junior high yearbook staff is designing their staff t-shirts. And our seriously journalistic, impressively professional, junior high yearbook staff is no exception. We started designing our t-shirts in August.

By September, we had three possible designs.

We chose a design the first week in October, and then we "discussed" the color of t-shirt on which the design should be printed.

We "discussed" it for three weeks.

There were t-shirt color PowerPoint presentations, pro and con lists, secret ballots, public ballots, unbinding votes, binding votes, and arm wrestling tournaments.

And then we gave up on reaching a consensus and decided to have the t-shirts made in two colors.

Like I said, yearbook staff t-shirts are a serious business.

My first two years as yearbook advisor, we kept things simple and put our theme on the front of the shirts and nicknames on the back. Those were the years when I called the staffers my "Yearbook Jedi".


Last year, the staffers were "Yearbook Ninja"and, because ninja are so darn stealthy, the kidlets decided to live up to their title and keep the yearbook theme a secret.

So our staff shirts focused on their awesome ninja skills instead.


This year's staff didn't want to be Jedi or Ninja. They wanted to be minions.

Yearbook Minions.

I had never seen Despicable Me, the movie from whence the minions sprouted, so one of the staffers brought it in for us to watch while we tallied the yearbook favorites ballots.

Seeing the minions in action convinced me that it would be a good fit.



The movie minions are smart, hard-working, enthusiastic, spastic, and cute... in an awkward sort of way. Much like the yearbook minions, who are also smart, hard-working, enthusiastic, spastic, and cute... in an awkward sort of way.


Our next hurdle was coming up with the text to accompany the design. After several brainstorming sessions and many heads-down-on-the-desks-eyes-closed-secret-hand-raising-votes, they decided they wanted the camera holding minion shirt to read, "Don't Make Me Shoot You."


Gun references in school are almost always a bad idea, even if they are camera-related puns. So I asked the kids to come up with a non-violent alternative.


They put their heads together and came up with, "Don't make me shoot you... with my camera."
That didn't quite pass muster either, so they thought long and hard about it and came up with this...

Can you guess what it says?

"Don't make me shoot you with my camera", but in Swahili.
Turns out, Google Translate is a yearbook minion's best friend.

Minions Assemble! Now that our T-shirts have arrived, we have much work to do.

You know, like, take staff photos and then, maybe, make a yearbook?

Delivering the Yearbooks: A Choose Your Own Adventure Post

It is 6:30 a.m. on Thursday morning (the last real day of school for the kidlets).

You arrive at Miss H's classroom to help sort and deliver yearbooks to 45 different advisory classrooms.

Upon arrival at Miss H's classroom, you find a locked door and a blacked-out window. Do you...

1) Leave the building, walk home, go back to bed, and sleep until 8:15 a.m. If so, scroll down to the very end of this post to learn your fate.

or

2) Knock on the door, hoping Miss H set her alarm correctly so you didn't get up extra early on the last school day of the year for nothing. If you choose this option, scroll down to the next photo to find out what happens next.

Great Decision! Your knock on the door is answered by one of your fellow stalwart yearbook Jedi. After giving him the correct password, you are admitted into Yearbook Central.

When you enter Yearbook Central, you see the beautiful, hard-cover, full-color yearbooks sitting on the counter. Do you...

1) Wonder out loud why you voted for such an understated cover. If so, scroll down to the very end of this post to learn your fate.

or

2) Oooooh and Ahhhhh over the results of your labors and tell Miss H that you are sooooo happy she asked you to get up early to come and help deliver these beautiful books. If you choose this option, scroll down to the next photo to find out what happens next.

Well Done! After gushing about the general wonderfulness of the book, you remember to open it up to bask in the full coolness of the yin yang design that the staff fell in love with last fall. You give your fellow yearbook jedi high-fives, then start signing each other's books.

After a few minutes of yearbook signing, Miss H announces that it is time to start organizing the books. Do you...

1) Tell her that counting each stack of books three times is overkill and she needs to trust your 8th grade math skills to make sure all of the books get where they need to be. If so, scroll down to the very end of this post to learn your fate.

or

2) Immediately get to work, counting the number of highlighted names on each list, putting the corresponding number of yearbooks near each list, and then double checking the piles stacked by others. If you choose this option, scroll down to the next photo to find out what happens next.

Wise Choice! You work diligently for thirty minutes or so, checking and double checking and triple checking stacks, initialling the count each time, all while thinking to yourself, "Wow. We sure are lucky to have such a thorough, and charming yearbook advisor."

When all of the yearbook stacks have been triple checked, Miss Haws announces that you may take a short break to eat some breakfast. Do you...

1) Grab a Cinnamon roll and then make a run for freedom while Miss H is distracted by a fresh carton of chocolate milk. If so, scroll down to the very end of this post to learn your fate.

or

2) Grab just enough food to provide you with the nourishment you need to pack the piles of books up and down the stairways, ramps, and hallways of the junior high, while at the same time, sitting amongst the books reveling in their full-color-perfection. If you choose this option, scroll down to the next photo to find out what happens next.

Smart Move! You enjoy your breakfast while thinking about how happy your classmates are going to be when they see the beautiful books you spent so much time creating for them.

Breakfast ends, and the books are counted one last time as they are put into bags. Tragically, there isn't time to deliver the books to the advisory teachers before those teachers have to leave their classrooms to go on water-balloon patrols. Do you...

1) Tell Miss H, "Have fun trying to get all of the books delivered to those 45 advisory groups!" and then skip off to take your 1A final. If so, scroll down to the very end of this post to learn your fate.

or

2) Volunteer to sacrifice your 30 minute lunch break between tests to help deliver bags of yearbooks. If you choose this option, scroll down to the next photo to find out what happens next.

Nicely Done! All of the advisory classes get their yearbooks before 3A finals end. You bask in the accolades heaped upon you by a grateful student body and kind teachers. The you help to gather up all of the lists that show which yearbooks were successfully claimed by their purchasers.

When you arrive back in Miss H's classroom, you find her clutching her Obama-Mug (a.k.a. Mug-Obama) and murmuring something about deadlines and paper cuts as chocolate-milk-infused drool runs down her chin. Do you...

1) Wake her up to tell her that there are three angry parents in the office who are upset that every single yearbook has been sold, so they are too late to buy one for their kids. If so, scroll down to the very end of this post to learn your fate.

or

2) Quietly set the papers on Miss H's desk and then leave, closing the door behind you so no one else disturb your charming, chocolate-milk-drool-covered advisor. If you choose this option, scroll down to the next photo to find out what happens next.

Congratulations! Your quick thinking and impressive store of wisdom helped you survive yearbook delivery day! Now you can enjoy your vacation and won't have to hide from Miss H when you see her at Wal-Mart this summer.
Oh No! Somewhere along the way, you made a poor, poor choice and were squashed like a bug by a cranky yearbook advisor (insert sad, death-march music here).
Tune in on Monday for another fun-filled choose your own adventure post: What to do when your yearbook advisor asks you to help her run the "Showmanship" station at an all-day camp for Webelos! (Alternate title: "Run, Spencer! Run!")

Why I Will Never, Ever Be Hired By Sports Illustrated

Taking photos at wrestling meets is hard.

Really hard.

I mean, they move so stinkin' fast, and the referees are always darting in and out of the shots. And our gym is really old and dark, so that doesn't help with the photo quality.

Plus, I'm just BAD at it.

Really, REALLY BAD at it.

We only have one home wrestling meet a year, so that means that the yearbook Jedi and I only have one shot at getting photos for a two-page spread. I probably took a couple hundred shots that evening, half of which were unusably blurry.

But by the end of the night, I actually preferred these blurry photos to the clear shots.

"Why?" you might ask.

Well, I'll tell you why.

Spandex. It is not flattering on anyone, especially 12 and 13 year old boys.

Plus, due to the nature of the sport, most of the clear photos involve wrestlers grabbing each others backsides. I am afraid that pose, and various other physical situations that may be perfectly natural on the mats during wrestling season, might cause the guys some grief six months from now when the yearbooks are distributed to the masses.

Several times during the course of the meet, I found myself trying to avoid what I considered to be awkward moments by photographing the gym ceiling. And as I have reviewed the photos taken that night, I decided to make a yearbook advisor executive decision. Instead of a two-page wrestling spread, we are going to have a two-page tribute to the gym ceiling.

In the long run, I think that will just be better for everyone.

Mission Completed

My classroom is ready for hibernation. All visual reminders of the final, painful yearbook deadline have been long-since patched by the diligent maintenance staff. The air smells of equal parts stress, fear, desperation, and deodorant-adverse 8th graders.
My desk is full of fun gifts and beautiful notes from my yearbook jedi, including a green light saber for yearbook master Yoda. The force is strong with the kidlets, it is. Grateful to them, I am.
There is evidence of a last-day-of-school-breakfast-buffet in my to classroom...

...and the back corner of my room is stacked to ceiling with empty shipping boxes, and every flat surface is covered with purchase and delivery lists.

What does it all mean?

THE YEARBOOKS ARE HERE!!!!
ALL 356 OF THEM!!!
They have been counted, sorted, bagged, delivered, handed-out, signed, and taken home.

My first year as a yearbook advisor is over, and now all of the memories of late deadlines, misspelled names, missing photos, and uncooperative index pages have been replaced with thoughts about this beautiful cover...

...and these fabulous end sheets. I LOVE these end sheets. Really. I'm seriously considering proposing.

Not to mention the beautiful pages that my adorable, pro-deodorant yearbook jedi assembled over the now kaput school year.

Once I had finished signing the last book of the last student to walk out the doors and into summer vacation, I sat down filled through the pages of my kidlets' masterpiece. See the background on this 7th grade boys basketball layout? That is a photo of our gym floor. Have I mentioned that they are geniuses? Because they are.

Who would have thought that the same kids who volunteered to come to school on Saturdays and then risked life and limb riding roller-chairs down the giant ramp...

...were the same kids who planned, designed, and published this?!?!

On that last afternoon, I was determined to sit back and reflect on my very first group of yearbook jedi. Thankfully, as Yearbook Jedi Master Yoda, I didn't have to send my newly trained jedi off to battle any Sith Lords. But they did have to face down a few cranky teachers who weren't aware that the yearbook staffers were the only kids allowed in the hallways before 8:15 on the last day of school. Hummm...Sith Lords, cranky jr. high teachers....Now that I think about it, the yearbook jedi might have preferred going up against the Sith Lords.

But the force is strong with them and they survived virtually unscathed. I was determined to bask in the glow of a completed yearbook and all of the compliments my little staff received from teachers, students, and parents alike. Life was good.

And then I checked my box in the staff mail room and found this... the starter kit for the 201o yearbook. Seriously, Lifetouch couldn't have let me have one afternoon of basking before smacking me in the face with the reality of "Yearbook Wars, Episode Two: The Uncooperative Index Menace"?

Oh well. Summer vacation starts today, so I will think about THAT tomorrow.

Ooops. I mean, Tomorrow think about that, will I.

Yoda out.

It's nap time.