Note To Future Staff

ABORT… ABORT MISSION… DON’T DO IT!!! GET OUT OF THIS CLASS AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!! I REPEAT, GET OUT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!! WASTE OF TIME!!! YOU’LL HATE IT HERE GET OUT!!!

Lets just imagine that says Stephanie instead

………..just kidding guys. You’re gonna love it here, I promise. Sorry for being dramatic, I can’t help it sometimes.

To everyone who has no idea what to expect of this course, I’d say prepare yourself. Prepare yourself for the stress and frustration that creating a yearbook brings, but also be prepared for the best semester of your life. You’re gonna become so much closer with people that you might not have ever thought you’d be close with and you’ll be glad you came here. Yeah, there’s a lot of work to be done and sometimes (like in my case) you have to redo things about one hundred thousand times, but it’s so worth it because at least you’ll be sure that you’re getting the best yearbook you could think of and you’re able to gain experience from it and say that YOU helped do this. You put in your ideas and make it come out the way you want it to. You’ll be sure that you’ll like it because you can make it look exactly like you imagined it to look like. Not only will you have a cool yearbook but making it is more fun than you think. It’s time consuming, yes, but it’s worth it and learning the cool things you can do with the website is actually fun. The skills you learn in this class could be used in the future too. If you think that you’re not capable of bringing out your creative side, let me just give you a little note. My name is Stephanie, and I, ME… Stephanie…. managed to do it, which is a huge surprise… haha. I never knew I had a creative side to me (other than in girly things like makeup and hair and nails)  but this course brought it out of me. (I mean, I’m great at basically everything of course 😉 I just underestimated my computer skills). If you think you’re too much of a slow learner or that you’re not capable…ask Ms. Navas how far I’ve come. (She might lie and say I’m not all that great but deep down she knows who the best student in the class was). Oh yeah, since on the topic of the teacher…….well… She’s okaaaaaaaay I guess. 😛
Just kidding. Ms. Navas is my favourite teacher. (Don’t let it go to your head Navas). She definitely knows how to be laid back……. but she also knows when to play her teacher role in the class. (well, somewhat.) Ms. Navas will be a teacher, class clown and a friend to everyone, (well her being mean to you means she likes you, I guess that’s her way of building a “friendship”). Don’t get offended when she disses you because it’s purely jokes (sometimes), and don’t be afraid to fire back. If you need any tips hit me with a text, I always have the best comebacks 😛 Ask Navas, she’ll tell ya.

Creative

Here’s a picture of my amazing self with the “smile Jesus loves you” sticker Ms. Navas gave me

Stephanie? Yeah she’s like the best student in Martin right? She’s the one who never misses a day of school, never skips, and is ALWAYS working the hardest… Well, lets say most of that is true, ok?
Okay fine maybe I’m no Bernadette but I think I’m pretty darn close 😛 (Maybe a couple yards off)
I think I surprised a lot of people this semester with my work (along with a tad of Debbie’s help… Ok maybe a little more than a tad). Debbie and I worked on the year in review page for most of the semester (not that we wanted to because that should’ve been done a looong time ago…). Although it took much longer than we all expected, it came out way better than I thought it would, and I did a lot more than I thought I was capable of doing. When it comes to me using a computer, I’m basically like a 95 year old woman who was born in another country and has no idea what a computer can even do… I had to learn how to do so many things I’ve never done on a computer and I really felt like my mother when she tries to use one. Basically she just sits there and stares at it until someone comes around and volunteers to help her. We help her because she will literally sit there and stare at it or attempt to use it and it might just blow up into flames or something. (Mom if you’re reading this, sorry to break it to you, but it’s the truth… You don’t know anything about computers). The struggles with copyright, other peoples opinions, errors and DPI problems (just to name a few) were very annoying and caused us to eventually hate our page. (Actually we hated our page like 2 days into being assigned to do it once we realized how much work it takes). I think that I’m a much more creative person than I ever even knew. I never thought I’d have so many ideas (and by ideas I mean actual SUCCESSFUL ones…) but I did. I loved how I could put my opinion out there and everyone would listen, and even if they didn’t take the opinion and run with it, they’d incorporate it in some way. The class was just a great environment. We all felt so comfortable (sometimes too comfortable) and we were able to express ourselves without feeling like we’d be judged or our opinion would be disregarded. We got so much done in the short semester we had, and not only were we able to do so much work, but we had fun the entire time and we learned and grew together. I never used to be close with Debbie, Emilio, Michelle, Tyler, Ashley or Gian Lucas, but this course brought us all together and now we have great friendships. (Oh yeah, and Struan… Even though he isn’t reallly a part of our class) 😛 We all got to joke around with each other every class period, but we also gave our inputs on each others’ pages and helped one another when we needed to. For anyone who says that in this class we “don’t do anything” or we “don’t have fun,” you’re wrong. This was by far my favourite class in all of high school (I know… Stephanie enjoying school? That’s a first). But on a serious note, I’m extremely grateful for you, Ms. Navas and for all of my classmates and for St. Martin’s for making this course happen. I’ll carry memories in the yearbook I helped create and memories in my heart of all the good times spent in this class.

Some random kids and I 

Emilio and I taking pictures of ourselves (what we do best)

People/Project Management

Example of a great leader – Martin Luther King Jr.

“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.” -Andrew  Carnegie

In other words, being a leader doesn’t mean you do everything yourself and be the only one acknowledged; you lead others to the right path and help them just as much. Being a leader takes a certain amount of skill. You need to be a determined, hard-working, focused, and confident person in order to lead others. Our leaders for yearbook were definitely Emily and Yssa. I think they were great leaders because they always kept the class on their toes, directed us, and made sure everything that needed to be completed was done on time. They were extremely organized and easy to work with and I don’t think any other people could’ve done their jobs any better. Every group of working people need a good leader, because sometimes you get carried away and lose track. I think with the leaders of this class, we managed to work as hard as we could and produced the best and most amount of work that we could in this semester.

Emily and Yssa always kept the class on track. They spent so much in-class time and their own free time to go through all the pages in the yearbook, leave notes, help make improvements, give opinions, and point out problems. I think that their good and bad criticism helped each of us make our pages better, realize what we’ve done wrong, and it also helped us to learn from mistakes we made so that we wouldn’t make them again.

People management skills are important, not only for this class, but also in every day lives. We can use these skills to be a great worker and carry these skills through our lives. We should all be able to lead and direct others, and be able to point out mistakes and help make improvements. I think that this class was a great way to learn these skills and it was very useful. We were all able to give feedback to others when we pulled our pages up in front of the class, and it gave us all confidence to be able to say what we thought freely and help others make things even better. I think this course made some of us less nervous to speak in front of others and that was also another great thing we got out of this course.

There are many great leaders in the world, for example, Martin Luther King Jr, Pope Francis, Angelina Jolie, Gandhi and many more. None of them would’ve been the great leaders they were if they just gave up when times got tough. They all worked hard to be the leaders they were and set the mark for what I think a great leader is. This relates to this class in my opinion, because we all worked hard to get where we are now and the hard work and difficult times only helped us to become the great leaders each of us are.

Angelina Jolie

Gandhi

Pope Francis

Journalism

Oh journalism… Never knew you’d be so sneaky.
Everyone thinks that the journalism in the yearbooks is just a simple task of writing some stuff out that goes with the pictures/page. Little do they know about all the work that is put in to every little word that appears on a page… I helped create the year in review page for this years yearbook and not even I expected how much attention had to be brought to the little bit of writing on the page. When Debbie and I thought that our page was “done,” we got hit with a couple surprises. We were missing apostrophes and had grammatical errors that we didn’t even realize were there. It really takes other peoples’ set of eyes to notice our little mistakes that make such a big impact on the quality of our yearbook. With the help of our classmates, they pointed out the mistakes and helped us correct them. I wondered, if this is how careful we’re being with just a few words on our page, imagine what it’s like for people who have pages FULL of journalism…I’m talking paragraphs and paragraphs of writing. It’s frustrating and annoying when you have to go over the same page 2000 times just to realize you didn’t see such a visible mistake. But having to go word by word to try and find mistakes is really annoying. But that’s the great part about this class – that we have so many people who work together to try to point things out and make it better and better. This yearbook brought so many of us closer together too. Friendships were made from working together. Although there’s a lot of work involved, we know how to have fun 😛 (especially me of course) (oh… and maybe Navas is cool too) 😉

Our yearbook is filled with memories…

Although I didn’t have the job of strictly focusing on journalism, I still put in my opinions on other peoples’ work and still had to focus on my page to be as proper as I could make it. I learned that journalism is way more than just throwing some words on a page and calling it a day… You need to go find sources, gather as much information as possible, put your ideas down and write something that people won’t get bored with… If you’re using any information from the internet, you also have to worry about copyright issues. Oh yeah, and then you have to go back about a million times to point out errors and correct them. It’s more work than I had originally thought it would be, but that’s what makes our book great. It may get pretty frustrating (especially when you redo your page about five hundred and fifty thousand times) but its pretty fun to do and worth the stress we undergo. We try so hard to make everything as perfect as possible, and hey, I think we’re on the right track. (Some of us atleast……. by us I mean me of course 😉 )

Photography

There are many different aspects to taking pictures. When I began this course, I didn’t have much knowledge on a professional camera. I never realized that there are so many settings in a camera that can change the quality and type of picture you can take in different types environments. In yearbook, we take photos of events, student life and sports. We use our own cameras and borrow cameras on days that we know we want to capture moments. Although we don’t realize it now, we are gonna look back at these moments and it’ll bring memories and laughter. After a few years, we will forget about some of the moments we spent in St. Martin, but yearbooks are great to remind us of all the great times we had.

During the summer at my cottage

The past 4 years have gone by way quicker than I thought they would, so capturing as many moments as I can is important to me. I enjoy taking photos of nature more than anything. Every season is beautiful. I like the when the trees are changing colours because I go to the Credit River and take artsy pictures. I also go to a park in Streetsville that has a railroad that isn’t in use anymore because I love the setting. Nature photos are my favourite because I think those are what I have a good eye for. I used to think that great pictures could only be taken with an expensive, fancy camera, but even my iPhone takes great pictures as long as I have the right lighting, setting and angle.

Majority of the time, the photos that are taken are not used. The key to being a good photographer is to have patience. (I know I lack that quite a bit….) We have to experiment with different angles, lighting, and settings to get the best possible shot. We can’t just give up when the pictures don’t come out as planned (even though I’m quick at giving up hehe). Playing around with the camera is what helps us learn and get better at what we’re doing. (Some of us at least) 😉

On my dads windshield

We all know that I am usually the clown of the class, (also the best student) but when it comes to getting work done, you can’t deny that I always produce the best 😉 I mean….. LOOK AT THESE PHOTOS… tell me they’re not a work of art!!! Well you don’t have to tell me they’re great, I already know 😛
Although my role in yearbook wasn’t mainly focused on photography, I still have some background knowledge and am still learning more about it as time goes on. I don’t have my own camera but I think that my phone was doing pretty well considering how many times it’s been dropped (and sometimes thrown across the room). After seeing how many cool pictures were taken in this class, I want to get my own camera and start practicing on my own (not even kidding). This class made me love photography so much more and makes me want to take pictures all the time. Maybe I’ll come back in a few years and you’ll see how artsy I have become 😉 😛

Near a railroad in Streetsville

 

On Rosemary drive leaving school (thank God)

Short Introduction to Yearbook

This course teaches us photography, writing, cooperation and daily life skills. We work together and on our own to use our creativity and create a memorable book.  With participation and dedication we put our talents to work and make something we will look back on in the future. Will it be a success? Time will tell..