So, It is a little late in saying this but Sasha and I were able to submit 32 pages in a record 1 1/2 hour session. I could not believe how fast the upload process went. However, I would equate preping files to send to the plant as equally painful as birthing a child. Yes, in the end you get a great result but it is painful and a lot of work until that joyous moment. I realized the day we were sending files needed extra attention so I took off work and devoted four hours to fixing links and making sure every file had some type of visual element added to it whether that be rubber bands or a full fledged stapler. Sherrie Sanderson from the plant sent me an ecard essentially thanking me for my submission. As soon as the pages had been sent, I darted out the door.

About two to three weeks later, I received the pages back on my desk much like a nightmare. I then sent them directly over to Professor Simon for copy editing purposes. Once she made all the changes and returned the proofs to me, I let them simmer on my desk for a few days until I knew I could devote my full attention to correcting everything and making sure that each page was perfect. That night, Sasha and I mulled over different explanations for each page until 9:30pm or so... My least favorite part about yearbook is writing the copy! Trust me when I tell you that it is difficult to come up with a sub headline for a club or sport that is completely un-necessary in your mind.

In more recent news, this past Tuesday the 3rd I had a yearbook meeting after taking pictures of Cantabile. I had to run from the Chapel to the Student Center. We or should I say, "I" am facing a 58 page deadline on December 14th which is during my vacation. Therefore, Sasha and I are trying to complete 3 pages everyday until Thanksgiving break in order to meet a 60 submission. Hopefully we can accomplish this and send everything off so that we can have a nice break. I do wish that my staff would step up a little more with picture taking so that we can get rocking and rolling on this submission.

-mb-

Stress, Future

Wow. Tomorrow it will be a month since I have made a post. I am soooo busy. The first deadline of the yearbook is technically on Monday but I have to start sending pages tomorrow! I hate feeling stressed but that's the only feeling I seem to have when I'min school. In other news, Tracy McCoy from Laurel Magazine has contacted me and would like me to be her intern starting soon. I made three mock ups for spreads and they loved them! I am excited about the future...

Failure

Tonight was the third meeting for the yearbook and only four people showed up. Everyone had emailed me saying that they wouldn't be able to show up. However, on the brite side of things, one of my yearbook assistants did a great job with taking pictures! I am so proud of her. She is a great photographer and she has a great eye for different shots.

I just got back from Battle of the Bands. The only reason I went was to take pictures for the studet activities page. It was interesting.

Earier today Sasha and I gathered info to pass out at the meeting and worked on layouts. I'm so tired.

I Have A Headache.

Last night was the second meeting for the yearbook. I had a great turn out with 11 people there not including Sasha or Katie because they could not make it. Thea yearbook seems to be moving at a steady pace. I am assigning things like crazy to get everything accomplished. I am worried that the freshmen will feel bogged down and not want to help, but as long as they are volunteering for an assignment I will give it to them... more later after a tylenol and a stiff drink (in my dreams)

Meetings, pictures, more meetings.

I have been panting like a dog in order to get pictures of professors for the yearbook. Since the professors cannot find it in their schedule to come to me and have me take their photo, I have devised a system where I go to them. For those professors who had their photos taken in past years, I have kept them in archives and reuse them if they don't want theirs updated. This year like the past years, I had Drew Davis send out a mass email to all the professors and if they respond back, I will go to their office and take their picture at a given time. This sounds relatively simple however, in order to have a cohesive look with all the faculty, I take their picture on a green background. The traveling green backdrop is quite large and annoying to carry around. On top of having to carry it around, I must retrive it and bring it back to the Student Center each time since they use it for student id's. It has to be the most annoying part of my job.

In other news, yesterday was the club fair. Sasha and I only had two people sign up but that is fine with me since this year I have a dedicated staff to help me out. They have been on top of their projects and I am very proud of them. We are having our second meeting next Tuesday and they are excited to receive their next assignments. I have never in my life had people willing and able to help me!

Last night seemed to be a waste... and this is what ultimately stresses me out. Sasha and I worked on the pages but nothing felt accomplished. This yearbook is supposed to be my baby and my senior project but I feel like it slipping through my hands and it's not getting done. I fear that we may not make our deadline for the first time since I have been Editor. I'm scared.

Tomorrow Mark, the HJ Representative is coming maybe he can give us some tips to calm my nerves and really jumpstart this yearbook!

Breath in, breath out
MB

Completely Stressed.

Hello to all,
I am as the title of this says, "Completely Stressed." Why you ask? Well, I am juggling 15credit hours, 17.5 hours of work and the Yearbook rests on my shoulders. I would be more relaxed if the pages of the yearbook were made. However, Gwen the Herff Jones representative is busy with her own schedule and can't make it over to Piedmont for another week! Everything seems to be at a stand-still for the yearbook. Now, let me back things up and tell you what has been happening...

I moved in Aug. 8th into Mayflower. This may sound minute and totally unrelated to yearbook but it has everything to do with it. All seniors are meant to move in on Aug. 11 but I had to move in early due to the Freshmen. Every year, Freshmen move in on a Sunday and I am responsible for taking all the pictures during the day and at the end of the day usually around 4pm or so I have to climb on top of the Congregational Circle wall and take a group picture of all the incoming Freshmen... what joy.

Ok, so Sunday was move in. On Monday, a whole new list of activities was planned such as a ropes course, alcohol awareness class, library tour and a skit to put the "cherry on top." The ropes course is always fun and that's where I get the best pictures. They make the Freshmen participate because it teaches them to work as a team. Each year I get pictures of them swinging on ropes and balancing as they run across a narrow board.

The skits this year were the same as in the past. It's not the fault of the Freshmen because they base it on their first few days at Piedmont which, for most are a culture shock. I did get a lot of great pictures since I had a sports lens on the D-60 Nikon that the Mass Comm Dept purchased. It works wonderfully and has become my baby. I take it everywhere.

Finished? Not quite.

DVC emailed me wondering the status of the yearbook. The flyers are complete, the ladder is complete but the total design of the yearbook is at a standstill until I have his input on the design concept of the book. Gwen and I picked out the colors this summer however I am having second thoughts about the colors I chose. We will see. In Athens news, Aaron got back to me with a layout he created. It looks nice however I hopehe didn't pull all of the elements from online because then he would need to start all over. Help me.

Your Mary Beth

Accomplished.

Hello Beautiful People,

I hope you are having a wonderful day. Let me see... I finished the ladder. Well, kinda. You see I have one problem with the yearbook ladder, I have five blank pages! The first blank page is about 5 pages in and I can't seem to assign anything to the page that would make sense. OOooo! I think I just had an appiphany. This book will be the 90th edition of the Yonahian yearbook so I can do a commemorative page. Thank you for your help! The other 4 pages are towards the end of the book. I may allot those to senior announcements from parents sending well wishes. I'm not quite sure yet. Another thing I accomplished was to name 122 Freshmen students. Now, this sounds like an easy task. However, I had to download all these pictures in order and then go into my picture files and re-name every single one. The only problems were that some people would sign their name and I couldn't read it. So, on some of them I had to guess what it said and when I get back to school I will have to cross reference it with a student registry. The other problem was that my computer under "my pictures" would randomly swap pictures so they would end up with the wrong name with the photo. This happened to me last year and it was a nightmare. I had to figure out who was who on the Athens Campus and I had never seen these people before. Now I need to scan every single signature, 122 to be exact and darken them with my snazy Bamboo (pictured above) and then put them on a layout for the yearbook. This will take me forever!

New Venture

Hi Everyone!

Now, I know this may be a little off topic but I have to tell you of my new venture. I have what's called an Etsy site. This site is where you buy and sell everything homemade. My online shop is called Tucked Away Treasures; "Because sometimes it's right under your nose." I have posted buttons and vintage keys. The reason I am telling you about this is because I am trying to market myself. Blogspot and Facebook are one way of doin that however, Etsy allows me to make items and market myself that way. I am really excited for the future of my new little online shop.

Check out my site mwilliams0208.etsy.com

OR

Scroll to the bottom of my blog it shows everything I sell on Etsy.

More Dedication

Let's see... I just spent the rest of my day putting the final touches on the ladder. Now, I have everything in order except for the fact that I have five blank, un-assigned pages for the yearbook and I can't think of what to put on them. I have some ideas. I would really like to devote them to parents writing well-wishes to them for graduation. Another option would be to give Athens more pages but I don't think that would be such a good idea.

I will finish this up my battery is almost dead.
Your Mary Beth

Ok, so check this out... I am giving you exclusive access to a potential page in the yearbook. You know the show "The Office" right? Well, I am trying to take on that theme and execute it throughout the book. This layout took over five hours to create each element was either handmade or modified by myself. I want each page to have great detail so if you take a look, you will notice the paper clip on the left-hand side of the page in which I drew. The red patch on the page was also created using my trusty Bamboo. I will have to show you a picture of it in another post. Basically, it is a smartboard and whatever I draw on the board it shows up on my screen.

In other news, I called The University of Georgia and they said I could take either the Thesis or Non-Thesis program. The Non-Thesis includes 11 courses and an exam. The Thesis program includes 9 courses and a Thesis paper. I usually test poorly so that would be reason to take the Thesis program. However, I really don't want to write a huge thesis paper and do poorly on it. I'm not sure what to do...

Stay Beautiful,

Your Mary Beth

Workin, Workin for others not for dough...

Hello everyone.

It's me again just to fill you in on the progress of the yearbook. Let's see, since I forgot to blog yesterday I will tell you what I did. Thankfully I have all of last year's flyers and club information kept neatly in  a file on my computer so I re-designed a flyer for the new year of prospective yearbook helpers. It took me about an hour or so to make a questionnaire, a "what I expect" paper outlining what needs to be accomplished for this year and what the title of the yearbook is and what it's about. Also, I have been working and hashing out things with the ladder. Now, in your mind you're thinking ladder as in a thing you use to climb. However, this ladder is created by me and describes what will be on every page of the yearbook. Seems simple right? WRONG! The tricky part comes with the intro or the Introduction. The intro is three pages which throws off the pagination of the entire book. I have to make sure there are enough single pages and spreads. To speak "human" a single page is just like it sounds one full page in the yearbook and a spread is two pages facing one another (a page on the left and a page on the right that are on the same subject). Well the ladder has gone up in flames I usually do everything in Microsoft Excel but this time I decided to organize everything in a planner. Bad decision because now I have to enter it all in the computer and re-hash it all out again since it's not working out the way it needs to be. On top of that I have to organize and plan for Athens which is another school on its own. Even though they are a satellite school, their information is still put in out book and now that an Athens advisor has been appointed for yearbook they want to make their own pages and send them to me which is completely ridiculous because they couldn't even get pictures to me on time last year. We will see what happens. I am not letting go of my reigns that easily.

Till next time

Your Mary Beth

15 days.

Fifteen days that's enough time to read a book, become devoted to a diet plan, maybe even begin to learn a new language. Fifteen days that is my countdown to the beginning of the end. I know I sound super dramatic. But I have that amount of time to solidify the yearbook ladder and make flyers for the yearbook club. However, my procrastination is in effect right now and I can't seem to motivate myself. Have you ever had so much to do and been so overwhelmed that you can't even accomplish the first thing on your list? That is how I feel.
So, if I didn't mention this before, I will mention it now. I am looking into becoming a Graduate student at the University of Georgia. It is so confusing. I want someone to say, "write this letter, take this test and you're in." It's not that easy. I have yet to talk to an actual person about the Graduate program but they do a great job of sending mass emails that could or could not pertain to you. Thank a lot UGA for being so helpful... not.

type at you soon,

Your Mary Beth

Purpose.

The purpose of this blog is to highlight my ups and downs, my triumphs and my failures. This blog will document my last year in college and what will happen with the rest of my life. This blog is also to document my progress as the Editor-in-Chief of Piedmont College's Yonahian (yo-nah-hee-an). If you don't know what I'm talking about I mean a yearbook. This is my third and final year as a yearbook editor. Honestly I must say I am terrified of the future and what is to come. I am trying to make a decision on whether or not to apply to Graduate school. This is a decision that has perplexed me for over a year and a half. I have one thing to comment on a Graduate program: Why didn't anyone tell me you have to take the GRE?? Now, I am behind in my pre-planning for Graduate school and who knows if I will even go? Well here is an instant download of my mounting stress.
'Til next time,

Your Mary Beth