Disappointed Anger

I learned something yesterday that has me mad. I don't mean that I'm slightly annoyed or irritated. This isn't an anger that small or unfounded. I don't even know how to describe it, because I have never been this angry about something like this before. I just feel like I've been cheated. I feel like I'm being punished for something I don't remember doing.

Why am I so mad?

Well, I've been working on my school newspaper for almost three years now. Three years ago, on my first day of high school, I walked into Mrs. Erickson's room as a clueless sophomore. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. No one had prepared me for the challenge of learning how to write news or how to be part of a staff that moves at such a quick pace. I had never planned on becoming Co-Editor-in-Chief after having only worked on the paper for a single year. I was never told how hard it was to be an editor or how much time I would devote to putting that newspaper together. I was not prepared to love and hate it as much as I did. I was not prepared for it to end as it all seems it will now.

LHS went through some real drama last year that partially resulted in our principal retiring and all of the eyes in the state being turned on us. The result of that was a new principal who had to pay a lot more attention to where money went and how it was spent. For the newspaper, that meant that a product that had once been fully supported by the school had to completely function on its own. My advisor paid for our last three papers in full, but cannot afford to do the same again. This means that, unless we can sell $600 in ads by Tuesday, there will be no Senior Edition of the Centurion for the class of 2011. I think I'm the only one who is seriously upset about this.

No one else on the staff is as invested in that paper as I am. That is something that I have known all year and that I have struggled to come to terms with. When I am telling everyone that they need to work harder and that we need to have the paper done now, it is because I want it to be the best possible product that we can present to the student body. It doesn't matter that a majority of them won't ever look at it; I don't do it for the recognition. I do it because seeing that newsprint with our Layton High Centurion logo on it is one of the best feelings that I know. I love seeing our work on the page, concrete evidence of our time at Layton High.

So this last edition is especially important to me... and we may not even be able to print it.

I just... don't even know where to direct the anger and the frustration that I feel right now.

Last month, when we won state Science Olympiad and MM (a guy from Davis who I used to be on the FFJH team with) realized he wouldn't be going to nationals, I didn't understand why he could consider it failure. He had placed in third and had been to nationals FOUR times. I think I understand a little bit more now, though. To have come so far and have almost reached the end and then to be told that we probably will not make it... I don't even know how to describe what I'm feeling right now other than anger and disappointment.

I'm ready for senior year to be over now.

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