For everyone else it was a normal school day, but for me it was something else. I sit in my zero period class anxiously waiting. I can hear Lowry talk about something. Maybe it was mental health, maybe it was something about the human body. All I could focus on is that the elevator is going up and down, up and down, up and down. I shouldn’t be sitting here is another thing that is constantly buzzing through my head. Unfortunately, Ms. Britton wouldn’t pull me out of my zero period class to help with the process of moving all of the boxes. “We have enough help,” she tells me.

After 55 minutes of staring at the clock and clicking my pen, the release bell is finally rung, Lowry continues to talk about some health thing, but I don’t care. I have a goal in mind and no one is stopping me. I quickly shove all of my things into my bag and rush out of the health rooms. I basically sprint across the top level of the Thunder Dome. Then, I quickly walk up the stairs that will lead me to room 326 the fastest. I swerve and dodge around the kids who aren’t walking fast enough for me. I burst into the room and I am automatically fixated on the smell of ink and new books. If that wasn’t already an experience, the sight of hundreds of boxes stacked up on top of each other definitely was.

Each one of those boxes holds CMR high school’s memories for the 2017-2018 school year. The book I spent hours upon hours of my free time on. I slink over to Miss B’s desk with the cheesiest smile I can muster and I basically beg her to let me see the books. “I can’t sit for another period waiting to see them,” I plead. She refuses to budge and continues typing away at her computer. She then talks about how I should have patience and how I will appreciate it more if I wait. Then she sends me to my first period class, and I swear she did it with a chuckle.

I now have to wait another long 54 minutes before I get to see the book. Luckily my first period class wasn’t super boring because I was too buzzed up with energy and excitement to deal with “boring.”  Mrs. Wasson is going over our weekly vocab for sign language, but all I think about is how a floor above me is my creation. I lazily sign after Mrs. Wasson, I don’t want her to know I am distracted, but I can’t truly focus on what she is teaching. I hope we didn’t learn anything important that day, because it would have been knowledge I never received.

52 minutes later she stops teaching and lets us sign among each other. I usually love this part of class because I love speaking to others in ASL, but no one in this room even could possibly know the built-up excitement I have. No one understands how long I have been waiting for this moment. Some girls sit next to me signing about lunch. I think they were going to lunch together. I couldn’t imagine just talking about lunch on such an important day. It blows my mind that this is just an ordinary day for everyone else. I just watched the clock once again. Finally, after 120 antagonizing seconds the bell rings and I can finally rush up to the third floor once again.

I am one of the first people in there. We are all buzzing with energy. Everyone notices the smell and sight I was overwhelmed with this morning. A new addition to the room is a little table set up with sparkling cider of various flavors. It makes the room seem more airy and party like. It has a cute congratulations banner across it along with a matching table cloth. Miss B has all of her period two kids take a seat. She explains that she is not opening the box until the end of the period when period three yearbook can join us.

That sentence was almost enough to drive me to the edge. I think that day I almost drove Miss B crazy with all my begging and pleading to see the book.  Finally, it was the end of the period. Period three kids rush in and they have the same look on their faces as my classmates and I did 50 some minutes ago. We all sit down and grab our sparkling cider.

Ashley, our editor in chief, begins a speech about how far we had come as a family and how we have all grown as individuals. I sip on my sparkling cider, waiting in anticipation. She then takes out the poster board she and the editorial team had made at the beginning of the year.  It has the pictures and design ideas for the book. It was such a rough draft compared to what we actually sent in to get printed. It also has our tagline which is also known as the theme of the book. She talks about how this was our original plan for the book and how she is proud of  each and every one of us, after which she finishes her heartwarming speech.

Miss B then goes on and on about how she is so proud of us and all of the hard work we have put in. After Miss B talks for a while, she hands Ashley a box cutter to open the box neatly displayed on one of the tables. She carefully and slowly opens it. She pulls out the layer of cardboard placed on top of the books for safety. Her face is filled with joy and then she takes our the 2017-18 copy of the Russellog. The title clearly reads From the Ground UP. The colors are even more vibrant in person than they were on the computer screen. The white matte background looks amazing with the vibrant colors of red, blue, yellow, and orange smoke.

I am left speechless. My editor in chief sheds a tear and starts handing books out to all of us. I finally get my hands on one of the books, and I realize that months of hard work pay off. I start carefully flipping throughout the pages. I glance through all of the pages. Staring at my own pages and photos for a little bit longer than other people’s.

It was surreal experience flipping through the pages and seeing all of them combined nicely with one another even though they were all so different. The theme was nicely spread throughout the pages and the thematic pages such as the division pages were breathtaking. This was something I helped create and other people were going to see it and appreciate. In fact they paid sixty or more dollars to own one of their own. My hard work, my homework was going to be proudly displayed in many people’s homes and that left me astonished.