At Last, I Finally Got My College Yearbook.

The promised date of its release was February 2010, two months before our batch’s graduation.  This was to ensure that we would be able to enjoy this souvenir immediately after leaving college.    However, the yearbook’s release was more than a year late of its promised date.   Just got it as I write this.

Was it worth the wait? 

No.

No.  Because from the start, I preferred a college ring instead of a yearbook.  But the majority of my batch preferred a yearbook or was just apathetic with what type of souvenir the batch would have.  So a yearbook it is.

To be fair, the quality of the yearbook was great.  And it has a Facebook motif.  Therefore, there are Facebook-style “shoutout/status message” – quips or quotes by the individual – and “comment box” – some details or description of the individual written by a friend/classmate – included in a graduate’s profile.  Now, that’s creative.

Then again, if I want to look at a Facebook-themed profile – complete with photos, info, and status message – of a particular batchmate, wouldn’t it be better if I just – I don’t know – look at his or her Facebook profile!  I mean, after the advent of Internet social networking, having a yearbook as something to remind you of who you went to school with and read something about them, if not already made out of fashion, at least, is bland already.  So it’s actually ironic that the concept (Facebook) that the theme of the yearbook was based from is the one that makes it dull in comparison.     

Ok, you might consider it as a memento instead.  Something you can have tangibly on hand to make you sentimentally reminisce your school days.  Ok, that argument or purpose seems sound.  However, consider this… what is the predominantly content of a yearbook?  Right, profiles of batchmates.  So, those “sentimentally reminiscing” can only be done if those profiles are of people you actually know or shared experiences with, which would enable you to actually reminisce. 

But I don’t even know half of those people in my yearbook.  In the case of my high school yearbook – in which my only complaint was the part where the phrase “Hakuna Matata” (which is my motto) was criticized – I liked it because, even if I was not friends with all of them, I, at least, know all of them, since there were only a few of us (124 to be exact) in our batch.  In college however, there are plenty in the batch.  As I’ve mentioned, I don’t know half of them.  Heck, I wasn’t even familiar with the faces of most of them.  Therefore, I don’t care to read about most of the people in the yearbook.  But their “boxes” and “status messages” are there, dominating the pages.  In a Facebook analogy, it’s like having hundreds of connections/friends but you only know a minority of them, thus your home wall is flooded with posts and newsfeed of people you don’t know or care for.    

By the way, here’s my “profile page” in the yearbook:

I admit, it kind of looks nice.  Just one complaint.  In the “comment box” part, the written description for me got screwed up.  It should have gone like this:

As Bernel puts it:
"I'm a cowboy longing
for my ride to the sunset.
A six-shooter in my hand.
Staring down the bullet,
making my final stand."

Instead of just in one-paragraph form, it should have appeared as a 6-syllable-a-line, 6-line poem which was a bite-sized summary of a profile poem of mine.

(Sigh)

Still at least, I finally got the yearbook.  Overrated and late, but, at least, I got what was paid for when some batches don’t even get the yearbooks that they paid for.  

But I still prefer a college ring.