Soul suckers

That's how the 2008 yearbook staff was described. Getting onto the staff wasn't the easiest process ever for me. I had to apply (even though my sophmore year the teacher loved me so muc she said that I didn't even have to apply), then if they liked your application, they contacted you to do an interview. Obviously I didn't pass up that oppertunity. When I entered that room my first thought was "wow, never seen so many unhappy faces in one place." And for some reason that didn't slow me down. Probably thought I'd fit in perfectly. I went through it the interview and found out later on that they loved me and I was "in". I was super estatic. This would look great on a resume.
I didn't start off my senior year on the staff confident, but I ended it...still not confident. It was my job to write the stories that would go in the yearbook. But to the editors, designers, photographers, and advisors, that's all we were. Writers. We didn't get a say in anything, and no matter how well a story was written, we were yelled at, literally, and instructed to re-write it their way. There was no such thing as a free write. Even our own opinions were looked down on. I began to undrstand why all those script writers went on strike in Hollywood.
We were given complicated assignments, and were told to have it back on nearly impossible deadlines. I quickly learned the defintition of stress, and had to step out of my comfort zone to get the job done.
Not only was I just a writer, I wore black. Which must mean I'm the anti-christ or something. I was looked down on because of it, and only made one friend the entire year.
I've never been more happy to get out of a class. The day we took that group photo, I was in the most terrible mood imaginable. But that was the photo I had been waiting for all year; proof that I was strong enough to complete the year as a staff member. My writings published for then entire student body to read. All 1,400 of them. I smiled and looked happy, as the rest of us did. And now, as I look that picture over, you can't even tell that I was upset by the look on my face. I did it, I learned how to be fake. Like the rest of them.
Now I know I can survive.