To last year's words

^{Photo C/O Darya Kraplak}

I originally applied for Editor-in-Chief in February 2020, before most of us were really aware of the looming international news ahead (at least in hindsight it feels that way).

As I went through the application and interview process, things changed rapidly across the world. Met with seemingly unprecedented and unexpected circumstances, we all adjusted in our own way to the “new world”.

My first experience of this “new world” was conducting my interview over a Skype call that lasted five minutes before the unreliable service became absolutely unusable. So we switched to an old school conference call over the phone. At the time, I optimistically (read: naively) thought that would be the last interview or meeting I would have to conduct over the phone or internet.

Fast forward to now, and I have spent an entire job — from my onboarding to transitioning the new team — online.

I only worked in the Silhouette office — one of my favourite spaces — a handful of times over the past 12 months. I have still never met the majority of the Sil staff that I hired in person.

Those are only two things on a long long list of ways I had envisioned spending my final year working for the Silhouette, also my final year at a school I called home for six years (I really missed Burridge Gym this year).

With that all being said, I will always look back fondly on this year. I believe our team worked really hard to cover as many events as possible and share the various stories of the wide variety of people that make up the McMaster and Hamilton community. I believe we delivered on our goals and promises.

In the most trying year, we tried our best and made the most of it. If we learned anything this past year, it’s that together we can make the best of the worst situations. So, here’s to last year’s words, as next year’s words await another voice.

In the spirit of optimism — thumbs up only for this week.