The GOOD NEWS I bring to you today is brought to you with a bit of a heavy heart. This is the fifth and final issue of the Spring Term and my last issue as Editor-in-Chief. I want to start off by thanking everyone who help put together the newspaper each issue. I know I have said this multiple times before, but the newspaper is nothing without the help of all the dedicated writers, copy editors, layout editors and photographers.
I want to specifically thank Nancy Hui, Farzi Yusufali, Leah Kristufek, Jacob Terry and Spenser Good for their incredible effort in copy editing. I relied on them, along with the help of others, for finding all the spelling and grammatical errors. You can go yell at them if you find any mistakes in the issues this term.
I want to extend a huge thank you to Krishna Iyer for helping out with layout editing this term. He has spent countless hours in The Iron Warrior Office placing the articles in the newspaper. Several newspapers would have been late without his help. I would also like to thank Jacob Terry, Farzi Yusufali and Spenser Good for helping with layout as well. The fifth issue especially would not have come together without all of their help.
To all writers who put all the effort into writing intelligent, thought provoking articles; I thank you for being diligent in your research. To those who wrote articles that work towards making us laugh, thanks for lifting our spirits and reminding us that a newspaper doesn’t always have to be full of dreary stories. It is the diverse content that makes The Iron Warrior so great.
Another group of people that make the newspaper great are those who comb through the draft PDFs for last minute spelling and grammatical errors along with layout inconsistencies. I would like to thank Jacob Terry and Catherine Heymans for looking over each issue, reminding me to italicize The Iron Warrior and pointing out that I haven’t changed the preview pictures on the front page yet. The quality of the newspaper significantly increases after you look at it and I am very thankful for your hard work.
Other large contributors to the newspaper were Mary Bland and EngSoc Executives; David Birnbaum, Kevin McNamara, Drew Dutton, Leila Meema-Coleman, Brendan O’Hanlon and Annamaria Reda. Mary Bland made sure all our finances were kept track of, archived each issue, and also mailed out the issue to who-knows-where. Without her this newspaper would not exist. Thank you for all your help and guidance. The EngSoc staff were AMAZING at getting articles in on time this term, something that not every EIC can say. Leila was especially great at getting her articles in on time, getting them in days in advance.
To complete the long list of thank you’s I want to thank anyone who has stopped by the office during a production weekend. It can sometimes get lonely in the windowless E2 2347 room and any company was always welcome. This weekend especially was wonderful on Saturday when the office was full of awesome people, working on the newspaper, having fun and laughing. I could not ask for a better group of people to work on a newspaper with. A big thanks to Catherine Heymans and Ioana Craiciu for dropping by the office most production weekends, dragging me out of the office and keeping me sane.
I lied, there is one more group of people I want to thank. YOU! The readers! What is a newspaper without people who read it. It is because of you I had this great opportunity and I hope you continue to read for years to come. I think The Iron Warrior is one of the best engineering newspapers in Canada and it’s because of your support that we’ve developed into what we are today. Thank you!
I will also take this time to announce the winner of the Iron Pen Award and the Editor’s Award. The Iron Pen Award winner is Nancy Hui with 13562 words! Nancy blow away the competition, she probably could have stopped writing after the third issue and still won the Iron Pen Award. Congratulations Nancy! Without your massive word count it would have been much harder to fill the newspaper. I hope everyone has learn much about vaccines this term, since I think half of Nancy’s articles has something to do with that topic.
I would also like to announce Krishna Iyer as the recipient of the Editor’s Award. Like I said before, Krishna was a huge help when it came to layout. While I might not always agree with his layout style, Krishna is always there if you need to laugh or smile. He has spent more time than I could ask one person to stare at this newspaper. You have been a great help this term Krishna, I would have not been able to make it through without you!
I have absolutely LOVED being the Editor-in-Chief of the The Iron Warrior. I would do this all over again at the drop of a hat. Unfortunately, that is not possible as I must pass on the torch and give someone else the opportunity to take charge of the best Engineering newspaper in the country. Everyone please congratulate Spenser Good on becoming the Winter 2014 Editor-in Chief. Spenser has been with the newspaper since his 1A term and has written many great articles for the newspaper. He has shown great dedication to the newspaper and I believe he will continue to improve the newspaper and continue The Iron Warrior’s great reputation.
Good luck Alex Lee, the Fall 2013 Editor-in-Chief. I think you will do a great job running the newspaper. If you ever get lost, don’t forget you have a very experienced team around you, willing to help you whenever you need it.
I will truly miss seeing everyone at our weekly meetings. It has been my pleasure to get to know everyone involved in The Iron Warrior. I can say without hesitation, that you are all amazing people and I wish I could get to know all of you better. Being Editor-in-Chief has also given me the unique opportunity to meet more people in Engineering this term than I have in my previous two terms at school. I have been more involved in the Engineering Society than ever before and I got to see all the passionate people that help run our Society and host all our great events. From things like EngSoc at THEMUSEUM to the Toronto Pride Parade, Enginuity, Purplepalooza and EngPlay, its easy to find people with a wide range of interests and passions. I am sad that many of the people I have come closer to will be heading off to co-op soon and I will likely not talk to them until the Winter term, that is if you aren’t going on an exchange or have a crazy eight month co-op. It also saddens me that a lot of people I have met will also be graduating in 2014. I just had the chance to get to know all of you and you’re already leaving. I wish I would have become involved a lot earlier in my Waterloo career. I want to say it was a pleasure meeting all of you and I hope I continue to meet more awesome people within Engineering and in other faculties as well!
As I have EngPlay on the mind, I want to congratulate the directors, actors and crew on a fantastic production. The quality of production put together in such a short time is amazing. The musical was both funny and a great commentary on modern relationships. I was particularly moved by last three acts of the play. My favourite line from the play comes from the second last act; “[you have] That look of someone who has lost the person they’ve spent their life with.” A lovely yet depressing sentiment showing how another person’s life can have such an influential effect on someone else’s that it permanently changes them, etching themselves into your soul. Anjali and David did a wonderful job with that scene.
So here we are, the last newspaper is laid out, all the articles are copy edited and beautiful. My last editorial where I can ramble on about nothing and have the guarantee that it makes it into the newspaper. No longer can I rant about whiny Engineering students or talk about random people on the internet without knowing what point I am trying to make. I am sorry if I missed someone in my series of thank you. Just because you were not mentioned explicitly here doesn’t mean I am not grateful of everything you’ve done. Thank you and, as always, don’t forget to be awesome!
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