As I step into my new role as editor of Unconquered Peaks, I have been going through a lot of new discoveries. Henceforth I thought I would share with you some of my most notable revelations.
My very first realisation upon taking up this role is that I cannot, in fact, spell unconquered. I am very confused as to why it contains a “q.” Apparently, it comes from Latin, so I shall just blame the Romans (no disrespect to Latin scholars, I have a high respect for all of you). That said, the q is my saving grace I tend to just type a word that starts with “un” and has a “q” in it and leave spell check to do the rest! Clearly a work in progress. Please note that if you ever get an email with it spelt wrong, it most definitely was my fault.
For Unconquered Peaks to appear in the lovely format it does, I must upload everything to WordPress. Which I can honestly declare the most intimidating piece of software I have ever seen (and I once made a neon red and green website for a computer science project in Year 8). There are a lot of buttons, still not sure what half of them do, hopefully I will figure them out as I go along (or even more preferably, never have to use them!). All I can say is that I am infinitely grateful (and impressed) by Milly for giving me a crash course. I have an insane level of respect for anyone who had to learn it without the wonderful guidance of those who came before.
I have been given a name badge “in case I forget who I am. Very thoughtful, as that does happen” (Doctor Who. 2011). The name badge in question has the line “caution magnetic” on the back. I cannot tell if this is my calling to become an evil supervillain (Magnetic Man does have a nice ring to it) or if I need to treat it with unnecessary caution like it is an undetonated bomb. Furthermore, I am not entirely sure which bit of said badge is magnetic and I am too scared to try and figure it out, accidentally wiping my hard drive would not be a good start to my summer term. (I have since found out that neither my laptop nor my phone contains a hard drive, and the magnetic bit is unsurprisingly the bit that says “caution magnetic” on it but even so). Currently, my greatest achievement is that it is still in my possession.
I have been provided with social media (follow us @unconqueredpeaks on Instagram, unconquered_peaks on Spotify, and @unconqueredWHS on Twitter). For those who know me, I am utterly useless at social media. For context, just looking for those handles took me longer than trying to write this article, in fact, it went so spectacularly badly that my phone crashed the moment I tried to log onto Instagram, and I ended up having to copy and paste the details from Milly’s emails. My social media incompetence is not limited to Instagram, I have taken numerous looks at the Twitter page and remain in the dark about where I am supposed to be typing. Can I post? Unsure. I have, however, learnt a remarkable amount about the progress of the Alleyns students doing their DofE, congratulations to them. So, whilst I’m sure you are all thoroughly looking forward to me struggling through my lack of skill in social media (a prize goes to the person who can correctly predict the number of incomplete posts I post by mistake), I shall continue to pray for a magical social media god to come down and take control.
I have also discovered that whole school emails are completely terrifying. After my dip into whole school emails during science week I must confess, I was overjoyed by the prospect of never having to send one again, or so I thought until I clocked in my new role I’m expected to send one weekly. (That said, I am absolutely overjoyed at the prospect of being your editor, it has been quite difficult to contain my excitement.) For those of you fortunate to have never sent one, Outlook will remind you that you are sending an email to over 883 recipients and overall attempt to make the experience twice as stressful as necessary.
So, whilst I hope you have enjoyed reading about my shenanigans as I settle into the role, I would just like to say what a privilege it is to be in this position and how thrilled I am for the upcoming year! (And if you are reading this successfully, I have figured out how to use WordPress.)
