Low fat, high stress

When I came home from work a few nights ago, my suitemates were being a little loud. The walls in my dorm are pretty thin, and when I hear them making noise, I can usually just go next door and ask them to be quiet and there’s no problem.
But after a few weeks in my position here as entertainment editor, I was a little crazy, a little angry, and more than a little high-strung. I heard one of the boys make some loud, obscene noise, and I just snapped. I jumped out of bed, banged on their door, and a few well-used expletives and one dramatic door slam later, I was out in the hallway, seething my way back to my room.
But one of them stopped me and, in his way, told me that my behavior was unnecessary and rude. And he was right to do so.
I was fed up with having to ask them time and time again to quiet down, but I approached the situation the wrong way. And I think that might have something to do with my job here.
As much as I love my job, there are a few drawbacks to it. The hours are long, people complain about their workload, and I barely have time to myself anymore. Still, in my twisted and sadistic pursuit of journalistic excellence, I come back every day to make sure my section of the paper is on track. This means that I forgo eating in favor of editing a poorly written story, field phone calls and e-mails from frenetic public relations managers who want their bands, events or untalented children in the paper, and listen to thousands of civilians – non-journalists – who wouldn’t know the first thing about doing my job commenting every day about how they’d do things differently if they were working at the paper.
Meanwhile, I’m losing weight, every part of my body is tired, and I have no time for my friends.
But I believe in this newspaper – I believe that we few here at The Daily Gamecock do more for the student body every day than any other institution (with the exception of maybe Carolina Dining). And I love the people I work with.
So, I hope my suitemates can forgive my rudeness. I hope my roommate can forgive me for coming back to our room and waking him up in the wee hours of the morning. And I hope my friends can forgive me for not having any time for them. But most of all, I hope that I learn how to cope with my responsibilities and not take my frustrations out on those around me.

-- The Mix
Justin Fenner
The Mix Editor