Barely Hanging On

I'm beginning to feel like the beginning of my semesters are going to start the same way over and over and over. Last semester, I had a problem with my legs. This semester, I have a cold that won't go away.

Last Monday began with a flu of about 102. Most of my friends freaked out and wanted to take me to the hospital but, after calling my mom, it was determined that I was fine. Heck, even the nurse at the student health center said I was fine (but I'm still having a tough time trying to trust those people.) Then came everything else that comes with a cold: the stuffy nose, the headaches, and the sore throat. I've had a million colds in my 21 years but nothing compared to the intensity of this one. As the week went on, a cough developed and, though my throat seemed fine during the day, at night it went all Dr. Jeckle on me. The past couple of nights have been impossible for me to sleep, either because I can't stop coughing or because my throat hurts so bad that I don't even want to consider swallowing. All the Halls in the world did absolutely nothing for either of those. So, I'm currently on amoxicillin and praying that all of this stuff goes away. I'd like to feel normal again.

That being said, school started back up again today. My first class, newswriting, was extremely awkward. The professor decided to call out not only the names but the majors and years of each student, so I quickly discovered that I was the only junior in a class filled with freshman and a few sophomores. I was on the verge of mentioning that I was on the newspaper staff but I don't want to get off to a bad start with all the younglings around me, so I kept my mouth shut. A little later in the day, I had my rock climbing class, which I had to drop due to the fact that the professor wanted to go on class trips on the weekends and my entire weekend is dedicated to the newspaper.

And speaking of the newspaper... if I said we were busy today, that would totally under-estimate how swamped we were. I spent the majority of my day downstairs with the rest of the editors, helping out as best as I could. My new job as Lead Section Copy Editor has definitely taken on many more responsibilities. I stepped out of the newspaper for an hour to go to a class and, in the time, I received a call from the Chief Copy Editor, wanting to know if I could edit four opinion stories that had arrived extremely late and the current opinion copy editor was at soccer practice. So, off I tromped to the basement again for 2 hours of copy editing. (I had been down there earlier for about 2 hours before my next class and, at that time, they didn't have anything for me to do.) Then, right after I left the school to go home and crash from all my copy editing time, I recieved another call, this time from the managing editor, who needed me to look over the final proof of a couple of stories because the Chief Copy Editor needed to go to class (class? What's that?) and didn't get the time to look over again. So, as I waited for my pasta to cook at home, I sat and edited another three stories.

I'm basically the on-call, go-to copy-editor, when people need someone.

I'm really glad that I decided to take this job before becoming Chief Copy, just so I start feeling the weight of responsibility on my shoulders getting heavier. I realize that this is the first week of school, so things are a bit crazy, but getting used to being on-call isn't too bad. Especially because I'm going to have a lot more responsibility next semester.

Tomorrow, I have a copy editing class, the religious study on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien, and Women, Men, and the Media. It should be an interesting day...

Now, if I could just stop coughing, the world would be dandy.