With spring break soon arriving, the stress levels of students are going through the roof. And I can say I am one of them.

Having gone through about nine weeks of classes, classes and more classes, I don’t know how I can tolerate anyone right now. Between the 18 credit hours of courses, working the newspaper and training to be a Freshman Orientation leader for the fall semester, I am about ready to pull out my hair.

It was my choice to do this, but there are so many factors that come into play with this stress.

First of all, although it is 18 hours, the class load isn’t the thing that is killing me. It is finding the opportune moment to work on everything. I have a schedule down as to what I need to do each day, but do I ever follow that to the T? That is a challenge.

I have some classes that require group projects, which, with the newspaper, keep getting pushed back and back. I cannot afford to take low grades this semester; I am not that kind of student. Plus, I don’t know how my parents would feel about it, but I do know if a problem arose, I would talk it over with the instructor and find a way to not become stuck in a corner.

Part of finding that time to study is trying to balance it with writing articles and helping design pages for the newspaper, which is a feat in itself.

Writing one article per week for the International section and designing that page looks easy, but it is not. The job of the journalist is to, within a week’s time, set up the proper interviews for the story. That requires working around both yours and sources’ schedules. Then, sitting down to decipher or transcribe your interviews.

Here is the difficult part — writing the story. That may be the simple part for me, but trying to concentrate on the topic and what I need to write so readers know what is going on s the difficult part. I admit I can be somewhat text happy, and I apologize for that. I like to write and love working for this paper, but sometimes I feel I don’t enjoy it. That is what stresses me out. I worry too much about the deadlines. But, it was my decision to work to become a journalist, and this is what I am going to stick with.

I never have the chance to sit down and write for my enjoyment anymore. I have been writing a science fiction story since the eighth grade, but have not been able to work on it. It has been written and rewritten, but never finished.

The Freshman Orientation leader training is self-explanatory. Although the group meets about once a month to go over what needs to be taught in the Freshman Orientation classes, there is a lot of outside work to be done. Here is where the time factor comes back to haunt me.

I am starting to hate the word “time.”

Besides school, let’s not mention how other people play a part in this stress, too.

Working on the newspaper staff takes plenty of patience and working together. I am placing more emphasis on the phrase “working together.” I hate people who slack off and don’t do their respective jobs, which then they push off to someone else to do.

Not cool. Stress levels go more than through the roof; they are near the planet Saturn by now.

In a perfect world, the paper would be done by a reasonable time, but in this reality 6 a.m. is unacceptable. People leaving early once their pages have been designed is a no-no. There is still the editing, proofing and possible redesigning. Also, sitting around doing absolutely nothing and not helping stresses the people around you out. You could be doing something to help relieve everyone who has enough on their plates.

Enough rambling, is spring break here yet?