At the beginning of the semester, I had a staff of four writers with various possibilities for filling four pages in a small eight-page campus publication. I had been only with this publication for less than the spring semester with no journalism or communications background. I happened to be sitting next to the Chief Editor during a lab for bio class and the normal 'what's your major'� question was asked. I should have told him something like Informatics, but instead, I tell the truth: English Literature and Composition.

This seemed to be all he needed to hear. He asked me if I wanted to write for him and all I had to do was prove I reeds good/writes gooder, show up at a couple of meetings, be the only one prepared, and WHAM! I'm the new Managing Editor of Student Life. I have never done anything like this before. I was happy in my new position and figured this could be not only a great resume builder, but also be a networking tool.

The first issue of the spring semester came out in January when all of my writers'including myself, were too busy with the flu to really notice articles and deadlines. How we managed to put together the first issue, I have no idea. Thank God for Letters to the Editor! To make matters worse, one of my writers I cannot get ahold of via cell phone, land phone, AND using two different emails accounts. I am down to three writers.

Mind you, this publication is considered an extracurricular activity and schoolwork and personal life comes first. I balanced a fulltime job, fulltime school load, and managed to spend time with my family. I had a writer that would constantly submit articles two days late and couldn't keep up. I am down to two writers.

By this time I'm irritated because I loathe writing articles. I can't do it. I could if I tried, but I can't figure out the inverse pyramid. I am already mad at myself because one of my writers decided to plagiarize her articles. That was embarrassing in the fact that the plagiarism crept past both my editor and me. She is somehow miraculously continues to be a part of our staff because 'she knows the editor'�. So needless to say, I am frantically looking for new writers without any luck.

Finally I find one of my peers that I am very familiar with her work. After a couple of issues I assign her to a front-page cover story with success. It was great! Article was what I was looking for and turned in one time'�

This issue, I assign her another front-page story and I don't have it in my dropbox. Then it dawned on me about a half hour ago, I didn't give her the deadline. Or did I? I'm still archiving the emails, but I sent her out a friendly reminder anyway.

I guess I am just disappointed with my experience in publications. I know this is just college level and this is a learning process, but it really turned me off of the newspaper industry. This is only a little blurb of what I've dealt with this past semester. I guess I was just expecting more out of everyone else because I was wanting more out of me. Who knows.

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