Fiesta Friday

Today I'm throwing a fiesta in the Journal office to try and recruit 1Ls for next year's staff. After picking my editorial staff, this is the first public official thing I've done as Editor in Chief, so I thought I'd take the chance to blog about my experiences so far. I'm learning more and more that the EIC's job, especially on our journal, is made up of about 25% of what I saw the current EIC doing all this year from my perspective as a staff member, and 75% "other crap." So even though I probably don't appear to my staff like I'm doing all that much right now, I'm officially overwhelmed by the job almost all of the time.

I've learned that being an EIC is not something that will come easily or effortlessly any time in the near future for me. Rather, I feel as though the best I can do is periodically catch up on everything that I feel is getting away from me. When I do manage to catch up, I can remind myself that I am doing an okay job and that things are going well for me and for the Journal. It doesn't hurt that the secretary and the current EIC are great at giving me positive reinforcement regularly. However, the rest of the time, it would appear as though my performance anxiety and stress levels are back to where they were 1L year, which is not okay with me.

This obviously has an effect on the rest of my life (sorry I'm such a b*tch to those of you who have to deal with me regularly!), and it has especially started to affect my sleeping habits. I regularly wake up with a feeling that there is something huge I'm forgetting to do and it takes a while for me to remind myself (and my racing heart) that everything is fine. Hence, why I was up at 5 this morning, despite the fact that I have no classes and told myself I could sleep in. And not sleeping well never helps with the b*tch factor.

Looking back on this post, it's less of an update on what I do as EIC and more of an update on how crazed I feel. My narcissistic ramblings are probably more interesting than the technical details anyway. ;) Instead of updating you on the goings-on of my Journal, I suppose I'll use this opportunity to apologize to those of you who have to deal with me and to say that I hope once summer comes and finals are over, I can take a while to reflect on how I could be an effective EIC without being a panicky, heinous friend/sister/daughter/leader/etc. Bear with me, I really think things will get better!