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Page 3 • Thursday, December 2, 1999
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AMANDA PALM • PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY GUY ROGERS
A manda Gann, a senior jour
nalism major, feels the pres
sure of finals lurking just
around the corner. With those fi
nals come stress and all of the ef
fects it causes, both physical and
emotional.
“Finals are coming up, and I am
looking for a job, since graduation
is coming up soon,” she said. “The
holidays are stressful, too — buy
ing presents, helping my mom dec
orate at home, all that stuff. Mom
has millions of parties every year,
and she puts us to work at home to
get everything ready, and things
can get crazy. ”
Dr. Andy Smith, associate direc
tor of counseling at Student Coun
seling Services, said college can
cause stress in a student’s life.
“People pin a lot of hopes and
dreams on college,” he said. “It’s a
major stresser, because there is a lot
riding on it. This time of the semes
ter always finds performance stress
as a big factor. People begin to won
der if they are good enough or if they
are measuring up to their own or
others’ expectations. ”
Smith said stress is a fact of life.
“Realizing what stressers are nor
mal can help people deal with
stress,” he said. “Recognizing the
normality of stress is important so
that you don’t get too crazy over feel
ing crazy. A little bit of craziness is
to be expected. When stress begins
to interfere with daily life, then it can
become harmful.”
A major cause of stress is pro
crastination, especially among col
lege students, who are famous for
putting things off until the last
minute.
Gann considers herself to be a
“former procrastinator.”
Students learn to deal with
rigors of life, school as end
of semester approaches
“I got so far behind one year that
I decided I would never do that to
myself again,” she said. “Now I
make lists of all the things I have to
do, and I check things off as I go
along to manage my time. It helps
my stress levels a lot.”
Gann’s change in behavior is just
what Margaret Griffith, health edu
cation coordinator at Beutal Health
Center, recommends to reduce
stress levels.
“Put on paper what you have to
do and when you have to get it
done,” she said. “There are only 24
hours in a day, and you have to sleep
some of them.”
Smith said procrastinating is
inefficient because it forces the
work and decreases the quality.
“[Procrastinating] just creates
more stress for yourself,” he said.
“People who purposefully wait until
the last minute and then push them
selves really hard claim they work
better that way. It’s actually just a
nice rationalization. If they were to
set goals and plan, the quality of
their work would be better. ”
Griffith said there is a list of
physical reactions to stress, includ
ing lack of concentration, a de
creased or overwhelming appetite
and insomnia.
Gann said she has felt each of the
symptoms as a result of her stress.
“I can’t sleep at night because I
stay up worrying about things,” she
said. “My appetite changes; I’m not
as hungry as I usually am. Anything
can set me off. My ‘freaking out
threshold’ is a lot lower, so it can be
much easier for me to lose it.”
To deal with the effects of
stress, Gann said she exercises to
get her mind off things.
“I go running in the morning,”
she said. “It helps me to release my
stress. I just think about running,
not about tests or anything else
that may stress me out. It lets my
mind wander. ”
Griffith said she also has a pre
ferred method of combating the
effects of stress.
“My favorite is always humor,”
she said. “It diffuses stress. It’s hard
to be tense when you’re laughing.”
Griffith also said depending on
your support network of friends and
family and making them aware of
what is going on can help you get
through tough times.
Smith said it is important to work
with your friends to make it through
stressful times. By working together,
students can help each other stay
healthy, he said.
Lyle Slack, coordinator of the
Learning Skills Center of the Student
Counseling Service, has a list of tips
to help students survive finals.
He suggests making a calendar
which runs through the end of finals
to help manage time. Slack also cites
attending the last days of each class
as a way to better prepare for finals.
Relaxation techniques are great
ways to eliminate stress. Slack said.
Things such as taking a walk out
doors or using relaxation tapes can
help relieve the stress and anxiety
of finals.
Smith said students simply need
to learn how to balance stress be
cause some amounts of stress are
good to have.
“We put ourselves in stressful sit
uations because we like that chal
lenge,” he said. “At the end, when
the pressure is relieved, that is a
huge part of the satisfaction. Life
without stress would be a dull life.”
ole reversal: National Enquirer editor slams celebrities as media manipulators
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to Texas A&M
S1M1 VALLEY, Calif. (APj — When it comes to in
stitutional images, tabloid newspapers are right up
there with HMDs, personal-injury attorneys and, per-
ps, snakes in the grass.
Mainstream journalists look down on them, celebri
ties try to sue the pants off them and just about every-
ppe glances over their shoulder before sneaking a peek
at them in the checkout line at the grocery store.
How bad can they be?
National Enquirer editor Steve Coz was given a rare
opportunity to answer for his sins and the relentless
prsuit of that juicy detail at a recent privacy-and-the-
ess forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library.
Instead, he called celebrities to task, characterizing
me of them as whiny babies who want it both ways:
lf-promotion and privacy.
J “There’s a $5 billion-a-year machine out there that
exists to sell an image, and whether it’s true or not, it
doesn’t matter,” he said. “It exists to get the public to
buy the image so celebrities can accumulate more
power, influence and money. ”
I These media manipulators are fair game, he said,
bristling at suggestions the media is invasive with its
celebrity coverage.
“It’s one thing to be invasive and another to be
iCrutinizing,” he said. “I think when that line between
the word “privacy” and “scrutiny” gets blurred is
where the media takes a bashing.”
The increasing intersection of politics and celebri
ty — Donald Trump, Jesse Ventura, Warren Beatty,
Alec Baldwin, even Cybill Shepherd — requires ag
gressive coverage of what was once considered the pri
vate lives of public figures,The 42-year-old editor said.
“There is a sense we are going through the look
ing glass when it comes to politics and the media (be
cause) we have politicians who have become celebri
ties and celebrities who have become politicians,”
Coz said.
“As we move through this looking glass, there is a
benefit to the Enquirer because we have already gone
through that looking glass.”
And they are using the word “privacy” to control
the public, he said.
“We have a celebrity community that has political
aspirations and political power,” Coz said. “Why has
privacy become such a fashionable word? “I think
what you have taking place is a huge powerful insti
tution — the celebrities in this country — who are ex
tending their influence and control into all areas of our
lives. Now they are doing politics.”
Celebrities only complain when they lose control
of their own publicity machines, he said, citing Demi
Moore and Michael Jackson as classic examples.
They protest their privacy has been invaded when
unflattering photographs or scandalous stories are
published — particularly in the Enquirer — but are
not shy about trying to use the media to their own
advantage.
Years ago, the Jackson camp fed photographs of
the pop singer in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber for
use in the Enquirer. The tabloid rejected them be
cause they were poor quality.
“They had them taken again and sent them to us
to use, but only if we included the headline
‘Bizarre!’” he said. “It was bizarre.” The Enquirer
ran the picture.
Jackson is a chronic complainer his privacy is
invaded.
Jackson spokesperson Bob Jones would not com
ment, saying the oxygen-chamber photos were pub
lished before his arrival at MJJ Productions.
Moore posed nude for a Vanity Fair cover while
pregnant. She showed up nude again on a magazine
cover in a post-pregnancy pose and bared a lot of skin
on the “Late Show With David Letterman” to show
she had regained her figure.
“At the same time, she says, ‘I cherish my priva
cy,”’ Coz said. “Demi will do anything in her power
to create publicity, to create a sexy image for herself.”
Using a chart to make his point, he said the Na
tional Enquirer has done 25 sensational stories on
Moore’s private life, including details about her di
vorce from Bruce Willis.
“Demi would probably say we pick on her,” he
said. “We don’t pick on her, she thrusts herself at us.”
The Enquirer has not carried any stories on Oscar-
winning actress Meryl Streep in five years.
“Meryl promotes her art, not herself. She’s the op
posite of Demi Moore,” said Coz, challenging the au
dience to come up with any details about Streep’s chil
dren or where she lives.
“Demi is a household word. She’s become a part of
the soap opera of our lives through her self-promotion.”
Moore would not comment on the Coz statements.
“When there’s a project to publicize, she publicizes
it,” spokesperson Pat Kingsley said. “Then she goes
back to her private life. ”
Coz said he feels vindicated by the gradual
tabloidization of mainstream media in recent years.
“When Barbara Walters sits down with Monica
Lewinsky and asks ‘What’s phone sex?’ — who’s the
tabloid?” Coz asks.
“We know exactly what we are. We go to cover sen
sational events in a sensational manner.“At least I’ll
tell you that. A lot of the other media won’t.”
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First Summer Term 2000
JfofUi Pne 9 4Ui^e& ! UM | What was the Star?
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Call and ask for the PACE (Post Abortion
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