Transcript Math 101 and my ongoing academic neuroses

I counted last night, and when I subtract the courses set aside for Athens (4), my remaining Core requirements (1), and my remaining history major requirements (7), I will have 12 courses left open to me for the rest of college. Twelve electives. That's a lot of non-catalogued time that will not be in any way resume-enhancing or attractive to employers, not to mention any future audited courses that will not even make it onto the transcript, no less the resume. (Of course, this does not prevent me from auditing them. In the battle between extra but invisible Machiavelli and all other visible things like History for Pansy Girls, invisible Machiavelli wins with his invisible sword of totally inscrutable political theory that chops History for Pansy Girls into small pieces which then cry because their feelings are hurt.)

Anyway, I could do a lot of interesting things with 12 electives. I could start taking German again, take the intro econ classes, and take all the Fundamentals classes I want without having to actually major in their little Social Thought-in-diapers conspiracy.

The other thing I could do with 12 courses is pick up another major.

I know, I know. I am a stuck-up, pretentious overachiever. But don't worry; there is very little possibility that I'll actually do this, since in my world, the liberal arts consist of history and everything else. The everything else is a stew of mostly unsavory ingredients from which a spoonful of edible things may be drawn here and there, but one certainly would not want to plunge bodily into the mess. Of the best options I can think of--sociology, geography, or political science--almost all involve "methods" courses--the really tedious, usually number-crunching, God I Wish My Major Didn't Suck So Much Ass classes that you really, really don't want to have to take but can get over if you really want the major. Obviously, I really do not want these majors, because the prospect of ever doing GIS-mapping again makes me want to upchuck. The other thing I can do is turn my classics minor into a major by taking 200-level Greek next year and submitting myself to the pain of another BA paper. This prospect also makes me want to do something detrimental to my own health.

So, this is a dilemma.

Contributing to this problem is my constant impression that I am not doing enough here. This impression generally begins when I find out that other people are doing more--usually things I had not even heard of before--and this leads to my birthing and nurturing a strong jealousy that other people are better than me, those bitches. Double majoring is one of the most prevalent of these overachievements which I feel compelled to take part in.

Another was course auditing. I didn't know about it until I noticed that people's Facebook profiles listed them as taking five, six, occasionally even seven courses, and I was like, "Bitch, what? The limit is four classes. That's what they told us during O-Week, right before they gave us rape whistles and explained where to get flavored condoms." The limit turned out not to be four classes exactly. All it takes is an email to the professor, and suddenly, you can have five! Two emails, and you could have six! Glory! However, by seven courses, you're just fucking lying.

Now that I have accomplished course auditing, I have discovered yet another thing I could be doing but am not. This is taking grad classes. Why am I not taking grad classes? Because they told me, around the same time as rape whistle distribution and flavored condom location explanation, that 200-level is upper-level here, and you need to do all kinds of fancypants things to get into anything higher, like maybe perform a synchronized swimming routine. But, alas, I know several undergrad asshats who are taking grad classes. As a result, I must pursue this further.

I think the most tenable solution to this ongoing problem is to DECIDE WHAT I WANT TO DO WITH MY LIFE. Because if I did that, I could stop running around like a headless chicken trying to do everything possible just in case it might come in handy for whatever nebulous post-college thing I end up falling into. So, if I'm going to grad school, it will behoove to me decide now and stick with it before I actually do attempt to take seven classes--all grad level--while triple-majoring, conducting independent research into the mating patterns of Canadian geese, interning for an NGO in Cambodia, and starting an RSO on the side. Basically, I need to be saved from myself and my overweening and totally directionless ambition.

Volunteers?