sigelphoenix

I spent the last hour or so debating whether or not to drop one of my classes. Today is the last day to do so without incurring charges on my student account. In the end, I sort of forced myself to wait until it was past midnight, so I would have no choice.

I'm not sure I made the right decision. I was debating between dropping one of two courses, both of which seem to come from the, "I'm sure you can do THIS much reading, right?" school of thought. And I make this complaint as an English major who has gone through four years of classes, and has had her share of heavy reading loads. These two classes combined are giving me an average of 400-500 pages of reading per week. This is not counting the individual reading I'll have to do on my own for the research papers required in both.

The kicker is that one of them is a 3-credit class, but has the same amount of lecture, and more reading, than any 5-credit lit classes I've taken.

The problem is, I want to take both of these classes. They aren't required, and dropping one of them would not prevent me from graduating. However, I've heard great things about the professors, and I like them both from what I've seen so far. Both of the topics are interesting (First Nations women, and racism in health and human services). And, of course, I hate the idea of dropping a class - hate the idea of "quitting." Sure, no one would probably judge me for cutting and running. But I would - academia is one area of my life where I'm used to never (or rarely) failing.

So, in the end, I decided to stick it out. My average week will now look like this: 14 hours of lecture, 600 pages of reading (counting all classes), 15 hours at my job, volunteer work of undetermined time (one of my classes has a service learning component), papers due an average of once every couple of weeks, ongoing research for my final projects, and C.O.R.E. work as it comes up (because I need to have a certain amount of hours put in by the time I graduate).

Part of me is saying, "Sure, I can do that." Part of me thinks I'm being delusional.

I'll just have to cut down on my socializing/fun time, I guess. Except - wait - I don't have social/fun time during the week. Hell, I hardly have time to talk to kyonkun, and I live with her. The only part of my schedule where I could be more productive is during the weekends. I'll probably skip the anime showings. I've already made the commitment to game on most Saturdays, so I'm sure as hell not going to give that up. But that'll probably be my main/only time for fun stuff, and I'm going to have to get used to spending my weekend nights doing homework.

Fun stuff is, of course, for fun - it's not like anyone's obligated to provide me with free time. But one of the valuable lessons I've learned during my time at college is that making time for fun is actually important, in order to stay sane and happy. I've lived most of my life putting efficiency and productivity before enjoyment, and that's a pretty messed up way of handling my life - I really don't want to go back to that.

I really, really don't want to feel resentful of my classes, especially for my second-to-last-quarter. I do think these classes are valuable, and they can be really good for me. But they'll have to be worth the time I'm putting into them, and the personal concessions I'm making. Right now, I'm hopeful (stubborn?) and believe that they will be.