..nuts

They are all over our campus and they are smashed all over 3rd Ave. Oh to be a squirrel right now.

In all actually I don't care about the current proliferation of chestnuts on our campus. Mostly I just feel nuts sometimes.

Like now. I feel nuts, and this is why:

I AM ACADEMIC DISASTER.

This is what I am taking this quarter:
Law and Society (Upper Division Sociology)
Microeconomics (Lowest Division Economics)
Marxism Theory and Practice (Political Science Capstone)
Family Housing (Interior Design Capstone)

This makes me feel like a neurotic squirrel that runs around the Loop and instead of choosing carefully the nuts she will be investing her time in, she just thrusts herself at all of them without discernment. I have rational in what I am doing though, it is just difficult at times.

This is why:
Recently I have had an increasing number of people give me the head tilt and then say, "What are you majoring again?" The again is suppose to soften the fact that they are utterly confused at what the hell I am actually doing with my education. And then I say, "I am majoring in Sociology, minoring in Economics and Global and Urban Ministries," and then gasp because I am out of breath. Their response is usually to offer up what they thought I was majoring in and I have gotten quite a few guesses: Fashion Design, Philosophy, Political Science, Psychology, Economics... Apparently I don't look like a math major.

This questioning is difficult enough but then I have to actually go to my classes. In Marxism I am 'the mole' and in Family Housing I am 'the lone psycho that is going to college to become well-rounded'. But seriously, I usually feel remarkably dislocated in most of my classes. In sociology I feel strange because my mind is silently stringing along an economic theory to support or refute what is being said. In economics I want to start screaming at the top of my lungs because, like it or not, money is here and it holds power that daily impacts people. It matters, a lot. In my family housing class I usually internally let out a huge sigh of apathy because I don't even know what to think after a while. I mostly don't know how to respond to statements like this from my professor: "Race plays an role in determining housing options. I just don't really know that much about it so we are going to move on."

So 93% of the time I don't feel comfortable in class because there is the annoying voice of a different discipline whispering in my ear, making sure I never forget their meaningful interpretation of the material. But I am no victim. I comb through, select, and register for my classes quarter after quarter and the only complete waste of time that I have chosen has been Educational Ministries sophomore year.

When I look at the world I see billions of inputs- cause and effect relationships that all tell a small part of a bigger story. When I look into my own life this holds true as well. To become educated in one of these inputs seems incomplete to me, like I am willingly closing my eyes to the majority of reality for the sake of easing my personal journey. Ordinarily I champion my position of everything. Everything has it's place and part of my educational duty is to respect and explore it.

It just makes me feel insane most of the time because I have different interests that are seemingly pulling my mind and energy in separate directions all the time. I have no idea what I want to 'do with my life'. (What a stupid question, it's not like I am going to be reborn when I graduate college, I am already doing my life now. This is reality.) The thought of grad school terrifies me because I feel under-prepared to direct my educational focus into a specific and concentrated direction.

All of that aside, I see the value and importance of everything I am studying, independently and collectively. I love economic theory. I love sociological methods. I don't care if it just seems like a shitty pile of randomness because I think it's beautiful and one day, a fellow nut case employer will to. But then they will hire me and I will probably just blog about how annoying and sporadic they are in their thinking and go back to university to get my nursing degree.

Whatever.