(This is largely a recapitulation of my earlier entries)

For the past week, you could probably describe my mood as one of pervasive academic turmoil, from despair to confidence to hubris to calculating to dumb worries to strange fits of depression when I lose the written proof of such silly, silly angst.

Well, here's the short story:

Last weekend, didn't think I had more than a 50/50 shot at graduate school; no money, poor grades, nothing extraordinary to recommend me.

Monday got an email from T@ger inviting me to join my first academic honorary, which though the standards are low, made me feel not such an academic lameass.

And I looked at a few grad programs, realized OSU doesn't even require the GRE and their minimum GPA is a 3.0, and financial aid seems attainable.

Took a practice GRE test and realized I'm stupid.

I have very high hopes for my Edith Wharton paper, too hubristic to mention here yet.

Awaited the, in my opinion, long-overdue 2004-5 course schedules like a vulture all week.

Or it felt like all week, but now that I think about it it was posted on Tuesday. So, angsted a bit over a particularly excruciating choice, factors including:

- The history courses I planned to take, including Age of Reason, are not being offered
- DHS lied, and I'm never going to have the chance to take a course with her again
- There are TWO Itzk0witz classes I want to take, which is so masochistic of me, but I'll probably only take one
- I want to take both of Dr. K's fall courses, which is also masochistic
- Notable American Women and Women & US Politics are offered at the same time, which is among the top 10 most unfair things to ever happen to me, but I'll try to take the later as an independent study
- I really do not want to take Human Sexuality, interesting though it may be, but with enough gender studies courses to have had a major in it I hope I can be excused from this really arbitrary requirement

So it was going to be something like:

Fall: Scope of Political Science, Classical Political Thought, Spanish 3, Love and Addiction, Contemporary Europe

Spring: Women & US Politics, Modern Political Thought, Notable American Women, Existentialism... Women in the Visual Arts? Later American Novel? Spanish Civilization? Human Sexuality?

And then I calculated my actual/potential GPA on my cellphone and realized I could graduate with something closer to a 3.8

Which started me thinking about Phi Beta Kappa, which has been today's drama, because I found out that now they're requiring 15 hours in math and science; I know it used to be 12 because Jackie once warned me that her advisees often fall short with only their requirements, ie 8 credits science, 3 credits math = 11 credits and you're screwed

So I briefly considered taking a course over the summer but that would be $1000 or more, so no.

I have 11 credits now, so one 4-hour lab would get me just there, although I don't want to take another lab and it might look better besides to have two more 3-hour courses.

I don't know if environmental studies counts toward it because it's kind of social science.

If I have to take 2 math/sciences my senior year I'm dropping Spanish in the fall and pleading till I get out of Human Sexuality in the spring. I can teach myself the former and have no use for the latter. Plus I refuse to take two excruciatingly boring classes in one semester and I refuse to take two 100-level classes in one semester my senior year.

So fall I might do Environmental Policy and Law or Environmental Biology or Excursions in Mathematics. Spring, Politics and Global Ecology, Historical Geology, Dinosaurs, Astronomy... Actually, when I get over myself, I see there are several courses that would be quite interesting to me, but I still hate to clear a spot in my schedule for what is not at all a sure thing.

Even if I have the course distribution, can I be so sure I'm in the top 10% of my class? I would not hesitate in asserting that in actuality I am in the top 10% of my class. But whether my GPA is in the top 10%, I don't know. I have made a lot of blunders (every B+ on my transcript could have been an A-; every A- could have been an A) and other people could have taken crap courses. No idea.

So everything feels like it's up in the air, everything feels like a huge gamble, but I'm also driving myself crazy over really unimportant things.

I've been casually studying for the GRE, peeking at graduate applications, and not at all allowing myself to THINK PhD. It was fun to talk about a year ago, but now the idea of actually applying to a program makes me feel very young, very silly, and very, very hubristic. Then again, if all the financial aid goes to PhD candidates... and I want it eventually... No, no no, not thinking about that yet. The idea of going to my advisor and saying, I'm applying to these 6 PhD programs! seems roughly equivalent to saying, I think I'm as smart and cool as you are! Not yet.

And basically what it comes down to is what I told Lani the other day: I'm starting to feel qualified, but not yet up to it. I will find a way to bridge that gap.

I found out today that the professor who teaches both my women's studies courses next period is the guru of women's studies in the Netherlands. If you want to do women's studies you come to Utrecht because of her. I didn't know this when I signed up for the school or the classes, but now I'm very psyched at the opportunity; you would think this would only intensify my fear that both courses may actually be masters level, but it has actually only heightened my anticipation. I know this is what I ought to be doing now.

Anyway, this weekend, a day trip to Arnhem. Though I'd rather be in London or Nottingham, I'm starting to get very excited about it in spite of myself. The city looks absolutely adorable -- I have a feeling at the end of all my day trips, I will decide that Arnhem is my favorite city in the Netherlands. So I'll spend some time walking around for free and then take a bus to the zoo just outside town for an exorbitant €14,50, which a high price to pay for monkeys, but then, I'm really, really craving monkeys.

So I am, as per usual, ricocheting between extremes of "I'm stupid and completely unqualified" and "I am the smartest man alive!!" (TM Billy Madison) I pretty much have the situation under control, I pretty much know what I'm doing, but... I'm crazy, you see.

Well, I'm going to get my crazy self some ramen and maybe see Big Fish. Maybe take a night off from my self-obsessive academic stupidity.