Making a decision.

Fuck the Thorn and school for the next forty-five minutes. This is me time. I need to think.

I have a problem. The problem is that my workload is unmanageable. This is sad, because it doesn’t bode well for my success at Rose if seventeen credit hours is enough to bring me down.

Regardless, the problem is there.

There are a couple of options laying before me that may alleviate some of the stress.

Michael has in the past suggesting giving up the Thorn, or at least finding some way to delegate much of the responsibility. This would help.

Abstracted, this would be the option to key in on academics. Perhaps I would give up some of my attractiveness to employers, but I would be able to focus more on research, on academics, on group and independent projects. I’d most likely have a sexy resume/skillset, although I’d be pushed back into the general pool a little more by the lack of big leadership evidence. I’d stress more about the tests, but I’d be more able to focus on them, too.

Luke suggests giving academics the slip. Don’t kill myself over homeworks and tests, get more sleep. Have more fun. Focus more on the personal aspects of the growth that’s supposed to occur during the college years. Wholistic approach, and all that.

I’d come out with a sexy resume/skillset reflecting my work and leadership capabilities. I would be less likely to be facing the decision I will be tomorrow afternoon (shh. It’s a secret.). I’d be more outgoing, more dynamic, and wouldn’t be pidgeonholed into “typical” CS positions.

The problem here? I could very, very easily find myself a graduating senior, hiding my GPA from my resume because of how low it is, with dangerously few job propects and $27k in debt. When you’re at Rose, you hide cumulative GPAs below about 3.00. (A “C” is not average, folks.) I could find myself in higher-level required CS courses struggling tremendously because I didn’t struggle enough back when the basics were being taught.

Optimal, of course, would be some balance of those two. But I ain’t found it yet this year, and if I find it next quarter while only taking 13 credit hours, I may need to resume looking elsewhere for my educational fulfillment, be it IU or UNC. Fer skerious, because that’s just ridiculous.

So I need to decide what stays. What’s flexible, what can go. I am growing fatigued of finding myself in this position where I haven’t gotten more than four hours of sleep in seven nights—including my weekend nights. I know good and well that one good night of sleep will make me feel better. In fact, I know even more: I’ll get that night of sleep on Friday night, wake up on Saturday to do research, and find myself minimalizing all this again. I’ll find myself saying, “Okay, so my tolerances are lowering; I can’t do that for eight nights anymore. Six nights is my limit. Wednesday night was just an anomaly, something to avoid, of course, but not really that serious. Just me being stupid and inefficient.”

Before the limit was twelve nights. Then ten. There’s a pattern here, and I might as well analyze the shit out of it while I’m bitchy and grumpy and discontent enough to do so.

I don’t even know how to go about making change if I wanted to. Do I just walk off Thorn staff, despite the fact that Luke may seriously do me physical harm and Dr. McKnuckleberry will lose all respect for me? Rose is too small for restraining orders, and Luke would find some way to get me anyway.

Do I walk off NSBE? I’m already not going to let them attempt to put me up for an officer’s spot next year, because I haven’t done it justice this year.

Do I just quit a job?

Do I let my grades slip even further?

Or do I keep going under the idea that it’ll most likely be worth it in the end, that I’ll be hardened for future trials, that I should be willing to struggle a little more for my $34k-a-year education?

I don’t know.