Ze madness of too many choices.

After reading through 50 newspaper-quality pages of information about available classes at IU I can honestly say:
1. I'm bored
2. I'm confused
3. I have no idea what I'm doing but I guess I'll just pick a bunch of things I'm interested in and give the list to my advisor later on

I'm serious, it feels like the whole college process, beginning last November, has been a big "they-shove-a-bunch-of-papers-in-our-hands-and-expect-us-to-run-with-them" affair. It's been absolutely chaotic. Before choosing my future classes I'm supposed to read through an 80 page instruction manual on how to choose classes and then go through and, keeping in mind all the requirements (for IUSD and CAAS), I'm supposed to pick.
Pick what?
Which classes, ones marked "non-majors" from the things I won't be majoring in, or can I choose others?
D;lkj;lkj salkfjsldjf flksjflsf sdkjhafksdjfh hskh sdhfkdsjh hjdhh wioeirbba wpoe jgg??
It's chaotic.

So I spent the whole morning highlighting the fine print in the big book of life, choosing which things I'd like to see become a part of my future. On one hand it's like choosing your own death sentence because you really don't know just where your path in the future will go and what opportunities you might miss. On the other hand it's like opening a door to certain other opportunities. Really difficult.

Here's a list of what I have highlighted so far (to keep in mind throughout my 4 years in college):

BIOL-L 111 EVOLUTION AND DIVERSITY 3C
BIOL-L 112 BIOLOGICAL MECHANISMS 3C
BIOL-L 113 BIOLOGY LABORATORY 3C
CHEM-C 117 PRINCIPLES OF CHEM & BIOCHEM I 5C (or S 117 honors)
CHEM-C 121 ELEMENTARY CHEM LAB I 2C
CHEM-C 341 ORGANIC CHEM I LECTURES 3C
COLL-E 103 CLOAK AND DAGGER 3C (literary genres)
(COLL-E 105 THE BIOLOGY OF FOOD 3C)
CMCL-C 121 PUBLIC SPEAKING 3C
CMCL-C 122 INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION 3C
CMCT-C 146 MAJOR CHARACTERS (& THEMES) IN LIT 3C
EDUC-U 495 SEMINAR IN LEADERSHIP TRAINING 2C
ENG-W 202 ENGLISH GRAMMAR REVIEW 1C (ah! Paaaain! Pure masochism!!!)
(maybe ENG-L 141 INTRO TO WRITING AND STUDY OF LIT) 4C
ENG-W 303 INTRO TO CREATIVE WRITING 3C
ENG-L 204 INTRO TO FICTION 3C
FINA-F- 101 FUNDAMENTAL STUDIO 3D 3C
(SPHS-A 100 AMERICAN SIGN LANGUAGE I 4C) might be fun
(ANTH-L 310-311 ELEMENTARY SIOUX 3-3C) also might be fun
(CLAS-L 100 ELEMENTARY LATIN 4C) might as well, right?
HISP (Spanish, don’t know my placement yet, but definitely WILL master it)
HPER-E 109 BALLROOM AND SOCIAL DANCE 1C
HPER-E 127 FENCING 1C
HIST-D 102 ICON & AXE: RUSSIA TO 1861 3C
HIST-D 103 RUSSIA 1861-PRESENT 3C (will definitely be taking these two)
MATH-M 211 CALCULUS I 4C
MATH-M 212 CALCULUS II 4C (I almost tested out of all of this in high school, but after this there aren’t really any options for math so I’m glad that this is the end of the line for me with math)
ANAT-A 215 BASIC HUMAN ANATOMY 5C
PHSL-P 215 BASIC HUMAN PHYSIOLOGY 5C
PHYS-P 210-202 GENERAL PHYSICS I-II 5-5C
POLS-Y 109 INTRO TO INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
PSY-P 101 INTRO TO PSYCHOLOGY I 3C

That’s all for now, thank goodness. Again, this is a draft, and I'll probably end up doing only half of these, but at least this shows you my areas of interest.

For some reason the “Reading and Writing Short Fiction” class is reserved for people in Hutton Honors College. What, they think I’m not good enough to take it? HA! This is just the more incentive for me to one-up everyone in my writing career.

What really creeped me out is the “Cannibalism and Identity” class offered at the Collins Living-Learning Center (the hippie dorm): “This course will examine the symbolic role of cannibalism…in which the act of eating human becomes a defining and delimiting act in the formation of a cultural and personal identity.” I guess this just shows that there are A LOT of choices.

Eh.
--E.A.