I was going to write an angsty post about how I still can't decide which course to take, but in laying out my options I realized which course I don't want to take. I'll have to run it by my advisor to be sure, but here's the tentative schedule:

Mondays and Wednesdays:
Culture and Politics

Tuesday and Thursdays:
Foundations of Interpretive Theory
Writing Biography

I hope that looks impressive enough. Even after I spent four years at Lawrence my dad is still puzzled by the term system; I always have to convince him that I'm not slacking off by taking three classes. I think I could handle four courses — the runner-up course, "Criticism: Art/Artist/Audience," while impressive-sounding, didn't seem at all difficult (which is perhaps why it was lousy with undergraduates) — but I'm too cheap to pay for an extra course and I've still got no idea what the workload is going to be.

I keep hearing people pronouncing it "ahngst," like the German word Angst. I'm sure the words are related, but our twangy "angst" is a different bird, and these German pronounciations just confuse me.

"Angst" was the name of Brain's musical. Not Angst.

"Writing Biography" scares me to death. It's partially a creative writing course, which means I'm going to have to write biography. Not autobiography. Biography. And here's another shocking twist: I have to write about someone I'm interested in, someone who I think other people would be interested in reading about.

Of course, how am I supposed to empathize with people who read biographies? It's hard to imagine what they would like. Vaseline on toast. Cutting themselves.

I'm taking "Writing Biography" for a number of very good reasons. Foremost among them: I've been assured that we'll be dealing with the nitty gritty details of rhetoric and narrative, subjects which have to huddle in classes like this as long as Literary Theory stalks the land. And I'm all about rhetoric and narrative right now.

Vague plans for a master's thesis.

Yikes. I have to go to sleep now, errands to run, two more green pills to take in the morning. A job interview in the afternoon, maybe.