arrowwhiskers

( But before my rant, lookie, this little notice I just got from the NYT is lolnderful: )

Reasons I'm going crazy:
1. I have another midterm in meteorology tomorrow, and I've been reading my textbook for hours and I'm still endlessly confused. There are SO many forces that interact with themselves in so many ways and situations that it seems kind of arbitrary to me which ones act in which ways in any given situation. Like, when we're explaining THIS rule, then we use THIS property of the atmosphere, and THIS equation. And then when we're explaining something else, you don't think about the temperature anymore, you talk about...blah blah. I'm so confused. I seriously feel too stupid for this, and I'm pretty nervous. I'm blowing off Chris and D&D again to study.
2. Aaand, I'm made even more nervous by the fact that I got my infamous aeronautics midterm back today--and I scored a 73.something...I forget. Turns out I did get a decent amount of partial credit, but I missed a couple of short-answer questions that I could have done, but I was going so fast I missed a page. D: But anyway, the class average was a 48! Only ONE PERSON...out of like 100...got a grade in the 90s. DON'T YOU THINK THIS IS A PROBLEM? Apparently the professor doesn't, since it's not being scaled. I am relieved that I did as well as I did, but I'm SO mad. I mean, if it were too difficult, I think that'd be one thing, but I COULD HAVE GOTTEN A PERFECT I THINK, had I just had enough TIME. ARGH.
3. So I'm worried about my GPA, upon which my scholarship hinges :') I've never been worried that my grades would actually be bad eonugh to fuck up my scholarship before, but between aeronautics, meteorology, and LGBT...I'm pretty worried, honestly.

But what's making me even more tense is...I went to go see the honors advisor today, and she cleared up a bunch of stuff for me. First off, I need to take 24 honors credits to graduate from the honors college--and I'm already in 6. But...there aren't many other honors courses I can take from here. However, another 6 of them are expected to be an honors thesis, which you take for the entirety of your senior year.
...I didn't know that I had to write an undergraduate thesis o.O; I don't actually think I have space for the 6 credits, unless I can get credit in my major for it as well.
The advisor said that it's in no way mandatory for graduation in general--I just have to do it if I want to graduate from the honors college. And she was really nice and non-pressureish about it, she said that it's the right thing for some people and for other people it's an unneeded stress.

So now I need to figure out if I'm going to write a thesis. I'm supposed to figure out my topic and find a thesis advisor my second semester of my junior year, which is hopefully when I'll be in Guatemala. And just...in general, the thought of having to devote an entire year to researching and writing a thesis for an undergrad degree...makes me feel a little ill, to be honest.
I'm not sure if it's worth it. I am really, really torn. Since honestly...I kind of wanted to have a life my senior year. By that point, I should be more acquainted with Tucson, and I reeeeeally wanted to try to volunteer somewhere. But having a thesis to do on top of a full schedule of upper-division credits doesn't seem like it'd leave me much leeway to do..well, anything. Factor in the fact that I want to keep climbing, and I'll probably have to have a job if at all possible so that I can survive...it makes me cringe just thinking about dealing with all of it. Plus, I'd probably slog my way through it, and be totally miserable about the process. Even if I liked the topic (I assumedly would), I can just tell that it wouldn't be like, a pleasant experience.
But at the same time, I would like to graduate with honors. It'll be hard anyway, since there are a limited amount of honors courses I can take, but the honors college has been really helpful to me, advising-wise, and I would hate to just distance myself from that. Plus...in some sense, I feel like just being all "aw but I want to do other things, and I wouldn't like doing it" is just a rationalization for not wanting to do it because NEWSFLASH: I'm really lazy! I don't want to do that much research! And when I make decisions because I'm lazy, a little guiltometer goes off reflexively in my brain, saying dude, stop slacking off. I think I would feel pretty guilty if I didn't do it, cause even if I do have good reasons for taking another path, a part of me would feel like I was taking the easy way out. Which, well, I'm not sure.

Which leads to my question: Have any of you flisters had to make any decisions about an undergrad thesis? Did you have a choice in the matter? If so, what motivated you to decide one way or the other?

I know it's silly to be stressing about this now, 2-3 semesters in advance, but I have about 0 elective space, so I really need my schedule ironed out like whoah.

As a final note, I have decided that if I can, I'm going to try to spend winter break taking driver's ed again, and doing it right this time. I don't want a car, at all. I don't want to drive, but a huge part of feeling like a total child is the fact that I haven't got my license--the fact that I seriously don't know HOW to drive a car. I want to change it.
I also want to try to volunteer, because I MISS volunteering, though I don't know if I'd be able to continue that into the school year. Probably not.
I think there is a chapter of wecansolveit in Boston, though...maybe if I could do work for them in addition to working...I also want to take a bike maintenance class over the summer, too.

I HAVE SO MUCH I WANT TO DO. The next few years are going to be totally insane.

But in the mean time I can't be failing my 101 NATS...ugh -_-; *head textbook* I wish it were 24 hours from now.