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I have spent the last two weeks on the runaround, making appointments with professors, advisers and advising assistants, sending emails back and forth with the aforementioned people, perusing my school’s course catalog countless times and becoming very, very well-acquainted with (color coded) Excel spreadsheets I created.

If anyone can guess what I was trying to sort out, then brownie points for you.

…

Guessed it? Good. Cause if the guess was, “Sounds like Manda was trying to figure out and/or declare her major and minor as well as decide if she would be able to pursue an undergraduate certificate in the two years she has left of college,” then that would be the correct guess.

After many incidents where I wound up trying to refrain from having a panic attack and/or tearing out my hair, I think I finally have the components of my undergraduate degree all figured out. Provided that a communications class is offered when I am abroad in Beijing next year and that I will be able to do a Chinese language independent study throughout my senior year, I am set to graduate with a major in communication, a minor in the Chinese Language and an undergraduate certificate in Asian Studies.

I really hate how the crux of this plan revolves around variables I can’t control, but it’s the best option that I’ve got right now, particularly if I want to officially incorporate all of my fields of study into my degree. Worst case scenario, I’ll have to drop the Asian Studies certificate. Although I really, really hope that won’t happen, because then all of the credits I have for China/Asia will just become electives, with the exception of the credits that count for my language minor.

Either way, I’m taking this plan and running with it. I have all of my declaration of major/minor/certificate forms filled out, signed and handed in, so as of now, this is my current plan of action. I’ll report back on my degree when graduation rolls around and let you know if it all worked out!

Ever since I completed a major project in early February, I’ve been anxiously awaiting the results. The nature of this project means that even though it was completed towards the beginning of the semester, the results aren’t known until the end of the semester. Obviously, this is incredibly frustrating for an impatient person like myself, and I’ve been doing my best to not think about it all semester. I’ve been doing pretty well, but now that it’s down to the wire, I am finding it harder and harder not to think about it.

It’s strange, because even though I know I can’t do anything about it now, I feel more anxious over the project than I did before I handed it in. Before the deadline I could tweak the project if necessary, but now there’s absolutely nothing I can do except wait. I’ve been doing pretty good with the waiting, but as each day gets closer and closer to the possibility of finding out about the results I find myself fretting over it more and more. The fact that there is no set date as to when the results are announced makes it difficult to wait, too. In theory, I could be finding out about it any day now, which is terrifying yet thrilling at the same time.

If nothing else, I am learning how to become patient throughout this process. But my goodness, being patient is hard! The hardest part, I think, is not even the waiting. It’s the not knowing. I am the type of person who has to know everything, and having information withheld from me is pretty much torture. So, this whole experience has definitely been quite the learning curve. Hopefully it all works out in the end…

Question of the Week: What are some ways to keep yourself preoccupied/distracted when you are waiting to find out about something?

Everyone knows what “the American dream” is, but frankly, I haven’t heard anything on the news in the last year or so that remotely resembles the American dream. Who knows if it even exists anymore? It seems like the American dream has turned into the American nightmare, as illustrated in this graph [source]:

The American Nightmare

If that just isn’t totally and completely depressing regarding one’s prospects for the future in the “adult world,” I don’t know what is.