Compos Mentis

It's raining, it's pouring...

I have discovered a flaw in my plans. You guys know that I couldn't decide which major I was going to get, history or philosophy, so I decided to do both. After that, I took Calc III from Doc. Stone and realized how much I enjoyed higher level mathematics (it's a lot more fun than the basic level stuff, trust me) so now I'm a math major as well. So far, no problem. As my engineering and biology friends love to tell me, none of those are nearly as hard as their major, and this is true. But, believe it or not, three majors is a lot of work, so I have to compensate by dropping something. I am playing guitar for about an hour a day, and there's no way I'm giving that up. I go running occasionally, and for the sake of my sanity, I can't give that up. What does go is my chance to read books that I want to read. Back in the summer I could go through about a dozen books a week. Now, it's more like a book every two months.
It makes me sad. You all know this, but I love books. I think I have learned more by the books I have read outside of class than everything that I have learned from school. I try to keep up but I simply do not have enough time anymore.
On the other hand, I love the classes I am taking; you can tell by how much I complain about them. The more I grumble, the more I actually like it. I don;t know why this is. I love history, and the history of Eastern Europe is like the Mecca of pure history. Trying to keep straight everything that happened, what they thought happened, how that effects what their neighbors thought happened, how their prime ministers were executed, all need to be untangled in multiple ways if we are to understand the way people work and think in this region.
Discrete structures is pretty much the perfect math class, because we haven't dealt at all with numbers. It's all logic, and abstract at that, despite the class description. I could never do physics even when I knew the math because it was far too utilitarian, and discrete structures makes calculus look like a story problem.
Ethics is just beautiful. No more needs to be said.
But I love and miss the challenge of tackling a book that makes me stretch beyond my own beliefs. Arrgh.
It's raining here, and that makes me think of England, where I first came to love books. That's really why I'm melancholy. I'll be there next year, studying abroad (I promise to update as faithfully as I do now) but that knowledge just makes me miss it more. Plus I had Indian food today, which again made me think of England.
I am going to go do my homework, listen to some... Chopin, I think, and then try to get a head start on some book. And then I'll be back to sorts.

posted by Emmett @ 11:10