Monday night I spent 5 hours on calculus and physics homework because I knew I wouldn't have time to do it on Tuesday night (show choir; once again, Clark ran us into the ground because he can be downright bitchy like that).  And as for the gigantic HW assignment, I think Gibson forgets that we have lives.

Today wasn't much better.  I had two tests, one in Calculus and one in Physics, my two hardest classes in the same day.  I'm pretty sure I managed to ace the calculus test because I can actually do calculus.  Physics on the other hand is nothing short of a royal pain in the ass (and then some).  I think everyone except Yonina Hoffman failed that physics test.  Nina Hoffman always beats the living daylights out of everyone else.  It's unbelievable.  Of course, she's the one that scored 1600 on her SATs.  Why should we be surprised?

This week has forced me think about a lot of things that I really don't care for (e.g.: money, college, leaving home, suicide (literal and figurative), and the like).  I really tried to reshuffle my priorities and organize them into something coherent, but that didn't go over quite as well as I would have liked it to.

Several times I have had to push the thought out of my head to enlist with the 249th National Guard Band (our local battalion).  I could easily make it in.  I am in all-state band, I play saxophone, clarinet, and piano, and I'm easily one among the best musicians of the school.  I wouldn't have to worry about college costs anymore.  I wouldn't have to worry about insurance or a lot of money matters, in fact.  Hell, I wouldn't really have to worry about anything.  Basic training can't be all that bad.  The problem is, once I sign on, I can't back out.  I'm stuck with little chance for advancement unless I work many, many, times harder than I really should be working.

National Guard would be the easy way out financially, but that's not what I really want to go into.  As much as I’d like to go into music performance, there are just too many wannabes to overcome out there.  I would most likely be relegated into teaching music (something I really hate) rather than performing it.  Katie wants to teach at a university, but Katie also wants to be a flute major.  I wouldn’t get anywhere as a saxophone major, and I’m not good enough to be a piano major.

Engineering, on the other hand, seems doable.  Everybody wants more engineers.  The field is expanding exponentially.  The success rate is great (provided you can make a passing grade in the physics segments).  But it requires a lot of work, and while I usually don’t mind productive work, I begin to get irritated when it starts cutting into my personal time and getting in the way of the things I love.  That includes music.  I wouldn’t be able to pull a bachelor of engineering degree and bachelor of music degree at the same time.  Taking on engineering seems pretty suicidal in and of itself (considering how much trouble I have with physics).  But I still can’t abandon my music.

Then there’s always the issue of studying.  I can’t stand studying.  I either get it or I don’t.  I’ve noticed that usually, things come to me all at once, in a burst of insight rather than gradually by careful study.  Any study that I do is simply preparing fro when that insight comes.  Unfortunately, it would be nothing short of foolhardy to rely entirely on insight for all of my learning needs.  It works, but I get really frustrated waiting for something to click, and others even more so.  My mom always needles me about how I need to practice piano more.  She doesn’t understand that in 30 minutes on a good day I could do more than 4 hours a day for a week on a bad week.  This is no way to function.  I can’t go to college like that.  Everything there is scheduled and occurs on regular intervals.  I can’t afford to wait for my answers.  But if I don’t, I have to work many times as hard as everyone else to achieve the same level of productivity.  I don’t learn to do things, they come to me.  I need someone to understand that.

But the question remains: can it be understood?