It's not living if you stand outside the fire.

I had a moment of weakness. It lasted nearly twenty-four hours, but I think I am over it, for now. That's not to say that it will never be back to haunt me or tempt me. I am convinced I will consider it again. Alas...

What was my moment of weakness? You were probably wondering that. Well, here it is: I wanted to drop Honors. This is nothing new; I have considered it as a possibility since the beginning of the program. Now, finished with my 6 credit courses, I have only 9 credits left of the craziness. And yet, it's like this (note that while this analogy is quite accurate to what my situation is, it is also extreme and in no way do I think that Honors is THAT bad): your arms are both broken, and you say, "Okay, now break both of my legs." Like I said, it's rather extreme, but if your arms were broken, would you also want to break both of your legs?

So that, combined with excessive dwelling upon my senior schedule, led me to say, "Listen, Rachel. Is it worth killing yourself over?" And for the first time, I could say to myself that maybe it wasn't. I haven't been able to stop worrying about how I am going to work on my senior thesis when I have so many other things to do, such as, hopefully, another REU. Despite what I wanted to do way back in June, when God was all, "Listen, Rachel, I've got this," I haven't stopped stressing.

You might be wondering how this story ends. Me, too. I can tell you this much. I have two spreadsheets. One is aptly titled, "No Honors" and the other is my current plan if I were to remain in the program. "No Honors" is definitely tempting, though it is only marginally easier than the other when all is said and done.

The title of the post - it sums up how I feel right now, or would feel if I was more well rested. I have to keep putting myself in the fire. It's NOT living if you stand outside the fire.

And, I must default to my old pal Rilke. I try to take his advice, really I do:
"I beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer..."

The other quote of the day: "Swine flu is like the new SARS, only stupider." ~ a friend. Chew on that for a bit.

Currently reading: The Hundred Secret Senses and Therese Raquin. Both are good, the latter is for school.

Listening to: "Fireflies" by Faith Hill. "Before you met me, I was a fairy princess. I caught frogs and called them prince and made myself the queen...I took mayonnaise jars with holes on top to capture Tinkerbell. They were just fireflies to the untrained eye, but I could always tell." ;-)

- Rachel