High Noon at the OK Corral

HOLY MARY MOTHER OF GOD.

So, in the last 48 hours my whole life plan has changed.

Nevermind, strike that... my whole degree plan changed. But when you're a graduate student, your degree plan IS your life plan, so it feels pretty much the same.

Georgetown offers two degree plans: the thesis plan and the non-thesis plan. Oh, so I have the option of not writing a thesis? Sounds great!

Caveat: in the non-thesis plan, one must take two extra courses (or one extra semester of work) which must be paid for somehow.

I talked to the director of the graduate program yesterday about switching to the non-thesis option and determined that, yes, funding was available to take one extra class this semester, meaning that I will have to take (and pay for) one course over the summer. All of this mostly sounds like business except that no one could decide if I was going to get funding or not and today was the last day for add/drop and this is my last semester and I'm supposed to take my oral exam in a week. So I've run back and forth from then English department to the graduate school to the registrar, talking to advisers and professors and carrying forms back and forth all over the place.

My main motivation for this ridiculous change is that, in addition to not wanting to write a thesis, there was another class I really wanted to take this semester. I'm not going on to get a PhD, so I won't need to have thesis under my belt, so I should take classes while I still can...

But I may have made a mess of my life in the process.

The class I added to my schedule? Had an 8-page paper due today. Which I will have to write over the weekend. That's funny, I didn't have an 8-page paper due before I changed my schedule.

I've got to take my oral exam and get it done as soon as possible. Oral exam. Three classes. One summer class. Done.