Workin' Hard or Hardly Workin'

Well, I survived Week 1 of Semester 2 at Cornell. Apart from Queezle's hysteria at being left behind, moving back in was painless, and I am taking full advantage of the heating - let's just say my dorm room is the tropical paradise that Ithaca, NY is most definitely not. I have an awesome schedule: 9th Century Baghdad on Monday/Wednesday, and The Gothic Novel, Renaissance Poetry and Chaucer on Tuesday/Thursday. I love this stuff, and having Fridays off is extremely exciting.

The one complication in my schedule is Creative Writing. Apparently everyone and their mother wants to be in it. I didn't get in during the initial enrollment period, but the day that Add/Drop began a spot opened up. I immediately sent an email to the department, and after that yielded no results decided I would just show up at class on Monday and claim my spot.

Wrong. Firstoff, the class is actually capped at 18, rather than the published 21. Second, 43 people showed up for those 18 spots. That session's professor said that we should get on as many waiting lists as we could (there are 13 sessions of the class at different times and on different days), so I took up a new hobby: stalking any and every Creative Writing class that I could possibly fit in my schedule.

Amazingly, 9 different sessions fit my schedule, in 6 different time slots. On Monday I attended two sessions, and emailed the professors that I had missed because I hadn't realized just how desperate the situation is. Tuesday only had one class that I could fit in, but go I did.

I was gearing up for 5 sessions on Wednesday, 4 of which were right in a row, when I started to get email responses. Several professors said that there was no hope for me, especially since I'm a freshman. This was probably a good thing, as it saved me from getting an overload - I only had to go to 3 different sessions. By the time the second class had rolled around, the numbers had dropped to more reasonable dimensions - ranging 21 to 27. I decided I'd stick with it through the first two weeks.

The catch to all this is that I'm doing work for three versions of the same class. Combined with my "real" classes, I'm doing the work for a 24 credit schedule! My friends think I'm nuts, but if I get in, it will have been worth it. It's a good thing I enjoy writing!