notes from underground

…And some mathematical formula I forget for determining the maximum number of distinct possibilities were you to flip them all.
To explain, I have six courses I wish to take this semester, and it is almost uncanny how precisely they represent the dual sides of my main areas of interest. On the one hand I have a course on Japanese Cinema, emphasizing cultural and film theory, and on the other I have Advanced Animation, emphasizing production. Another set: History of the English Language, with its stress on linguistics and the evolution of language, and Russian Science Fiction and Fantasy, with its focus on the evolution of a literary genre. Finally there is a great course on Dada and Surrealism, taught by a man best described as a whitebeard sage, juxtaposed against an independent project in Digital Art with my energetic art professor from last semester.

Each of these pairs represents a distinct interest from two different angles, and none of them are easy pairs to give up. Animation & Film is what I hope to do with my life, so I’m somewhat committed to it; Art is the impetus for that decision, always the most important of my passions even when it was undernourished by my coursework; finally, Language and Literature are what I came to Brown assuming I was going to do, and to forsake them now would be to deny some of my notions of what college is for. Add to this that I am more or less committed to one course of each pair–Russom’s “History of the English Language,” Barb’s Advanced Animation course, and my ISP with Jay on Digital Art–and I find myself forced to choose which of these directions I should go in my last regular course credit at Brown.

There is so little time left, and it is intensely frustrating.