Inching towards 'Know thyself'
Another leap forward in the everpresent quest: I ran across a self-discovery book a few days ago - I've only read a few chapters, but it's good so far. Has kind of a conversational feel to it, and focuses on analyzing the choices you've made to examine what you could change in the future. A few excerpts and included quotes:

"I believe we have two lives: the life we learn with, and the life we live after that." -Glenn Close, in 'The Natural' (concerning life-altering changes)

"We don't know if a choice is wise or wrong until we've lived it. We can't ever really know where a choice will take us, though we may sense its direction. We're torn between the agonizing shoulds and shouldn'ts. An inner debate begins to rage. Writer Jeanetter Winterson describes our dilemma beautifully: "I have a theory that every time you make an important choice, the part of you left behind continues the other life you could have had."

(Don't I know it, considering the number of times I've looked back and asked 'Where would I be now if I hadn't -----?')

how to move on:
"Consider for a minute that there are only three ways to change the trajectory of our lives for better or worse: crisis, chance, and choice.
You may not realize it, but your life at this exact moment - it doesn't matter who you are, where you are, or who's getting ready to jerk your chain - is a direct result of choices you made once upon a time. Thirty minutes or thirty years ago.
Our choices can be conscious or unconscious. Conscious choice is creative, the heart of authenticity. Unconscious choice is destructive, the heel of self-abuse. Unconscious choice is how we end up living other people's lives. 'The most common despair is... not choosing, or willing, to be oneself,' the nineteenth century Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard warns us, '[but] the deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than oneself.'

From where I stand, it seems that coming here, majoring in biology and continuing a research career would have entailed choosing to be someone I'm not. For the longest time, I had this image of the biologist in my head - this is who I want to be, this is who I should be, this is who I will be - even when I wasn't enjoying lab or coursework anymore. Letting go of that perspective was difficult, but as a result I'm happier - majoring in history and realizing that there's more out there than pure science (thank god) has made an incredible difference in my outlook. I may be mediocre in science, but I *can* excel in other areas, and those areas are just as good of a career choice as a Ph.D. in biology. It's just a matter of exploration...

It's just a shame I don't have time to explore those ideas because I'm still trying to major in bio as well. If I didn't have to take 123 and 111 next term, I could easily throw in theatre and perhaps another SS or hum with what I'm already taking. As it is, though:
Bi 123 (12)
Bi/Ch 111 (12)
H 197a (9)
An --- (9)
L 130b (10)

That's 52 units. Add in orchestra (3), core (3), and riding (roughly 3 hours groom/tack/1 hr riding lesson/untack/groom for 1 night a week), and it looks a little tight already. Theatre on top of everything? I foresee a quick trip to insanity... -sigh- Oh well, there's always senior year, right?
I just feel the time slipping away, and I want to try things that I haven't before I graduate - I wonder if holding onto the bio major is really worth the missed opportunities to find something I could *really* excel in. ARGH, so many tradeoffs.

Anyway, I'd better call mom and dad (and kat), grab dinner and keep working on the 110 set... I've gotten so little done today so far.