"Thayer Week"

For this blog, I'll introduce a a little West Point jargon:

"Thayer Week"
Thay-er Week
Noun
A particularly busy academic week wherein WPRs (written partial reviews; i.e. "tests"), papers, and/or labs all come one right after the other. Named after COL Sylvanus Thayer, "Father of the Military Academy," who revamp the academic program during his tenure as Superintendent (i.e. college president) of West Point.

So this week was my first Thayer Week of the semester: I had 10 pages for my thesis due, a WPR for Law, a paper proposal due for my Civil War class, and tomorrow, I have a paper due on Clausewitz's view on attack and defense.

I have yet to start on my Clausewitz paper.

Not to mention that this Saturday, we all have a uniform and TA-50 (i.e. military equipment) accountability inspection. I was under the impression that I would totally have this weekend free, but silly me-- we don't! Considering that I already have both my branch (military intelligence, infantry branch detail) and post (Ft. Hood), academics are pretty much pass/fail for me because my grades don't really affect anything anymore. Of course they could affect my chances for graduate school, but at this point, I don't even know if I WANT to go to graduate school. I heard that bachelor's degrees are the new high school diploma and master degrees are the new bachelor's degrees in terms of standards for desireable jobs, but I really don't see myself as an academic or a scholar. I feel that me pursuing these academic goals just to make myself more marketable for a job is tarnishing the good name true scholars may have.

However, since I'll be in the Army for at least 8 years anyway and because of the whole Post 9-11 GI Bill thing, I'll get free in-state graduate school, so I suppose I should try my luck at a good state graduate program. But what to take? I don't know if I'd want to take up history again, my major here, because let's be honest-- it really is kind of boring. Maybe psychology? Counseling? Businness? Criminal Justice? Civil Engineering? Who knows? I guess I'll cross that road 7 years from now when that stuff is more tangible.

Gosh, I REALLY don't want to write this paper. Is it graduation yet?