oh, i'm so confused

Well, "shopping" for classes is over, as is on-line registration, but I am confused about my schedule. I really wish I could have taken enough classes to just take three this semester, but I maxed out last semester as it was. I also think I should have shopped more classes - like Gergen (though I did ask Chris to shoot me if I signed up for one of his classes) or even Mark McKinnon - Bush's chief media advisor and strategist. I heard him and other media professors talk at a Shorenstein event yesterday. I'm now wondering if it would have been good to take a class with McKinnon and really learn the strategies of the enemy, as Nolan aptly put it. Oh well.

Here's the line-up:
1. Empirical Methods(quantitative analysis/regression) - either here or at the ed school
2. Building Social Capital/Social Networks - relatively interesting - has digital inequality and social movement implications - but the motivating factor is that it fulfills my one management requirement without being management at all
3. Media Theories & Methods - at MIT - I'm very excited about this class, though it hasn't even met yet - with Henry Jenkins, who does a lot of cutting edge work in new media/fan culture/democratic approaches to media - the bummer is that I won't know if the Kennedy school will even give me credit for it for another few weeks.
4. either an independent study or a class on moral leadership

#4 is my big quandry - I'm thinking I should do the independent study to have something that could possibly be of master's thesis quality in case I get into grad school, but I would need funding to continue the project I started last semester - for small stipends for interviewees (low wage workers) and for transcription. Plus the org'l mess is intense...if I scaled down my expectations from 30 to 10 for the number of interviews, it might make it more doable. But the moral leadership class is taught by a professor who does exactly the kind of work I want to do, in a lot of ways....

On a more upbeat academic note, last week I went to an amazing seminar at BC where academia and activism are working hand-in-hand - it was very inspiring and gives me hope for the whole ivory tower divide.

I should know in about a month about grad schools - which, honestly is just as much about preschools for Kalian, as it is about my future life's work!