Major Dilemma

Right side of my brain says Kinesiology. Left side says Literature.

I can't imagine there are many people are stuck in a rut over deciding between two such polar opposite fields of study. But I tend to fit these rare scenarios well: a fierce competitor on the wrestling mat, a twenty-first century old-school romantic, a loving brother, son, and Godfather, and a party animal to boot.

With my multi-personality, I long to satiate my thirst of many flavors. And with such little free-time here at West Point, each of my hobbies enters a battle-royal for just a little attention. A math drop dongs the bell to get the fight underway--practice piano or harmonica? Take a nap? Or indulge myself in the vampire love story of the millennium, Twilight? Or write a blog, in my journal, or finish one of my ten unfinished poems? Or Heaven forbid I would take the free time to do some school work. Now this would be a minor dilemma; for the blog-sake, a hobby-dilemma. My primary concern--one that lingers in the room and interrupts my seldom alone time for thinking with its overshadowing affects--is my Major dilemma. That is, which major I should select for my undergraduate study.

I've grown up in the world of sports, though with a unique twist in the backdrop of the usual competition-realm. Both my parents were athletic trainers; my mom works for an orthopedic, and my dad is the program director for athletic training at Mount Union College. This is where I began my amateur practice of sports medicine. At my first grade show and tell, I had my dad come in as a prop. And together we demonstrated how to tape an ankle. Beyond taping ankles I yearned for the knowledge of other common injuries. Throughout my athletic career I always asked the "why" story behind every incident regarding the human body. A friend would complain about shin-splints biting at his leg with every step, and I would go straight to my family source of anatomy/physiology and ask which muscles and tendons were effected by it, and how to prevent it. The average high school athlete doesn't know that the lateral-tibialis is the muscle by the tibia bone that is constantly strained with shin splints, nor that a good stretch would be manual resistance planter flex and dorsi flex rotations; and of course to "ice it." Attending West Point, my childhood ambitions to continue the family athletic trainer gene, and hopefully move up to the professional sports level, were temporarily ceased because West Point doesn't offer an athletic training major. But I was soon saved. I learned that they started a Kinesiology major.

Though the selection process for this major was narrow, due to only having eighteen slots per class, and averaging fifty applicants, I was lucky enough to make the cut. The story of my exercise science background was interesting enough for the department to overlook my lacking grades in Chemistry, Math, and Physics, and select me for the major. I shouldn't be so lucky. And now, after all that turmoil, I'm considering turning down this lucky dream come true. And betray my life's drive for athletic enhancement, for something in the complete opposite end of the academic world. Literature.

I've always enjoyed writing, but throughout high school it was a rare occasion when Mike Gorman read and enjoyed a book. That is, until a few years ago. I could give credit to many people--teachers, coaches, parents, friends; but I think I have to give the most credit to J.K. Rowlings. For, Harry Potter's seven year, multi-thousand page adventure lured me into the world of literature. Since then, I can't remember a time when I didn't have a book to escape to whenever I had the time or the urge to. I've fell in love with linguistics, and novels, and understanding different levels of writing. Experiencing an author's style and hearing his voice in my head has become just as real as being introduced to a friend of a friend. In casual conversation, I find myself referring to characters in a book as if they were real people. I feel the different shades of a protagonist's character living through me. I will even talk in the dialect of my new friend's voice that I heard the night before, in a whisper, under my reading light. When I'm reading one of Shakespeare's plays, I even rearrange my word order to fit the style of Shakespeare. Literature is alive in me.

"Welcome back!" Square One exclaimed, anticipating the return. Now what?

So here I sit, with only one week remaining to officially declare my major, and I'm nowhere closer to having my mind made up than I was when the year started. Torn by two loves. Impossible to do both, at least for now. I've went round and round through the ins and outs of both situations. But I feel like my displacement in progress is zero. Like a hot-wheel car zipping around hair-pin turns, looping vertical circles, and changing tracks at the same intersection over and over again, my thoughts changing velocity too fast to keep track--a G, maybe two-G's force around on my skull, in its attempt to hold it all together without going insane. Maybe I should go Psychology..