When it comes to shopping period, I am that frazzled woman in the grocery store parking lot who drops the bag of eggs as she tries to dig the car keys out of her purse. I'm the girl whose mom buys her underwear on the sale rack at Filene's basement. When it comes to shopping, my coupons are expired, my credit card is rejected, and there is no sale on aisle three. Whether I am perusing the aisles at the local Hannaford's or the pages of the Brandeis University Course Schedule, the story is the same.

I suck at shopping. And I am certain I am not the only one.

During my freshman year at Brandeis, my roommate was convinced for almost an hour that she was going to take Ancient Greek spring semester. She had no previous interest in languages, no fascination with Greece, and "ancient" to her meant her parent's record collection. It took her a bowl of Ramen and a lot of raised eyebrows to realize she was delirious.

This mental hiccup was a result of the nightmare that Brandeis calls shopping period. Those are the two weeks when the course bulletin becomes your internet homepage, syllabi are so abundant they become bathroom reading, and you make more book returns then you have in a lifetime of library membership.

The first few weeks of every semester I've had at Brandeis have been marked by insecurity, indecisiveness, stress and mental breakdowns. Aside from the housing lottery, I would say course selection is one of the most traumatic affairs on the Brandeis campus. It's difficult to keep perspective when the classes you choose seem to determine not only your course load and boredom level for the next four months of your life, but your entire future success and happiness.

Somehow every class becomes a question of what you want to do with your life, and every decision is questioned, reversed, toiled over, and remade. Should you take a class for "fun" or one that is good for your professional future? Should you wait for next semester to take that class you've been dreading or get it over with now? Why are you a Bio/Econ/Anthro major anyway?

There are four primary phases of the nightmare Brandeis calls course selection.

Denial: It's April and you have pre-registered for four fabulous classes. They fit your course requirement needs, come highly recommended, and leave you Tuesdays and Fridays free. You bought your books the first day you arrived on campus, whistled on the way to class, and attributed that queasy feeling in your tummy during lecture to the C-store sushi you had the night before, and not the looming prospect of 100 nightly pages of reading and five 10-page essays as indicated on the syllabus. You continue attending the classes you're pre-registered for, convinced that you have designed the perfect schedule.

Panic: It is only after a week of classes that you fully grasp your mistake. After an hour crying in the bathroom stall at Usdan, you run home and search sage for perfect schedule number two, racing against the clock in fear that perfect class number one might meet in the next 10 minutes. You attend more classes in that one week than you will in an average semester at Brandeis, beg countless professors for the add code to their closed classes, and cry to your roommate when after a long day of classes, the mini-fridge breaks and you realize you have run out of floss.

Calm: Shopping period is over. You have made your decisions, returned and reordered books, and feel like maybe this semester won't be such a disaster after all.

Regret: All is well until midway through the semester you decide you hate your classes, realize the course you are taking actually won't fulfill your requirements, and decide to change your major.

While not all students experience the stress of course selection to this degree, the process is frustrating and the period is one of heightened anxiety and sensitivity. So is it the system, or are we just indecisive academic worries that need to relax?

Even if it would avoid the four-phase-panic-process, I wouldn't ask for the shopping period to be removed. It is a little annoying that we have two Tuesday/Friday classes before we even attend one Mon/Weds class, and I can't understand how every class I want is somehow offered at the same exact time, but for the most part the system works.

The truth is, my classes usually turn out fine and after a month I wonder what the fuss was all about. The course selection process seems somehow to tap into all my insecurities. I weigh small things too heavily, and in the peak of the decision-making process I have trouble keeping perspective. I do it with shoe shopping as well, and I usually end up not buying anything in fear of buying the wrong pair. I am always looking for the perfect shoes, the ones that make me look taller, that I can wear for every occasion, that are inexpensive and unique.

Really though, sometimes I just have to shell out some extra cash, maybe buy more than one pair, and realize that at five feet, one-and-a-half inches, nothing is going to make me look taller.