Have You Hugged An English Major Today?

There's nothing quite like having to write seminar papers to make me want to blog. It's not that I don't enjoy writing them, if I didn't, I would be going into the wrong field.

Writing is difficult. One of the frustrating things about being an English major in undergrad was that it was frequently dismissed as the easy major, nothing compared to the rigors of more science-centric concentrations. Then these same people who dismissed English majors complained relentlessly every time they had to write a paper, however brief. It's like there is a disconnect in people's minds that doesn't let them make the link between writing as a struggle and the amount of writing required of an English major. And I think a lot of the reason for that is because everyone, to some extent, can write, while not every person can identify cells under a microscope or build an electrical circuit. It doesn't feel like an uncommon ability. But to truly be a writer is different than being able to put words on a page. In a way, it's like a person claiming that their ability to tell types of trees apart makes them a botanist. They have some of the basic skills needed, but by no means do they have all of the knowledge, expertise, and experience required of a real botanist.

It's a waste of time to compare majors. I've learned at this point in my life to shrug off most of the comments from well-meaning people about my choice of English. This week I had an encounter with a Charming Elderly Gentleman when we were attending a lecture given by one of my professors. He was an old friend of hers and eager to find out what her students were like.

CEH - "Are you a grad or an undergrad?"

K - "First-year MA student - studying English."

CEH - "My condolences."

K - "Well, thank you, but I'm enjoying it. Or I will be once the semester is over."

CEH - "I'm in the philosopy department."

K - "My condolences."

We laughed, then he tapped me on the knee with his umbrella and called me saucy.

For those of you reading this and judging the level of quality of this writing and finding it wanting, shame on you. This is blog-writing. It's meant to be approachable and easy. I save my high-falutin' writerliness for those seminar papers. Yep, the ones I'm meant to be working on right now.

Until I need to procrastinate again . . .

Teachers have a lot of power. Writers have a lot of power. I am a combination of the two. Fortunately for the world, I'm also a bit of a Spiderman fan - great power, great responsibility, etc..

My class went on a field trip to the Newberry library yesterday. They have four pages from a Caxton Chaucer, a colour print. I have held the weight of past ages wrapped in fragile ink. One of the students wanted to know how much a page was worth. The librarian gave two anwers: "Millions" and "It's worth whatever people will pay for it". Really, that's all anything is worth, whether they're paying the price with dollar bills or with labour or with pain.

Because of the trip, I've also discovered that what my life is missing is a book snake. Basically, a tube of fabric stuffed with small, heavy objects (the Newberry's felt like gravel). They make the snakes themselves, so it must be a fairly straightforward process. Now, if only I had sisters who sewed . . .

Two weeks. Two major papers. Then sleep.

bar raid

The Milwaukee Police Department raided a local bar last week and caught one hundred and five underage Marquette students.One bar. One night. One hundred and five students.

The majority of students think that the police are wrong. They think the law is wrong, and that because they think the law is wrong, they are justified in breaking it.

Each of them has their own loudly voiced reasons, some more reasonable than others. I had one student willing to say that underage students deserve the consequences because they know that their actions are illegal. That's not a great ratio.

seasons change with the scenery

Registering students have a certain air about them - anxiety tinged with excitement and sprinkled with fears of technology failing them. Most of my students are registering for their sophomore year. One girl walked down the stairs with me after class, telling me how her father is pressuring her to choose a major, but she's paralyzed because she doesn't want to make the wrong choice.

I told her it's not a failure to change your mind. Most people switch majors in college. We talked about what she enjoys doing, what she sees herself doing, and if she likes being around people, and how she feels about silence. It took a while, but there are five flights of stairs.

I don't know if anything I said helped her. Not sure why she did, but I'm gad that she felt she could talk to me.

If this whole career thing works out, part of my job one day will be to advise slightly panicked students about class and career choices. They'll have to talk to me; I'll be assigned to them as their adviser. I'll tell them it's ok to fail and that I've failed and that everyone fails. They won't believe me then, but maybe later.

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.

Prospective students

I have never visited a school before attending. I did one campus visit before choosing an undergrad and all it did was cement my feelings that snobbishness ran deep on that campus.

I don't remember being invited to visit Marquette. I do accept that I probably was and knew I couldn't go, so dismissed it from my mind.

Last week prospective English grad students are on the property. One of them stayed with my roommate and me. He seems normal. He isn't going to end up attending Marquette. Not because he's normal, but because the professor he really wants to work with is leaving at the end of the summer.

Some of the visitors seemed far too normal. They were a quiet bunch.

Only a few weeks left in the semester. Lots of writing. 

Kids these days

I don't normally study on campus. I get distracted by the mobs of people and end up watching them instead of reading and writing. I should have known better than to sit down in a busy lobby this morning

Sitting across from me was a young boy in the eight-to-ten age bracket. His mother ate breakfast with him and then went to her class around the corner.

I don't know her situation. Maybe her babysitter cancelled at the last minute. Maybe he's on spring break. I don't really have a problem with him being there - he seems quite well-behaved. Every ten minutes or so he gets up so he can peek around the corner and see his mother in her classroom. Sometimes he waves excitedly, having successfully caught her eye through the glass. It's an adorable moment.

I'm distracted by this kid. He's all over the place and I would rather watch something interesting than read the article for class later today.

He's chatting with multiple people on facebook.

He's watching wrestling - and it looked enough like porn that I was worried for a moment. Too much flesh.

Now he's Skyping. Loudly. In a lobby full of people trying to study. He's probably speaking more loudly than usual because he has headphones on. Three people have given him a death glare. Now he's repeating a phone number out loud. I was wondering in my head if I should warn him not to repeat important numbers in a room full of strangers when he shrieks, "Bitch!"

I'm not sure if he realizes that even though he has headphones on, we can still hear him. And everyone heard him. No one knows what to do. After the stunned seconds elapse, the lobby regains some of its natural hubbub. Some students pack up and leave.

One of my students who was sitting across the lobby eating breakfast with a friend stopped to talk to me about this kid. "Is he swearing at other six year olds on Skype? This next generation needs help."
 
I agreed with him. I know that every generation has said that about the next. But that doesn't mean it hasn't been true and isn't true. That random kid doesn't know that it isn't ok to scream obscenities in a public place. He doesn't know that "bitch" isn't a term that should be given to a person. He doesn't know how to respect humanity in his world of electronics.

We live in a world where people ask, "do you know who I am?" Because they think that a specific identity gives them importance. It shouldn't. No one, no matter who they are, deserves abuse. That young girl on the other end of the Skype connection should not grow up thinking that verbal abuse is normal.

I had to leave before his mother came back. I wonder if I would have had the courage to speak to her.

I'm sorry, y'all. This blog has become a bit didactic in the past couple of posts. I'll get back to being amusing soon.

Who cares at what age you marry?

Facebook is one of those social media tools that can be incredibly distracting and frustrating. Today, a link was posted to an article about how people shouldn't be so afraid to get married young and the article really troubled me.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/04/i_married_young_what_are_the_rest_of_you_waiting_for.single.html

Pushing past the unnecessarily antagonistic and accusatory title, I wasn't aware that marrying young was a fear. My experience has not been that young couples are an anomaly. However, I'm willing to accept that my experience has been outside of norms.

Had I known the prospect of marrying young was a fear, I wouldn't have considered it to be a problem. So what if people are waiting until they are older to marry? It's unfair to compare current marriage rates to those of past generations because the culture is so different. Two generations ago, college was not an option for many people. A generation ago, the economic situation was vastly different. At best, Shaw's statistics are an oversimplification of the vast shifts across society and culture. It is sloppy of her to reduce these changes down to an attitude change.

Her complaint seems to be that people are waiting until they are older to get married because they want to be grown up first - marriage has become a signal of adulthood. Shaw looks down on those young adults who do laundry at home, take money from their parents, or even remain on their parents' health insurance. It comes across as majorly condescending. What she misses is that marriage is not the only route to independence. Young adults can stop relying on their parents for everything without getting married.

Shaw objects to these older marriages (post grown-up) because she didn't treat marriage like that and it's worked for her - growing up with her husband has helped them strengthen their relationship. She also says, "it [marriage] requires maturity, commitment, and a desire to grow up together" (Shaw). Shaw is not making the distinctions she needs to make. If marriage requires maturity, surely part of gaining maturity comes with the process of growing up. What is not recognized here is that there is a difference between growing and growing up. You will grow while you are in a relationship, at whatever age you marry. And marriage is not something to rush into.

I don't really want to argue with this author, because I think we want the same thing. We want women to decide what they want and work hard to get it. We want people to realize that love and marriage isn't about falling in love with the one and having the white wedding of their dreams. Marriage isn't the end of the road, it isn't the end goal but a beginning of something new.  It requires hard work, fervent prayer, and Bibles.

If marriage is not an end goal, it shouldn't be a top priority. Shaw should not frown on the fact that people use their twenties to establish their careers. When do people who marry young establish their careers? Also in their twenties, at least as seen by Shaw's example. Here's where I have to admit my bias. I'm currently pursuing a graduate degree and planning to establish a career. At no point have I thought that I wouldn't get married young because that would prevent me from doing what I wanted to do. I want to get married. But I don't feel, and no one should feel, that I need to stop what I'm doing in order to pursue marriage. And in all fairness to Shaw, I don't think that's what she meant - but that's the logical conclusion if you push on her statements.

If you're ready to get married at twenty-two, go for it. If you are not ready until you're thirty-two, that is fine as well. Prioritizing relationships over accomplishments is important - but it does not have to be a romantic relationship. Don't get caught up in everything this world says you need to have. In the end it isn't about whether you married or didn't marry. It isn't about your career or your lack of career. Live a life worthy of the calling you have received.

Reasons to let someone else do the driving

Speed. My friend is not the fastest or most aggressive driver I've ridden with, thankfully. But he drives faster than I do. Of course, I'm fairly certain that both of my grandmothers drive faster than I do.

Entertainment. Give a man a five-hour energy drink and he is now properly prepared to talk for the next five hours. I ended up holding my school book rather than reading it. No regrets. 

Friendship. Spend thirteen hours locked in a steel box with someone (especially someone hyped up on energy drinks) and you'll get to know them better. This increased knowledge may make you like them less, but your knowledge will still have deepened. (Just to clarify, I don't like B any less. We know each other better and I suspect we're better friends because of it.)

All in all, it was a successful Michigan trip. I'm back in Milwaukee, blogging instead of reading. Seriously, the biggest problem I have with Belinda right now is that the book is sooooo looooong. And considering some of the other things I've had to read this semester, that's not really a problem. I should bake for my 8 o'clock class tonight, but I'm tempted to put it off until Thursday. That's because I'm a procrastinator.