My spindly silvery-haired wart of an advisor advised me that non-science majors were highly sought after in medical schools (for diversity's sake, of course.) I do think he is right, and I was definitely glad to hear it as I was dreading what might fall from his droopy mouth when I brought him the paperwork for "Drama Major, pre-med requisites."
"Ahh," he said, barraged me with questions, then finally signed it.
Upon viewing an awful rendition of Romeo & Juliet (yes, entirely possible) and sampling some of the department's classes, I decided that I would rescind my application to the drama department. Seeing that one was not required to formally declare one's major until Jr. year, I left it open and took a smattering of classes in religion, philosophy, chemistry, biology, art, you get the point. Slightly un-focused? Oh, but it was fun, and I wouldn't take it back for the world.
Though it was intellectually stimulating, I was sad there to say the least, so I transferred. The only reason I was sad to leave was because I would miss my professors and I because I had been chosen as a
daisy.
Anyhow, I was a little hesitant about moving to Bozeman. It's wild what people will fill your ear with if they are loyal to Mssla.
And finally, to the unfolding of my English major. I had decided before registration that I was going to be a Lit. major, end of story. Why? I like stories. Forget the whole doctor thing. I remember scrolling through the names of English professors, wondering about these people. I tried to imagine them from their names. I thought Sexson might be extremely tall, dry, and overly serious, and I envisioned Minton with oval glasses and long brown hair. Of course in the end, even though I imagined them incorrectly, I apparently typed in the right CRN's because I stumbled into some great people without many hiccups.
And so I took:
CHEM 131 Chemistry I TA 3.530 marianne begemann
ELEC 100 Western Drama TB 3.530
ELEC 100IA Art of Film TB 3.530
ELEC 100IH Western Philosophy I TB+ 3.530 michael murray
ELEC 100RA Drawing/Design TA 3.530 gina ruggeri
ELEC 100RN Biology I TB+ 3.530
ELEC 200 Post Colonial Literature TB 3.530
ELEC 200 Buddhist Monastery Intern TP 1.765 rick e.h. jarow
ELEC 200D Religions of Asia TB+ 3.530 rick e.h. jarow
ENGL 121W Travel Writing TB 3.530 amitava kumar
MLF 101 French 1 TA- 3.530 paul fenouillet
MLF 102D French 2 TA 3.530 paul fenouillet
PSY 100IS Intro to Psychology TA- 3.530
---TRANSF---
ART 111RA UG 3-D Art Fundamentals
CHEM 132 UG General Chemistry II
CLS 201US UG Knowledge and Community
ENGL 123IH UG Introduction to Literary Study
ENGL 221 UG College Writing II porter
ENGL 238 UG Struct & Funct of Language
MATH 160Q UG Precalculus sabrina
ENGL 213 UG Classical Fndtns of Literature sexson
ENGL 216 UG British Literature I minton
ENGL 217 UG British Literature II
ENGL 300 UG Surv of Lit Criticism
PHYS 221 UG Honors Gen & Mod Phys I
and this semester it's:
-Shakespeare
-Emergent Lit
-Epiphanies of course
-Independent study Ulysses
-Nutrition
-Early American Lit
-19th c British Lit
When I consider what really drew me to become an English major, I recall my childhood, which was entirely full of books. I relish hearing the story of when I read my first word. And of course I also love watching the video that my Grandma made of my sister and I strutting our reading skills for the camera. It's quite comical. I'm sitting on the piano bench wearing a neon orange headband, solo at first, reading some story to the camera in a whiny 6 yr. old voice. Next thing you know, Lauren runs in with a pile of books and shoves her way onto the bench next to me. I try to push her off but am eventually required to let her join. She's jealous that she is too young to read, but wants to badly. She flashes up the first book (upside down) and moves her mouth open and shut silently, nods her head, and flips pages sporadically, hmming and hahing to imply she is thoroughly enjoying her books. She manages to "read" 8 books by the time I finish one. It's side-splitting to watch (and my sister thinks so too now of course.)
Last month I was at my parents' house on Christmas eve sorting through a box of old pictures, and I found a photograph that really epitomizes most of my vacation memories as a little girl. The four of us (mom, dad, lauren, me) sitting outside a tent. Dad is playing guitar. Lauren is eating something. Mom is doing my hair, brushing it hard, putting it in a ponytail, and my face is shoved in a book, straining to continue reading despite the whole hair process. This is exactly how I remember family vacations. I would always check out as many books as I could from the library then hole myself up in the house to read them all. My mom would get SO mad because she wanted me to spend time with the family.
I too, like ZuZu, love foreign languages and language in general. In the future I would like to learn Korean and Swedish. Words are beautiful. As it might take weeks to formulate an acceptable and adequate explanation of the beauty of words, I must refrain from attempting to do so tonight.
I continuously consider where this Lit major is taking me. Truthfully, I don't know. After a few years of something, I look forward to grad school somewhere. How vague of me. But I do know that words intrigue me because they are the basis of everything; words enable us to engage one another, communicate, learn, be. Language and meaning are inevitable to a culture, to a group of people.
