So here's an essay for my CTL 438 class. As it turns out, I'm quite proud of it.
Enjoy.
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“Those Marks Go Away”
“…proclaim a release throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you…”
Leviticus 25:10
There is a buzz in the library. All the computers are full, but no one is on Myspace. There are students scurrying from study groups to computers to printers and back to study groups. There are arguments because printers won’t work and there is resolution as we all agree on one thing: finals week sucks. I am sitting at a computer console typing a paper on student survival skills and I, like the rest of my peers, work a job and go to school and consequently have been unable to fit this paper in until the days… *ahem* I mean weeks before it is due.
To my right is a group of students talking about their essay on “genius” which none of them have started. To my left, a student is bent over moving his head back and forth like a type writer frantically reading something that should have been read a month ago. In front of me are two students. One is sitting down at a computer, the other is leaning over explaining something about functions – she has done her reading; the other has not. Behind me, I am looking at all the tables in the library lined up in perfect order. The light glares off their shiny surfaces making them look like runway lights guiding the end of the semester safely to the ground. Will it land safely, or should we all just radio for the rescue vehicles to line the runway just in case?
It’s finals week and most of us are behind. Whether it is from procrastinating or a lack of time, the reality is that most of us are behind. Why? What is it that we all need to do in order to stay on top of our studies? Work less and read more? Read less and study more? Sleep less and read more? Study less and sleep more? Where did we all go wrong? If there’s an equation to this, why haven’t we solved for x yet? What is it that forces this rush?
I have been circulating a survey amongst random students that I have encountered while being in the library. Since finals week started, I have gotten more glares than I want to mention at the prospect of being pulled away from last minute studying.
… Actually, my writing was just interrupted by one of the “genius” paper writers mentioned above. She is my Bible Study leader. Say hi, Rachel…
“Hi, I have come to the point where my brain can only handle one thing at a time. This poses a problem since in all reality, to accomplish all of the things that I am “supposed to” I should be doing, well, much more than one. This has led to a need for new ingenuity, and the hope that it will somehow work out well in my favor. One example of this is two research papers I was assigned to write for two different classes. Since I do not have as many sources for the second, an art history paper about genius, as I need, I have decided to incorporate material from the first, about flamenco dancing into the second. I like to think that this is a stroke of genius, but it has yet to be proved, so wish me luck.”
Go get ‘em, tiger.
So, the question: How are we supposed to survive this mess? The pursuit for the answer, ironically, has driven me far behind just like all these other students, but I won’t lose hope. Someone very wise once told me, “this isn’t a playground, this is a battlefield.” But someone even more wise once told me, “Those marks go away,” which has become the basis of this entire paper. I’ll talk about him later; but first, let’s crunch some data. (I’ll make it fun, I promise!)
Surveys
I’m walking around the library asking people to fill out my survey and they’re receiving me in different ways. Part of them understand my plight and willingly give their time, the others just frown. I asked this table of three girls if they would be willing to assist me. They looked at each other, then at me and then at their school work and then at me again and one of them said, “Sorry, we’re kinda in the middle of something.”
“Oh, okay. Well thanks for your time.” I don’t know what else to expect; it is finals week. I could ask my friends to fill out the survey, but then that’s not a very random population, is it? The questions in the survey are intended to probe into deeper issues. So far, it has taken an average of 3 - 5minutes to fill out, which is pretty long considering some of the bonehead surveys I’ve taken since being in college…
“Do you like oxygen bars?”
What’s an oxygen bar?
“Would you use an oxygen bar if it were on campus?”
What’s an oxygen bar!
“If there were a tanning booth on campus would you use it?”
no
“How much would you be willing to pay for a tan on campus?”
Dammit!
The survey comes from four years of mentally churning over my unique college experience, which I have conveniently encapsulated in this neat little soliloquy.
“Ahem. The pursuit of a degree = the pursuit of knowledge… or is it the pursuit of money? The pursuit of money > the pursuit of knowledge because money allows me to buy food; knowledge is more satisfying, but I can’t go to Raley’s and explain the syntactic nuances of the Ergative case from the Absolutive case and expect them to give me groceries. Therefore, money outweighs knowledge meaning the pursuit of a degree equals the pursuit of money. But how much money, and is this actually money that one will be satisfied with? That’s a stupid question; most people would be satisfied with any type of money as long as it’s not connected to the mob. So then what does it matter as long as you get a degree, right? WRONG! Some degrees pay off more than others, so why not go after the ones that pay the most? Because those degrees are the hardest to get and you’re not capable of doing the work and you don’t want to spend that much time in college. But I was taught from day one that time equals money, so the more time I spend, the more money I get, right? NO! Because I am taking out student loans since my scholarship money has run dry, so now I am spending time and money in order to get older and use my degree to spend more time and more money on other things that I don’t really want anyway! So what is the point?! Why don’t I just give up? Because I need money to survive and I might as well get a degree if I can because then I can get more money to survive and buy the junk that would make my life more comfortable even though I don’t really want them. But why not buy them, I mean, you’ve got the degree, right? Right? RIGHT?!!?!?!?!”
This is madness and circular.
But what do my peers think? (Here’s where it got really boring for me). Seventeen of them filled out the survey, and all seventeen of them said nothing surprising. The data is there if you want to look at it; I don’t because they’re the things written on every student’s unshowered face during this time of the semester: “Finals are hard. I’m pressed for time. I need coffee.”
Initially, I was happy about this because it meant for a very easy (and uninspired) paper, but then something happened:
I’m walking up and down the tables at the library giving my survey to students when I see someone that I think will be a total push over. I hand him the survey thinking that he is a nice old man and that he won’t possibly say no. He doesn’t. As he begins to fill out the survey I sit across the table from him going over the surveys I have collected trying to come up with something I can BS about for a few pages when he says, “I don’t think this applies to me. I’ll keep filling this out if you want me to, but I don’t think this applies to me.” Puzzled, I take the survey back and go over what he has filled out so far. I notice that he has seven degrees listed in the “college history” part of my survey. If I’m writing a paper on student survival skills, then I damn sure want to interview the guy who has 7 degrees.
Owen
I've been coming to the library for the last four years and I always see Owen in the same spot with his backpack piled up on the table next to him, a stack of papers before him, and a book in his hands. He was in one of my classes two years ago, and he was a supremely quiet individual; I would always wonder why a man his age was taking a college class populated by the latest catch of high school graduates who make it their primary function to act like they don’t care. He is a short man with a little belly, white thinning hair, large glasses and hands that shake; he has thoughtful green eyes that scan his surroundings as if he were scanning his memories looking for the answers to my questions. I talked to him for an hour about his life. I started asking him how he has survived college after seven degrees and 40+ years in the institution, but I eventually saw him as an untapped resource of life lessons. I’d be damned if I let that opportunity pass by.
Owen approaches life with a calm that comes from 66 years of living and seeing most of the globe. I asked him for his paramount survival skill, the thing that has gotten him through 13 colleges and he said, "Don't give a shit. This stuff isn't that important." An apparent contradiction given his 7 degrees. I never asked him directly about the contradiction, but since I am here to analyze I will now: So how does a man with seven degrees (two of which are bachelor, and one of which is post grad – in addition to the post grad he is taking now) approach education with such a simplistic attitude? Slowly, as more of Owen was revealed to me I realized that it's the lifestyle he was advocating.
“Why so many degrees?” I ask.
“Well, it was just taking classes of interest, and after you accumulate a bunch of classes you look at the course catalogue and say, ‘Hey, that degree is close.’ But it was never to shoot for a degree when you start off. The degree is that last part, and only because it becomes close,” Owen explains.
“So throughout your college history you’ve only taken classes of interest?”
“Yeah, essentially that’s it. And for the most part not that many if it becomes a burden to complete. But [it was] just taking those things that come up; those things that sound interesting. And then taking college classes becomes like a hobby.”
You see, that shouldn’t make any sense because I thought that the degree is the main part, that the degree should be all you shoot for. Aren’t we supposed to rush through college so that we can get the degree? Time’s ticking on our student loans, right? Isn’t part of the college experience supposed to be those hell weeks during midterms and finals? Aren’t we in school to lust after that coveted piece of paper worth a mountain’s weight in time and good intentions? Yet at 66 Owen is still plugging away at classes simply because he wants to.
Okay, fine. Easy for him to say. He’s 66, probably retired and already has his degrees. So what about the pressure that I feel? Isn’t that part and parcel as well?
“I think students put pressure on themselves because they’re shooting for a goal. ‘If I don’t pass this course, I won’t reach my goal.’ But that’s false. If you don’t pass that course you take it again. I think they put too much pressure on themselves. And learning is not what the teacher gives; it’s what you want. So if you’re taking from a course those things you find interesting, then it’s not a burden; it’s fun.”
No, no… college can’t be fun. It’s not allowed to be. I have been torturing myself for the last four years – it’s not supposed to be fun.
You see, dear reader, there is a disconnect somewhere in the years that separate Owen from me. When I found out that he has seven degrees and has been going to school for forty years, I would have thought that his survival skill would have been something like “finish your reading early” (which he does), but that’s not what he said. He said that none of this really matters. I couldn’t wrap my mind around that until he said this, which I will never forget. “Some people want to become a medical doctor and serve humanity, that kind of thing. I can see people wanting to do that, but very few. Very few have that kind of aspiration, to do something like that. [To] make their mark on society; make their mark as a person. Those marks go away.”
“Those marks go away?” I asked after a second of silence.
“Those marks go away after awhile.”
I remember as he said this I wished he were a movie so that I could have put him on pause and reflect on the way the weight of that remark bore my brain down to my heart where it is residing still. It forced me to deal with these finite four years in comparison to the infinity that exists all around me. I wanted to cry and I still do. How dare he trivialize and dismiss all of the struggles that I been through with one careless remark. How dare he have the power to simultaneously silence my mind and free my spirit? The engines in my brain went to full stop when he said that, and some metaphorical coal shoverler in my brain wiped the soot off the window and looked outside to see the breathtaking view I had been missing while I was trying so hard to give myself enough steam to run on.
My marks will eventually evaporate and pass away like the lilies in the field. Like civilizations long past, I will be born, I will grow, I will matter, I will die, and with me eventually so will the things that I have done in this life; they will pass away. I have the freedom to stop worrying about college. To stop asking the question, “How do other students survive?” and start asking the better question, “How do other students live?”
As I take Owen’s words to heart and watch my peers arrive breathlessly late to class carrying a wrinkled manuscript of an essay worth its weight in time, but worth a mountain’s weight in good intentions, I have to stop and wonder. Is Owen right? Is the best way to survive throughout college to realize that none of this matters anyway? To only take the classes that I want and if a degree comes then one comes, but just don’t worry about it. Part of me wants to be offended at the simplicity of it all.
Those marks go away. I have seen the future in talking to Owen. The man was a seer to me and gave me a glimpse into the world beyond my small, frigid scope that encapsulates Northern Nevada and the boundaries that my own introspection has explored. Those four words spoke a calming warmth to my restless spirit and let me know that I don't have to agonize over everything and pull out my hair over twelve or fifteen credits. I don't need to sweat or bleed anymore for a future that will ultimately be forgotten. Sure I'd love to be remembered and to matter, but I choose now to matter in a different way. What if 43 years down the line, I am sitting in a library and a good intentioned young man asks me the same questions I asked Owen, and I tell this young man, "Those marks go away," and it changes his life, lulling his frantic emotions back from the edge and bringing them to places of tranquility.
Unfortunately for the rest of the world, Owen’s time is running short. He has an ailment in his lungs that will eventually claim his life.
Conclusion
So how do I conclude after that? The topic of my paper was made useless with four simple words. But all is not lost, in fact, it was a loss for profit.
I found out that lots of other students have part time jobs, and that lots of us are miserable. I found out that lots of us aren’t having fun in college so we turn to partying, girlfriends, Myspace (groan!), TV, boyfriends, golfing, football, videogames and whatever else to fill that gap. But I think I already knew that.
I am taking away knowledge. I am taking away perspective. I am taking away a reason for celebration. In Leviticus 25, the Bible talks about the reason for jubilation being freedom. I feel like that has happened to me, like I have a reason for jubilation. I don’t have to live under the pressure I have been putting on myself. I don’t have to let the pressure and worry linger like a heavy storm cloud unleashing its icy torment on me during finals week. I can be free now.
This paper started out with some surveys and hastily put together sources and ended with an hour long conversation with a man who has spoken freedom to my soul. It’s strange finding freedom in oblivion, but that’s what I have found. My mark will vanish, so this pressure is useless. While I still want to satisfy myself and keep a strong GPA, I don’t have to let everything rest on the outcome of a semester anymore.
I learned to relax and let the world move on its own without my permission, and to me that is freedom.
