This morning I had my third official graduate level class. I am taking two this semester, and both have their challenges and joys, as one might expect. I’m also working at the same university, so that is at times convenient and busy making. But there is a nice intersection between my work and my studies that hopefully will be fun and productive.
I am working as the Writing Consultant. What does that mean? I assist students with papers and assignments. Punch up language, brainstorm, outline, higher-order thinking about logic and flow – everything is fair game. I haven’t met with any students yet (did I mention the semester just started?) so I have been filling my time by hanging flyers and speaking in various undergraduate classes about my services.
I am studying Oral Traditions and Literature alongside Abrahamic Shared Stories. Both are fascinating. In Oral Traditions I am examining four traditionally oral parts of literature that occur within a culture: proverbs (or idioms or sayings), riddles, poetry, and stories. It has been fun to think about proverbs, what proverbs are common in a language or cultural group, and what exactly makes a proverb (more on that later when I study it, I suppose!). Shared Stories will look at a few religious texts that are common between the Abrahamic faiths of the world, that is, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. This class is way more technical and foreign to me.
I say foreign in that Shared Stories involves Ancient Near East, or even current Near East, thought patterns which to me (as a modern Westerner through-and-through) are not familiar. I know the Bible stories that we will be examining, but again, only through my fundamentalist Christian upbringing. I will look forward to examining these stories through different lenses to encounter their differences, similarities, peculiarities, and what it all means. My professor for Shared Stories is Jewish, so the class will come front loaded with his worldview. I must confess, his way of thinking was very off-putting during his first class, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to continue in his class. However, I had a meeting with his co-teacher and she allayed many of my fears and encouraged me to step outside my comfort zone. Step I shall!
Oral Traditions will be more up my alley, though it, too, will look at many different cultures and locales around the world. That’s fine. Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve wanted to explore the world as best I can. Seeing as I haven’t budget to hop a plane and actually travel, I’ll take travel through literature. The university I am at, Dallas International University, began life as a linguistics-only school. It has since, and is still, growing beyond those beginnings. Getting back into education is something I have wanted to do for a long time, and I figured dipping my toes in where I live and work wouldn’t be a bad idea. Being that still most of the classes here are linguistic or anthropologic in nature, it was hard to find some that fit my literary bent. I think, in the end, I am taking the only two real literature courses that are offered.
Which brings me back to being the Writing Consultant. I will interact with my own classmates in Oral Traditions on at least one assignment, so I get to be paid for doing my own homework I guess. Ha! Works for me. At any rate, I am excited to be back in school. It is challenging, fun, has already been exasperating, and a little bit like riding the old metaphorical bicycle. I’m a little wobbly, but I think I’ll straighten out the wheels here in no time. I get to do reading, research, a little bit of creative writing, and help others at the same time. These are all things I love to do!
All that’s lacking to really feel scholastic again is leaves falling because it is cold (not hot as is the case here in Texas) and the changing of the season from summer to autumn (which, again, won’t happen here for some time in Texas, at least, not from a temperature standpoint). Still, being in school feels like the times-they-are-a-changing. Ahhh! But it’s good.
a simple man 