I am just past the halfway mark in my master’s classes for this semester! I can hardly believe it is so. It feels as if I have just begun, but ahead is a bit more work and then the end. Mid-October gives way to November, with its holiday break, and then December which ends early due to Christmas.
I find myself reflecting back on past fall semesters as an undergraduate student. At that time, my parents were not living in the States, and I was left to fend for myself over school breaks. A few times I stayed on campus, a little outside the rules it must be admitted, but more often than not I stayed with friends or whomever would have me. I spent many a Thanksgiving and Christmas in other people’s homes for which I am ever so grateful. This year, I get to take break in my own home. What a strange thought!
An informal break gives me this time to pause now, as my university campus is hosting a large, ancillary conference which it is encouraging students to attend. The school has given us a few days off of classes. Most students are, perhaps predictably, going home during the break, or working on assignments (as I will do part of the time) but I am also taking advantage of a work opportunity to make a few dollars and sit in on some lectures by running tech support for the lectures.
Along the way, I am experiencing much fun in one of my courses, a class on folklore, oral culture, and literature. Specifically we are looking at orality as a whole by examining proverbs, riddles, songs, and stories. My professor is, I have come to know, one of the ten premier proverb scholars in the world. Far from being ivory tower and dry, he is a fount of delicious phrases and stories. I am particularly excited, because he is allowing me to study in this class in my own way. Most students at my university have an objective, or an area of the world they want to explore through their studies. I don’t. I am merely there to learn what I can.
To this end, my professor is letting me study the culture of Tolkien, as evidenced through the Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings, and other stories from Middle-Earth as it pertains to proverbs, riddles, etc. I could not be more in my element! Even as an undergrad student, I would try to steer my studies towards things I was most interested in. I did a capstone project on the robot stories of Isaac Asimov; I wrote a paper on Dune by Frank Herbert; and I often referenced science fiction, pop culture, or Tolkien in my poetry.
As it turns out, there are many, many proverbs used, for various purposes, in the text of both the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. There are two riddle contests in the former (though none in the latter that I am aware of), and, of course, a multitude of songs in both. I can’t wait to explore how songs are used in cultures around the world, and apply that to why on (Middle-)Earth Tolkien included so many in his works.
In all, despite my other class being more of a slog, I am having fun and finding that the answer to my hypotheses “can I still study effectively” and “will I enjoy school again” are “yes” and “yes”. I am glad and thankful. I didn’t want to have wasted my time and money this semester, and by golly, I don’t think I have.
And, not to totally bury the lede, but my folklore professor has asked me to submit a paper on Tolkien and proverbs for a conference in the spring that my university hosts! I could not be more excited to do so, and to participate in a higher academic quest. It may not be for Erebor or Orodruin, but it is a small hill to conquer on the way to higher mountains (I hope). I have long wanted to study Tolkien academically, and make it more than just a precocious hobby, and it seems I may be able to do just that.
I am “learning my letters” as they put it in the Fellowship of the Ring, and far from “no harm…com[ing] from it” I believe a lot of good will come after for me. After all, I love Tolkien so much I have some tattooed on my arms, and try to read the books as often as possible. It is high time I start a career out it. But I must be careful, as always, in “stepping out into the Road” as I “never know where I might be swept off to!” as Bilbo Baggins once said.
a simple man 