Oxford and other universities awarded honorary degrees to Mark Twain. He adored the fancy duds, and went away happy…
For the next several months, I’ll have yet another excuse for not blogging very often:
I’m going back to school — tomorrow. I’ve enrolled in a course at USC designated LING 300, Introduction to Language Sciences. And yes, I’m taking advantage of the deal that offers free tuition to SC residents over the age of 65. Which makes me feel like I’m sort of throwing money down the drain if I don’t take something.
The reason I’m taking this particular course is that many times over the last 50 years (I last attended school in 1975), I’ve thought that maybe I should have studied philology. Or etymology. Or something else in that general realm. Words have been my profession, but my interest in them extends beyond using them the way a mason uses bricks. My exposure to various languages — the years I spoke Spanish as a kid in Ecuador, my two years of high school Latin, my very brief study of German, my recent dalliances with Dutch and Italian via Duolingo — has fascinated me to what most would regard a ridiculous extent. I’m interested in the relationships between various modern and ancient languages (at least, those of the Indo-European sort), as well as how human languages developed both before and after our ancestors gave up hunting and gathering.
I’m signed up as a nondegree-seeking graduate student, which apparently allows me to take undergrad courses as well. And that’s good because I’ve never taken anything in this area before, so I need to start on an introductory level.
Depending on how this course goes, I may continue this line of study. Or, since these doors are now opened, I may branch out. I might return to my second major from undergrad days, history — if I see courses that grab me. Or maybe I’ll dig into some specific language or other. I dunno. The options seem fairly unlimited.
But first I’ve got to get through this one. I opted to take this for a grade rather than simply auditiing. I figured I would slack off too much if there were no grade to work for. Here’s hoping I don’t come to regret that decision.
My plan is to do much better than I did my one previous semester as a student at this university, in Fall 1971. That should be achievable, as long as I don’t lapse into a long-lasting coma.
Perhaps I can even do well enough to put an end to those dreams. You know, the ones in which you have to go take your exam at the end of a term, and you suddenly realize that you have no idea where the class meets, because you haven’t attended it even once. You’d meant to, but somehow never got around to it.
There are variations on that dream. For instance, the Superintendent of Dreams decided at some point to use that same template, but transfer the anxiety to the more frequent (in my life, anyway) challenge of trying to get a newspaper out when everything is going wrong. But still, for old times’ sake, I occasionally experience the college version. Seems like I had one of those just a week or two ago.
Frankly, I suspect that such dreams are a lifelong affliction, so I’m not going to hold my breath in expectation of them going away. Maybe I’ll just have to settle for learning a bit about linguistics.
Oh, and before someone mentions “Old School.” Well, I love that movie. (In fact, I may have to go back to my Top Ten Comedies list and bump something off to make room for it.) But I don’t intend to emulate it. I’ve never at any time had the slightest interest in the Greek life. You can be almost certain you won’t see me at a football game, even if I continue into the fall. And streaking? Admittedly, I was an undergrad during that madness in the ’70s, but I did not partake then, and do not have plans to do so this time around. Much to everyone’s relief.
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