Category: Minor English Major Musings

As I discovered a few years ago, deciding to get your undergraduate degree in English – especially when you are a student of non-traditional age – is an open invitation for confusion and ridicule.

Nobody ever questioned me when I was a marketing major or a business management major or an accounting major or a computer science major (I had a lot of majors), but when I finally committed to being an English major, people looked at me askance. Potential employers reviewed my resume and demanded explanations for my strange path. My friends tut-tutted. My parents stared at each other in horror. Why? everyone asked. Why in the world would you get an English degree? What are you going to DO with it?

Quite a lot, actually. In fact, I’m going to boldly state that the older I get, the more I think every English-speaking person should be an English major, even if they DON’T want to be a writer or work at the Starbucks!  So there!

All right, all right. Calm down.  I know that’s a little extreme.  But just consider this – when you pursue a degree in English, you….

• Learn how to interpret incomprehensible stuff.

You think that spreadsheet you’re working on is hard to understand? Please. Try reading anything written by James Joyce and interpreting it in a meaningful fashion – then we’ll talk.

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My friends, I am a total Shakespeare geek. There. I’ve said it. Laugh at me if you will, but I love that little bard.  And lovin’ him ain’t hard.

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better. (Twelfth Night)

We don’t really know when Shakespeare was born. His baptism date was April 26, 1564. Most historians celebrate his date of birth on April 23. For the most part, they decided to do that because he died April 23, 1616 and it just makes a nice circle. Historians love them some nice circles.

The course of true love never did run smooth. (A Midsummer’s Night Dream)

So, to celebrate the birth of my favorite playwright, I thought I would share photos of some of the geeky Shakespearen items that have found their way into my possession. I’m not quite sure why I’m sharing these photos. Perhaps I want to shout my geekiness to the world. Perhaps I believe Mr. Shakespeare would be amused.

Perhaps I just need a blog post.

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds. (Sonnet 116)

But I digress.

Suit the action to the word, the word to the action. (Hamlet)

P.S. – all quotes in this post are from William Shakespeare.  In case you couldn’t figure that out for yourselves.

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting. (Much Ado About Nothing)

First, my Shakespeare bobble head doll. Every home should have one.

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No, I’m not!

Yes, you are!

QUIET!

You know what I mean, right? Right?

*tap, tap, tap* Is this thing on?

Anyway, it’s like I have an inner parent nagging at an inner adolescent who refuses to pay attention. And if that’s not bad enough, yesterday I realized that much of my inner parent’s advice to my inner adolescent is a scary mimic of Polonius’s advice to his son Laertes in Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet.

Now THAT set me back a little bit, I’ll admit. But I’ll prove it to you. First Polonius, then inner parent Betsy.

Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion’d thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar;

Keep your big mouth shut unless you have something useful to say. And for God’s sake, don’t just jump to do stuff without thinking about it first.

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch’d, unfledg’d comrade.

True friends are really hard to come by. When you find one, “grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel”. But not everyone with whom you are friendly is actually a friend.

Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in,
Bear ‘t that th’ opposed may beware of thee.

If you have to get involved in a fight or a quarrel, then for pity’s sake, handle it with dignity. And try not to just burst into tears and run away sobbing.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man’s censure, but reserve thy judgment.

Don’t judge people or situations based on what other people are saying. Because nine times out of ten you’re not getting the full story.

Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

CUT UP THE LANE BRYANT CARD! For heaven’s sake, you don’t need that many clothes!

Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.

Stay out of debt, because debt is a prison sentence. And be careful lending to other people with the expectation that you will be repaid. Because that is a sure-fire way to lose a friend. If they really need something, just give it to them and forget about it.

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

You must be yourself. It doesn’t matter what other people say. It doesn’t matter what other people see when they look at you. You must be yourself. You don’t have to try to fit in. You don’t have to pull down others to build up your own standing or reputation. You don’t have to be what everybody wants you to be.

See? Weird. And yet the advice is pretty good. Sure wish my inner Laertes would listen to it more often.

And you know what’s even stranger? Sometimes I hear my inner Polonius singing his advice in the voice of the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXId5jOTxdg

Now that’s creepy.

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