By Alice Asch ‘22
English majors are doing just great. So great! So, so great. We are well-adjusted, level-headed, and responsible. No one should be concerned about us at all. In an effort to dispel some of the common misconceptions about English majors (we don’t do any real work, we’re getting a useless degree, we’re no fun at parties, etc), The Words spoke to two English students about their academic lives. Elliot Ellers and Sam Sealing filled us in on their totally normal and regular experiences at Macalester.
Disclaimer: These are not real people. I made them up. Any resemblance to actual students at this school is likely intentional.
“If we do less work than STEM majors, explain why it took me an entire four hours last night to read one six-line poem,” Ellers said.
When we asked him to elaborate, he clarified that he spent three hours and fifty minutes of those four hours finding an antique ink pen online. He hopes this will help his annotations look fancier, and that the students who check out the book from the library in the future will be impressed with him.
“Annotations are pretty much our only chance to leave a mark on the Macalester community,” he said. “I like to imagine someone who’s on the fence about becoming an English major reading this book after me and thinking, ‘Wow, look at these incredible notes in shimmering silver ink. The person who had this before must have been so cool.’”
“It’s really inspiring, the kinds of legacies we leave behind,” Ellers said, wiping tears from his eyes.
Sealing is leaving his own legacy. Each Monday, from dawn until dusk, he abandons all his other commitments to stand outside Old Main and loudly recite the complete original text of Beowulf.
“No one knows if it’s a sincere form of self-expression or just, like, a really weird joke,” he said. “But that’s how people feel about most things English majors do, so I don’t mind. I just let them have their own interpretations.”
Sealing said this weekly tradition has been met with support from the English Department faculty and staff.
“It’s great,” he said. “Jan Beebe brings me fresh bagels every few hours. Professor Geng always stops by to tell me the Oxford English Dictionary’s ‘word of the day,’ probably in an attempt to pull me back into reality. Once, Professor Kaston Tange even took a sabbatical from her sabbatical to stand and stare and give me a pitying smile.”
The Words caught up with Ellers last Saturday night in an empty classroom in Old Main, where he was sobbing in frustration over an essay. We asked him if he was feeling confident about his decision to major in English.
“How the hell did you find me here?” he yelled. “Winter Ball is happening right now, so I figured the whole school would be there.”
After one of his weekly Beowulf recitations, we asked Sealing if he had any plans for a potential career path, and whether he felt prepared to take on adulthood. “Ne,” he said. This translates to “no” in Old English.