Reaching Lifelong Goals as a Nontraditional Student

It has been a crazy summer!!   I am taking 16 credits with a Math class and a full year of German.   We just finished our second “term” this Summer.    It works out to about a term (GER111, GER112, GER113) every 12 days.   I received a B+ for my German 111 and a “shaky” B for my second term.   I’ll have to pick up my game and pull an A for the final term if I want to have anything like an acceptable GPA this summer (my standards are a little high, I get upset with anything less than a 4.00)   My math class is the final requirement for my baccalaureate core and I will be getting an A in this class.   Summer term is kind of relaxed in other ways, lots of open space in the library, no big crowds in the book store, and parking availability!    The campus of Oregon State University is quite beautiful with wonderful trees and lots of green areas.   It is a pleasure to spend my days just walking around “My” campus.   I get a little misty eyed, realizing this experience is a culmination of a life long goal.   I do have some free time to walk around and just enjoy the college experience that has been 35 years delayed.   Most of my day is spent in the OSU Valley Library.   My floor is the 6th, where all of the wonderful collection of history books reside.   I will be spending a lot of time digging through the racks, browsing  and researching History projects.   With the pace of keeping up with German lessons, I have tried to limit myself to only a couple of sessions a week.

The whirlwind pace of German in Summer Term is a real challenge, but I can recommend this type of total committment to a language first year if you can swing it.   I am packing a lot of information into this old non traditional student head, it is nearly full, not much more room left!   When you start dreaming about conjugating verbs and vocab tests, it must be a sign of information overload…   One benefit of this type of class schedule is that you really get to put learning skills to work in a major way.    Starting in the fall, I’ll be heading into second year German, only taking one section per term.   I will have to shift gears and make sure to study a little German every day and not put the homework off til the night before a class.

One of the buildings on campus that I will be spending many hours in is Kidder Hall, which is located across the Quad from the Valley Library.   This facility is one of the older buildings on campus and it has a “vintage college” feel to it.   I am taking in all of the experiences of being in college with an appreciation of what I missed so many years ago.   Even the creaking floors and windows excite me!  Being a non traditional student is more to me than just returning to school.   It has become a life changing experience, and I am trying to get every last drop out of it.   Older students returning to college is the overall theme of Reaching Lifelong Goals.com, but I’m finding the experience to be so much more than that.

Ich muss mich verrückt!!   As a Nontraditional Student, I always set high expectations for myself.   Taking a full year of German in the space of one Summer Term may just test this theory.  Hence, the title of this post which translates to German class is not impossible!!  Here it is, only Thursday, 4 days into the class and we had our first exam this morning.  I felt pretty good about my results, but results will be in tomorrow.  The second day of class had a vocab quiz and already the second vocab quiz is tomorrow!   Herr Stehr, my instructor wrote the textbook and program we are using.  It is an award-winning language course and it’s methods are quite innovative.  Our instructor teaches the rules about German sentence structure and grammar, not just rote memorization.   It is a little daunting in such a fast paced setting as Summer session, but the total immersion factor is a plus.  My wife and I drill each other (her drilling me is more accurate, really…) on the way to campus every morning.  I’m not sure that I would be making this kind of progress alone.   The supportive spouse actually taking a class with the non trad is definitely not the norm, so I am truly blessed.  In fact, we are both Non Traditional Students.  My wife has already graduated from Oregon State University and is a CPA, so she really is going out of her way to support her non trad hubby.   Non Traditional Students need all the family support they can get.  I’m actually getting extra special support!  I’ll have to ask Herr Stehr how to say “non trad” in German…  Ich muss mich verrückt translates to:  I MUST BE CRAZY!!

Time to study more German Vocab for tomorrow’s test now.  Tschüss!!

My final research paper for my ENG203 class was a look at the Elizabethan sexual references made by Shakespeare.   Today’s audiences miss some of these juicy, sexy and downright bawdy jokes.   Censorship was rampant during Shakespeare’s times but he still had to entertain his groundling and penny stinkards at the Globe Theater.  This paper only looks at a few of the bawdy jokes from the plays we studied this last Spring Term 2010.   All of his plays are full of raunchy sex jokes that were the X rated movies of the Elizabethan era.   As a Non Traditional Student, I wanted to write my final paper for my instructor on a subject that he so vividly illustrated in his lectures.   Only Shakespearean Scholars (geeks) usually get these jokes today, but during Shakespeare’s lifetime, the Bard kept them rolling in the aisles with a steady stream of sexual double entendres.  Even though I have completed this series of English Literature classes, I will continue to research and write posts on this topic here on Reaching Lifelong Goals.com just for fun!!    I hope you enjoy this research paper.

X Rated Shakespeare

William Shakespeare knew what his audiences wanted.   He produced plays that were topical, controversial, and also quite risqué!   Ask any advertiser in the 21^st century and they will tell you, “sex sells!”   It seems that some things never change.   Similar to Shakespeare’s use of topical references, many of the more bawdy lines go unappreciated by modern audiences.   Shakespeare used bawdy humor in his dialogue to entertain theater-goers in the same way that current day stand up comedians and PG rated films does.

Gordon Williams published a rather detailed dictionary of sexual  language in 1994 in which he states, “On the whole, and certainly in discursive writings of Shakespeare’s day, the blunt monosyllable gets into print chiefly by way of punning allusion”  (Williams.10).   It is well established that William Shakespeare was the master of the pun in all of his works.   It is interesting that this skill was also used to weave into plays some of the most outrageous sexual references right under the censor’s noses.

Pauline Kiernan, in her book Filthy Shakespeare, makes an interesting point about the Elizabethan audience, “Shakespeare’s audiences were fine-tuned to hearing what we now call subtext in a way that we can hardly begin to imagine.  When they talked of going to the theater, they called is going to hear a play, not to see one” (Kiernan.12).

Enough with the tease, shall we take a closer look at the bawdy references in the plays studied this Spring term 2010; Twelfth Night, Othello and The Tempest. There are several examples in each of these plays of how Shakespeare kept things lively in the Globe, regrettably have space for only a sample in this format.

Perhaps the wildest lines that made it past the censors were in Twelfth Night, where the Puritan Malvolio says, “By my life, this is my lady’s hand.  These be her very C’s, her U’s aNd her T’s and thus makes her great P’s” (12thN.2.5.72-74).  Shakespeare has great fun in presenting Malvolio, a Puritan as a fool, with his aspirations to social climbing and class envy.   The groundlings would have been rolling in the isles over this one.  This line is often cut from productions.   It would seem that the Puritans had their way with this passage, even to modern times.

In Act 1, scene 3, Sir Toby Belch has an exchange with Sir Andrew where he makes fun of “hair”.   “Excellent, it hangs like flax on a distaff, and I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off” (12thN.1.3.84-85).   A fairly tame sounding line, to today’s audience.   The references are to a penis (distaff) and a woman (whore) masturbating (spin it off) Sir Andrew.  Again, this line is also over the heads of modern audiences, who laugh without really getting the joke.

There are many sexual references in the play, Othello, the Moore of Venice. Perhaps one of the lines that a modern audience would get the meaning of is given by Iago in Act I.   “I am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are now making the beast with two backs (O.I.1.115).   This is an Elizabethan slang term that was documented by Eric Partridge in his book Shakespeare’s Bawdy. This book was written in the early 1950s and was quite controversial for the times.   The sensibilities of the era are reflected in his definition of Iago’s obscenity, “A man and a woman in coitu obviously resemble a two-headed animal with two backs, four arms, and four legs”. (Partridge.144).   This definition was a polite way of saying “doggie style” today.

Another famous quote from Iago is both racial and sexual.   “Even now, now, very now, and old black ram is tupping your white ewe” (O.I.1.89-90).  This reference is fairly easy to understand, in any culture, and any era.   Both of the texts make reference to “tup” as a term for sex.  Other references are found in this play which revolves around the sexual puns exchanged between Iago and Desdemona.  In Act V, Scene 1 there is a reference to the sexual double standard that allowed men to be unfaithful while women who did so were considered whores.   Emilia says, “I do think it is their husband’s faults if wives do fall.   Say that they slack their duties and pour our treasures in foreign laps…And have not we affections, desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?” (O.5.1)   This would be defined as what is good for the goose is also good for the gander.

The final play studied was The Tempest, which is fairly “clean” as far as sex goes.   Prospero warns Ferdinand in Act 4, Scene 1 that “If thou dost break her virgin-knot before all sanctimonious ceremonies …be ministered” (T.4.1.15-17).   Here the reference to virginity is illustrated with a period term that is fairly straight-forward.   An interesting reference in regard to the late Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen.   Kiernan tells of a quote by Ben Johnson where he said “that she had a membrane on her so thick that no man could penetrate her, though for her delight, she tried many” (Kiernan.283).   Johnson went on to publish this story in Conversations with Drummond in 1618-19.

The topic of bawdy language in Shakespeare’s works is a discipline all on its own to research.   There are more references and puns in his works that it is an area that a Shakespearean scholar could spend a lifetime researching.   Perhaps Pauline Kiernan states it best, “His plays and poems are stuffed with the kind of double entendres and obscene wordplay that would make our most risqué stand-up comics blush” (Kiernan, 12).

Works Cited

Kiernan, Pauline.  Filthy Shakespeare. New York:  Gotham Books. 2006.

Partridge, Eric.  Shakespeare’s Bawdy.  London: Routledge.  1968

Williams, Gordon.  Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and

Stuart Literature. New Jersey:  Athalone Press. 1994

This has been one of those weeks.   Some successes and some challenges.   My research paper for English Lit was a big hit with my instructor.   MTH 065 is another story though.   I have scrambled all week getting ready to take a Module test for this class.   Keeping up with the homework for the next module we are working on is in the way of studying for the test.   The interference theory of learning is coming into play with this class.   The information being processed for the new module being taught is creeping into my study of the test materials.   Time management this week has also been a big challenge.   I have not been religious about my reading assignments for all 4 of my classes.   Trying to stuff Shakespeare into Botany with a sprinkling of Geology has my head spinning.   Thank heaven for the President’s Day holiday.   No classes to attend.   I should have an opportunity to spend some quality time in the books.   I have learned the hard way that you cannot get behind in the written homework assigned while trying to keep up with reading.   Something usually has to get put aside.   Trying to stay on top of time management as a non traditional student is often very difficult for Non Trads with families.   I do not have any excuses, my family responsibilities have long flown the coop.   I have to contend with a much more insidious time leech…a full to the brim TIVO and the Winter Olympics beginning tomorrow.   Just can’t let it run our lives anymore.   Seems like a wimpy excuse for letting time management slide.   Half the problem is recognizing it I suppose…   I always remember my father’s  axiom:  “Don’t do as I do…Do as I say.”   I’ll be back on track within a couple of days, time management will again become a part of my daily affairs.  We will have to see how the TIVO feels about it as it records hours of Winter Olympics over the next two weeks.    TIVO can be a wicked taskmaster sometimes.

I was noticing today that again, the wheat has been separated from the chaff after the first week of Winter term.   Like last term, which was crazy crowded, a large number of students have disappeared from my classes.   I would assume that a lot of the drops came from rescheduling and not needing certain classes.   Of course, I notice in my 8:00 AM Math 065 class some of the “younger” and “traditional” students are not there this week.  Like last term, us older students, the Nontraditional ones, are still hard at it.   I have been focusing on undergraduate baccalaureate core classes while I’m getting my math requirements done.   These classes are the usual undergrad fare, ENG 201, BI-103, HST 202…the kind all folks need in their core.    The load in these classes is high at my local community college  and there is quite a variety of students in each.   After the first week of “thinning”, I notice that my classmates are the real students who are motivated and driven toward a goal.  (I thought that I would share some more photos of the Oregon Coast trip for my wife’s birthday in this post, I hope nobody minds…You can click on the photos for a larger version)   The frantic pace of the first week of Winter term is now settled down to the routine of studying and lectures.   The students who are left in my classes are busy with the ebb and flow of regular coursework.   I have been planning my research papers for my Shakespeare English class.   We are studying middle Shakespeare, which includes the Sonnets.   This is  my “fun” class for the term as my instructor fulfills my historical needs in his lectures with great tidbits about Elizabethan England.   I always seem to relate my classes to a Historian’s perspective, even with my science credits, I find myself researching the history of the geologists and biologists.   My advice to all of my fellow Nontraditional students is to just relax, get into the flow of your classes this term and simply enjoy the experience.     (I hope you are enjoying the photos) (continue reading…)