Ben Thorpe graduated in 2007 and decided to travel the world. His peregrinations took him to Chile where, besides enjoying the Andes, Ben is helping to start an English language program for students at a Chilean University. Ben is going to blog on this site periodically to talk just a bit about what life has been like for him since leaving Messiah’s hallowed halls. Ben’s third blog entry is below:
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AN EPISODE:
Walking into a library in a strange city, like walking into a church or Indian restaurant (I was an MK—Missionary´s kid—in Bangladesh early on), erases the uneasiness I feel being a stranger. In these places I sometimes forget that I´m a foreigner because familiarity takes over. Consequently, nothing can make me feel more exiled than when one of these places turns on me.
I stopped by La Biblioteca Publica de Santiago a week and a half after arriving. (I had stopped by even earlier but they told me I needed my passport.) As it turned out, though, I still wasn´t allowed to browse books. Infact, nobody besides the librarian may browse books. Apparently they´ve had too many cases of theft and vandalism. What you do if you want a book is look it up on a computer, write down its corresponding library code on a card and present the card to the librarian who then steps behind a large door and emerges ten minutes later with the requested item.
I was entirely unprepared for this at first. I probably couldn´t have comprehended it if someone had told me. When I arrived at the library I asked the librarian where they keep the English Literature.
“Toward the back,” he said, gesturing at the formidable doors behind the desk. I set off but he whispered hoarsely after me, eyes wide and lips tight, “Where are you going?”
“Excuse me?”
“The bookstacks are off limits!”
“They´re off limits?”
“They´re off limits.”
I considered this for a moment. “When do they open?” I asked.
“They don´t. You can´t go back there.” His voice a mix of authority and confusion.
“But I brought my passport with me today.”
“It doesn´t matter. Nobody goes back there, you see? Only us, the librarians.”
“So I can´t see the books?” I saw hope diminishing. Here the librarian began to soften up on me here, seeing that perhaps I was new to the whole library thing.
“No, you can see the books. Which ones do you want to see?”
“I want to see all the English Literature books. You said they´re toward the back?”
“See but you can´t. That´s not how it works. You must go back to the computer room, look up the book and fill out a card. Then bring me the bard and I will go get the book.”
“But I don´t know which book I want.”
“You don´t know?”
“Well not really.”
I didn´t understand what libraries were for.
“I mean,” I said, “I can think of a couple I´d like to see just for the heck of it, but—“
“Good, go look them up and I´ll bring them to you.”
In the end I wasn´t even allowed to take the books home to read overnight. I eventually found other places to get books. My friend´s mother is the librarian at Santiago Colegio, a quality secondary school with all sorts of books. (I recently took out “It Takes a Village” by Hillary Clinton and found that it was a signed copy.) I stocked up at a book sale, hosted by the Lady´s Guild at my Anglican Church. I´m reading “Old Friends” at the moment, written by Tracy Kidder after spending a year in a nursing home in Western Massachusetts. My problem now is that I have too much English reading material. It sometimes removes me from my life here in Santiago. Instead of going out or spending time with my roommates I sneak into my room and open to the bookmark. I can´t discuss these books with my friends here. They´re just for me, and I consume them greedily, hypnotically, like the rice and soup packets in my half of the kitchen cupboard. But it´s preferable to my disappointment and estrangement that day after visiting the public library and leaving empty-handed.
(I had wandered around afterwards looking for an English Bookstore. Some people said there was one not too far away. I walked around the same block at least three times before I realized that they were talking about this hole-in-the-wall place that sells English language textbooks.)
(I sat down by the Rio Mapocho and wept.)
I have been teaching English at a private language institute. I give classes to some of the staff at a nearby hospital. They tend to be Type-A´s, and ask me to assign homework even when I hadn´t planned to. They want to know why “through,” “cough,” “thought,” and “plough” are all pronounced differently. But they forgive me easily when I shrug my shoulders and say something evasive, like “It´s because of…time.”
There are many things an English major can do. Teaching the English language is one of them. Teaching English could be, in fact, something an English major should do. Of course, if one were to consider all the ways in which an English major could improve their understanding of, well, “English,” one could introduce any number of things that English majors should do. They should work in printing, editing, publishing, communications, film, media, and marketing; they should study psychology, linguistics, psycholinguistics, etymology, lexicology, history, philosophy, sociology, religion, and pathology; they should work in libraries, theatres, churches, schools, cubicles, museums, fast-food restaurants, bars, and day cares.
I´m sure I´ve missed a few. My point is that (gather around children—I´ve been out of college almost an entire year) the English major opens up tons of options. It´s full of potential energy. Resist the idea that English majors emerge without a skill set, as the song “What Do You Do With a BA in English?” (you can find it on youtube) half-jokingly asserts. That is balogny! The English major may be one of the most widely-marketable majors in higher education and, I am guessing, the one that most immediately provokes favor when mentioned to employers or grad school representatives or passers-by on the street. English majors know how to read, research, analyze, write and revise. Those aren´t easy skills to acquire, and after four years of hard work you owe it to yourself to demand attention for everything you learned.
Posted on May 7th, 2008 by Peter Kerry Powers
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