Thursday, March 31, 2005
The Bane of My Existence
When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts, the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the learned astronomer where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.
-Walt Whitman
The last class I ever expected to be taking as a strict English major was Astronomy class. Although I realized that part of Calvin’s core curriculum required a physical Science course, I never completely understood that to mean me sitting three days a week in a half-filled lecture hall, absorbing astronomical data.
For fifty minutes three days out of the week I trudge unwillingly to the first floor of the science building, take my seat as close to the back of the room that I can without appearing conspicuous, and await yet another long-winded lecture and confused questions from people like me, who contain not an ounce of scientific brain power within them.
Like Walt Whitman, listening to these lectures and hourly babbles, I grow sick. In addition to the incredible brain power required to recognize that something like a black hole really is there even if scientists cannot see them directly or replicate them in a laboratory, the proofs, figures, and complicated diagrams are enough to make my head spin.
To me, stars are stars. Although Astronomy class seemingly does everything in its power to make me raise a bitter fist toward the sky whenever the sun appears and I am forced to leave the comfort of my dorm to collect shadow data or when the sky is exceptionally clear and I cannot stop myself from showing my friends exactly where the planets are and what phase the moon happens to be in, I cannot help but love the sky.
Walt Whitman describes this heavenly beauty in the last three stanzas; he walks alone, looks up at the stars, and just stares in a “mystical” trance at the “perfect silence of the stars.” I agree with Whitman that the sky holds an incredible amount of beauty and daily presents a breath-taking array of magnificent marvels, but yet I discovered this before enrolling in astronomy class.
The first day of class, my professor turned to us and said, “You know, really the best way to learn astronomy is to take your car on a clear night, drive out to the country where there aren’t a lot of lights, and just look at the stars.” So then why am I still stuck attending a class that so far hasn’t involved even one evening in the Calvin observatory? My theory is this: give me a blanket instead of a textbook, gas money instead of tuition inflation, a good companion instead of a long-winded professor, and a clear Michigan night. Let me discover heavenly beauty on my own time without causing bitterness in the heart of a girl who doesn’t care for technicalities but only for the sheer beauty of a moonlit night.