The University News (Irving, Tex.), Vol. 35, No. 16, Ed. 1 Tuesday, February 16, 2010 Page: 4 of 12
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4 — February 16, 2010
News
The University News
Office hours with Dr. Osborn
John Corrales
Justice Ferguson
Contributing Writers
Dr. Andrew Osborn is an English
professor who teaches classes,
among other things, in creative
writing. Last semester, he took on the
task of teaching Junior Poet.
UN: Does writer's block exist?
AO: Writer's block definitely
exists, i think it's usually a symptom
of a certain perfectionism, which is a
problem of pride, at least that's what we,
at this Catholic university would call,
and I think that's aptly so. As a person
who's always trying to write criticism
about literature, or literature itself,
perfectionism just has no place in that.
You are not understanding your task
correctly if you're trying to be perfect
about it. Mathematicians can be perfect,
but it's also easy for them to be perfect.
If you're right at all, then you're perfectly
right. But if you don't have it right, then
you don't have it at all. In literature, there
isn't perfection, there's adequacy, there's
greatness. There's something that's going
to rock other people's world and move
them deeply and inspire them, but
there's not perfection. And to be holding
out for that, and waiting paralytica!ly
for it, is just not understanding what the
endeavor is about.
But I've been there. A lot. I made
myself very unhappy for part of my
undergraduate existence with that. I'm
sure it wasn't just me making myself
unhappy. But, I could've been the
solution, and for a while, wasn't.
UN: Is there any remedy for it?
AO: In my Creative Writing class
this semester, I've just been giving
people some assignments that they've
been welcome to do with as they wish in
order to joggle them out of any paralysis
that they're in. Often what you need is
someone to say, "Try coming at it from
this angle," or, "Try doing this thing
that you couldn't possibly do well in a
week." So that lowers the bar, and you'll
get something done, right? One hopes.
That could be the solution.
The other solution could be to have
people looking out for students, and
pulling them aside, and saying, "We
don't expect perfection every time. You
can't expect of yourself that every time
you turn in a writing assignment that
it will somehow be better than the last
one." In LitTrads I and II alone you write
11 papers. You think every single paper
will be better than the previous? That's
part of what I was holding myself to in
college, and it was just disastrous. Part of
what you need to learn in college, to the
extent that it's a professional enterprise
and endeavor, and not just ennobling
the mind, is to learn how to do things
under time pressure. That's a very
valuable skill. I think one of the secrets
to that is just to put things down even
when they don't fit perfectly, knowing
that one of the wonderful things about
the technology of writing is that you can
go back and revise.
In writing what I've been writing
for the Creative Writing class as of late,
I'm allowing myself to be much more
sketchy than I used to ever allow myself
to be. I would just put down these
inchoate notes, knowing that time is of
the essence and that if I don't jot it down
in some way, I won't even have a place
saver later on, and when I come back,
I usually try to turn it into something
shapely.
When I was having difficulty in
college with this, I remember having a
graduate student say to me, "I don't care
what it looks like. Just give it to me,"'
And at that point in my life, that was the
wrong thing to say to me. I said, "Oh,
so you don't care? Insert unprintable
sentence here." I didn't feel that way
toward her, I felt that way toward myself,
but that wasn't the answer. It's difficult.
It's nice to be at a smaller university
where people look out for each other.
UN: What movies have you watched
lately?
AO: Oooh! What have I seen? I
saw all the tasteful movies when I was
younger and now I have to watch all the
bad ones. You know what I saw with the
girls lately? "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang."
Did you know who wrote "Chitty Chitty
Bang Bang?" The guy who writes the
D&D discusses changing ace of Church
Patty Morkerl
Contributing Writer
Of course, before the beginning
of every Dinner and Discourse
is food, and the food was
good, but the discourse after the dinner
was even better. Dr. Mardi Jewell from
the School of Ministry was the speaker
for Dinner and Discourse on Feb. 9
and talked about the changing face
of the church. Fhe lecture was a little
more interactive as Jewell passed out
worksheets and asked questions for the
audience to answer.
Questions started with "What
is a parish?" and "Why do we need
parishes?" continuing on to questions
focusing more on the number of
Catholics in the United States and how
many dioceses and priests there are.
I here are 65.2 million Catholics in the
U.S. who call 18,280 parishes home,
with only 17,513 priests to minister to
those parishes nationwide. Two-thirds of
all the dioceses have more parishes than
priests, and nearly half of the nation's
parishes share their priest with at least
one other parish.
Jewell stated in no uncertain terms
that there are fewer priests than there
are parishes. Some priests are in charge
of as many as five parishes. Sometimes,
parishes can not have Mass but once a
month, because that is when a priest
can come out and say Mass.
So the question becomes: If there
are so few priests, how are things getting
done in the parishes? The answer is that
ministries such as religious education,
youth ministry, RCIA, adult formation,
etc., are being handled either by 16,380
deacons or by approximately 31,000 lay
"James Bond" books. What's his name?
Ian Fleming! There's a character named
"Dearly Scrumptious" [in "Chitty Chitty
Bang Bang"]. She's the romantic interest
in that movie. Her father owns a candy
factory or something, but anyway, that's
funny. And it's about a car.
UN: How long has it been since
you've seen that?
AO: It must've been when I was as
young as my daughters are. Back when
movies were really special. Back when
I'd see two movies a year. That's what it
waslike! Back when I was a kid, you'd see
a couple of movies a year. No VCRs, no
Netflix. You know what I've seen again,
"Wings of Desire, "which is a film that the
Eidts show here. And the story about that
movie in my background is that, when
I was in college, my girlfriend, one of
my girlfriends (serial, not simultaneous),
went up to Berkeley to work for her
gallery-owning grandmother, and we
were going to some cinema expressly
to go and sit in the back and neck
because that was something that we'd
always heard of, but had never done.
Everybody's always heard of that, but has
anybody ever actually done it since the
age of drive-ins? So we went to "Wings
of Desire," and the movie started, and
within 30 seconds, we said, "We're
going to watch this film." So it was kind
of a disappointment in that regard, but
it was a great, great movie, based partly
on Riike, I think.
ministers.
But the church's face in the U.S.
is changing in other respects as well,
Jewell said. Sixty percent of Catholics
in the U.S. are under the age of 60.
Fifty percent of Catholics from the
ages of 18-35 are Hispanic, and the
country is also seeing an increase in
parishes that are Vietnamese, Chinese
and Korean. In short, the generation
of young adult Catholics will mostly be
from countries of origin other than the
United States.
Gone are the days of multiple
priests to a parish, but the days continue
of the priest being the celebrant for the
Mass. This is one ministry the lay people
cannot take over, Jewell stated.
Jewell ended the talk, however, by
saying that we are all called to share our
gifts with one another, and we have a
need "to take our baptism seriously."
University Scholar
seeking submissions
The University Scholar is a journal
run by the University of Dallas Phi
Beta Kappa chapter. Each year, the
University Scholar seeks undergraduate
submissions of scholarly work, creative
fiction or poetry and two- or three-
dimensional artwork for publication.
Submission guidelines can be
found on the English department Web
site at www.udallas.edu/academics/
undergrad/majors/english/uscholar.
Submissions should be no longer than
eight pages, double-spaced with 12
pt. font, and can be submitted either
by e-mailing them to The.University.
Scholar@hotmail.com or by dropping
off a hard copy with Concetta Nolan
in the Graduate Office. Please include
a coversheet. Please submit work by
the end of February.
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Nelson, Heather. The University News (Irving, Tex.), Vol. 35, No. 16, Ed. 1 Tuesday, February 16, 2010, newspaper, February 16, 2010; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth201517/m1/4/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting University of Dallas.