Connor Tomshack

Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric

30 January 2015

“Spells and Incantations” Transcript

My room is dimly lit by the few rays of sunlight that the permacloud lets through. I’ve

just returned from classes and neither of my roommates has yet returned. A deep silence

pervades the room. Thoroughly exhausted, I set my bag down and hang up my coat before

tossing myself onto our futon. As I lie in the stillness, various thoughts compete for my attention.

My mind reminds me of a paper I have to write tonight, but I’d rather not think about it just now,

so I cast that thought aside and let my mind wander. I find that my eyes focus on the barren

wallspace just above my lofted bed. My wall is devoid of posters, banners, flags; only a few

lonely thumbtacks spot the wall, but they are the remnants of a prior resident. I wonder to myself

if I’ll ever hang anything up there before the year closes. The walls of my own bedroom at home

are not so bare. In fact, spanning almost the entire length of a wall, nearly from one corner to the

other, is a huge map of the world. Directly beneath the map sits a bookcase, in which the most

prominent volume is an enormous, heavy atlas. These two artifacts may lead one to conclude that

I am an avid geographer, but that is not entirely accurate. You see, my interest lies not in

geography per se, but rather in the cultures that are shaped by the geography.

Even since I was fairly young, I have been fascinated by how things are done elsewhere,

how other places are different from my own. My interest, however, lies particularly in languages.

It is a strange thing, language. The concept that mere waves of sound arranged in a certain way

could be so powerful to one group as to engender fraternity or provoke conflict, and yet to

another group be utter nonsense intrigues me immensely. Words really are like the magical spells

and incantations of fantasy: make the correct sounds in the correct order and you can do just

about anything. This interest of mine actually lay dormant until is was awoken in middle school

by the study of French. I eagerly consumed all the knowledge that was presented before me. My

appetite for languages only increased when I started Latin in high school. In and out of class, I

voraciously took in the material. In the spring of sophomore year I found that Latin alone no

longer sated my thirst, and I looked to take Italian concurrently with Latin in junior year. I was

prepared to embark on a new journey to see what treasures I could unearth.

But, when it came time to schedule for classes, my hopes were crushed. I was told that

not only would I not have time to fit a language class in, but that I couldn’t fit in any sort of

elective. This revelation may as well have tossed my hopes for the coming years and stomped

them into the ground. I was disappointed, downtrodden. I felt powerless in that I had such little

choice in the classes I would take, in what I would learn. Weeks passed by, and my frustration

cooled into resignation, and my passion for languages was all but extinguished. But soon I was

to come to a realization that would not only rekindle my zeal for languages, but would change

my approach to learning forever.

I was speaking with a friend of mine, and together we lamented our dismally few options

for classes in the coming years. “Shouldn’t we have more control over what we learn,” I asked

him. We were being robbed of the opportunity to pursue our interests. But then it hit me. It was

then that I became suddenly aware of the incredible wealth of resources on the Internet. Simply

type a query into Google and thousands of sites come up, ready for perusal. I saw then the

untapped potential of the Internet as a means of learning. I realized that in this digital age, the

only limiting factor in what we learn is ourselves. If I want to learn a language, who’s to say I

can’t learn it myself? I decided then that I would do just that, using the seemingly endless supply

of online knowledge.

I went home that night and avidly scoured the web for sites and resources I could use to

learn Spanish. I was pleased with what I found, and started learning immediately. That was

nearly three years ago now, and I haven’t stopped learning languages since. The Internet never

fails to amaze me. So much can be learned from there alone, if one only puts forward the

initiative.

[ALARM]

My alarm reins me back into the present. I check my watch and solemnly grab my bag. Guess I’d

better get to work on that essay...