The Writing on the Wall: At semester end, Mr. Holland numbers his days alright
By Brian Goodman, opinion editor
Posted on April 27, 2006

Another one bites the dust, folks. We made it to the end of another academic year, many of us by the skin of our teeth. But, runaway bride that I am, the closer I get to the end of the year, the colder my feet become. I cannot shake the ominous feeling that I missed the whole point.

At the end of his life, author Henri Nouwen reflected, “My whole life I have been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I discovered that the interruptions were my work.” To make it through the academic year, many of us have had to sacrifice the experiences — and the people — that make life worth living. More this year than ever before, it seems that in order to be successful academically, we must sacrifice the interruptions that make life worth living. Our priorities get reversed, really; it is a precarious place indeed where tests and papers command more of our time than flesh and blood.

I, for one, am particularly flawed in this regard. I have inherited from my parents, bless their hearts, a downright intolerable Puritan work ethic. Since the time I was weaned, I have been reminded that “school is your job, and you want to do well at your job,” that “school is the most important thing.” That anal-retentive, schedule-minded, purpose-driven ideal has carried me relatively unscathed through life so far.

Call me Mr. Holland. For the three of you who haven’t seen the movie about his opus, skip to the next paragraph. Mr. Holland spent his life dreaming of becoming a composer, but is forced to work as a music teacher in a high school to put food on the table. The plan was only to work for a year or two, but as life tends to do, one year turned into five, which turned into 15, which turned into a lifelong career. Forced into early retirement, Mr. Holland packs his desk a broken man, unable to evade the thought that he has wasted his life by never having achieved his dream. As he walks with his family down the hall, he hears a noise and is drawn into the auditorium. Inside, he discovers his life: hundreds of his students from his long years of teaching, assembled as an orchestra, performing the composition he had always hoped to conduct.

As author Mark Buchanan recounts, “But of course he knows, everyone knows: His opus isn’t the composition. His real opus, his true life’s masterpiece, stands before him, here, now. It’s not the music. It is all these people who m his passions and convictions have helped and shaped. It’s all that was being formed in the crucible of interruptions. This is his work. This is his purpose.”

In less than two weeks, the 2005-’06 school year will pass away into the annals of history and the dusty corridors of our memories. It will be dead to us; once it goes, there is no getting it back. For those of us who piddled our year away with nonstop work, we will be left with a transcript, a stack of textbooks to sell, and the unshakeable feeling that we’ve wasted our time. For those of you who kept the year in perspective and did not let life get in the way of the interruptions, I am insanely jealous.

Moses once advised the people “to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” The Office of the Registrar has done the easy part for us; I now have one week out of 32 left in my junior year. But I failed to “number them aright” for myself. As we struggle concurrently under the brunt of back-loaded course assignments, summer plans and happy hours, we can end up losing the rest of the semester for the sake of the semester. I know that I have already lost too much of my junior year to my schedule; for the next week, at least, I hope I’m interrupted.

Brian Goodman is a junior communications major.