English

Rising junior Kelsey Chase is among the recipients of the third-annual Great Northwest Athletic Conference Faculty Athletic Representatives Scholar-Athlete awards.  Kelsey is a track stand-out, and an academic star as well, with her 3.9 gpa and status as a University Scholar.  Congratulations, Kelsey!

Kelly Pantoleon is a graduating creative writing major from Oak Harbor, WA.  When she started college, she knew she would want to go into book editing and publishing, so she joined the English major. Kelly says that she is “like most English majors” in feeling that “books are my best friends.”

During her time at Seattle Pacific University, her favorite course has been American Ethnic Literature with Dr. Middeljans.  “It made me realize that even as accepting as I am, and as much progress as we as a society have made, there’s always more to learn, more to understand about people who are are different from you, and more room to open your mind.”  She added that Dr. Middeljans’s humor is also a great part of her classes.

Fitting for an English major, Kelly is “obsessed with everything about grammar [….] If I could have majored in just punctuation, I would have.”

Since her dream is one day to own an independent publishing house and make books by hand, Kelly hopes that her first post-graduate job will be in the publishing industry. Her suggestions for new English majors are to “be open-minded in the types of classes you take. Take some philosophy classes; they go very well with literature/writing. Do the reading for every class. It may be a lot, but it’s always worth it. Participate in class discussions as much as you possibly can—English majors are kind people.”

Since I was a young child, I have carried a knife by its blade. No matter how many times I prayed, no matter how many times I dug into my heart trying to pick out the blade, the feeling would not go away. Hell remained within me as if I were Satan from Paradise Lost wandering the earth, except instead of seeking revenge, I sought a way to assuage the pain.

I don’t know why I gravitated towards novels. Maybe it was because when I had a character to cling to, I was never truly alone. The library was where I first found friends. Books are quiet, orderly, accepting creatures, and, for a while, I could forget about the knife I carried.

But the mere act of reading is not enough to save oneself from loneliness. As I grew older, I found that the old stories of talking animals, knights and dragons had begun to lose their luster. I needed a story that would touch me deep within my bones and understand my pain.

My first gothic novel was The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. Within its pages, I discovered a character who understood what it was to be alone. The Phantom was a character with a kindred spirit, someone I could look towards whenever I thought I was alone in my suffering. I had finally found a friend who understood. The realization that there were authors who had created characters I could sympathize with gave me hope. I no longer had to carry the knife blade alone.

Now in my final year of college, I am finally starting to let the blade go. The knife is slowly dissolving in the camaraderie I have found in my closest friends. But even though I now have friends of flesh and blood, I will always have a special affection for the fictional friends of my childhood—the Raskolnikovs, the Frankensteins and Phantoms who taught me that no one, not even someone who feels like Satan from Paradise Lost, is truly alone.

–Jay Payne, Senior English major