Short fiction.

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Haley Weiss
How to Act like a Struggling Senior English Major
Stage One: Pick a Senior Seminar
Why don’t you take a Biology class? Your dad’s question smashes through your
mind like a bear. You let it claw at you while logging into your college account to
register for courses. It questions your academic decisions, your blood sweat and tears
with a maniacal sneer. Blood from that time you got a horrendous paper cut while
flipping through the pages of King Lear; sweat from taking out your stress on the poor
elliptical in the corner of the gym where no one could see you; and tears from that time
you attempted to read Jane Eyre in one night––what an idiot.
You decide to head downstairs and face the monster. It’s time to make your case–
– If Hemingway can make it as a writer, why can’t you? You’re not even an alcoholic.
You make better life decisions than that. Surrounded by walls of medical books and
surgeon certificates, you stand in your dad’s study as the fireplace blazes. You explain a
fact to your dad––a fact as tried and true as MLA format: English Majors have no free
time. Extra courses are out of the question, especially in your fragile state of Seniority.
Taking Biology would be like asking Hamlet to have a happy ending. It’s not going to
happen, period.
The books and certificates laugh at you.
What would Hemingway do in this situation? Do you take the bottle of scotch
from the desk and run? Maybe a little alcohol in your system would help the words flow
out? Perhaps it would make your writing more legit?

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“Wouldn’t Biology be useful?” Your dad questions.
You let the subtext hang in the air.
*
You pause your course search for next semester to stare at the English 101 titles.
You feel like a grown woman reunited with her parents after returning from a book
signing in Paris, Spain and London. Look how far you’ve come, you living cliché! You
wonder why a course called “Tacos, Dumplings and Kebabs in Contemporary American
Literature” was never offered to you? What a rip-off. You continue to scroll down the
page to reveal your fate. A cold sweat engulfs your manicured hands like a tidal wave.
What will it be? Feminism in Eighteenth Century British Literature? Imperialism? Post-
Modernism? Eco-criticism? The possibility of “isms” is like the scenic descriptions in
Tess of the d’Urbervilles––endless as the possibilities of Shakespeare’s identity, or how
about you go with a lovely cliché––as endless as the sky.
You contemplate closing your MacBook and running downstairs to order Chinese
food. It suddenly seems imperative that you start taking more advantage of your dad’s
multiple credit cards before you are cut off. You write yourself a reminder on an initialed
sticky-pad to order your textbooks in a few weeks. But you know the threat is just his
sugarcoated suggestion to get your shit together, and apply to grad-school or find a job––
preferably a reliable one. Maybe you should just scrap your English Major and head to
medical school? You cringe like the Grinch on Christmas. But you obviously have at
least a couple years to determine the best road to take––maybe Robert Frost can help you
with that? Besides, your mom would never let you get cut off. Every time you reply that

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you have a cold to her daily text of “How are you? I miss you (insert multiple heart or
kissy face Emojis),” she sends you cans of soup and packets of tissues. Apparently
convenience stores don’t exist in your college town. You determine that being cut off is
about as likely as writing about Feminism in Literature for your thesis.
You continue to scroll down into the pits of Hell. Finally, the 400 level courses
rise up from the bottom of your computer screen. You hear the spirits of past seniors cry
out to you. Remain strong. Take a deep breath and go… first you read through the titles
of the six course options, and make sure to re-read them, and then you read the
descriptions, and don’t forget to re-read those as well, and then you go back to the titles,
and just stare.
You pass some time by Snap-Chatting your city friends. You send a picture with
wide eyes and teeth bared like the rabid raccoon that terrorized your town’s golf course a
few weeks ago. You laugh at yourself, then suddenly become upset by the fact that your
city friends are probably off in the Hamptons playing polo, ringing in the last few weeks
of summer with an endless supply of Long Island Iced Teas or perusing Facebook by the
ocean with a ten dollar iced coffee in hand. Your parents always told you that your city
friends live in a fantasy world, and apparently need to get off their high horses. You
would happily get over your fear of heights right now than be sitting at your desk.
You continue the staring contest with your computer screen, but it awaits your
decision and the time has come to pick your poison, but you are as indecisive as a run-on
sentence as you tap your rounded nails against the desk.
*

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You finally win. The decision has been made. You have chosen your Senior
Seminar. That’s all for now folks, stay tuned for next Month’s struggle. You are
blissfully unaware of this foreshadowing broadcast. Now, you brilliant decision maker
you, deserve Chinese food. Before ordering you head downstairs and ask your mom if
she wants anything––you even plan to pay with your babysitting money. Brownie points
would not be so bad to add to your victory. However, your intention is shot down by a
poem of anaphoric questions:
“What classes did you choose?”
“What Professors will you have?”
“What does your schedule look like?”
“What time did your father say he would be done working in his study?”
Respond to the first three questions. Before you can answer the last, you are asked
to expand on your answers. She obviously doesn’t know the basic English rules: be
concise, avoid repetition and don’t be wordy. Repeat and broaden your answers over the
next twenty minutes. Then casually allude to that fact that you hate being the Nick
Carraway in your parents’ absolutely normal marriage because it makes no sense. Your
stomach snarls sensationally and you feel the alliteration digging dangerously through
your core like a deranged dog.
“How about we do Chinese tomorrow night,” says your mom.
You watch the green light fade away.
*
“Dinner will be ready soon,” your mom says as she slices up the chicken.

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You respond with a nod. Perhaps Minimalism is in your future? You notice that
the pot of pasta has begun to boil over––now that right there is symbolism.
*
“When’s the job hunt beginning?” asks your dad.
Think that his question must be a joke.
“I’m not amused,” he comments.
You edit your thought, and then stab your fork into the chicken.
“Well first you should get an idea about what kind of job you want to look for,”
your mom suggests.
Her suggestion is like telling you to put a period at the end of a sentence. Tell her
that you have a few ideas, even though you have many.
“Well, I’m listening,” says your dad.
You give into his subtext.
“Magazine editor, novelist, screenwriter, short fiction writer,” you list.
“Those aren’t going to make you money overnight,” your mom laughs.
Wonder how many times you’ve heard that line before, but in your mind you
don’t put a question mark down at the end of it–––You poor, poor English Major are sure
to here it many more times in your near future. Blow off your mom’s mockery within the
roll of your eyes.
Secretly, you harvest a gut feeling that continues to grow: you know that your
writing is worth it. You will make it just like JK Rowling, only a younger version. You
can’t flesh out when this feeling began to sprout––perhaps as a child when you began

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writing plays and songs for your friends to perform? Looking back, you were kind of
like a regular Briony Tallis. In middle school, this sprout began to flower when you won
the short fiction-writing contest. You remember feeling like a proud mother as you read
your work in the local newspaper. When high school rolled around, you were already
sure that the life of an English Major was the path you were going to choose (even if it
was less traveled by). However, the struggles were not foreshadowed to you. When you
entered college, the leaves of your flowers began to fall from their stems, like chopped
off heads falling to the street. It became more difficult to get people to read and like your
work. Your children were outcastes like the bastards in Shakespeare. Still, as Fitzgerald
suggests, you beat on against the current. Finally, with a lot of watering and dirty work,
your writing began to flourish. Thank God for that miracle of life. Your A range had
sprung, and you had imagined yourself publishing your first short fiction collection by
the end of Senior year. Well, class work got the better of your attention. The imagination
ceased to be reality, but the image still knocks at your head like a hunger that has not
been satisfied.
Ask your parents if you can be excused?
“Yes but this conversation is not over,” says your dad.
You know it will never be.
*
Stage Two: Begin Classes
You no longer have time to dream about Chinese food. The weeks scramble by.
But they also seem as drawn out as each dense dismal page in Bronte’s obscenely long

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novel with utterly lengthy descriptions. You spend each week reading, writing, analyzing,
critiquing, stressing, procrastinating, argument-forming, comparing, contrasting, creating
and perhaps sleeping. By the end of the week, you feel poisoned by these present
participles. As your stomach churns from caffeine, you sit on the top floor of the library.
All the way in the back, you are entrapped by your cubicle and your will to finish an
essay before the sun begins to rise in the Saturday morning sky. You feel like that crazy
lady trapped in the attic. Away from society where silence is louder than any hum of life,
your thoughts drift in and out like the tides of the sea. Many nights are spent in a state of
delusion–– an inexplicable delusion.
*
Stage Three: Acknowledge Your Thesis Prospectus Due Date
Sometimes you taste the sweetness of success. You receive an A- on your first
Seminar essay. Not bad for attempting to close-read a work of Impressionism. You feel
happy for a bit. But that little minus sign sticks into your heart like a dagger. You could
have been that perfect A, but your apparently questionable analysis of imagery got the
better of you. The wound will remain and you wear it on your on your chest like the
scarlet letter.
But thank God for the weekend. You poor, imperfect English Major can drown
your sorrows like Hemingway and bitch about your life like one of those Organic
Chemistry students. Heading out to the bar with your girlfriends on a Saturday night, you
feel like your inner Hyde is about to be released. And you let it happen: you guzzle the
fruity drinks, gossip with your girls, hike up your boobies, dance on wobbly tables, kiss a

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few lips, hug the stained toilet seat, lose a shoe, repeat, then smash. You throw your glass
across the room at a pair of lips. It’s over. You have not partied like Gatsby. You walk
home barefoot.
You’re done being a cliché fuck-up.
The next day you have the hangover––not of the century, but more like the
millennium. You roll on out of bed like a drugged sloth and meander to the bathroom.
The mirror reveals the extent of your night. You look worse than the monster from
Frankenstein and you vow to run away so no one can find you.
After sleeping for a few more hours, you rise as the sun begins to set. You scarf
down a yogurt and begin your weekend work. The load seems light: eighty pages of a
novel, three short articles, an essay outline, one close-reading paper, two response papers
and one six-page critical assignment. You think you got this, but your eyes beg to differ.
You finish twenty pages of the novel and reward yourself with a nap.
You sleep through your alarm.
*
Count your blessings that your roommate snores. She wakes you up. Morning
light shines through your window like fire from Hell. You dear English Major have
failed. You are a failure. This you know, but cannot accept. You run to the library like a
bat on steroids and internally debate which assignment is the most important. You crank
out the six-page paper before your first class. It is almost as bad as plagiarism. Sitting in
your first class you feel like big brother is watching. He knows you have not done the
reading.

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Your email has been neglected. You realize this at the end of the day. Perfect
timing. Now hold your breath and open your inbox. A surprise awaits you.
Something is rotten in the state of your Senior Seminar. Your Thesis Prospectus is
due in two weeks.
*
Stage Four: Procrastinate
First, go back to that top floor of the library. Seclude yourself far, far away from
your friends (Heaven knows they are bad influences anyways). Now pick a topic.
Something that you have discussed in class, but something that has not been discussed
enough. What will this something be? You get distracted by the word something. It’s too
abstract.
Tell yourself to focus. That doesn’t work.
Tell yourself that if you fail this Prospectus, you will live a life of failure and
never get a job. That doesn’t work either.
Tell yourself that you can eat three M&M’s after coming up with one topic. That
works. What about something like Authorial Reliability in Literature? You eat the entire
bag of M&M’s.
But you need to keep going! How about Symbolism? You’ve always liked Ibsen’s
A Doll’s House and Chekhov’s, The Seagull. A stream of light shines through the
window onto your computer screen. The glare makes it hard for you to work.
Decide that you would rather start looking through some secondary sources.
Maybe even a primary one for good measure?

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You descend the steps towards civilization and the book stacks. While attempting
to reach a source at the very top of the shelf, you hear a sound as sweet as the voice of a
siren coming from the espresso machine. Decide that you need coffee. Maybe even a
Mocha? Definitely a Mocha with whipped cream because you dear English Major will be
here awhile. You need the extra sugar.
Now take that Mocha and return to your desk. The source remains at the top of
the shelf.
On your way back you stop and say hi to your girlfriends. You engage in a
conversation about Saturday Night. You become engulfed in your tale of peril, making
yourself out to be the hero when in reality you were as crazy and corruptive as the
Governess in The Turn of the Screw.
Half an hour goes by. Perhaps more like an hour? Attempt to make a graceful exit
by telling your friends that you hate to interrupt their work. But really, you are the one
who needs to stop screwing around.
“It’s just light reading for our seminar,” they respond. “Nothing too important,
just skimming through.”
You smile, nod and say goodbye.
As you trudge back up the stairs, think that you too should have been an
American Studies Major.
But you superior English Major resume your seat like a Queen on her throne.
Open your computer and use every fiber of will in your fingers to stop yourself from
typing “Facebook” into your search engine. You succeed.

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*
Stage Five: Have an Epiphany
Type “Symbolism” into the library’s search engine–– you get over three thousand
hits. Type in “Symbolism in Litrature and Plays”–– get nothing. Are you actually an
English Major? Maybe you should have taken your dad’s advice? You correct your
misspelling and try again. You––get over one hundred hits. Decide to act like your
girlfriends, obviously a smarter version of them––your Major makes that inherent. You
attempt to skim through all of the articles, but realize your attempt is as questionable as
the crack in the yellow wallpaper. You become caught up in the familiar art of close-
reading. Tell yourself that now is not the time. You hurry up your eyes.
After a hyperbole of hours, you decide on eleven secondary and three primary
sources to include in your Prospectus. It’s time to let your hair down from that giant bun
atop your head. It makes you look like a Doctor Seuss character anyways––a less cute
one. Before doing so, you read through all fourteen sources, highlight those important
sentences, attempt to keep those extensive notes in the margins (but give up when your
letters weave through the entire page like overgrown tree branches), add some sticky
notes, take a coffee break and finally, re-read every source and every note. It is done.
Your research is done. The storm is over, but your struggle is not.
You rise from your desk, let down your hair and face the window. You see the
dead leaves fall from the trees as it begins to rain. You brought neither a raincoat nor an
umbrella. Laugh at the unreliability of the weather forecast.
As you descend the library stairs, something horrendous comes through your
mind––something worse than heart failure.

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Do you even want to write your thesis on Symbolism? You try to beat the answer
away from your lips, but you fail. You now know that your struggle is not over. This
epiphanal moment seems to stop your unfortunate, little English Major heart.
Luckily, that’s not the end of your story. You leave the library and hope for the
promises of tomorrow.
*
Around two weeks and seventy coffees later, you stand in front of the Thesis
Prospectus display board. As you shake with wilds amount of caffeine still pumping
through your system, you find your Prospectus hanging at the tippy top. Your title reads:
“The Metaphysical in Contemporary Fiction.” You feel like you have made it to the top
of a mountain. As you glance down at all those people who stare up at your success, you
laugh at them and say: “And I never even took a single Biology class.”
Unfortunately for you dear English Major, another mountain awaits. Your fifty
page Thesis looms amidst the clouds. And you can be sure that people will be waiting at
the bottom to watch your struggle.

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