Lamb-like?

Supposedly March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb.  Well, this March outdid itself with lion-like days.  It blew stormily in with blasts of cold and snow, remained cold except for one or two days a little over a week ago, and returned to it's snowy modus operandi until yesterday.  Yes, yesterday, March 30th, it snowed.  Lion-like, indeed.  Today, though, the sun is shining, and the ten-day weather report shows highs in the 60s, 70s, and then high 50s from here on out.  I'll take it.  Even the high 50s-- it's so much better than the 30s and 20s I've grown used to since January.  I'm hopeful that I've seen the last of my fuzzy aviator cap for the season.  I'm cautiously optimistic about April really, truly being a month of sundresses and strawberry-lemonade.

 Looking Back:

March has, on the whole, flown by.  For most of the month, I've been fighting this tooth/sinus infection.  Even today I'm still dealing with a cough and I'm not quite past blowing my nose at least once a day.  I've visited the ER, the endodontist and the student health center, and all aver that I'm getting better, so I'm just trying to drink plenty of tea and water, and trying to get plenty of rest.  I cancelled a trip to Seattle to present at a conference.  I've slept in and taken naps.  Yesterday I took a very long nap with Rhett and Felix; it was lovely.  I've decided to let myself let go of some of the stressful factors in my life in an effort to help my body heal (for example, letting myself be okay with giving my 100% to my Tudor presentation last week, while giving short-shrift to my Approaches reading.  I did what I needed to do for class, but I just didn't have the energy to give both classes my all, like I usually do.  It was hard to let myself do that, but I needed the rest).

This month, I read Jonson's Bartholomew Fair for the first time and I loved it.  I think it might be my new favorite Early Modern play, though I don't think I'm writing my paper about it.  My professor said, "It's odd, because everyone looks at Jonson as having a satirical touch towards everything, but you've found a lot of heart in this play."  Certainly, it's satirical, but I really root for Littlewit and Win, and I love Bartholomew Cokes, the gentlest, most naive gallant ever there was.  He's like a really cute puppy-- "resolute Bat."  I would love to stage a production of this play, to try to decide whether or not I want to portray the fair as a green world (a la the woods in Midsummer) or as something more sinister (how does Littlewit and Win's relationship end?  Are they the Baker and his wife in Act I of Into the Woods, or the Baker and his wife in Act II?).  Point is, I never thought I would love a play by Ben Jonson, but hot damn, I do.  Who wants to go in on a production with me?

This month, too, I think I can safely say that I've become proficient in the reading of Middle English (well, Chaucerian Middle English).  I find this quite an accomplishment.  I won't say fluent, as I do frequently rely on the glosses still, but I can make it through Chaucer quite quickly now-- I'm reading The Canterbury Tales much more quickly than I did Troilus and Criseyde.  Looks like those hours and hours of poring over Troilus and listening to it read aloud by someone on YouTube really paid off.  I think this is a skill I should try to maintain.  I also found out that Chaucer Doth Tweet on Twitter, and I'm having way too much fun following that account.  Tomorrow is #whanthataprilleday, which Twitter Chaucer advocates as a day to read poetry, books, manuscripts, etc. in a dead language of your choosing.  After all, dead languages aren't dead, they are waiting.

On the non-academic spectrum, this month-- besides a Spring Break trip to Disney World-- I spent an afternoon with Cara on M Street, looking in shops, and getting bruschetta and lemonade on one of the only warm afternoons in March.  I saw two movies-- Divergent and The Grand Budapest Hotel.  I attended a David Bowie themed party at my friend Thomas's and now I really want to watch Labyrinth.  I started watching the series Pretty Little Liars now that it's on Netflix, and this was probably a huge mistake because it's quite addictive.  Zan and I are also making our way through Veronica Mars-- he's never seen it before, and I don't remember much of it.  I wanted the refresher before watching the new movie.  I've not kept to my resolutions this month, however.  I hope to be better about that this coming month, because I really do feel better when I use my Rosetta Stone, attend church, and try to make time to do things that are important to me as a human.

Looking Forward:

April already looks busy.  In a few days I will do my Teaching Practicum for my Approaches class.  I have that final project to work on, too, and by April 16th I need to have a good 20 minutes (8 or so pages) of my Tudor paper prepared to present "conference-style" to the class, and by April 22nd I need the same for my Medieval Lit class.  Better get cracking on finding those final paper topics, eh?  But, once I can make it through that, the semester will be all but over.  In April, too, I want to make it down to Williamsburg for a few days, I have a trip planned to visit my grandma, aunt, uncle, and cousins in New Mexico, and I am planning the EGSA social event of the spring: Prom!  Yes, really.  Lots to look forward to in the coming month-- and here's to hoping I can make it through without too much anxiety!  But, on the upside, we *might* have warmer weather and flowers this month!

Do What You Love

Everyone says to find what you love and do it.  Everyone else seems to know what it is that they love.  Sometimes I feel like the only person born not knowing what they want to do.  Even if they don't accomplish it, it seems like other people feel like they have a path to follow.  They have something that drives them.  They have a voice that they want to make heard.  But what about me?  What do I want to say?  What do I believe in?  Why am I in academia?  What do I feel like I have to contribute to any discussion?  What should I write my thesis on?  What am I passionate about?  What do I want to do after this program ends and why?

I thought recently that in a perfect world I would spend my time trying out new recipes, making thread art (i.e-- cross-stitching, needlepoint, embroidery), selling thread art, making dolls, selling dolls, and perhaps helping to develop educational programming for children and young adults in the arts.  Hopefully working out of my home.  But would I really enjoy that?  Would I miss doing the type of research I do in grad school?  As much as I complain, I really do love thinking about things like material culture, transformative speech acts, performance studies, and print history.  I love historiography and methodology.  But I hate the pressure.  I hate working everyday, long into the evening, and every weekend and still never getting everything done.  I hate that I rarely have a sense of satisfaction, a sense of having created something, or of having bettered the world in any way.  I hate that I'm scrambling to find topics, instead of feeling like I really have something worth contributing.  But then there are moments of great discussion, moments of enlightenment, moments that make me really love where I am and what I'm doing.  Moments that make me see things differently.  But, do I feel called to this?  Motivated to do this every day?  Will I make a difference?

Should I reignite my search for theater jobs?  Whenever I stop to think about it, the theater is a place that I feel most passionate about.  Theater makes a difference, if it's good.  If it tries.  Theater is a place to have those discussions of speech acts, gender identity, racial identity, colonialism, history-- everything I think I will miss from graduate school.  I want to be a part of beautiful productions; I want to alter minds and souls with the stage.  I would love to work for Disney-- a very large theatrical production spanning multiple media, continents, and theme parks.  I would love to help develop programming for PBS Kids or write for Sesame Street. And I love words.  Words.  Does that mean I should be a writer?  A playwright?  A literary manager?  A librarian?  (I would love to work in the children's section of a library.  I would love to help kids pick out books, and learn new things, and organize reading days, and reading programs.)

Another thing that I want to do-- though is it my "calling"?-- is to help implement recycling and composting programs on the East Coast, and in particular in Disney World and Disneyland (that's West Coast, I know).  When I visited Disneyland a couple of years ago, while living in Seattle, I was shocked at the amount of food waste going into trash cans instead of into compost bins.  It was like reverse culture shock.  In Seattle, recycling and composting is the name of the game, and I want that to be a thing everywhere.  The Disney Parks produce so much food waste and so many recyclable items, yet those items almost invariably end up in trash cans.  And why stop with Disney?  Why not expand to other theme parks, tourists sites, and cities?  Some of this, of course, comes with educating the public-- I know my first couple of days weeks in Seattle I had trouble knowing which bin my napkins went into, which bin my food waste went into, my straw wrappers, etc.  But once you learn it, it becomes very hard to readjust to the East Coast method of just throwing things away.  I feel so guilty not composting or recycling everything in the proper way.  Is creating composting and recycling programs at some of the major tourist destinations in America a viable career path?

What do I love? 

Overwhelmed

Maybe it's just that I'm in the rebellious teenager phase of this semester (you know, "No!  I don't want to and you can't make me!"), but getting everything done feels downright overwhelming, even nearly impossible.  Maybe it's that I have so much to do that I physically cannot get everything done, so-- to survive-- I have to half-ass something.  I hate half-assing things.  It's so disheartening.

Today went like this:
2:45 AM: fall asleep finally.
8:45 AM: get out of bed.
9:10 AM: walk to the bus stop.
9:30 AM: arrive on campus.
9:30-10:30 AM: struggle with the printers and finally get the four documents I need printed.
10:40 AM: on the bus back home
11:00-11:45: eat cereal and drink tea and check e-mail
11:45-3:15: read for class, get some laundry started (as a reward for reaching certain reading goals)
3:15: start making lunch
3:30-3:45: get clothes out of laundry room (clean undies finally!)
3:45: eat lunch
4:00-6:25: read for class
6:25-7:25: talk to mom on phone, internet a little, feed cats, eat a fruit bar
7:25-8:45: read for class- all four articles/chapters completed!

But you know what's really disheartening?  I finish all that reading, and I have 180 more pages to get started on that I need to have read by Wednesday afternoon so I can write my blog post for class by Wednesday evening!  And I have a 500 word prep sheet to write for tomorrow-- and I better get it done now, since tomorrow I have to meet with my presentation partner to plan class on Wednesday.  And I'm supposed to discuss my final paper plans for medieval lit tomorrow with my professor... guess I better think of something now!  Oh, and since in a little over a week I have my teaching practicum, I need to figure out what I'm teaching so I can assign readings by Thursday-- guess I better glance over The Sun Also Rises again so that I can have that prepared by Thursday afternoon! 

Each semester I say, "I don't know how I'm going to get through," and I always do.  But in my heart, when I've said that in the past, I've always known how I'll get through.  This semester, between the overwhelming amount of work and my increasing lack of motivation, I really mean it.

When am I going to have dinner?


*articles and chapters can be very long. i didn't just take an inordinately long amount of time to read them. one of them was about 55 pages. tiny print. dense footnotes. i have to present on them.

Movies

Though I'm averaging eight books a month right now, not including chapters and articles, my "Movies 2014" section is suffering as a result.  I simply do not have time to go to the movies, despite the fact that there are so many I want to see.  On my list are Her, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Wind Rises, Monuments Men, Labor Day, August Osage County, and many more.  I have no idea when I will get a chance to see them.  I wanted to see some of them in the theaters, too, but I've missed my chance for many of them.  I love going to see shows in a cinema: I love buying popcorn, and watching (some of) the trailers, and when the lights go down and the big screen lights up and the movie you're consuming consumes you.  I love the communal experience of a full theater, people laughing and crying and clapping all together.  I guess that last one goes for live theater, as well.  

So, last night, my dad, Zan, and I went to see Divergent together in IMAX.  Since we were among the first to see it, the theater gave us leather "faction" bracelets, and movie posters.  We got popcorn and sat through way too many trailers.  Then the movie started...  I read Divergent last summer, on the recommendation of my friend Dana.  The book was fun-- it wasn't great, it didn't have the emotional depth of some other recent young adult fiction, and it seemed to capitalize on The Hunger Games success, but I liked it alright.  It was a nice escapist read, a real page-turner, perfect for the summer.  I was interested to see how they would visualize the story on film.  And the result?  Quite unexpectedly and uncharacteristically, I think I enjoyed the film more than the book.

They kept in most important scenes in the book, though they cut a few things that did give the book a bit more emotional depth--including an attempted rape, though I imagine this was for their MPAA rating.  They also reworked Tris's visit with her mom, cutting Family Visiting Day.  Additionally, as I remember the book, Kate Winslet's character, Jeannine, was clearly a grasping, ambitious Cassius of a character, while in the film they tried to justify some of her actions.  She seemed genuinely interested in ideals, rather than desirous of power.  I'm not sure I liked the shift.  However, despite my initial doubt about the casting of Shailene Woodley (she wasn't what I had pictured when I read the book), I really liked her performance as Tris.  I thought Miles Teller played an amazingly dryly funny, very cold, Peter (just as he should).  Theo James was great as Four, but he was the one casting choice I didn't think quite worked.  In the book Four is a seventeen year old kid, and James is clearly not seventeen.  But, it wasn't enough to keep me from enjoying the film and the unfolding drama.  Strong performances all around, and great visuals, especially of dystopian Chicago.

Overall, whether you've read the book or not, I recommend this film if you're looking for a fun, escapist, fast-paced night out at the movies.

Magical

Spring Break, besides the tooth thing (which now might only be "a very serious sinus infection"?), was really nice.  I went to Disney World!  Disney World was warm.  I could wear shorts and swimsuits.  I didn't have to put on layer after layer plus fuzzy aviator cap to go outside.  Ahhh... Did I mention that it snowed here again on Monday, and that we're supposed to get a chance of snow this coming Tuesday?  This is so unseasonably cold!  COME ON WINTER, END ALREADY!

Anyway, Disney was lovely.  We soaked in the hot tub, we lazed about the Lazy River.  We ate lots of good food from the Flower & Garden Outdoor Kitchens in Epcot, including frushi, candied strawberries, and Pineapple Dole Whips with rum.  We had lunch at Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater and enjoyed amazing spinach-artichoke dip, Orbiting Oreos milkshakes (with Godiva Chocolate liquor), and trailers for 1950/60s Sci-Fi B-movies.  We saw "Wishes" and "Illuminations" fireworks.  We rode "Soarin'", as beautiful as ever.  We rode Dinosaur.  Kay, Brian, and Kelsey were traumatized on their first time seeing "It's Tough to be a Bug:; Mike, Zan, and I were more prepared.  Kelsey, in an attempt to do one thing each day that scared her, went on "Twilight Zone Hollywood Tower of Terror,"despite her better judgment.  We rode "Peter Pan's Flight" and Zan claims it was his first time on that ride (I'm doubtful).  Kay made me tea in the mornings when I got sick.  We wore fake mustaches and played "Gloom."  We got ice cream sundaes.  We sat out on our balcony enjoying mixed drinks and the sunshine and reminiscing about old times.

 (Me: on Jewel-Bluebell, my favorite Carousel horse)

(Turkey Leg Madness!)

And now, I want to go back.  I want the warmth again.  I want the relaxation again.  I want to hang out with my friends everyday again.  I want to go and not even worry about going to the parks, but just walk around the Boardwalk, play Fantasia Gardens mini-golf, maybe hit up some new spots at Downtown Disney (Splitsville Bowling, anyone?).  Mostly I want the warmth, though. 

Abscessed

We returned home from Disney World yesterday.  It was a very magical trip, about which I would like to write more, but at the moment I'm in bed with a box of Kleenex.  Wherefore, you ask?  Well, on Tuesday night, during a magical evening of eating and drinking around Epcot, my throat got very sore.  I went from healthy to croaking like a frog in about ten minutes.  Colds for me don't start this way, so I thought it must be allergies.  Maybe I was allergic to the sushi?  Or maybe my body was rebelling since I went from winter to spring in a single plane ride?  All day Wednesday my throat hurt, then on Thursday it moved to my nose.  My head felt (and feels) totally blocked.  Disney World was still fun, of course, but it's really not great when you feel stuffy and sick.

Then, yesterday, on the airplane home, things took a turn for the worse/better.  My tooth began to hurt.  To really, really hurt.  The same tooth that has had a root canal when I was 14, and a root canal retreatment procedure when I was 21.  It hurt the way it hurt when it abscessed last time.  Moaning in pain, I turned to Zan, who (to his lasting shame), basically told me to suck it up, but helpfully rubbed my cheek anyway.  Then, after about two minutes of him rubbing my cheek, I heard a loud pop in my ear, my tooth stopped hurting, and (WARNING GROSS IMAGE AHEAD) a bunch of grossness and blood rushed out of my nose.  So, after we got home last night, Zan drove me to the ER so I could get started on a round of antibiotics.  For a little while after the pop I felt immensely better, but today I feel worse again.  My head still feels clogged, I've gone through a whole box of Kleenex, and I don't want to move from the bed.  I know I'm getting better and that I need to take it easy to recover, but I'm freaking out about getting all of my work done for next week.  Unfortunately, concentration is hard.  And I keep telling myself that recovery is ultimately more important than Chaucer.  No one can read Chaucer if they perish from a tooth infection.  Luckily, Zan has been wonderful and gotten me cereal and soup and tea, and I've gotten to spend the morning in bed with this little guy.  Awwww....

(Look at those massive paws!)

Excited

I feel like one of those little kids in all the Disney commercials, the ones who can't sleep because they are going to Disney World the next day.  I'm not quite at the "next day" part yet, but there's a Disney trip in my future so close I can taste it.  I haven't been quite this excited about a Disney trip in a very long time.  I'll put it down to two things: the amount of time since I last visited Disney World, and the intensity of this semester.  I'm on top of everything, but just barely.  I really need this breather.  The past week has been very, very long.  Other than a break for the Oscars on Sunday night, I spent all of Friday, the weekend, and Monday working on readings and papers.  On Tuesday, that intense focus began to crumble.  It didn't get much better on Wednesday, though I managed to eek out another paper.  Then on Thursday, my focus was all but non-existent.  I spent my pre-class hours reading Disney blogs and setting up Fastpasses instead of reading the last assigned article.  When 6:00 PM finally rolled around and Spring Break officially started, I could've cried with happiness.  Or laughed.  Or run merrily across the bridge back home ready to relax for a few days! 

Helllooo Spring Break (and thank you for being here)!

Exhausted

You guys, I'm exhausted.  At one point today, while sitting at the table in the grad lounge, I put my head down on my books and literally fell asleep for 10 minutes.  Face down on a bunch of reading material.  Since Thursday, I've read three books, read several articles, written a paper, and written a prep sheet for class.  I have one paper left to go, several more articles, and two class periods before I'm on spring break.  This whole semester so far has been very intense, and my mind/body are cooperating to tell me that I need a break.  Today was painful to get through-- I couldn't concentrate, didn't get as much work done before my afternoon class as I had planned, and my mind kept wandering to daydreams of warm afternoons and Pineapple Dole Whips with rum...