Catching up

I meant to write some last night about my last two classes, Shakespeare's Later Plays and The Romantic Imagination. But I got home and, after doing my Japanese homework, I got a wild hair and decided to totally re-arrange my room.

I do that periodically: just decide to completely redo a room. In the past, I lived with my partner, so I could just do it. Now, I live with a separate entity, so I can't just do that in most of the apartment. Plus, she has craploads of oddly-sized and mismatched bookcases, and our apartment is designed in such a way as to make it difficult to place anything anywhere other than where it is currently. So I did the only thing I could: I spent four hours taking my desk partially apart and moving it, and the bed. I have to find a place to put some stuff, but it's mostly done, and in such a way as to make it easier for me to use my iBook on the desk instead of on my lap on the bed.

Now, as to school yesterday ...

My Shakespeare teacher is another Brit, this time of the "older, distinguised accent" variety instead of the vaguely Michael Palin-like personality of my Grammar teacher. However, he's got a wicked sense of humor, and his lecture yesterday was interesting and informative both. It's always nice to be in an English class where I'm not learning something I learned back in high school. I look forward to more of that. This class won't be really hard, but it will be challenging, thank the Nine.

My Romantics teacher is one of those "Gay Southern Gentleman" types, though he may not be gay, but he is certainly effeminate. He's also incredibly passionate about the Romantic movement, and the lecture/discussion yesterday, which focussed on Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, opened up some new appreciation in my mind for Blake's writing. I used to loathe Blake, but lately I've been reading him and coming to some new conclusions about why I didn't like it when I was younger. And now not only am I enjoying the poems, I'm seeing things in them.

That last part begs explanation. Though I haven't said anything about it to most people, I have been a tiny bit afraid that over the years since I was last in English classes, I'd lost something of the ability. I used to be good, and I wasn't sure I still would be.

During discussion, however, I answered a question, my heart hammering, with something that came to me in a flash of insight -- and my answer met with approval. And I knew then that I'd be ok, that while I will have to work at my classes, I can still pull symbolism and meaning from the written word.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to read ten pages of grammar, then a chapter or two of Elton's England Under the Tudors, and then get started on Act I of Antony and Cleopatra before reading the rest of the Blake assignment. And I have to be back on campus in six hours, so I plan to get started.

Story Fragment

Ok, this isn't so much a story as a story fragment. It's meant to be the end of a larger story, so it'll likely not be of much interest to anyone but Terri (and, to a lesser extent, Richard), who is really the only person who knows much about this character and his story.

It is also really unfinished and not well done. It came to me when I was walking home from Elli's house, but before I could put it down I had to finish homework, and when I turned to this, I'd lost some of it.

But I put it up here anyway; I'm not terribly certain why.

( The Death of Alex Blaine )