Day 5

We didn't do anything terribly interesting today, so this post is going to be a short one. It helps that we have to be up tomorrow for our two-hour train ride to Stratford-upon-Avon for Shakespeare. All of the British professors seem wonderful, and all possess that distinctly dry, sarcastic British humor. I'm beginning to wonder how it is they all have it, and conclude it must be something in the water, as I've noticed a distinctly British English tinge to my inner monologue in the last few days. There won't be any post tomorrow, as I'm going to be going to Stratford with the group and our Shakespeare professor to see the Royal Shakespeare production of A Winter's Tale.

As we had our first Shakespeare meeting today, the professor had us all go around and tell her about our Shakespeare experience. I was probably the most experienced out of any us as far as the number of plays read, which came as a surprise, although one I can be proud of. I appreciate the professor's philosophy on Shakespeare's works greatly; just like me, she's infuriated by the tendency in education to treat Shakespeare as this sort of literary golden cow, somebody so blessed with talent that they're floating out in the ether and none of us can ever hope to touch them or even measure up to them. Instead, we're doomed to watch on in awe at this totally remote thing. Treating Shakespeare like he's so talented as to be untouchable is ridiculous, as Shakespeare's one of the most earthy writers out there. For God's sake, even in Hamlet he's got the tragic Ophelia wandering about making vulgar jokes!

I skipped going out to the pub tonight; A) it's a school night, and B) I had to make some progress on Mrs. Dalloway. I'm also trying to figure out what to do about the pictures. Blogger is a free service, and like most free things (with the exception of Gmail, which I adore), achieves only the bare minimum. I'm limited to five pictures per post, which is starting to become aggravating, but Facebook doesn't offer a viable alternative, as pictures hosted on Facebook aren't viewable to the general public. I'm thinking about trying Flickr and just dumping all my photos on there for people to browse through, organized by day. If anybody has any advice about the photo situation, I'd love to hear it!