Shakespeare

This is going to be a great class. Dr. Baker is the same as ever. He is just the greatest. Really, the greatest (as far as middle-aged British librarians go, anyway). The class is going to actually edit a "questionable" text of Hamlet and of King Leer. This is going to be awesome. I whined a bit that college courses don't seem to ever look at the comedies. He agreed. I love it when he agrees with me.

It's going to be a fun class: Tony DiSanto, Mike O'Gorman, Sara Okey, Linda Reinert, Tom Peterson, and 4 others (I just don't know these people). We laughed through the entire evening. It was my first graduate course where I wasn't constantly looking at the clock and counting down the minutes until the next break. There are very few requirements: a few short presentations and a 15 page paper (that the presentations will work towards). There doesn't look to be a lot of research outside the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and the Shakespeare Quarterly. That works for me. Looks like I'm actually going to have to break down and subscribe to the Quarterly soon. It'll be worth it.

My own students are a bit scary to me this term. There are 25 in my MW class -- only 3 girls! And I swear that the boys -- well, 1/2 are Asian and 1/2 are white boys who all look alike! And the white boys all have the same names -- I think I have three Mark's in one class. At least 2 John's in that same class. It was hot in our classroom yesterday so I just did the quickie run through -- go over the syllabus and take attendance (I hate reading the syllabus out loud so since I just hit the high points, we were only in class for about 1/2 hour). Wednesday will go well with that class because I'm just sitting them down for a writing diagnostic. I hope it's not as hot in there -- if it is, I may do it as a take-home (though that really defeats the purpose).

From there, Monday we'll do a few name games and I'll conduct mini-conferences and then -- hah-hah! We're going in to lab. They're just gonna love it, I know.

I have to read some articles for Dr. Baker and I need to finish Orlando (I finished To the Lighthouse) and a few of Woolf's short stories. I don't have to leave for school, today, until 4:30 or so.

Oh yeah -- and I had a Lyme Disease Test and a TB test yesterday morning. The Lyme Disease test is a last-ditch hope that I don't really have MS -- the TB test is so that I can substitute this term (even one or two days a week -- that would make all the difference in whether or not I make it through next summer).

I wish Ophelia would let me sleep a little later. She's pretty quiet but I wake up and see her lying in her crate and looking at me with those big, brown eyes -- I can't leave her there. She's slept with me a few times over the last few days. She's getting more trustworthy -- I just don't want her chewing holes in the family room rug or "playing" with my expensive leather sandals. I take her out to swim around 10:00 at night and if she's worn out -- then I let her sleep with me because she'll sleep the whole night.

She's ringing the bell (probably because Daisy, the basset/dachshund mix -- adorable dog, I swear, is outside and Lia wants to play). Lia's 3x her size at this point and Lia is horribly misbehaved in general -- I think we won't be going out right now.

I've got some e-mails from students to answer so I'm signing off.