Instead of that class, I'm going to be doing part one of my MFA thesis prep. (I had the option of starting my MA thesis first, since I'm doing a dual degree thing, but I've only been thinking about my MA thesis for thirty seconds, so I don't feel prepared to shift into that gear quite yet.) (In case you're wondering, the MFA thesis is a manuscript, whereas the MA thesis is a research paper. Like a real paper, involving actual work and stuff.) (I think each thesis has to be 80 pages or something. They're big important papers, which is why you spend a year each working on them.)

But I digress.

The lecture today was interesting (even though it did overlap quite a bit with the Shakespeare lecture-- not surprising, considering it's the same era and the same professor). I wouldn't mind sitting in on the class from time to time for the lectures. But the coursework required is just tremendous-- five research papers and tons of reading. Even just catching up with the reading would have been a nightmare. God love him, but that man assigns a lot of reading. I read fast, and it's all I can do to keep up half the time.

This way I can focus my energies elsewhere. Next semester while I'm working on my theses I can take another one of his classes and really do it justice. I think it was the right choice. Instead of spending today frantically trying to get all my books and catch up on two weeks of reading, I had a nice bike ride and read A Midsummer Night's Dream to my parakeets. Much better. More balanced.

This is what I mean when I say Professor P assigns a lot of reading. For our Shakespeare class this week, we have to read four long-ass, dense critical essays plus A Midsummer Night's Dream in its entirety, including the introductions and stuff. I'm telling you! It's a crazy lot of reading.

Today was great though. I wasn't kidding when I said I read the play to the birds. We are supposed to read it aloud, so I did. I can see why he assigned it this way-- it's awfully fun, and I was more motivated to find out what everything means. I'd rather know what the hell I'm talking about.

I find Shakespeare's language to be, on the surface anyway, often impenetrable. But then there's this great moment when you finally figure it out, and the beauty and intricacy of his language comes together for you. It's exciting to read Shakespeare, and I never quite expected that to be the case.

If then true lovers have been ever crossed,
It stands as an edict in destiny:
Then let us teach our trial patience,
Because it is a customary cross,
As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,
Wishes and tears, poor Fancy's followers.

I also didn't expect to laugh out loud at this play. It's the play-within-a-play that cracks me up. The Wall and the Moonshine and everything. And the stage directions. It's genuinely funny.

Now die, die, die, die die. [Dies.]

I rented the film today, too. I was glad I read the play first and had my own ideas about everything. Otherwise it would be like Love's Labour's Lost where Alicia Silverstone and Matthew Lillard will forever be reading the play in my head.

I enjoyed the movie. Kevin Kline, Rupert Everett (that man oozes sex) and Stanley Tucci were particularly good. Even Calista Flockhart was almost funny. And the ending of the play-within-a-play, where Flute takes off the wig and everything, actually choked me up. That's completely the director's interpretation and it surprised me.

If you haven't read the play or seen the movie, I can't imagine how boring this entry has just become. Sorry? At least I have pretty February colors to look at. Look! Yellow!

As I mentioned, I also took my bike out today. The whole "putting it in the car" scenario didn't work out so well for me. I tried to do that yesterday, but by the time I took the tires off and wedged the bike in my car, I realized that I had run out of time to do my homework. Poor planning.

I scoped out this street by my house that I thought was relatively flat, and decided to ride around there today. So this afternoon, I headed in that direction. I walked the bike down the hill because I have this sort of fear of hills.

Backstory. I broke my arm pretty badly when I was ten years old. I didn't know how to use the brakes, and I'd stop by just sort of slowing down and then leaping off. So we were riding in the mountains and while my sister was zooming down the hills, I was riding around with my grandma hanging onto the back of my bike. (Why did nobody teach me to use the brakes? No idea.) At some point, grandma decided I could do it if I really tried, so she let go of my bike at the top of the hill. I sped down the hill, I got to the bottom, I saw some people in the road, I didn't know how to stop, I panicked, I leaped off the bike directly into a tree.

That isn't even the most traumatizing part. Actually, this is possibly the most traumatic event of my childhood and I bet I have seventy-two of Elron's body thetans just dedicated to this one thing.

Some stupid nurse who happened to be camping in the mountain told my mom my arm wasn't broken, so my mother didn't believe me when I said I thought it was. A week later, once the bone had already set wrong, my mother took me back to the hospital so they could re-break my arm. And she left me alone with the doctor because, as she later told me, she knew what was going to happen and she couldn't watch.

The thing is, I didn't know what the hell the doctor was doing. He snapped my bone in the guise of "shaking my hand," and I didn't understand why he was hurting me. Every time we went back to that part of the hospital and I'd see that doctor, I'd get scared. The smell of wet plaster still makes my skin crawl because I associate that smell with the creepy doctor who terrified me as a kid.

Anyway, that's the long complicated reason why I don't quite fancy the idea of riding my bike down the hill towards heavy traffic until I'm a little more comfortable with the brakes. (I do know how to use them now, of course. I haven't been leaping into parked cars or anything, don't fear.)

So I headed up this street, and realized it does have an uphill grade after all. So I headed up it, but started to get tired. I turned around and started coasting the other way. As luck would have it, there's this giant parking lot right off this street. And it's relatively flat, and not too busy, and riding all the way around it is half a mile exactly, according to my odometer. It's like my own personal bike track.

I talked to my sister and told her that I was riding around in a parking lot, and she laughed so hard I thought she was going to have an aneurysm. "PLEASE take a picture of this," she said, snorting. I left out the part where it's an Asian shopping center, and this old Korean guy taking his smoke break in the back of the supermarket looked at me funny every time I rode by. I just waved happily at him and kept riding.

I know, I possibly looked very stupid. But the point is, I had fun riding my bike today. I did 2.4 miles (including walking the bike down and up the hill, which I'm counting because walking that bike up the damn hill is the hardest part). As I was walking up the hill, I wanted to go back down and ride around some more. I figure if I can leave myself with that feeling, it's a good thing. That way I'm already motivated to go out tomorrow.

And ride around the big parking lot some more.

I am such a goober.

Yesterday, my workshop class met at the Palace of the Legion of Honor, a gorgeous art museum in the Presidio (the neighborhood of Golden Gate park). Our teacher just had us walk around with our sketchbooks/notebooks for an hour and a half, and then we reconvened to talk about our impressions.

I walked around on my own for the most part-- half the time, there wasn't even anyone in sight. I did meet up with Wayne from time to time, and we pointed out paintings to each other and traded theories on their meanings. It was perfect-- I can absolutely drown in front of art.

I was in the mood for the Renaissance stuff (although I did stop by and see the Picassos of course). My favorite painting was a 1791 oil painting by Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun, called Hyacinthe Gabrielle Roland, later Marchioness Wellesley. Quite a mouthful. I'm only sorry I couldn't find the painting somewhere online so you could see it.

I guess what fascinates me is that it's painted by a woman. Hyacinthe's hair is blowing in the wind; she looks happy and free somehow, in a way totally unlike the usual women in portraits painted by men. I tried to sketch it (one attempt at her face made her look like a drag queen) and when I got home, I actually painted my own version of it. Considering that I can't paint, it's not bad.

This is the best my webcam could do. My webcam kinda blows. Oh well, someday I'll get a digital camera or something. You know what they say-- the course of image rendering never did run smooth.

I know; I know. You don't have to tell me.

"I've been doing better at quieting the mind, although there's a small fluffy vaudeville act in the corner of my room that really doesn't help matters at all."