I mean, I'd be Royal. How English is that?

Ooo, lunchtime study-abroad internet surfing has found me the place I want to go: Royal Holloway University in London. They have courses in all three of my departments that look so incredibly fantastic, they're a semester school--so I get extra credits when my credits transfer--but I wouldn't have to leave in the middle of August, so I'd actually get a summer this summer. Plus Dr. E reccomended it, so a) I know it's good & b) I bet she'd write a letter of rec if I need one.

Speaking of which Jenny & I met with her this morning & she raved about our projects. I'm still a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of books & articles involved--Erin & I have decided to build a fort in our room--but the fact that Dr. E loves the idea, that she thinks we're working graduate level theses that could easily be expanded to grad school projects...well, that just fills me with academic warm&fuzzies.

No snow day today, though there is snow everywhere. It's beautiful outside. I wish I had a camera. It's freezingly cold though. & windy, which...well, brr.

& my cadre at school (Cozy, Andrew, Andy, Me--& why did I just capitalize myself?) has signed up for the six-week fitness-wellness challenge at school. We collect points for getting exercise & flossing & eating balanced diets, & also for emotionally, intellectually & spiritually healthy things. They count watching PBS as intellectual. I'm counting going to rehearsal every day as spiritual. Shakespeare is a god unto me, so it all works out, right?


& now I need to find Dr. McDowell & ask him to be my English advisor. I know he's going to look at me with the "are you quite sure you're fully mentally functional today?" look that he liked to use last year, but that's okay. Third major, here we come.

damnit, edward albee.

I just got back from seeing Edward Albee's The Lady From Dubuque at the Rep. I'm not really sure what I think about it, but I know I'm all unsettled. I absolutely hated each of the characters at one point or another, & yet some minutes later they'd say something I thought I might agree with. I guess that's the way human beings are, & yet do they all have to be so awful to each other? Sure, Sam overreacted all the time, but for heaven's sake, his wife was dying & his situation was uncontrollable--was it so unexpected that he'd want to control anything else he could? And they were so mean to him--which sounds very elementary school, I know, but it was completely unnecessary, & is it so much to ask for a little kindness? For all his annoying traits, Sam was heartbreaking. I wonder whether it was this play in particular or the fact that I now have a bit more of my own life experience to hang into the framework of the play. Concrete memories work a lot better than imaginings, in that way. It was fascinating to watch, but it made me feel awfully lonely.