Everybody wants to rule the world
Jan. 26th, 2006 08:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gogmagogWell, crap, that's kinda embarrassing. It seems that every time I make a "omg I don't know if I can hack grad school, I'm tired of feeling so stupid" then the next day I enjoy all my classes and do fine and think, "wow, maybe I can do this after all."
It helped that today were my two favorite classes, Shakespeare and Calligraphy. In Shakespeare we did The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which is fun, if problematic for my inner feminist. See, it's about two guys, Valentine and Proteus, who are best friends. Proteus is in love with Juliaand Valentine's in love with Proteus. Valentine goes to the court of the Duke of Milan and falls in love with the Duke's daughter, Silvia, who returns his feelings. Proteus goes there too, and when he meets Silvia he falls in love with her too, and plots to have Valentine banished for daring to cheat on him with that skank. Valentine ends up banished, and Proteus tries to win Silvia, who's having none of that. Meanwhile, Julia - desperately missing Proteus - goes to Milan dressed as a boy, where she discovers her sweetie is mackin' on another woman, and infiltrates her way into being his page (ironically being forced to deliver his love declarations to Silvia). Eventually Silvia flees her father (who keeps trying to marry her off to other guys) and goes into the forest to meet up with Valentine, who's become the leader of an outlaw band, and Proteus and Julia follow.
Anyway, the reason the ending is problematic is that Proteus, after repeatedly being rejected, tries to rape Silvia in the forest. Valentine shows up, realizes that Proteus was the one who betrayed him, and saves Silvia. Proteus then abruptly realizes how horrible his actions have been, and apologizes to Valentine. Valentine's all, "OK, we're good. In fact, you can have Silvia!" Then Julia faints at the horror of this offer, her identity is revealed, and Proteus decides he'll stick with her after allbecause he got all hot when he thought she was a boy. So it ends up semi-happy, but the fact that Valentine offers up his sweetie to his erstwhile friend like a platter of hors d'oeuvres has understandably disturbed generations of Shakespeare readers.
Then this evening I had my Calligraphy class, which TOTALLY ROCKED. We met in the Special Collections classroom in the library, where we got to look at actual medieval and early modern manuscripts (including a couple of really early ones in Anglo-Saxon!). It was incredibly cool, and it turns out any student can go in and request to look at this stuff! There were tons of gorgeous illuminated manuscripts which I COVET WITH A FIERY VENGEANCE, but my two favorite pieces that I kept returning to were only a page each: one was a page from a tiny little book with 14-15 lines per inch (seriously, it was impossible to read without a magnifying glass, and looked like it must have been written with like a needle or something except that it DOES have the thick/thin lines which indicate a quill or brush or pen of some kind). The second, which was even cooler, was a Latin charter from 1613 signed by James I of England, and with his seal still attached.
See, that's the part that I really love about history: it's like all these great stories about interesting people in interesting times, the kind you'd read in a novel, only they REALLY HAPPENED. And one of the cool things about THAT is that it means you can get proof of it: you can go see the places where these people lived or spent time, you can read things they've written, or actually see artifacts from their lives (like, say, a charter they personally signed) which somehow really brings them to life for you and makes you feel a certain, I don't know, affinity with them. Which I like. XD
Anyway, I copied out about half of the charter for my paper due next week in Calligraphy, and I'm probably going to go back to Spec. Coll. tomorrow to finish copying it. I'm hoping to translate it for my paper using my nonexistent knowledge of Latin (but fortunately I have a large vocabulary and kick ass at recognizing cognates, and I was able to read most of it while I was copying it, so it shouldn't be too hard if I can find an online Latin dictionary).
It helped that today were my two favorite classes, Shakespeare and Calligraphy. In Shakespeare we did The Two Gentlemen of Verona, which is fun, if problematic for my inner feminist. See, it's about two guys, Valentine and Proteus, who are best friends. Proteus is in love with Julia
Anyway, the reason the ending is problematic is that Proteus, after repeatedly being rejected, tries to rape Silvia in the forest. Valentine shows up, realizes that Proteus was the one who betrayed him, and saves Silvia. Proteus then abruptly realizes how horrible his actions have been, and apologizes to Valentine. Valentine's all, "OK, we're good. In fact, you can have Silvia!" Then Julia faints at the horror of this offer, her identity is revealed, and Proteus decides he'll stick with her after all
Then this evening I had my Calligraphy class, which TOTALLY ROCKED. We met in the Special Collections classroom in the library, where we got to look at actual medieval and early modern manuscripts (including a couple of really early ones in Anglo-Saxon!). It was incredibly cool, and it turns out any student can go in and request to look at this stuff! There were tons of gorgeous illuminated manuscripts which I COVET WITH A FIERY VENGEANCE, but my two favorite pieces that I kept returning to were only a page each: one was a page from a tiny little book with 14-15 lines per inch (seriously, it was impossible to read without a magnifying glass, and looked like it must have been written with like a needle or something except that it DOES have the thick/thin lines which indicate a quill or brush or pen of some kind). The second, which was even cooler, was a Latin charter from 1613 signed by James I of England, and with his seal still attached.
See, that's the part that I really love about history: it's like all these great stories about interesting people in interesting times, the kind you'd read in a novel, only they REALLY HAPPENED. And one of the cool things about THAT is that it means you can get proof of it: you can go see the places where these people lived or spent time, you can read things they've written, or actually see artifacts from their lives (like, say, a charter they personally signed) which somehow really brings them to life for you and makes you feel a certain, I don't know, affinity with them. Which I like. XD
Anyway, I copied out about half of the charter for my paper due next week in Calligraphy, and I'm probably going to go back to Spec. Coll. tomorrow to finish copying it. I'm hoping to translate it for my paper using my nonexistent knowledge of Latin (but fortunately I have a large vocabulary and kick ass at recognizing cognates, and I was able to read most of it while I was copying it, so it shouldn't be too hard if I can find an online Latin dictionary).
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-27 05:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-29 05:26 am (UTC)(Though I actually think you'll do better in grad school than I am. See, while shooting the shit and arguing with people are not my gifts, they are yours. XD)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-29 02:20 am (UTC)And talk about overachieving! I don't think our calligraphy instructor has high expectations for the one-page response - I think all she wanted to know was what we liked. I know it sounds pretty fourth grade, but c'mon man - if you write a major thesis here you're gonna make me look bad! Initially I was going to write, "I liked it 'cause the paper and stuff was, like, really old," but now I see I'm going to have to step it up a few notches.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-29 05:22 am (UTC)*friends*
I'm the same way...it takes me forever to come up with a coherent argument in class, so my best bet is to come up with something outside of class and hope I can find an opening to slip it into in class. (Which doesn't always happen, unfortunately.) So see, at least you're not the only one!
And actually, I don't find Shakespeare all that bad, because there's a lot of people in that class so if you don't talk you don't stand out TOO much. My seminar, on the other hand, has I think 9 people in it (including the professor) and so, since I hardly ever say anything and when I do it's pretty much "DURRRRR LET ME SAY SOMETHING OBVIOUS", I'm not really sure I'm doing so hot in that class.
And I wouldn't worry about having to compare to my calligraphy thesis - after attempting to translate it using my patchy-ass knowledge of Latin, and realizing that while I knew most of the major words I have no grasp of Latin grammar and so could not figure out who was doing what to whom, I figured I'd just attempt to summarize it instead. No Latin translation after all!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-29 06:08 am (UTC)We will have to FORCE that interpretive dance out of Travis one of these days. He's such a tease.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-29 06:11 am (UTC)And we do have to get him to do that dance...of course since he's now apparently such a lightweight, at least it'll be relatively cheap for us to get him drunk enough! :D