One of my favorite things that goes on on campus is the end of the year Shakespeare play. The Integrated Studies program (the best and brightest freshmen, basically- they all live together and take classes together and whatnot) puts on a Shakespeare show the last week of classes. They do one performance outdoors and two in a theater. I LOVE going to the outdoor show. It's so pretty to see certain Shakespeare plays done in actual trees and woods, plus the students usually do quite innovative things with the setting. I saw Midsummer Night's Dream last year and it rocked.

So I was naturally (a) excited to see that it'd be shown today at noon (and again for free Friday and Saturday night in the theater), but (b) bummed that it was being shown at noon and I'd have to go back to work instead of seeing most of it. Waah. After the half hour I did see, I SO want to go see it on Friday. I think I'll just have to make Dave go whether he wants to or not. Because what I saw so far was HILARIOUS.

They don't start out with the original text right away. They have everyone from the Verona High Class of 2002 (Go Hamsters! Yes, hamsters) at their graduation ceremony. Speaking as someone who's been to too many of these (13 at last count, with another to come), it perfectly spoofed the whole thing, down to the principal saying "blah blah blah, yada yada yada," students handwrestling and doing the wave, and the valedictorian addressing her speech to every possible racial group she could think of. And I loved her final line, "Once a hamster, always a hamster!" Then the school choir sang "Brush Up Your Shakespeare," while bobbing up and down off and on. And one girl tried to grope the valedictorian! After graduation, the students partied down by all dancing around robotically in sync, "She's All That"-style. Damn, now I want to go modernize some Shakespeare, or at least go watch my new tape of "10 Things I Hate About You."

After that it went into the actual plot, with Valentine taking off to UC Milan and Proteus angsting about Julia, but doing a lovely manly handshake routine in parting. Then I got to see Julia go bonkers with ripping, kissing, dropping, picking up, dropping, and stomping on Proteus's love letter to her. Uh-huh. I had to leave around the time Antonio (wearing a bathrobe and Homer Simpson slippers) and Panthino almost kissed before spotting Proteus mooning around over Julia's reply.

Anyway, I SO want to go see it in full. Hopefully this will be possible. Friday night is supposed to be our er, alone time night (as opposed to Saturday's socializing), but since he usually gripes that when he's in this town he wants to go somewhere, maybe I can talk him into this.

Speaking of graduations, my mom seems to be angsting a bit over going to my cousin Alicia's next week. It's at 8 p.m. on a weeknight, so it won't get over till 10:30-11ish. Mom e-mailed me this morning asking if I could spend the night at Aunt Susie's and just skip an hour of work the next morning so she could just drop me off there on her way home instead of driving me back late at night the evening of. I said no, I'm not passing up an hour of pay just for your convenience, especially when I'll probably be out of work at the end of that week. Then she wrote back to say "Well, what if I left at 6:45?" Um, no, what about the commute? What about the department head who keeps track of anyone who comes in five minutes late? What about the fact that you and Dad can't possibly get out the door on time when you're leaving town? I brought these things up, and she said "Well, yeah, I just don't want to go back to Susan's and make them all wake up and let us back in." Well, Aunt Susie used to go wake up and let the cat back in the house at 3 a.m. every night (why they let the cat OUT of the house at night I have no idea), I doubt she'd have a problem with you coming in at 11:30, especially when they sleep upstairs and you sleep downstairs. Anyway, that will be up for further argument after Mom talks to Aunt Susie. But really, my spending the night there just isn't convenient for work, and I'd be nervous as hell about getting in on time if I left her in charge of me the next morning. Not that it matters much if I'm late when I'm about to leave, but I like to be prompt about these things.

The more bored I am, the more I surf during work. I've actually taken to reading more wedding-related sites than journals/blogs/message boards these days, mainly because there's so much crap on them I have hours of reading while I kill time filing or whatever. It's mostly entertaining, but other times I'll be just like, ARGH! Like on every site, at some point you'll find the inevitable name change discussion threads. (Heck, you can find that on non-wedding sites too.) There's the traditional arguments of against the idea, which you've probably already heard out of me. The pro arguments are pretty much the same in general, though you will get people who had a heinous dad or a name they have to spell to everyone and who change for that reason. Understandable.

But my little feminist heart prefers to hear stuff like that rather than the general arguments, which always make me a bit mad. It's stuff like "I'm proud to take his name" (Yes, but would he be proud to take yours, I'd like to know?), and "We want to be a family" (How are you NOT a family if you have different names? Wasn't that already settled by signing the marriage license? And why does his name automatically get dibs on which name makes you one?) and "Our kids can't handle it if we have different names" (plenty of divorced kids handle it every day). And besides that, there's ALWAYS one person who has to write in and say that they feel that everyone should take their husband's name, and if you don't, why on earth are you getting married? Because apparently the ENTIRE point of marriage is to get a new name and nothing else but, you know. Gaaaaah. I just want things to be more equal, and I find it very sad to see all the time how they really aren't. These boards certainly prove that to me over and over again.

I am working on a expectations for wives article thingie, and am debating whether or not to post it on here. Y'all have pretty much heard what bugs me about things before, but I thought I'd finalize it more and throw in some quotes and whatnot. I don't know what I'll do with it yet.

In the meantime, I am planning on attempting at least some of the questions for the Kismet and Jette's June Journal SMACKdown! starting tomorrow. While at least some of them I can't really answer (for instance, what 30 looked like to me at 12, being as I haven't hit the age yet), others I'll give a shot at. If I think of anything interesting from my own life to write about beyond those I'll either throw it in at the bottom or just do two entries for the day, what the hell.

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