Finally Updating!

Hello hello. You all should be happy to know (or maybe you won't care at all, but I'm happy) that I think I've finally figured out a way to have daily internet access. Obviously I didn't post an entry yesterday. The thing is, getting a computer at the public library here is kind of a pain. You have to find time to come to the library early in the day and reserve an hour of computer time later. That in and of itself is not a pain, the bigger problem is that the library is only open from 9:00 until 5:00 most days and with this program we're pretty much booked from 9:30 until 5ish most days except for a lunch break, so it's hard to find time to write (and print the papers that I need to print).
I do have my computer and it connects to wireless internet, but I don't particularly want to pay to use the internet at any of the hot spots. My professor picks up someone else's wireless internet connection at her flat, and yesterday afternoon Jenn B. and I decided we were going to go over to Dr. C's house with our computers and use her internet for awhile. But when we got to her flat she wasn't home, so we decided to just sit on the curb outside and check to see if we could pick up a signal. And we could! So Jenn and I sat on the curb for half an hour using our computers until Dr. C and her daughters got home and let us come inside so we could quit looking like street urchins (very wealthy street urchins with Dell laptops). At one point a couple of the local police walked by and commented "That's a strange place to work" but once we explained what we were up to they just laughed at us and moved on. Jenn and I had a good laugh about the lengths we'll stoop to just to get free internet access. Ultimately the connection ended up being very weak, though, and I never could manage to stay connected long enough to post a blog entry, so Dr. C's flat will be a last resort from now on.
All of this has just been a very long winded intro to what I really wanted to say, which was that this morning Dr. C told us that she got us three grad students privileges to use the library at the Shakespeare Institute, a library that is open until 8:00 at night! And supposedly has a free wireless internet connection! And lets you print papers for free as opposed to the 15p a page that it costs at the public library. So hopefully that all actually works out and I'm able to blog more than once every two or three days.

Anyway, lots of exciting things have happened the past couple of days. For one thing, it finally stopped being super hot outside, thank god. Because did I mention that not only was our room hot, but that our shower wouldn't run cold water? For the first two days we were here our shower was only running water so hot that it was almost scalding, even when you placed it on the coldest possible setting. I have to say, I never thought I'd be complaining about the shower being too HOT. I'd be sweaty and gross in our hot room and want to take a cool refreshing shower, but the shower didn't even make me feel clean, just more hot and sweaty. It was Hell Room, seriously. Really cute Hell Room with a dormer window and my own little bed alcove, but Hell Room nonetheless. But then yesterday the weather got nice and cool and rainy and England-y like it's supposed to be, and I'm happily wearing a sweatshirt right now. And yesterday I also figured out that for some reason if you take a shower late at night you can actually get cool water for a few minutes before it goes back to attempting to melt my skin off. So living conditions have vastly improved.

On Monday night we saw a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Swan Theatre, and it was incredible. Seriously incredible. Definitely on the top ten list of all shows I've ever seen (and I've seen well over a hundred shows in my life at this point). It was done by a company from India, and less than half of the play was actually performed in English. The rest was done in seven different Indian dialects. So the language aspect was really interesting, and it was amazing how the language barrier wasn't actually a barrier to understanding at all. The staging was amazing, they had a massive vertical climbing wall that they used constantly, they climbed silk ropes hung from the ceiling, and the whole thing was very raw and sexual and passionate and just really fantastic. I joked to Amanda that I was going to entitle my critique "A Midsummer Night's Wet Dream" just to see Dr. C's reaction. Ha. It was sort of Cirque du Soleil meets Shakespeare. So cool!

Yesterday we had a voice lesson from the woman who is the head of Voice at the RSC, which was amazing. I got hands on attention from a woman who has given hands on training to all of the RSC actors! And the very first thing she said to me was, "You are a dancer, aren't you?" Ha. It's been five years since I did any sort of real dancing and my posture and stance still gives it away, apparently. And actually, all that muscle memory isn't really the best thing for vocal training, but what can you do? She taught us some interesting things and it was a fun session.
Then in the afternoon a woman came to show us all sorts of records from the Shakespeare archive. Not only did we get to look at stuff, we actually got to TOUCH stuff. I paged through a book of Stratford guild records from the 1400s. I held records concerning Shakespeare's finances in my hands. My very favorite thing was a note signed by Queen Elizabeth. I held a piece of paper signed by Elizabeth. It's sort of mind blowing. (She has the most awesome signature, by the way. Her Z has about six curlicues on the bottom. Very dramatic!)

This morning Paul and Stanley Wells lectured to us about the sonnets, which was really interesting, and this afternoon we're all walking out to Anne Hathaway's cottage, which should be fun, doing the same walk Shakespeare used to do when he'd go to court his wife.

Anyway, I have some funny stories, particularly about a show called EuroTrash that I watched with the Alexes last night (it was absolutely baffling, let me tell you) and about how certain people have willingly eaten yogurt described as "curdled". But I'll have to tell those later 'cause I only have fifteen minutes left and I need to plug in my portable USB thingy and print a critique before time is up.

I'll post again tomorrow, hopefully.

P.S.-I've been responding to comments in the comments themselves, just in case you haven't noticed.