Bad Shakespeare Takes the World: World Domination

At the time I’m writing this, It’s been about two weeks since I last stepped food in the green fields that made up Ireland. And I have to say… it’s hot. Like, seriously. Muggy, too. I’m not really sure how I survived in the past, because I’m a lot more indoors than I want to be right now, but, man, that heat.

Heat aside, when I wrapped up my Ireland trip, I wondered how it was going to affect my experiences writing about London. After all, this is an entirely new trip, and for one glorious month I thought about Ireland, I wrote about Ireland, taking only a brief break to also write about Nicolas Cage taking over the world. (By the way, I’ve changed the name of the actor to someone fictional. It gives me more freedom. Nicolas Cage is heavily referenced, though.) I mean, will the experience dilute my travels across the world?

It hasn’t. When we left England, there was a quote Professor Davis asked us to consider. He asked us to think about the quote, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” The thing is, I have to agree. I loved my time in London which was different than my time in Ireland, which will be different in whatever country I end up going to next. (I’m thinking Australia. The spiders in America aren’t terrifying me as much lately.) They’re just different places.

My trip to London featured a very spiritual element in that I got to walk along the same streets that William Shakespeare walked along. At one point I know I actually stepped on stones that Shakespeare himself would have stepped on. And, as Rick Davis may have said, “I don’t claim that the stones themselves reverberate with the spirit of Shakespeare” I did feel it. Ireland, too, had it’s spiritual element, in that I was more connected to a land that believed in spirits and fairies. It was easy to see that connection there. It is easy to accept that their is an element of magic when going to those lands, and believing that there’s more there than what you actually see. Plus, the Celtic rituals we took part in really hit me in a way I didn’t think was possible. 

So, for a while I did have a bit of a worry that Bad Shakespeare Takes Ireland would somehow change my view of Bad Shakespeare Takes England. The thing is, they’re two very different experiences. And I’m not really sure where to start with either now that I’ve re-started my blog to include a lot of different things, not just Ireland. And to be honest with you, there are still a few things I want to write about that happened in Ireland, I just never got to. (I was there for class.)  which is why this post is a little self indulgent, but I’m announcing the launch of a brand new Wednesday Series:

Bad Shakespeare Takes The World. 

It’s going to cover both of my overseas trips, as well as anything else that may pop up between now and when I no longer write this blog. It may be nothing. I did travel overseas for a month twice this year. I can say I’ve spent more time in Europe this year than I have in America. It’s kind of crazy.

Anyway, let’s start with that quote I threw out above “When a Man is tired of London, he is tired of life.” That was the first quote that Professor Davis threw out to us well before we took our trip to England. He wanted us to keep it in the back of our minds, and think about what it meant to us. And he was right, the trip was bigger than just checking out a few plays and thinking good thoughts about them. (Or talking about Shakespeare and other stuff for 20 minutes, as we did.)

London is a big city, and it’s filled with a lot of people. Like most cities. What makes London so unique is the fact that it’s an older city, but the old and the new are so wrapped up together it creates something completely unlike anything else I’ve ever experienced. A modern designed building near something that’s been there since the dawn of time itself (that’s when England was founded, right? I’m fuzzy on my English History.)

I pondered the question “Tired of London/Tired of life” while I was there. I can see why getting tired of this city, where anything could happen at any moment, It just has a unique feel to it. I could tell just by walking through it that it felt different. It “felt” like London. The thing is, it was impossible to walk through Dublin without experiencing the same sort of “Feel” that it was different. To me, a lot of cities seem the same, but London just had a different feel to it. And the surprising thing was that by the end of my journey, I could actually navigate the city like I owned it. It was incredible.

So, what to make all of this? I just threw out a lot of information, some of it conflicting. I think what to bring out of it is the education that I received went beyond “plays” and “writing” for these particular trips. I think the education I received is a reminder that I’m more a citizen of the world than I like to admit, and that I like to explore more than I’d like to think about. I need to get out there. Find out what is waiting for me. And I have to grab it soon, because I know it’s not going to wait for very long. 

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m curious as to what my next adventure is going to be…

See You in 2015

Ladies, Gentlemen, and future historians who are reading this blog to find out the inner workings of my mind before I became super famous, I wish to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a Joyful Hanukkah, a wonderful Kwanza, or, if you don’t celebrate any of that, then Happy Sir Isaac Newton’s Birthday. If you don’t celebrate any of those things, then I’m sorry the banks and restaurants are all closed on what to you, is a regular Wednesday, but I don’t make the rules.

Originally I had this wonderful plan in my head to chronicle the adventures of Bad Shakespeare in real time as I traipsed through London, as I walked through the great streets made famous by Guy Ritchie in his shoot ’em up bang bang thrillers, as I studied with the Royal Shakespeare Company, as I made an excursion to Scotland, and hopefully as I get to meet Emma Watson who is probably in England doing Emma Watson things. And if I got the chance to walk on an episode of Doctor Who. They’ll just let me walk on, right?

Then I realized that I’d be doing all of those things, and while it would be exciting to chronicle my adventures as they happened, I wouldn’t get to fully enjoy all those things as they happened. 

As a result, this will be the final Bad Shakespeare entry until after January 20th, when I make my triumphant return to the United States. 

I want to thank all of you to thank you for taking the time to read my musings every week. It hasn’t been as consistent what with the whole “Graduate School” and “Gilmore Girls coming to Netflix” thing, but I’ve tried to post as much as I can. But writing 20 pages on whatever it is I wrote 20 pages on this semester tends to take time away from writing about our new North Korean Overlords, which, while amusing, doesn’t get me the grades i need to be getting in order to graduate from Graduate School.

I’m in a very different place this year than the last. Last year at this time I was gearing up for student teaching, now I’m gearing up to study Theatre in a city I’ve been dying to go ever since I found out there was a London and that they had actual Kings like back in ye olde times. (Well, a Queen, who’s apparently a Highlander.) 

Anyway, I hope to take every opportunity presented to me, and yes, I will share it with you at some future date, probably when I’ busy with some paper and I don’t really know what I’m going to be writing just yet.

Enjoy the holiday, reach out to those less fortunate, call up an old friend, tell someone you love them, and I hope the New Year finds you happy, healthy, and full of friendship. I look forward to posting my adventures more in the New Year. 

Just going to take a little break

Bad Shakespeare is going to London. You've Been Warned.

When I made the switch earlier this year from High School English Teacher in Training to English Master… getter… I’m going to need a bit more direction before I assign a title… I decided to take more advantage of the opportunities in front of me. Not that there weren’t plenty already, but I had to completely switch gears. I was on a pretty set track. Take classes A,B, and C, you get an “elective” so long as it’s this class, take an internship, and then here’s your Masters. Also, quit any full time job you have. 

Then I made the switch, and a whole new world of possibilities opened up in front of me. For one, I had a wide variety of classes, which is now why I’m studying Cinema in addition to 19th Century American Literature… and that’s just to start. I can take almost any class! And I have those popular electives, which are awesome. Which is also why, just for fun, one day I went to see what I could study abroad.

I’m very fortunate that my father was in the military, so going overseas wasn’t anything I thought about, it was just something I did. I was actually born in Germany, which explains my affinity for pretzels and good beer, and I actually was able to live in Korea for a few years which explains why I look so much like Kim-Jong Un. I was in the south, but I’d like to think that we connected on some level. Not because I’m a monster, but because I like wearing a uniform and being adored for no reason. 

So when I was looking at the information to study abroad, it was just to see if there were any programs that catered to me, a Graduate Student. I never really look advantage of the fact that I could have tried studying abroad when I was an undergraduate because, again, despite studying English, I was a “focused” individual that didn’t think too much outside the box. 

Then I found it. A program to study Theatre in London. London. Despite my overseas adventures and my love of traveling, Shakespeare, Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes (Before he was Cumberbatched), and giant clocks, I’ve never been to London. I always wanted to, mostly so I could see if I could find Hogwarts. So, just for fun, I decided to see if they’d cater to me, a Graduate Student that had a little bit of time saved up in his Vacation fund.

A few emails and an application later… I’m going to London. To Study Theatre. And I can’t wait.

It’s strange, really, that I never considered the possibility of what studying overseas would entail. I still really don’t, because right now I just sort of have a flyer and the class that it will cover (Yay, electives!) But to me, it’s about taking risks. No, not because I’m flying on an airplane during a time period when people have discovered a spider the size of a dog in the rainforest. (BURN IT. BURN IT WITH FIRE.) But because to be honest… it’s unlike me.

I talked about earlier this year making this big switch. I’ve referenced it a few times since then, but I haven’t really “talked” about it too much. I mean, it’s a big switch, but at the same time I said my piece and I don’t want to appear ungrateful for the time. But I have to reference the fact that I spent two years planning testing, and working hard to get a degree. Then I said, “naw… I’d rather do this.” Part of that was taking risks like going to London, because I’ve never been, and the bottom line is, I want to. I wan to go. I want to study Theatre under one of the best professors i had in Undergrad. It’s an interest of mine.

I’m excited to finally go to a country I’ve wanted to visit for a while now, and I only thought I’d visit in some quick trip. All in all, with some vacation time I have saved up, I’m going to end up spending about a month overall in London. I promise I’ll keep the Doctor Who jokes to a minimum while I’m there. I can’t make the same claim about James Bond jokes. Those are actually kind of funnier. 

My point to this whole story/inspirational quote/post/whatever it is I’m talking about, is that I spent a good two years of my life studying to go down the straight and narrow path that will contribute to society. Now I’m going to London for no other reason than I want to. It’s a big difference for me, and it’s a lot to process, but sometimes we have to do what we want to. Life is short, despite the fact that they’ve found new and exciting ways to extend our lifetimes, so long as it doesn’t involve downloading our brains into machines with ironic consequences. (Novel Idea: we can download our brains into machines with ironic consequences. Dibs.) But we have to take advantage of what we want to do, not what we think is expected of us. 

That’s a lot of words to pretty much brag that I’m looking forward to riding the lorry and eating crisps with the Queen. She’s pretty easy to get to talk to, right? I mean, there’s like a form I have to fill out or something. I can only assume. If not her, then Emma Watson. You've been warned!

I guess I’m just saying it’s an exciting time for me. And All I had to do was take a little bit of time to decide what it is that I really want. And for now, what I want is to go to England. And possibly visit the Ministry of Silly Walks.