Work Habits

As August stretches out before me, I begin to hone in on the methods which create the best study environment for myself.

This is, of course, assisted by the magical early arrival of autumn here in New England.  I can definitely say that my work habits are much healthier when I can comfortably sit at my desk all day as opposed to having to find alternate places to work due to the heat.  My office is wonderful and sunny with lots of windows… though these qualities also make it the hottest room in the house (lots of windows = greenhouse effect and essentially bakes me out of the entire area as soon as the temperate spikes much above 75°).

I’ve come to carefully and jealously guard my weekdays.  While technically I can work anytime anywhere, I find that I am much less inclined to work on the weekends.  I have no qualms about working late, but if there is anyone else in the apartment I become distracted; I mean, really, who wouldn’t prefer to watch episodes of Supernatural with housemates than read about Weimar Classicism?  So, despite the HUGE amounts of temptation* to go do other things during the week, I am extremely careful to keep my work hours to work hours.

I’ve found that a pile-system works well.  When I move into a new unit, I order somewhere

....just my supplies for a normal trip to campus.

….just my supplies for a normal trip to campus.

between 20 and 40 books from the library.  When I get those books home, I pile them on my desk in thematic piles.  I can generally go through between four and five volumes in a day, so I try to pile them in approximate daily-dosage.  When I go to work in the morning, I pull a pile and see, visually, how much work I have to get through in a day.  It’s a good way to track how much I have accomplished in a time period (be that time period a morning, a week, etc.) and a good way to track how much more I have left to cover before I can move on.  Since I’m a kinesthetic learner, this is HUGE in terms of facilitating my study plan.

As I (not so slowly) reach burnout point, I’ve also learned to prioritize information.  I will look at everything on my desk, but the amount of time I devote to a volume will depend on that volume’s readability, the ease with which I know I will digest the information in that volume, and my ability to connect the volume to something else I know.  Learning is facilitated by connections.  As I fill in the edges of the theatre history map, it is much easier to move outward from territory I have some passing familiarity with than to plonk myself in a strange land where I know nothing and try to figure out the local culture.  Sometimes, I will have (and have had) to start from scratch (let me tell you how much I knew about the Spanish Golden Age before I started this process… there we go, that’s about all I knew), but by and large I can relate most things to something either historical or theatrical that I already have in my arsenal.  As such, if I find something that’s difficult to digest, completely unrelated to anything I already know, and written in impenetrable academicese, I tend to set it down and move on.  The time I would devote to decoding this piece of information is valuable and could better be used finding a book which will explain it to me in a way I can readily understand.

I do find ways to give myself little rewards and motivational things for reaching the next hundred pages, the end of the next book, etc.  Often times these thing consist of “okay, we will send that e-mail AFTER we get to page 150” or “you can check in on facebook/twitter once you finish x more chapters”.  This way, I’m not distracted by the completely natural urges to participate in the rest of the world for longer than I can afford, and I’m motivated to get through my workload.

side-note: I also taught myself to embroider this summer.  This is my first piece (mostly done, I may add some highlighting to the roses).

side-note: I also taught myself to embroider this summer. This is my first piece (mostly done, I may add some highlighting to the roses).

Speaking of distractions, I know that I work better if I can silence my phone and leave it in another room.  No matter how well intentioned, mid-day texting completely breaks my concentration and instantaneously takes me out of whatever it is I’m doing.  Chatting while working seems to be a phenomenon that desk-job people can accommodate (I know when I worked a desk job, I had an IM window open all day every day).  Because of the nature of my work (deep thought, deep research, uninterrupted brainwaves yield the best results), I simply can’t do it anymore.  Even when I’m in the deepest portion of research mode, the smallest thing can jar me back to reality and, often, I find it twice as hard to recover whatever it is I was doing before someone decided to ask me some menial question or send me a selfie.  Solution: silence the cell phone and put it face down on the desk.  Unfortunately, this is a do as I say not as I do item as my self-control tends to only go so far with this rule.  But!  We are all in a process of bettering ourselves as individuals and if this is what I need to work on as a human being, I’ll add it to the list right under “being careful of caffeine overconsumption”.

Obviously everyone is different so what works for me may not work for you.  My point is that astute self-observation will lead you to the path of righteousness and productivity.  Sleep well, study hard, and get ready because autumn is coming.

*By “HUGE amounts of temptation” I’m talking huge… like the knowledge that my entire family is having a get-together in New York because my scattered-across-the-country siblings all happen to be free on one weekend and are flying home and so I should totally join them two weeks before my test.  Let me tell you how painful that was to turn down, especially when a certain family member who shall remain nameless simply won’t stop pushing the issue no matter how many times I say “no, mom, I can’t come down to New York two weeks before my exam”.

The Care and Feeding of your Comps-Taking PhD-to-be

As we launch into August, it has come to my attention that I will have to take the comprehensive exam.

“Well, duh!” You say, “Isn’t that what you’ve been studying for since June?  Isn’t that the cause of your extreme stress, and the true root of every single nightly anxiety dream you’ve been experiencing?  Don’t you already know this?”

…yes, I know this.  In theory.  Comps, much like any other part of this process of becoming, is something that is effectively fiction until it’s reality.  You know that it’s listed as a degree requirement in the Graduate Student Handbook, you see its wake in the eyes of your senior colleagues, you understand that it is a thing that does happen, but until you have some confirmation that it will happen to you it still seems like you roommate’s imaginary Boyfriend who lives in Canada*.

For me, the concrete proof came in an e-mail from our department admin this week announcing the dates of the exam, some details about the exam, and the locations where we will each be subject to our individual torture hell anguish trial.  This, combined with the realization that it is, in fact, August and thereby the summer will, at some point, end has added some heat to the proverbial fire and kicked my already-overblown stress level into overdrive.  The anxiety dreams have gotten more pressing (though, sadly, more routine and so affect me less when I wake up), the fatigue has gotten more dragging, and the day-to-day realities of comps studying have

Another cute picture of a cat that's not mine with books that are mine.

Another cute picture of a cat that’s not mine with books that are mine.

gotten more mind-numbing.  I’d love to say I was in the final stretch, but I’m really only cresting the mid-point.  I’ve got about a third of the way left to go.

This in mind, I would like to take a moment to address the care and feeding of your beloved PhD student.  If you’re reading this, there is (in some capacity) someone in your life who has, will, or is gone through or going through this process.  As such, please bear in mind the following fundamental truths of comps studying:

Truth the first: every small adjustment, change, or mishap is suddenly a GIANT CALAMITY.  Right now, there are very few things that we can control.  Changing a SINGLE THING which falls inside that realm is simply disastrous.  In the past week, I’ve burst into tears over eggplant because it wasn’t in the fridge when I expected it to be.  No joke.  Treat your PhD student gently and if something ABSOLUTELY HAS TO CHANGE, make sure it has the smallest effect on his/her existence.

Truth the second: We don’t have enough hours in our day.  Do not expect us to go above and beyond for anything right now (note: “above and beyond” can just mean “hey, can you take out the trash AND recycling because of completely reasonable reason y?”  See truth the first for further explanation on this point).  Also, do not expect us to be capable of organizing, planning, being in charge, helping, assisting, or taking care of anything no matter how menial it may seem.  We simply can’t do it.

Truth the third: Small words.  Please.  Use small words.  And unless you’re talking to us about our field, don’t expect to engage us in any conversation that requires more than grunts, nods, or Neolithic fist pounding.  If you do expect such engagement, also expect that we will almost immediately find a way to turn the conversation back to whatever it is we’re studying.  Example: I found clear references to eighteenth century acting technique in Pixar’s Monster’s University.  When my companion asked what I thought of the film, it was about all I had to add to the conversation.

2013-07-28 21.36.58

and another picture of my desk. This time in PANORAMA!

Truth the fourth: Any small kindness will be taken as earth-shatteringly wonderful.  This includes meal-cooking/meal-providing, hugs without conversation, and pretty much any unobtrusive reminder that you’re there, you love us, and you understand we’re going through a rough time but don’t worry it’ll get better soon.

Truth the fifth: Treat plan-making with us as a precarious process which may or may not come to full fruition, and please PLEASE don’t take it personally when we have to stay home and read, work late for some reason, etc.  This also includes unanswered/unreturned texts or phone calls.  We still love you and we promise that we’ll get back to you come September when this ordeal has come to its inevitable conclusion.

Truth the sixth: As odd as this may look from the outside, this is a life-changing process which (literally) determines the fate of our future.  Our entire careers will be changed by the outcome of this exam.  Dealing with that reality every day is daunting, dizzying, and frankly terrifying.  We are essentially training our brains to think like professional academics and this is something we will use for the rest of our lives.  Please don’t compare our stress over this to your bad day at work, the failures of your dating life, or burning dinner.  It will just make us angry and frustrated that you don’t really understand what we’re going through.

Truth the seventh: Pretty much just treat us like cranky three-year-olds and you can’t go wrong.  Simple things that provide amusement are appreciated, tasty treats will always be greeted with gratitude, ignoring us when we’re having a temper tantrum is perfectly acceptable.

I assure you, we will repay the favor tenfold when we’re no longer living in the seventh circle.

*Please Note: My current roommate doesn’t have one of these, but I understand from contemporary satire (i.e. Avenue Q.) that it could be a thing which a hopelessly single person might say in order to convince his/her friends that he/she is not, in fact, hopelessly single.

The Summer of Love

Thanks to Joss Wheedon, it’s been a Much Ado summer.  Without any intention of collecting an exclusive list of Much Ados in the New England area, I’ve personally seen four productions so far (two full productions, the film, and one staged reading).  Since I don’t have any more on the docket (unless something unexpected pops up, which it might), I thought I might take a moment to make some general observations about the play from my privileged Much Ado-steeped dramaturgical brain while the shows were fresh in my mind.  I suppose this could also serve as a basic primer for theatre makers looking to create a production of Much Ado and not looking to hire a dramaturge (big mistake, but the benefits of having someone around to serve that role are fodder for another post).

1)   The most hard and fast rule about producing Much Ado About Nothing is that your Beatrice and Benedick ABSOLUTELY have to work.  They essentially carry the production and without them, you’re sunk.  I’ve seen some tolerably good performances this summer, but none that were well matched (one show had a strong Beatrice and a weak Benedick, another show vice versa, etc.).  These actors need to be charming and deep.  The audience needs to love them despite their quirks.  They need to be experts with the language.  They need to have chemistry with each other.  Lining up these factors is nearly as difficult as convincing the stars to align (especially in the world of amateur theatre where your talent pool is your talent pool and there’s not much you can do about it), but vital to the health of your production.  Trust me, this will make or break your show.

2)   The part of Hero is perhaps the most difficult part in the show to play (Claudio and Dogberry make close seconds).  Honestly, one of the strongest performances of Hero I’ve ever seen was performed by a dressmaker’s dummy passed around to various cast members when Hero herself needed to be.  There’s a danger of making Hero too ingénue.  She absolutely has to be sweet and pretty and obedient, but she has some fire in her that, if allowed to come out, will add dimension to your production.  Think about the gulling of Beatrice; Hero is both smart and saucy (she demonstrates this as well in the ball scene when she sasses the masked Prince).  A further point of caution: if her part is cut too severely, she comes off as nothing but an airy fairy sugar-spun object.  Careful with this one.

3)   Dogberry is extremely difficult to make read to a modern audience.  If he’s played too smart, he doesn’t make sense.  If he’s played with too much status, he doesn’t make sense.  If he’s played by someone who does not have an absolutely command of the language, he doesn’t make sense.  Dogberry and the watch need to come off as well-meaning, sweet, regular guys whose logic sometimes doesn’t match our earth logic.  The most important thing to remember is that Dogberry is striving, with every fiber of his being, to have status he just doesn’t know how to make it work.  He’s trying, by virtue of “being is becoming”, to make himself into a real leader and a true soldier… he just can’t quite get there.

4)   The third-act wedding scene needs to be a punch in the gut bordering

some really cool shots of books I took this summer because I don't have anything else to put here

some really cool shots of books I took this summer because I don’t have anything else to put here

on melodrama.  This scene changes the entire tide of the production.  Suddenly we go from a rollicking comedy to something which (if ended prematurely) could more resemble a classic tragedy.  You really need to set this change of pace up for an audience and draw them into the mood.  Claudio really needs to manhandle Hero.  Hero really needs to have a reason to faint and look dead.  Beatrice really needs to have a reason to be weeping into the next scene.  These are strong, dynamic characters capable of extreme emotional manipulation and extreme emotional reaction; if this is not expressed, your production suddenly no longer has purpose.  The entire second half doesn’t have a reason to exist, and (most importantly), my favorite scene in the canon falls flat.  If there’s no real given reason for Beatrice’s famous utterance, the audience just won’t buy it.

5)   Speaking of duels, if you choose to modernize your production make sure the gender and status dynamics still make sense.  See my previous post on this point.

6)   Another note about status: the Prince needs to have an easy sort of control over every situation he’s placed in.  Though a guest in Leonato’s house (and in act four certainly emotionally indebted to Leonato), he is still the Prince.  Despite anything which may be happening (including, as he believes, the death of Leonato’s daughter which is at least in part his fault), he must maintain that status.  This is particularly important because modern American audiences do not understand status.  If you work hard through the course of your production to create status, any chink will make the entire illusion crumble.  Don’t give the audience a reason not to buy into your world.

7)   For god’s sake can someone please come up with a creative solution to Don John?  I have yet to see anyone in the role who doesn’t make me think of Keanu (though granted, Sean Maher’s performance came close to banishing this image – he was pretty sexy).  Textually, he’s a problem.  He’s obviously brooding and quiet, angry with his brother and ready to revel in any misfortune that he can cause because of this.  But is there any way to make this into a villain that we love to hate?  I’m so sick of stoic-faced Princes who turn into whining, petulant grumps in the presence of their henchmen only to plot a revenge which they obviously take no joy in.  Someone, please, fix this and invite me to your show so I can stop wondering if anyone will get the Prince a surfboard.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of things I see, just bits which tackle some of the play’s bigger issues.  If you’re planning a production and are looking for a dramaturge, I highly encourage you to contact me.  I always love to participate in crafting good Shakespeare and this play has a special place in my heart.

And now, back to the comps grind.

And Knowing is Half the Battle

Since I seem to be writing nothing but theatre reviews lately (…mostly because I’m seeing SO MUCH THEATRE!), I figure it may be time for a reprieve from the “mundane” (or at least routine) around here.

Here is an unexclusive, incomplete list of things that I learned this week.

Thing one: Cyrano De Bergerac is a tragedy… and actually really sad.  This would be fine except I saved it to read for when I needed a pick-me-up… suffice to say it’s been a rough week for many reasons (only one of which being the sheer amount of maudlin tragedy I’ve had to choke down this week).

Thing two: Peanut butter, when put in a saucepan, burns really quickly.  If you want to melt it to… say… pour over your ice cream, you need to do it low and slow.

Thing three: Early Russian theatre sometimes consisted of “serf theatre”.

Shot of my desk... and my book fort.  Yup.  It's a book fort.

Shot of my desk… and my book fort. Yup. It’s a book fort.

The Russian feudal system persevered long after it was abolished in other countries (my mostly uninformed hypothesis about this entails factors such as geographic distance from anywhere that may have been interested in creating a mercantile class, a sure-fire way to abolish feudalism, and the many puns one can create using the word “serf”).  Russian landowners, for lack of better things to do, sometimes trained their serfs and created theatre companies with them to perform for said landowners’ amusement.  This, for some reason, is both fascinating and wonderful to me.  Probably because I’ve never been a Russian peasant.

Thing four: When held in contrast with other nineteenth century pieces and scholarship about said nineteenth century pieces, melodrama actually makes for surprisingly engaging reading.  Go go Pixerécourt.

Thing five: I think if Victor Hugo had actually written the playscript to Les Miserables rather than just the novel that it was based on, it would have been markedly more wonderful, decidedly more Spanish, and never would have run on Broadway for a record 6,680 performances.  See for evidence: Hernani.

Thing six: If you hope hard enough, despite all natural barriers to the contrary, you can make it be autumn in New England even in July.

Thing seven: You could very feasibly murder people utilizing nineteenth century stage technologies and hide their bodies in places that would never be found, even within the theatre itself.  Unfortunately, once I had this thought, actually enacting such things was the only notion on my mind as I flipped through my well-illustrated guide to the nineteenth century French stage.  As such, I’m earmarking this idea for a potential future novel; sounds like a great historical detective case to me.

This is a REALLY cute kitten taking a nap (about palm-sized for the record).  He's not mine, but I like him better that way. I don't have to clean his poop.

This is a REALLY cute kitten taking a nap (about palm-sized for the record). He’s not mine, but I like him better that way. I don’t have to clean his poop.

Thing eight:  I wasn’t just whistling Dixie when I told people that German would be a useful language to have in my back pocket in the field of theatre history.  Just this week I’ve encountered several books and one play (the play, unfairly enough, was Russian in its original language) which entail lengthy/important passages in both French and German that the scholar/translator couldn’t be bothered to render into English.  Academic superpowers activate!

Thing nine: For this reason, I will really be screwed when I enter into the land of Japanese theatre.

Thing ten:  I’m really grateful to have friends who will push me to tell them about what I read on any given day.  Also friends who will go with me to the theatre.  Also friends who will pester me via text message until I leave my cave and socialize in the real world.  Also friends who will let me call and cry/whine/complain about neoclassicism and why it’s an abomination against art… even if they don’t really understand what neoclassicism is.  Also friends who speak Shakespeare to me as a means of comfort.  Thank you, friends!

Thing eleven:  Restoration comedies are WAY funnier performed than on the page.

Thing twelve: I should probably consider taking a break sometime soon lest I devolve into some sort of Gollum creature mindlessly repeating pertinent names, dates, and phrases that would only make sense in the context of theatre history.

A Request

Over the course of the last several years, I’ve noticed an epidemic.

Perhaps it’s because I’m a professional researcher (amongst other things), or perhaps it’s because I’m naturally less inclined than others of my acquaintance to ask for help, or perhaps it’s because self-sufficiency is a valuable character trait to me.  Whatever it is, this epidemic is prominent enough to bear mentioning.

People would rather ask than find out.

It starts off simply enough; rather than dig through an instruction manual, you ask a friend how to accomplish task X utilizing tool Y.  Since tool Y is something you are less familiar with than said fried (who perhaps uses tool Y in his work), this just makes sense.  The friend tells you the straightforward answer to your straightforward question and you go on your merry way.

This quickly escalates into phone calls at 2AM from technically unsound persons asking you to effectively tech support their vaguely described problem over the phone for an hour when you should be sleeping.

In my case, I get asked questions about theatre.  A lot.  Generally I don’t mind these questions because it shows that my friends A) respect my field of expertise, B) like me enough to listen to me talk for a while, and C) are genuinely interested in something I’m passionate about.  “Which play should I take my out-of-town friends to see right now?”, for instance, is a great question that I’d love to spend time answering during even my most busy days.

The only time asking questions is really an issue is when I have absolutely no time, every second I spend answering texts is a second I’m not spending reading about Weimar Classicism, and the question I am asked is one which I’ve already answered in a blog post.  Recently.

Look, I would love to chat with you about theatre and, chances are, if you have

yet another comps studying still life

yet another comps studying still life

my phone number you’re someone I like enough to talk to.  But right now, I really can’t spare the moment it will take to give you a well thought-out answer to most things.  Especially if you can’t be bothered to do the preliminary research yourself to find out that the question you just asked me is something I’ve already taken time out of my day to write a nice, long, thoughtful post about.

So before you text to ask “what do you think of [x Shakespeare movie] or [y local theatre production]?”, take a moment to do your research.

This question, unfortunately, is just a symptom.  It’s a symptom of the same disease that causes my students to ask “what does [x word] mean?” instead of looking it up in the dictionary.  As a society, we’ve become complacent.  I would like to say that this complacency is the death of intelligence, but that sounds far too chicken little for my tastes.

Here’s a care and feeding tip for all of you with over-wrought PhD students in your life: before you ask anything of them, keep in mind that they are working.  Hard.  All the time.  Every little question/text is a moment out of their day.  If you would like them to give you information, do them the courtesy of at least performing preliminary google searches for the information which you require before interrupting them with a question that could easily be answered via the internet.  These questions entail you asking for a moment of your PhD student’s time; this is a professional commodity.  Just like a shopkeeper sells wares, an academic makes her bread off of research skills, knowledge, and the time in which to accomplish these.   Chances are, your PhD student is are happy to lend said professional commodity to you because she likes you.  But if you’re basically asking for free labor, at least meet her halfway and show that you are respectful enough of her time and energy to utilize this time and energy for something worthwhile.

And now back to your regularly scheduled comps studying.

DISCLAIMER: It should be noted that this particular issue is one which I’ve noticed over time and a broad cross-section of people.  In other words: this post isn’t a passive-aggressive attempt to respond to any one text or e-mail I’ve received over the past few weeks, but rather a generalization about the root of this problem.

Lateral Thinking

My friends, I have discovered the secret to comps study longevity.

Lateral Thinking.

“Lateral Thinking” is a concept introduced to me by the great John Basil when I was studying with him at the American Globe Theatre.  John contended that it was the key to comedy.  He had a hard time defining it, but gave us the following example to help understand it:

He once saw a televised game show akin to family feud in which contestants had to reply to a prompt with something which they think might be a popular answer.  So for instance, if the category was “things you would take on an airplane”, the contestant could say “suitcase”, “neck pillow”, etc.  There was a time component to this particular round so the contestant had to be the first to press his buzzer and answer.

The category was “things you sit on.”  One contestant, feverish in his

Working the other day while hiding out from the heat.

Working the other day while hiding out from the heat.

pursuit of fame, fortune, and a cruise, instantaneously pressed his buzzer and shouted the first thing which came to his mind: “BROCCOLI!”

“Lateral Thinking” it turns out is a fairly recent development in logic.  A phrase coined by Maltese physician Edward De Bono, it refers to the method of solving problems by way of creativity.  Rather than a “vertical” approach (solving a problem step by step, with each step logically leading to the next) or a “horizontal” approach (throwing out idea upon idea without concern for implementation, a process often linked with imagination over logic), lateral thinking encourages ingenuity and attacking a problem via completely indirect means.

In terms of comedy, we can see how this appeals.  Comedy, the axiom goes, comes from recognition and surprise.  We laugh at something because we either recognize the situation which is being presented to us, or we are utterly surprised by the seemingly illogical response of the individuals/things within the situation (think of every Charlie Chaplin sketch ever).

In terms of comps, Lateral Thinking is key.  I can spend several hours a day with my books, but when I recognize that I’ve hit brain-melt o’clock, it is time to implement something drastically different.  Often, I can work for six to seven hours at a clip before I just can’t work anymore.  At this point, I need to walk away from my computer and engage in a physical activity of some kind.

Because of this, my running schedule has been wonderfully regular, and I’m picking up some extra party tricks to add to my “fun, cool-looking, dangerous things that Danielle does because she was allegedly raised by circus gypsies”*.  I’m learning to spin poi (…mostly so that I can light them on fire and add this to my list of fire tricks; I already breathe and eat fire so really, what else is there to do but weave the stuff around my body in complicated and death-defying ways?), and my sister and soon-to-be brother-in-law have finally convinced me of the merits of the bull whip as a viable form of physical relaxation (Okay, I know what you’re thinking, and it probably has something to do with corsets and

my haul from Tisch complete with HELLOPHANT!

my haul from Tisch complete with HELLOPHANT!

dungeons, but please believe me when I tell you that bull whip is actually more of a martial art than a… ahem… personal art form).  If you consider the fact that I have to bike about a half mile to get to anywhere where I can legally play with the whip (and where it’s safe to do so), that’s a fair amount of physical activity I can sneak into my day.

I’ve found that this serves as a combination stress-reliever, mood enhancer, and diet-booster.  I’ve also found that if I take a break like this for about an hour, I can come back and sneak in another few hours of work.

So there you have it: physical activity saves brains, and always eat your vegetables.

Lateral thinking: not just for problem-solving logicians anymore.

*only partially true; we’re more like the Partridge Family meets a Renaissance Faire

The End Becomes the Beginning

It’s Sunday night and I’m tired.

This week, I’ve been working with Early Modern England. I’m hoping to get through it in the next few days and then hop to Early Modern Italy/France/Spain.

After that, the puritans shut the theatres down for a bit and we do a time-leap to the Eighteenth century, but I may take a detour into Asia just to get something a bit less Western on my palate.

Over the course of the weekend, I have read no books, attended one play, and participated in a variety of leisure activities/household chores to ensure that I am at least a little bit rested and good to go for the week ahead.

It probably says something about something that when I went to go save the word document I am currently writing this blog entry in, I automatically clicked into my comps notes folder.

It also probably says something that, at brunch with a friend who is an

Me and Will at Orlando Shakes

Me and Will at Orlando Shakes

alum of my program, his friends whom I had never met before immediately gave me the sympathy eyes when he told them I was taking the exams that he had taken.

And so, I stand facing down another long week. But there will be a lot of Shakespeare! Tomorrow is Hub Theatre Company Boston’s Shakespeare Open Mic Night at Trident Books. (come join us!), Friday I have it on good word that I will be seeing Joss’ Much Ado, and of course I shall be reading. So much reading.

Working Back to Running

Operation: relax was a great success.  Spending a week away from my books has made all the difference in the world and I’m feeling much more capable of tackling the things that I left behind in Boston.

Unfortunately, getting back into my studying groove is proving more difficult than I had anticipated.  While I know that I couldn’t have maintained the pace I had achieved when I left, coaxing myself back up to running speed is not easy.

I also have found that taking a week away has done scary things to my sense of information retention.  I’m reasonably sure the information is still in there, just occluded in a way it hadn’t been when I left the Northeast.  I have to reach around the pleasant cloud of vacation to turn up the things that I need on any given occasion and that, my friends, is rather startling given the amount of effort I put into putting those select facts into my brain.

In addition, it seems I’ve brought the Florida weather back with me.  While it was still pleasantly autumn upon my departure, it now seems to be full-blown summer.  This makes my life slightly more difficult as while my apartment is many wonderful things, air-conditioned is not one of them.

In summary, while I know I needed the break and I am absolutely assured that it did wonderful things to my mental (and physical!) well being, it’s definitely wrecked some havoc on my studying habits.

Let’s go back to the marathon training metaphor I used earlier this summer.  Taking a

artistic rendering of my workspace at the local cafe yesterday.

artistic rendering of my workspace at the local cafe yesterday.

week off from any intensive training will give you time to relax and recuperate, but there is some inevitable back-slide upon your return.  I’m just feeling all kinds of sore from my workouts since my mind, over the course of the past week, hasn’t been as rigorously worked.

It is sometimes important to recognize that we are not machines.  Though the comps-study process is a great deal about becoming a sort of professional juggernaut, at some point we need to recognize and yield to our humanity.  Slowly working back up to break-neck speed after some time off is one of those things.  Actually taking time off is another.

I had promised myself that I would be as gentle as possible with my study habits while simultaneously pushing myself to do as much as I had to/could.  These goals, while they seem antithetical, are actually really important to maintaining both sanity and work/life balance.  In order to prevent myself from being anxious about all the things I’m not learning, I need to push hard.  In order to maintain my mental well-being and not turn into some kind of Gollum creature clutching books to my chest and muttering about French Neoclassicism, I need to preserve some semblance of equilibrium.  So without moving into the land of unrealistic expectations, this antithesis is just something I have to balance.

And on that note, I’m going to stop procrastinating and get to reviewing Medieval Europe.  If I do well today, which I should, tomorrow opens up early Modern to study and, since that means some quality time with my man Will, if I can’t get excited about that I should probably just quite now.

It was a Dark and Stormy Morning…

Scene: a rainy Friday morning in Massachusetts.

A residential neighborhood at around 9AM.

We see the front of a house.  A stoop, actually.  The house is large with a set of stairs leading up to its front door and two mailboxes.

DANIELLE a bleary-eyed PhD student zombie-walks to the front door, opens it, and takes a long unblinking look outside.  She stands and stares at the rain for a moment before we hear a voice.

HOUSEMATE: Oh, good morning!

DANIELLE: it takes a moment to register Hi.  It’s raining.

HOUSEMATE: Yes, it is.  Umbrella?  HOUSEMATE offers DANIELLE his umbrella. 

DANIELLE: barely coherent I realized I needed milk before I could have coffee, but then I was wondering how hard it was raining, because if it’s raining too hard I have to go to the garage to get my umbrella from the car to take a walk around the corner to get milk… Maybe I’ll just do the walk without an umbrella.

HOUSEMATE: Take my umbrella, go get some caffeine in you.  Almost forcibly hands her the umbrella.

DANIELLE: more than a little bewildered thank you!

….I was so out of it this morning that, not only did this happen, but I also committed a cardinal sin against fashion: I left my house in Tufts sweat pants, a Tufts sweat shirt, and imitation Ugg boots.  I’m just glad I didn’t actually run into anyone between my house and the store because good god nobody should ever have to look at that.

Still in Medieval Europe, but leaving soon.  Had to put down the books today when I realized that if I tried to push through the last 125 pages I was going to give myself another Friday stress migraine which might or might not last the entire weekend.

For no particular reason, here's a picture I took of the octopus at the National Aquarium while on break from CDC 2013

For no particular reason, here’s a picture I took of the octopus at the National Aquarium while on break from CDC 2013

On Sunday, I’m leaving town for a week to go visit family in Florida.  I probably won’t be checking in because, well, if I’m going to take a vacation, I’m taking a bloody vacation.

Have a good week; may you never run out of milk before you’ve had coffee, but if you do may you have someone in your life who cares enough to loan you his umbrella so that you may acquire more before you inadvertently do harm to yourself attempting to make caffeine happen before your brain is fully uploaded.

Training Montage

I am still not dead; my life has just been consumed by prep for comps.

And it’s not even June yet.

I wanted to sit down and write some solid reviews of all the theatre I saw last week (Punk Rock by Zeitgeist, an unsettling portrayal of school violence and bullying; From Denmark with Love by Vaquero Playground, a romp through Hamlet mashed with Bond films which doesn’t close until Monday so you should totally go see it, the next installment of the RPG-inspired New Hampshire based improv show; and Richard III by Seven Stages Shakespeare read in the parking lot of Throwback brewery… yes, they are brilliant and

my live-updated character map of Richard III that I kept to help my roomate follow the story.  A great exercise and I was impressed with my own memory!

my live-updated character map of Richard III that I kept to help my roomate follow the story. A great exercise and I was impressed with my own memory!

this reading was a truly wonderful way to spend Memorial day).  Last week was pretty amazing.

Really, what I’ve got knocking around in my head right now is a bunch of information about Greek theatre, a bunch of speculation about Greek theatre, and the threads of plots from several random plays because I’ve been catching up on all the things I was supposed to read as a good theatre person and have never gotten around to for one reason or another.  The other day, I fell asleep while reading Aristophanes’ Clouds which led to some interesting dreams (… if you’ve never read it, I think the humor translates reasonably well and if nothing else, you could read it with an eye towards what these dreams might possibly have been).  Last night, I dreamt about dancing and Argentine Tango while discussing the Spanish Golden Age (which is doubly interesting because, at least for the moment, my knowledge of Spanish Golden Age is limited at best).  I’m awaiting a dream similar to one described to me by a senior colleague that he experienced while he was in his own comps process.  It was essentially a Mortal Kombat style mash-up battle dream in which he was fighting some famous Japanese performers in a historiographically accurate Greek theatre.  He valiantly defeated his nemesis by loudly declaring that some details of this theatre were not, actually, backed by firm evidence.

When you’re studying for this exam, it consumes your life.  Everything I do or say now is somehow related to comps (and, if it’s not, I feel like I’m wasting my time).  My social interactions are only valuable to me if they include some discussion of theatre.  As demonstrated by the previous paragraph, even my naps/dreams have become an arena in which to study and process information.

I am, essentially, becoming a theatre history machine.

If this were a training montage, Marvin Carlson would be yelling obscenities at me while I ran up and down flights of stairs reciting dates, facts, and figures from memory.  Cut to me paging through tomes with a highlighter, viciously attacking certain sections as I daringly attempt to stuff that information into my mind.  Smash cut to me sitting in a theatre watching a play while information scrolls past the side of the screen Sherlock-style and I attempt to situate this both within its historical context and within the context of contemporary American theatre.  Then cross-reference that to how it may have been approached during an era entirely unrelated to either of those things.

Shot from the reading; not the best but you get the idea

Shot from the reading; not the best but you get the idea

This process is something that I am actually enjoying despite the life-consuming nature of it.  I am learning a vast amount and most of what I’m learning are things that I’ve been assumed to have known all along.  In a lot of ways, the comps process is a certain amount of “destiny fulfilling”.  If we want to take it to the ultimate geeky extreme (and, really, who doesn’t?) it’s the process of becoming the chosen one.  We’re on Dagobah being trained by the great Yodas of our time to bring balance to the academy.  We’re growing into those shiny shiny robes that they let us wear to our hooding ceremonies.  We’re crafting of ourselves something that won’t embarrass our home institutions when we walk around with their names in our byline.

…and if I look at it that way, I can’t be too upset when I fall on my face a few times.  Luke did too, after all, and he grew up to defeat the Empire.