New Orleans was AMAZING.

Besides the 23 hour bus ride, which wasn't necessarily unbearable, but in no way was it enjoyable either. You ever tried to sleep on a coach bus for an extended period of time? Yeah, it sucks.

But New Orleans itself was BEAUTIFUL.
We got to explore the French Quarter a bit, and I wish I had taken twice as many photos as I did. It has tons of ironwork all over, and it was so warm and sunny.
When we weren't spending time in the French Quarter, we were performing in an Episcopal church with some beautiful stained glass (I couldn't take any pictures of that, and the church below is NOT the same one, it was one right by Jackson Square), visiting Mardi Gras World (left is the White Rabbit),  participating in a clinic at Loyola, and taking a swamp tour (we saw at least six alligators).

ALSO I keep seeing references to the things we're doing in English now; we watched Camp Rock on the way down to New Orleans (I actually saw more movies on the way there and back than I've seen in the past month) and at one point someone uses the witches' line, "Something wicked this way comes". As well, I found, purely by coincidence, this:

http://cleolinda.tumblr.com/post/482036152/poster-from-as-you-like-it

I follow her on tumblr because cleolinda is amazing and hilarious, and I saw this, and I think this might just be the version we're watching in class, because of the fan, and because the running figures are in the style of Japanese art. I do find it a little disappointing, if this is the one we're seeing, that the lead looks to be white - I was expecting the play to be fully changed to a Japanese setting, including a Japanese cast, but it looks like that's not the case.

So, I was reading The Sweet Far Thing by Libba Bray....

And guess what awaited me on the very first page? A reference to Dante!
She was talking about how walking with ramrod straight spine, in a corset, was a punishment not even Dante would describe, or something to that effect.
And then, halfway through the book, they went to see Macbeth!

There are many time I doubt the validity of English class. I am sure many of us have asked ourselves, at one point or another, "How is this going to help me in life?" And, truthfully, I actually have very little idea how some of what we do will help me - I can understand persuasive writing, and vocabulary, and maybe being familiar with certain works of literature, but unless I decide to either a) major in English or b) become a writer/book reviewer/editor, I'm not sure how being able to write a commentary will help me in life.
(This is, in no way, to say I don't like English. Though I may not be able see how it will be applied in my everyday job in the future, I still value it.)
But then you find something like this, and suddenly, I feel justified. And, really, if I'm being honest, I do enjoy discussing and analyzing these books in class. There's something about looking at a passage and really getting it - about understanding the point behind it. The research paper we did last year was actually something I was proud of, and the oral commentary on a poem at the end of the year was surprisingly rewarding (even though, at the time we were doing them, I pretty much broke down in tears because I couldn't figure out what I was going to write about for the former¹, and for the latter, well, I almost puked).

And I've gotten off topic.

(And this took me like a week to post, and since then, I have ALSO found a reference to Christopher Marlowe in Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen)

¹ Michael Chabon's books (especially The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) have imagery, symbolism, and themes by the boat-load, and I actually had around 5 different topics I could have written on: sexuality, the American Dream, religion, loss/grief, escapism and magic and comic books...it was overwhelming.

If I could, I would make a weird face as this blog title.

So, tonight we saw the Suzanne Farrell Ballet's performance celebrating George Balanchine, and it was quite good - I especially liked the movement they did from Romeo and Juliet.
We did have a bit of a surprise during the performance as well - the dancer who was Romeo, and who was supposed to dance a pas de deux with another dancer hurt himself (it looked like it was his hip) at the beginning of the fourth dance. He was dancing with the other three men, when he suddenly stopped and limped off the stage! So that caused quite a flutter.
All in all, it was good, and I always love going out to see performances - there's something that's so much fun about the whole experience.

In other news regarding this blog, I've decided to skip Wikipedia (I feel ADD changing the "features" this often, but there you have it - I get easily bored), and instead today we will have the feature entitled "Remember that film?" In this case, the film is The Nativity Story. Do you remember when that came out? I do. I really wanted to see it too, for some inexplicable reason, especially considering we don't practice a religion in my family. I did eventually see it - but I don't actually remember it anymore. Maybe I'll watch it again.

I have a song stuck in my head.

SWEET CAROLINE (BUMBUMBUM) GOOD TIMES NEVER LOOKED SO GOOD
I'VE BEEN INCLINED (BUMBUMBUM) TO BELIEVE THEY NEVER WOULD!

Anyone know how to put music on this thing? Like on the side -> over there by my profile?

Görög Katolikus Szemle, which means Greek Catholic Survey, is this post's Wikipedia article. It was a "Hungarian-language Greek Catholic weekly newspaper published from Ungvár, Subcarpathian Rus, between 1899-1918." I actually don't understand about 50% of the terms being used in the article, so I can't really tell you much more without directly quoting it:
"Politically, the newspaper represented a sector of the Greek Catholic clergy. The group behind Görög Katolikus Szemle supported the Habsburg monarchy, but opposed Hungarian assimilation of the Rusyn people. The group symbolically supported use of Church Slavonic and Cyrillic script.
Görög Katolikus Szemle was closed down in December 1918, after the fall of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In 1919 Kárpát was launched as a continuation, but that publication did not last beyond that year."

FASCINATING, isn't it? YES. YES IT IS.



Blarglesnacksedrfdshtksla BLUH.

Feature?

Ok, so I feel as though I should be doing something with this blog, seeing as this month's challenge involves pretty much no blogging whatsoever.

So should we introduce a feature? This one is the random Wikipedia article, a feature which I admittedly stole from a podcast I sometimes listen to. This post's article is on Montezuma Township in Pike County, Illinois.
Actually, the Wikipedia page on this county has very little on it. It's kind of sad; the one fact on there is how Pike County had only 543 people in it as of the 2000 census. I can't imagine living anywhere where the population density is that low.

Your Daily Update

First! Today is Talk in the Third Person Day!
Second! Interesting (or stupid) news in the world of libraries and banned books:

Dictionary banned in a California school (another article here)

Also, if you're over 18 you need a chaperone in the Orlando Public Library YA section

And actually, that's all for today folks!

So a new month.

This challenge will involve much less blogging (in fact, it will involve zero blogging) due to the fact that it would be extremely boring to read about.
I noticed the last time I was cleaning out my dresser that I have a ton of shirts I never seem to wear, because I just own way too many shirts. So I've decided that for this month, I'm going to wear a different shirt every day.

Also, I finally came up with a suitable/helpful punishment: I'll donate $2 to a charity of my choice for every day I end up missing/messing up.