The Final Countdown

As first semester is ending, my life seems to be exploding. I have a lot of exciting things going on, so I figured, why not share some of them?

Foremost, the thing that has thoroughly taken over my life is the spring play at Blair, Taming of the Shrew. It is endless fun, but also endlessly tiring. Until the show, (opening night is on January 31st!) I have rehearsal every day (with the small exception of next Sunday) but the rest includes Saturdays. I am really excited for the show, and one of the things that makes it even more exciting is that the stage is being used for a black box performance. A black box performance means that audience members are seated on the stage inches from the actors. Although this type of performance is extremely exciting, it's also extremely nerve-wrecking.

One of the reasons I am so excited for the show is because it is Shakespeare. I have always had an interest in Shakespeare, but performing Shakespeare is an entirely different beast than reading Shakespeare. There are so many little complexities, so many unwritten directions, and also cases where the language has changed so much that meanings of words and lines have changed.

I find that these changes are extremely interesting. Over time, language has a tendency to degrade in its meaning. An example of this that came recently at a rehearsal was the word "naughty". Nowadays, the line, should "naughty" be included, would get a laugh. But this is only because the meaning and power of the word naughty has degraded. Naughty used to be a description of something evil, quite terrible actually, but now it is more used to describe a disobedient child.

Some of the other things coming up are:

The Novagondy Ball (Yes I get to go to a ball!)
Exams (Not exactly exciting...)
SAT Math 2 Subject Test (Yay more tests!)
The British are coming, the British are coming!

Also, my mom just designed a website for her dad, my grandfather, who is a watercolor artist, who has apparently won many more awards than I thought he had (check out the awards section on his website!). Also, just go and check out his paintings! Some of them are from when he first started painting professionally and we are slowly uploading more recent ones. He's really excited about the site, so please go and check it out! It is at www.davidneilmack.com.