And by Russia, I mean Italy. I'm going to be back in the States on the 17th, at a little above three weeks of total trip time. I haven't made any posts for two reasons. First, internet has been spotty and from other peoples' compys. Second, we have to write journals for the class, so writing about things that happen hasn't been the most appealing activity.

For pictures and general events, Brett has set up a blog thing with also pictures. I lost about a week of pictures between Verona and Florence when my memory card imploded, which sucks muchly. So those will not show up on the site or on Flickr ever.

Sometimes I think I'm doing the internet wrong because I spend lots of time on Facebook and LJ without actively contributing or interacting all the time. Like I'd get more use out of those sites and webcomic forums and rpg.net and even MySpace or SuicideGirls (which I finally let expire) if I actually talked at people. Because the internet doesn't have all the stuff I like to look at unless people are talking at each other.

Also - I finally managed to rid myself of a particularly tough Vundo infection. I was really clever. The .dll that was causing all the trouble attached itself to useful things like explorer and winlogon, so I couldn't ever access it to delete it, and it was in use from the time windows loaded. So I wrote a little .bat that continually tried to delete the file, disconnected the associations, and the .bat caught the .dll in between the disconnect and the computer crashing. It would be even more brilliant if I thought of any of that myself. But I did piece it together all on my lonesome, because commercial virusscan stuff is apparently terrible at getting Vundo.

So the problem won't get worse. But I get a message on loadup that says "Alert! Error initializing PCI Exbress NIC Bridge. NIC Failure." And a blue screen of death still happens randomly telling me "CRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL." So it looks like damage done.

Blarg.

EDIT: Fixed the ignorable NIC issue. But I bet the one that actually crashes my computer will remain unresolved until after Italy.

I figured it was about time for a long update. Friday marked the official end of my first year of grad school. I say "official" because I still have a few more things to take care of this weekend. I've been having a blast, and learning a lot. I'm still not sure if I'm going to stay for the MFA year (I'd be concentrating in Dramaturgy), but I'm arranging my classes so that I'll qualify for entrance. Even if this whole thing turns out to be a speedbump on the way to the PhD, I'm so glad that I came here. I wouldn't be learning these things otherwise, and I'd run a much higher risk of being one of those professors who manages to ruin great literature for his students. Also, my appreciation for cities that measure their population in the hundreds of thousands plus is continually renewed.

On Tuesday, my drama texts class is taking a roadtrip up to the Folger library in DC to check out First Folios. Check out in the slang looking at sense, not the "we're taking this from the library" sense. That would be awkward and awesome at the same time. Although my dastardly plan is to lick a copy. Really taste the history. On Thursday, I'm flying out of Dulles to Italy for a three week class/tour kind of thing. It's kind of neat because it's not a specific class (I suspect it's really the prof's chance to go to Italy and have the program pay for his vacation) but it counts as Renn. Art and Architecture, which is required for the Dramaturgy MFA. We're going to be hitting up a bunch of cities: Rome, Venice, Florence, Verona, and a bunch of day-trips to smaller cities. That's May semester. I think I'm also staying for Summer semester, after that. They're having an NEH institute, which can count as any number of classes when you tack on the individual work you do. It'll be Playwriting for me, another required Dramaturgy course. Good times.

Rats. Blarg. I've had them out twice in the last two days, and the prognosis is generally ungood. Door doesn't usually leave the cage when I let them out - she just climbs on top of it. She came out both days, and seeing her walk around on the bare floor, it's pretty obvious that's something wrong with her. She's not in pain or anything, but her rear end is slightly distended, and she walks kind of sideways. Now that I know what I'm looking at, I can even see it when she's in the cage. I have to take her to the vet when I get back from Italy. Delirium is just being aggressive. I don't mean defensive, like biting me if I reach for her. She's actually chasing my feet (luckily booted) and biting whenever she gets near skin. I gave her the benefit of the doubt tonight because she was chasing my feet less, and she crawled inside my pant leg and bit me. I'm beginning to think that the correct solution is having them both put down and either starting over or giving up on pets for now. Maybe I'm just bad at this game.

You should go see Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It's really funny, and a little adorable. Lets put it this way - the main character drunkenly sings the Muppet Show theme while playing the piano, and later on it turns out not to be a throwaway moment.

This looks ridiculously good, and also ridiculously NSFW. Just saying.

Maybe I should start grabbing questions off of one of the communities that does that stuff. Friday Five, that kind of thing. It might give me the impetus to actually stop for a second and say, "Hi everyone, here's what's up."

But not yet, of course.
( So for now, my social group rankings according to a Facebook application )

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of some smackdown laid on his sorry ass." -- Stone Cold Jane Austen

Other updates: Too much papers right now. Italy in less than 30 days. Life is stress.

More on the online Poker Cats Contest

Seriously, vote for me anyway. Also, I'm going to California for the first time ever for this spring break (today till next Sunday). Woo.

If you're not listening to Nouvelles Vague, follow that link and go their site right now. Listen to anything there, but especially Guns of Brixton. It's fantastic.

DO YOU LIKE BOSSA NOVA VERSIONS OF PUNK/NEW WAVE/POST PUNK/GOTH SONGS?

CHECK ONE YES [] NO []

Maybe I should have a dating resumé? At the very least, it would be a good time killer for the weekend. The biggest issue, honestly, is trying to recreate start and end dates. Even to the month would be good, but I'm horrible at that game. Hm. A conundrum. Not that I'm actively looking right now, but resumés are supposed to be good to have. And mostly because talking to Lisa reminded me of that particular comic.

So what's up with your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Justin? Aside from foiling mad villains, yo, not too much. Classes continue to go well while being stressful. I'm currently dealing with Shakespeare's Contemporaries, Drama Texts, Social History of Early Modern England, Acting I, and Dr. Doom. Tough semester. Socially, things are a little slower than last time around. The first years no longer have half of the same classes, and are more involved with thesis projects, the MFA productions, rehearsals for the summer Wits tour (The Tempest, coming to a theater nowhere near you), and etc. So no big reading groups or Bistro nights. Contemporaries had the potential for reading groups, but scheduling has put the kibosh on those. Alas.

On the bright side, I'm finally running an Unknown Armies campaign. It's set in Las Vegas, which was a great decision because we all know it equally well (i.e.. not at all). So far there's been a grocery store robbery, evil twins, cannibal cults, both kinds of Jesus-es, SVU-style child abuse, $17,000 in missing casino money, angry mobsters, a dance-off, and a stolen kidney. We've gone two sessions so far.

Comics you should be reading, if you don't already: Nobody Scores and Cat & Girl
Also, if you missed A Lesson Is Learned, But The Damage Is Irreversible while it was running, this is your chance to repent your sins.

SCIENTOLOGY 0, INTERNET 2

PS - Cat & Girl currently has a Babysitter's Club/Ramones shirt

Go Here
http://journalism.berkeley.edu/projects/primary08/blackvote/

It's a little flash site about the black vote in Oakland. Go to it. Give it hits. That's all. Thanks!

If you had to run around Las Vegas with either Tom Jones or Wayne Newton, avoiding the mob and maybe fighting some crime, who would you choose?

( Things to consider: )

I've been back in Staunton about two days, and I'm not really sure what I did for fun here. It kind of looks like I replayed lots of computer games I already beat, and every once in a while I would watch a movie by myself. But I'm seriously just guessing.

So - Wednesday I will be magically appearing in DC. Depending on the availability of couch and the adorability of cats, I will be relocating to NY at some point later in the week (Thursday through Saturday). And my current plan is to be in NY until around New Years, and then DC until just before my classes start back up on my birthday. That was very thoughtful of you, Mary Baldwin College, but just because something is Shakespeare related doesn't mean it makes a great gift for me =P

Here's the big question: any of you wild and crazy kids doing anything for New Years? Not counting romantical evenlings with your SO. I don't need to hear about that. I mean things I can invite myself to. Although I guess I could invite myself on the date, but that's not quite the same thing. But I promise I'll dress up nice. Anyways. I don't have a set plan or time-frame for making the NY-->DC switch, and I figured that finding out about any group events would be a good first step to making a decision.

***
I haven't really written that much about going to school here. I'm doing very well at the classes. For the first time, I've had the thought that procrastinating on an assignment might actually have hurt the quality of the work - this may cause changes in my work habits in the future. Maybe not. I really enjoy the program as a whole. I'm glad I went here instead of going for a PhD somewhere. That may cause issues down the line when I need to get a job, and make generally teaching Lit. at the college level a lot more difficult, but I'm actually working with the texts at a practical level that I wouldn't even be thinking about at a doctoral program. Becca sent me a paper the other day that made me miss literary theory, but theory doesn't lead to people liking performances of Shakespeare. Sad but true. Or at least, it doesn't operate on the same level as, "See these lines here? I think they're delivered to the audience. Here's why. And here's what that does for the rest of the scene and the rest of the play." Sometimes I feel a little silly when I realize how basic some of the stuff that really impresses me is for the students with acting backgrounds, but then I watch some of them try to deal with the text in a more standard literature type way, and the need for all the cross-training becomes pretty clear. I'm never going to be an actor, but I think the program is correct to make everyone take Acting I. I feel a little bad for some of the students who are here just because it's a random MFA program. Not because they're losing out on Teh Wondar of Teh Shaxper, but because a lot of what happens must be a waste of time for them. Especially for actors who aren't planning on going primarily into Shakespearean work. Must be frustrating.

I won't be here to see them, but there are only two more performances of Antony and Cleopatra this season, and then it's gone for however many years. I can't even begin to describe what a loss this seems to me. Ayla probably understands. David Bevington (whose name graces a major edition of Shakespeare's works) was overheard at the Blackfriars Conference saying it was probably the best A+C he's seen. It's weird to think that there are wrong and right ways to put on a play (instead of just better and worse), but they do everything so very right. Where it's sad, where it's funny, where the improbable moments are when the play feels real even though you've been backstage and you know the actors and remember the lines. When I saw it this weekend, I wound up in the center balcony while Cleopatra and her attendants hoisted the dying Antony up into the monument. Iras backed into me when Antony died. As an audience member, you don't get any closer than that.

***
I'm dum, I keep editing this post because I love the ASC. Here's a big article about how the whole thing started and where it's going. I think I may actually be done this time.

Once upon a time, you made me hate me. But there's no "you" around anymore. So my only assumption can be that I make me hate myself.

And I do.

Go see Enchanted right now if you haven't. Actually, if you already have, go see it again. Aside from a few minor quibbles (nobody in New York would ever recognize a chipmunk [I know one person calls it a rat, but that's not enough], too many suits in Times Square, etc.), it's pretty frickin' brilliant. It's one of those movies that reminds you how Walt Disney got to be where they are. They do just about everything right. And they managed to poke fun at themselves just enough for it to be noticeable, but not hard enough to break anything. You see some of the twists coming from miles away, and it really doesn't matter. It's that good.

It made me miss NYC, though. There's a choreographed song and dance number in Central Park, and when someone I was with said, "Oh yeah, because that happens all the time," I was like, "Well, aside from the group choreography, I wouldn't be shocked to run into that." But then I thought, "Wait, why are there no rollerskaters by the bandstand? And when did they fix that fountain?" Anyways.

There was one point where they had a skyline shot of some city, and I had no idea what they were trying to show us. And then I recognized the Empire State Building, and realized that it was our skyline. I don't know if I'll ever get used to that.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Rocky Horror = Success. We packed the theater, and had to turn away enough people to do it again.