spring is like a perhaps

This past week, I began teaching "Henry V" to my students, which beside being my first introduction to teaching college freshman, it's been my students' first real introduction to Shakespeare. I'll be teaching the seminar for the next three weeks and I'm incredibly exciting.

It's taken me a while to get what Dr. Collins calls "my sea legs," but this morning I was really feeling it and I think the students were too. Teaching "Henry V" has gotten me wildly excited about my future and I can't wait to graduate and start teaching full time in my own classroom.

I showed them the "I do, I will" scene from 1 Henry 4 and we talked about the ways in which Henry still has some Hal in him. At times, I found myself almost jumping up and down when talking about my favorite moments in the script. Thank god my enthusiasm was met with a fair amount of interest from students! (Whether that interest was the kind of interest one shows when watching a car wreck or not is indeterminable at this time.)




(We started watching the first one around 3 minutes in, and ended with the second one's "I do, I will." I LOVE the way that this scene is handled--actually, I love the whole interpretation of the play, and especially the actor who plays Falstaff. Hal is a fantastic actor too, although I think he's a little old in my opinion. Oh! And those last moments, when it becomes clear that both Hal and Falstaff know what the future really holds...SO GOOD)

This weekend, I'm going with a bunch of friends to see The Shakespeare Theater Company's version of "Henry V." (Which I'll see again for free in April, along with my students). It's gotten great reviews and will be performed on a thrust--so I'm really excited. There's also a chance that I might get to pug-sit again this weekend, which means another day spent playing at the puppy park and another evening of looking longingly at pictures of pugs on the internet.