It's Monday! - September 14

Last week was tough: TONS of stuff to read for Lit class. Last week included excerpts from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales...in the original. *gasp, choke, heartattack* Then we had an excerpt of Ben Franklin's autobiography. Wow, was that guy arrogant! All very humorous, but sickly vain. Why do we admire him so much, exactly? (I will say this: Tom Wilkinson, who portrayed Franklin in HBO's John Adams miniseries, nailed it. I could hear Wilkinson's voice in my head as I read through the excerpt, and just giggled all the way through it. Fantastic actor.)

We also read an excerpt of Thomas Paine's Common Sense. Excellent stuff, though perhaps a bit vain. Still, America was founded on these ideas, so something must have been right about it.

Also managed to begin (and fall in love with) Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day, (though somewhere, somehow I've misplaced the book...I dunno where it is!). If I ever find it, I'm planning on working through the next chapter or so on this one; then grabbing the movie again at some point and having a Hopkins-love and crying fit at the utter bittersweetness that is this story.

Staring today, this week's got quite a bit set up for it too. First off, we're reading the original Declaration of Indepence for American Lit class, along with the alteratations that eventually became what is currently housed in Washington. (Apparently Jefferson didn't like some of the changes the Convention made; should be an interesting discussion in class.) Then I have Langland's "Piers Plowman" tales for British Lit, and some Margery Kempe as well.

Next week we'll be tackling some Morte deArthur ("The Death of Arthur"), which I will probably both love and hate at the same time - love because it's Arthur of Camelot (who is my personal knight in shining armor), and hate because he dies. How awful to think upon.... (If there were a fan-page for Arthur and Gawain, I'd be the first on the list...)

Should also be trying to speed-read through Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for my f2f book club. I LOVE that story; haven't read it in a long time, so that will be very fun.

Have a good week, everyone!