Back once more, “onto the breach dear friends!” to my minimester Shakespeare class — no, scratch that, the final. Okay, I looked over what the Prof said to expect on the final. Identifications, quotations, so on and so forth. Instead, the entire final consisted of only identifications, and most of these on information external to the plays themselves. In other words, I spent half my time studying the wrong stuff, which, as you might imagine, was very frustrating to realize as I looked down the test.
I am not, however, particularly worried. Our take-home quizzes were worth 50% of our grade, and I earned an 87/100 on them. He is dropping our lowest grade and doubling our highest on them, so my grades will reflect a 90/100. This means, before the final, my class grade is already 45/100. By my calculations, even if I score as low as a 60 on the final, I’ll still walk away with a C. However, I don’t think I’ll do that poorly on the final — and would be grossly disappointed in myself if I did, especially since I paid $900 out of pocket for the class — and my mood is encouraged by other students in the class who’ve had the Prof in regular semester classes and have stated that he’s grading very easy, as if in some perhaps misplaced empathy for those of us cramming a 400-level course into three weeks.
Speaking of cramming: I got to Towson today a little after 1pm. I met up with another “non traditional undergrad” (that means “old”) for a study session. We set up on Cook Library’s 4th floor — in the floor’s lobby — and were going over Tillyard’s book on Victorian societies when she suddenly went silent and froze. I adjusted my sight to see our Prof standing at the door to the stairs. He chuckled, “I like seeing this!” and walked back into the stacks. My study-partner and I cracked up as soon as he was out of ear-shot, but, I’ll tell ya’ what: brownie points? I think so!
What a fitting way to wrap up a post wrapping up my Shakespeare minimester course than a clip from Star Trek: The Next Generation’s third season? The clip is a bit longer than I’d like, but Data immerses himself in the role of King Harry, then discusses the king’s motivations with Captain Picard. Then the Romulans show up and there’s some shooting.