This evening (er, well, an hour and a half ago) Nathan mentioned what a doom taking the GRE will be for him. I suddenly realised that it was a test about which I knew nothing. At that moment sleep would have to wait.
Now, after an hour and a half of research, I realise that my whole life has been geared towards the test that has been most recently added to the GRE: the Analytical Writing Section. While I risk sounding like a hopeless intellectual, I tingled as I read the descriptions. At last, a chance to put to use the essays I have written since people first began to make assertions I had no powers to contest verbally.
Nathan finds his newest bane and I get all excited: we're nowhere near having to think about signing up. I think it's time I formally admit that we are not educationally compatible in the least.
In all other ways, we're pretty much back on track again. Wedding discussions have been left alone long enough that we can talk about them again. Along that line of conversation, we have found a place to have the thing. We just have to find the money- 400-something ten days after the reservation is made. We're both excited we'll make rent and truck payments this month, 400-something is not in the picture.
This weekend we're introducing Brandy the Maid of Honour to Todd the Best Man. Does this sound odd to anyone else? I feel like they ought to know each other, and it works out that we've got plans with both of them Saturday so, hey, why don't we introduce them? But, somehow, it seems like we're fixing them up.
Todd the BM just gets to fix Nathan's brother's computer. It has a virus that I think could be taken care of by downloading one little programme- poor Todd the BM shouldn't have to take care of it. But I guess since "Todd knows computers" (and is making buttloads of money for knowing them), I won't be the one to pull the plug on professional free tech support.
Brandy the MOH, however, has a much more difficult job. Poor girl gets to take me dress shopping. Outside of theatricals, the last time I was in a dress I was 12. If skirts are to be counted, I only started wearing those as of this last year- last time before that I was 14.
Not to say I'm a tomboy, but dresses and I have never gotten along. As early as Kindergarten, my teacher requested my parents not send me in dresses because I wouldn't do anything when I wore them. It is impossible to be under the age of eight and wear a dress that does not somehow broadcast your ass to the neighbourhood. Acutely aware of this as the other girls in class did not seem to be, coupled with the desire not to end up dirty (something I had heard about to many times in my five years), I wouldn't play anything or sit down on anything. Anyone who has ever been in Kindergarten knows that this is just about all that goes on there. To say my experiences with dresses went downhill from there would not be an understatement.
So, imagine the problems I will face this weekend when I try to explain that I would like something in which I will not flash some of my more intimate bits to the public at large (a desire still not quite grasped by the other girls). Add to this my deep desire to find an article of clothing about whose welfare I will not fear for simply by breathing hard, never mind walking or eating. On top of this, remember the difficulties I have mentioned before this (styles, sleeves, fabrics). Does this sound like a picnic? It most certainly does not. Yet, my dear friend, who understands all of this, has agreed to go with me on this adventure. I find that quite admirable.
I've begun working on a children's play. It's based on Ashanti mythology and folktales, mostly the Ananci the Spider stories. I asked the Director from Charlie whether she would be interested in reading it, just to tell me whether it was any good or whether it was of the trite talking animals variety. She found out what it was about and practically volunteered to produce it, either next summer or as a reading. So, I've got that to finish by... I think I told her I'd have it done sometime in August.
Inherited a shirt from the Box Office. We've been cleaning out and one of the piles of stuff to throw out today was the Lost and Found that's been more lost than found for about a year or two. The shirt says "Mephisto" on the front with a sort of devilish looking creature and a quote in German on the back. At first glance I figured it was probably some German band with a distasteful lyric on the back (why else would an American wear a shirt with foreign words on it?) and once I found out what it meant I could wear it to every place but my German class next year.
Upon looking at it more closely, it's actually quite appropriate to be found in a theatre Box Office lost and found. The quote is Mephistopheles, from Goethe's Faust. Translated literally it says, "I am one part from that one strength, that always the bad will and always the good creates." I can't find a really good English equivilent that expresses it quite as well as the German does, somehow. The German makes a better statement even than the literal translation does.
The English I find sounds more like an apology than a statement: "I'm one of that power who always wills bad but always creates good" and "A part of the power that always wills what's evil, that always does what's good". That sounds like an apology. I think it takes too many words to say it in English, and takes away the gut feeling I get when I read it in German: that he's sort of breezily proud of what happens. The best I can come up with is, "I am of that power which wills evil and creates good." However, it seems that no one has translated those lines that way before, at least not that made it into a Google search.
So, the translation remains open for debate. I haven't read Marlowe's play, or Goethe's book, so maybe he is a wishy-washy devil, but that doesn't seem so much fun.
To review (as they say at the end of the news): GRE tests look like oodles of fun; dress shopping will get a follow up including all the horrid details; I'm writing a play; free t-shirts can be educational, and I spend far too much time researching things.