A Curious Girl: Infected minds to their diaries will discharge their secrets

Tonight has been difficult, as Mum keeps going hysterical everywhere over the new phone (don't ask me why we needed one, I don't know. I don't even want a mobile phone, I'm that techonogically behind. I only wanted a quicker computer so the internet would be faster.)

Oh well. Let's talk about something more interesting.

Hmm. Sara was saying something about Miss Piggy suffering from penis envy this morning, and I said that was silly as I don't think frogs even have them. And Nicky said, "Why not? Dogs have them, cats have them, birds have them, fleas have them..."
"Even educated bees have them," Sara put in.
"Let's have them," Nicky said, now almost singing. Fortunately she decided not to finish her little song...

And I don't think fleas have them. At least, not in the way human males do. I don't think frogs do, either. I think they just...

No, I will stop there. This diary is really going downhill when I start discussing the mating habits of common amphibians.

"You nearly were a boy. You came out, and we said, 'It's a boy!' But they said you hadn't a winkle. And I said, 'Ah, 'tis indeed a holy miracle. A boy without a winkle.' And then they pointed out that a boy without a winkle was a girl."

I wish I could talk about intimate body parts as easily as that :-)

I had an idea for psychology coursework at last. Chris T. said we could do something using school children at Thamesview, and she also mentioned children's books and how the genders are portrayed in these books. (She also mentioned the Peter and Jane Books. Oh please. This is Peter. This is Jane. I like Peter and I like Jane. Jane has a dog. The dog's name is Spot. Peter throws a stick. Spot catches it. "What a clever dog," says Jane... you get the idea; although I made some of this up, it's pretty close to the truth) I wonder if they have books like those for ethnic minorities, where the kids aren't white and middle-class. Anyway, I'm going to combine these two ideas. I will say no more, except that I've thought up a ridiculous amount of detail so far.

Oh, and I got an A in English Lit. today. Apparently I do 'good compression'. Maybe this is why I found it so hard to write the 'Why Macbeth murdered Duncan' essay. I mean, it is blatantly obvious, and not worth an essay. It would go something like this.

Macbeth murdered Duncan to become king, that much is plain. He was persuaded to do this by the witches, who prophesied that he would be "king hereafter." We see he is thinking about killing Duncan when later he mentions "murder" in an obscure passage about the future. After this, he write to his wife, who reveals to us his ambitious nature "without the illness should attend't." She believes he should kill Duncan - this we see by her behaviour when she calls upon the "murdering ministers" to "unsex" her. Sheplays on his pride, telling him "to alter favour ever is to fear." Already ambitious and persuaded by the witches, he agrees with his wife and kills Duncan.

Tada! (And done without the help of the text) Anyone doing Macbeth, if you are given the above question, just go on a bit more about "stars hide your fires" and go on off on a tangent about Macbeth's behaviour in the scene when his darling wife pushes him into it "Screw your courage to the sticking place / And we'll not fail". Witter on about all the evidence for his ambitious nature. However this might only work if you have the same teacher I have last year for GCSE.

I quite like Macbeth, as a play. Or maybe I just like the poetry. It is amazingly brilliant and detracts wonderfully from the fact that the whole plot is a libellous work of total fiction, invented partly by a Scottish historian who wanted to keep on the right side of the current monarch, and by Shakespeare. The stuff about Duncan being a good king is crap, as he invaded England, and then got killed in the Scottish civil war. He was in battle, not in bed, when Macbeth's army (not even him) killed him. And he wouldn't have resembled Lady Macbeth's father as he slept, because he was 27 and younger than Macbeth. Macbeth was not evil and unchristian; he even made a pilgrimage to Rome. In 1057, seventeen relatively peaceful years after ascending to the throne and four years after the battle at Dunsinane with Siward where his head was apparently chopped off by Macduff, Macbeth was killed at the Battle of Lumphanan by Malcolm. Then Malcolm revived the war with England. Shakespeare was English, and his audience was the Scottish English King, James VI of Scotland, James I of England. And that's the truth. Shocking, isn't it? :-) Still, it is a most excellent play, although the scene where Malcolm convinces Macduff he is evil just to test him is seriously contrived. It's a pity, as the rest of the play is so good. As Frank McCourt said (I'm in the mood for quotations) in Angela's Ashes, "Saying Shakespeare is like having jewels in your mouth."

I don't like Antony and Cleopatra as much. Shakey must have been on an off-day because much of that is truly awful. "My salad days..." was terrible. I quite like the characters, though, and he does make up for some of the awful lines later on. (I do a bit of quoting from one of the best speeches here)

I meant to talk about more deep things, but as escapism goes, Shakespeare is pretty good. It's a pity we have to study it in school really. Or should I say, it's a pity studying kills it. Or maims it for life. Or something. Midsummer Night's Dream is funny.

Ah well. Chemistry was OK, there was no CU as there was only Chris and her sibings, me and Mrs. C, so we just went home, as it gets dark early and we just weren't feeling too enthusiastic, I guess. Got in and Stephen decided to play "My Jesus, My Saviour" so loudly my ears were throbbing for ten minutes after. At lunch, Nicky and I went through some Esperanto, which was cool.

I'm now tired, and I was going to write about why I need more sleep, but I think I'll just stop and go get some.

"Methought I heard a voice cry 'Sleep no more!'
Macbeth does murder sleep."

Random word for today:

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