I said I would maybe talk a bit about my Shakespeare tutor in this post so I'll do that now. Dr. Thorpe is easier to talk to than most professors/teachers I have ever had the pleasure of working with. Early on, we had a discussion about my extreme distaste for academic writing. Or, what I thought academic writing was.
Dr. Thorpe helped me delve into the real reasons I dislike writing papers and ways to remedy them. His requirements for his students' papers are not about the number of words or pages or secondary sources. Rather, he looks for us to explore ideas we find interesting. Every week, he lets me pick which play I wish to read, and a few days later I either let him know what I want to write about or ask him for a random question. By the third week, he was complimenting how much my writing had improved since I started using my strengths instead of following the typical American standards.
We've also had conversations about Forrest Gump, the American opinion of Brits and vice versa, my experiences in Paris and Belgium, his experiences in Liverpool and Stratford, among other things. I ended up picking him to advise me on my seminar paper. My last tutorial with Dr. Thorpe is on Monday, but I look forward to working with him some over the rest of this semester.
Anyway, since I'm not about ask anyone to suffer through an entire paper on the puzzling nature of Shakespeare's sonnets, here is the ballad I wrote for my final meeting with Dr. Winn this past week in its unedited form. Happy Saturday/Sunday.
Adventures in Misplaced
Trust
Little old
Harry was a lively man,
Always ready
to see.
But his
buddy Jed was a tad unstable
So Harry
offered a key.
Harry made a
deal one day to Jed,
“I’ll do
anything for no fee.”
He promised
he’d do whatever Jed wished
As long as
Harry was free.
Time arrived
too soon for Harry’s tastes
That Jed
came on a spree.
He knocked
that day on Harry’s red door
And little
old Harry was free.
“I’ve killed
a man,” Jed said to him,
“I need you
to help me.”
And Harry
became the best gravedigger
That little
old Harry could be.
When the
cruiser pulled up, Jed disappeared;
Didn’t give
the cops his plea.
They said
someone would have to pay the price,
And little
old Harry said, “Me.”
He was
loaded up and processed quick.
Not even time
for tea.
He served
his sentence, twenty years in a cell,
But then
little old Harry was free.
A month or
two later, Harry found Jed,
Intending to
change Jed’s plea.
But Harry, after
spotting Jed’s uniform,
Let his good friend be.
