The Daily News

1   One great thing about worrying is that you are perpetually in the same frame of mind.

2  Exhausted.

3  Yesterday this student came up to me and said, "Mr. Harrington, I heard you were uber stressed, so I made you a pie."

4  I looked up from all my woe and here was a cream pie. 

5  Uber.

6   I'm pretty sure she had a cache of cream pies, but it was still a nice thought.

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8   Besides, I technically have nothing to stress. We are in the midst of closing a deal on a new house in Sac, and setting our own place up for sale. 

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10  Outside of the fact I might be living in a cardboard box somewhere in all of this, I've nothing to stress. 

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12   I've been on a short fuse though. Not gonna lie.

13   Not EVEN gonna lie.

14   It doesn't help that our schedule at school for the past two weeks has been upside down, inside out, twisted, turned and put away wet.

15  At the end of the day yesterday I thought this: I am done with testing forever. No more. 

16  Unless I come back and do it as a retired substitute, which I would rather avoid. 

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18   Yesterday we sat in the middle of Midsummer, reading the scene I've read a bazillion times. It's the one where Lysander falls in love with Helena, and Hermia has a bad dream about it. 

19  At one point I heard the same dialogue I've heard over the years and then looked up at my students enjoying the story for the first time, and looked up at all the Renaissance masks from over the years. 

20  It looks as though they have tripled this year and that my classroom finally looks the way I want it. 

21  All's well. 

22  Got home and popped a fascinating DVD into this small player and learned about the massive tension that took place when Shakespeare was still working his first venue, which was the first theatre in England. It was called the Theatre. 

23  It talked of how the aristocracy closed the Theatre when the plague hit, and how Shakespeare's company took it apart, shipped it across the Thames and built the Globe. 

24   His Catholic side came out and there were moments of massive criticism and rebelliousness in his work, especially with Richard II. 

25   Cloak and dagger stuff, to be sure. It is from this documentary called In Search of Shakespeare with Michael Wood. 

26  It kept me so riveted that I missed last night's ball game. 

27  All of this is coming off the top of my head, since I didn't have time to review what I just watched and am still shaking my head in some disbelief. 

28   Since my house is toe up, it is all I can do to get this out there. 

29   Nothing bad, mind you, just impossible to report things as accurately as I would like.

30  I feel like I'm in a foxhole trying to get info out the masses. 

31   The fun thing is that our entire building is doing Shakespeare right now, so every teacher has something amazing to share. 

32   We're a bunch of giddy nerds. 

33   I love it, because it is just a fun time. I remember going into testing training last week and my friend turning to me and saying, "Good morrow, sir!" and my response being, "Is the day so young?"

34   Those are Romeo's first words. 

35    And as anyone knows I am quite the Romeo. 

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38   There's that kid again. 

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41   And that disbelieving dog. 

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43    I'm waiting for that Asian cannonballer.

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46   Quite a wait.

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51  Is Jessica Rabbit the Dark Lady of the Sonnets?

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54   Where IS that guy?

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59   Okay.

60   More to come.

61   Gottago.

62   See you again.

63   Peace.

~H~