My apartment wasn't small until I put 10 people into it.

My family came to visit, so of course Mike and I avoided all responsibility and played with them all weekend. At least I got the laundry done...
But then we went and played laser tag, Mike, James, Parker, and Dad versus me, Hannah, Sarah, and Emma. The girls were winning for MOST of the game until all the boys ganged up on ME, and we lost by four points. Not that much. 120 to 124. But Hannah was the MVP of the game, so basically the girls won anyways...
But I've discovered that my husband is scary in a dark game of laser tag . . .
And then we went to the Mount Timpanogos Temple with my parents, Jeff and Sarah, and Karena and Jon (aunts and uncles). I'd never been to that one before, and Mike and I figured out that in one of the rooms there, we could fit 16 of our apartment. Yeah, we live in a small apartment. It was way fun, though, especially when we got to go out to dinner with the grown-ups afterward! I've never been a grown-up before! I've always babysat! It was so cool!
So then we slept for a billion years on sunday because they wore us out. And now we're back at school...
Oh well.

Super Fabulous Weekend!...until it snowed.

Here's what last weekend was like.

Friday was THE MOST AWESOME DAY. Here's why (in chronological order because I'm a little bit crazy.)

1. I had a presentation for my Shakespeare class. I know, I know, that doesn't sound like something one ought to rejoice over, but let me explain. Dr. Siegfried had warned us that we would all be subject to an oral presentation on our own through the course of the semester, and that it ought to be well-put-together. But she forgot to tell us (me and Wayne, the other student who had a presentation) on Wednesday, so she emailed us. Unfortunately, Wednesday evenings and Thursday mornings are when I am very busy. Therefore, (Alas! Alack-a-day!) I didn't get her email until I got home from school on Thursday afternoon. Imagine my dismay and utter despair at finding, in my inbox, an email subjecting me to one of the most nerve-wracking things that can be hurled onto an ambitious student's shoulders. Not a very promising beginnign to a story, is it?

Fortunately for my class, I am a GENIUS. (Hence the title of this blog...and courtesy of my former roommate). Thus, I spent Thursday night and Friday morning before class (which is at 9 am) frantically putting together a presentation on (who would have thought?) Prospero in The Tempest and the "Myth of Genius." And it went well!! HOORAH! Yeah, I was pretty elated when she told me I had done a good job. I was rather nervous for my presentation to NOT sound like I had done it that morning.

2. After my overwhelmingly successful class presentation (honestly, it wasn't that huge--I just needed something good that day :) I went over to Dr. Siedfried's office to pick up my midterm, which we had turned in the week before. And...(drumroll please)...I GOT A 91!!! HUZZAH! Yeah, that was also a pretty exultant moment. :)

3. Then Michael took me out to lunch. It was so fun! I love it when I get to spend time with him and we're not worrying about homework or anything like that. It was friday, and we just ate and tried to do the crossword puzzle (it was Friday, hence the "tried" and not "did"). It was so relaxing!

4. Monsieur Worthington brought food to French after work. He had warned us that we would be practicing our vocabulary for chapters 10, 11, and 12 (all about food :) and then he pulled out a baguette, Brie, and Boursin (which is my most favorite cheese ever! It's creamy and more like a spread, and it's made with garlic and other deliciousness!). And others in my class brought maple-pumpkin cookies (weird, but tasty) and reese peanut butter cups (I know, so french :). So instead of doing anything serious, we ate food. C'etait incroyable!

5. That night, I had GIRLS NIGHT with the HEATHEN!!! We hadn't talked in ages! So we went out for dinner to Zupa's (she'd never been there before) and then we went to her apartment and talked and watched Penelope and talked some more until 1 am! It was wonderful! Seriously. I feel so refreshed. And now Michael says I need to have girls time more often because I come back happier. :)

Saturday was also pretty awesome. First Michael had to take a test, so after we woke up (late) I took him to school, then came back and started washing everything (clothes, sheets, towels, floors, etc.) until he came home, when I got into normal clothes (as opposed to housework grubbies) and he took me to see Macbeth. Okay, so it wasn't really Macbeth. Actually, I kind of felt personally offended.

So the version BYU did was supposed to be Macbeth but set in Mezoamerica, with these sort-of-Nephites or something, and Macbeth's decay into corruption was supposed to be related to secret combinations and the influences of the devil. So they were all in big feathery costumes and had tattoos, and they changed all the names to Nephite names (Macbeth=Ma'bett, Macduff=Ma'doc, and Macduff's son was Zoram. Seriously.) I guess it could have been a good idea, but they were all BYU-ites, who had been taught to act at BYU. Which means they can't do Macbeth. I have a theory.

BYU is very good at music, dance, and basically everything else on campus. But every play I've been to has been deplorable! They're all WAY TOO MORMON! BYU actors have spent their lives being mormons, and then they go to the stage and try to make swearing sound natural and fit comfortably into the roles of thieves, murderers, drinkers, etc., but it's WAY too obvious that they're acting. Thus, "Ma'bett" was a pansy who didn't actually understand the lines he was screaming at the audience. (Mike noticed that the only way they knew how to act with their voices was by getting louder.) If you want to make Shakespeare work for modern audiences, you need to really thoroughly understand what it is he's saying, so you can make it very clear to your audience. You can't just spit out your lines and THEN die. You have to die and make it sound right.

I don't mean to sound callous, but that's what we thought. 

Anyways...

After we got back from the play, we scoured the house. I'm being serious. Bathrooms, floors, kitchen sinks, and I even put all the flour buckets away in the pantry. My counter doesn't look cluttered anymore! It's a miracle!

Then we went to the temple. I don't even need to explain to you how amazing that was. I love the temple. But after we finished, we were leaving (we went to the last session, so it was about 10 at night) and there was an old woman there who asked us if we had driven. We had (it was cold!) so she asked for a ride. Of course we agreed, so we drove her way out to her apartment, which was across University Parkway from UVU! Imagine if we hadn't been there to help her! She was the funniest old lady. Mike's dad says the best way to get along with an old person is to talk about their infirmities. Apparently, that advice is dead on. She talked about her glaucoma, her brothers' deafness, etc. And apparently, she's got almost every major religion represented in her immediate family. Her parents were congregational, her two brothers were catholic, I think she had another sibling that was Lutheran, etc. Her name was Judy, and when we told her our last name was Morgan, she told us how she loved horses, and that her mother had given her a book about a Morgan horse. It was great!

When we got home (I don't know what possessed me...) I made a cake. Okay, so I had put it in the oven before we left, and let it cool while we were gone. But I decorated it. It's a yellow cake with two layers, with raspberry yumminess in between, with white frosting and chocolate decor. It's really pretty. And tasty, too. 

And then sunday was just relaxing, and I made the Amish friendship bread that had been stewing on my counter, and then we went to Draper Temple dedication. Can I just say how much I love President Monson? And seeing the film of the insides of the temple makes a lot more sense now that I've been through a temple. :)

And then it started being cold this week. I'm totally bummed. What happened to last friday being the first day of spring? Seriously!

SIDNEY RIGDON IS OVER!!!!

I am no longer transcribing that stuff. He died July 14, 1876 of paralysis, and I don't want to sound callus, but I was getting seriously tired of it.
So now I'm learning how to be a secretary! And there's nothing to do because Ruth isn't here...so I just thought I'd get that off my chest :)

Political SocioEconomics in The Merchant of Venice, or, I DRESSED UP LIKE A MAN!

Yes, it is as crazy as it sounds. I wish I had pictures. This morning in my Shakespeare class, my research group (there are four of us) did an interpretative performance of the courtroom scene in The Merchant of Venice and then led the discussion for the rest of the class period. It was AWESOME! I got to be Portia, which if you know the play means I got to play the most awesome feminist character in all of literature! She's so cool! 

For those of you who don't know the play (most people know Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, but not so much Merchant of Venice) the basic idea is that Bassanio (A Nobleman) borrows money from his buddy Antonio (The Merchant) who has to borrow it from Shylock (The Jew).  B and A aren't too worried about it, but Shylock very slyly gets Antonio to agree to a loan which, if it is not repaid with interest on time, requires a pound of Antonio's flesh. I know, gruesome. But Shylock had been kicked and spit on for being a Jew just one too many times, I guess. 

Meanwhile, Bassanio uses this money to go woo Portia, winning her hand through a test with three caskets which her father set up before he died. She had been mistress of her own estate and wealth, but gave it all (supposedly) to Bassanio when she married him. Bassanio, however, then gets a letter saying that Antonio's ships all crashed, so he wasn't able to pay Shylock back, and Portia sends her husband off to try to defent his friend's life, saying she'll wait for him. Portia, then, however, dresses up as Balthazar, a young lawyer, and meets him in Venice at the court. 

The courtroom scene is kind of awesome because all the men are on the edge of their emotions, but then Portia [as Balthazar] at first expounds the idea of Christian mercy, but when Shylock won't budge, she claims that it is impossible for Shylock to get his due without killing Antonio, which is not in the contract. Even worse, however, is when Shylock gives up and is ready to stomp off in a huff, and Portia finds an even more obscure Elizabethan anti-Semitic law saying that if an alien even conspire agaisnt the life of a citizen (Jews were not citizens to Anglican England, even though this was set in Venice) then his life and all his goods were forfeit, half to the victim, half to the state. They give Shylock his life, but then make him promise to be a Christian and give all his goods to his daughter, who has run off with a Christian. It's pretty brutal. 

What I love is that Portia mostly keeps to her role as wife and daughter, obeying her father's wishes even though technically she could do whatever she wanted, and is a good wife to Bassanio, but she is assertive--she holds her own when he tries to defend the fact that he doesn't have his wedding ring (he has given it to "Balthazar" for payment) and defends her relationship to her husband as more important than his relationship with Antonio. She saves the day and TOTALLY wears the pants. She is just AWESOME! And I got to BE her!

For the discussion, we talked about how script and performance are related to scripture versus practice for both the Jews and the Christians, and how our interpretation emphasized that both sides only were true to their "beliefs" when it worked to their advantage. It was fun!

Want to know what's even better? We got a perfect score on our presentation! HOORAY!

I think I'm having a good day. :)

Oh, and 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!

So how did it get to be March already?

Time is going by WAY too fast. We're constantly so busy, it's like, there's not even time to do the important things. I'm ready for school to be over. Too bad we're grown-ups who have to be responsible and do things all the time...
So we went to my parents' house in Boise this last weekend for James' baptism, and it was AWESOME! We totally needed a break. Like crazy. So we totally just chilled and had a blast with my family. I loved it :) My family is AWESOME.
Unfortunately, Sammy was having a really bad cold. And being three years old, he's not exactly the most anxious about personal sanitation and germ-spreading. And he and Mike are best friends.
So I had to make Mike stay home today because last night he had a fever of 101 and can't get his nose to stop running, and thus gets nose bleeds too. He's already doing a little better (at least he was before I had to go to work this morning...) but let me tell you, last night when we were falling asleep and he was all freezing and wanted to cuddle me but he was burning up...slightly toasty for me, I tell you!!! :)