Last wednesday, I went to the free dress rehearsal to see the play “Desire Under the Elms.” The play was set in the 1800s during the time of the gold rush. Ephriam, is a farmer owner who has three sons; his youngest Eban cares most passionately about the farm because of his most recently deceased mother. Eban feels the need to keep up the farm in her memory. His two older brothers don’t care about the farm and go to California to find gold. While the two oldest brothers away, Ephriam brings home a new young wife, who Eban despises. At first, the wife is intent on securing the future ownership of the farm, but ends up falling in love with Eban. She was able to make Ephriam promise her the farm if she could produce a son for him. In a tangled love affair, she becomes pregnant with Eban’s son and plans to pass it out as Ephriam’s baby in order to ensure her inheritance, but eventually her conscience and love for Eban takes over and she confesses. It is not necessarily a happy ending because she ends up killing the baby, but in a way she ends up with her true love. This was a very depressing play and its use of dialect made it confusing at times. I felt the acting was well done and the characters convincing. I am glad to say I saw this play and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys tragedy and romance novels. The end.

enough said.

I finally figured out my class schedule for next semester, and thank goodness that’s over; I was going insane. In the craziness of the past month, I had almost forgotten that next week will be the anniversary of the death of one of my friends Danielle. Now, I feel guilty for almost forgetting, but hopefully I will still be able to go to her grave and my my piece. She died as a sophmore in highschool, and it was a tragic time for everyone who knew her. She was beautiful, smart and full of potential. Sometimes I feel sad that she wasn’t able to experience college, but then other days i think that she has more peace where she is now than most college kids have their entire time as students. Her birthday would have been next month, and she would have been 20. I plan on bringing some cupcakes and balloons to the cemetery, which will probably be more for me than her, but it doesn’t really matter.

Danielle was always into fashion, and I think it’s fitting that her tombstone is big, jet black, and intricately carved–setting it apart from the other gray or washed out headstones in the small graveyard. She would have liked knowing that she stood out.

“Everyday you’re closer to dead.” My friend Mark likes to remind me from time to time that instead of “living” we’re expiring. I know it’s true, and some days I can feel it more than others. Since beginning college, I have heard more people proclaim their imminent death than anywhere else. How often am I stressed over an assignment, and say “I’m going to kill myself if i have to look at this anymore…” I think it’s a shame when that is one of the most frequent sentences coming out of my mouth. Maybe I’m not happy with my life, or maybe I just exaggerate, or maybe I need to take that Stress&Anxiety class.

Unless you count Wednesdays, because there’s still half of the week to go, or Sundays because your weekend is over and that means the next day is going to be a Monday.