Textbooks

I should be reading my epic textbook. I know the quarter system moves fast but this is just ridiculous.

Read a chapter a week. Okay, sounds reasonable. Then you look at the size of the chapter. The book is 500 something pages and there are THREE chapters total. That breaks down to roughly 166 pages a chapter. Okay, not so bad if you have a whole week to read it. Then you look at the subject matter. This is no usual Dick and Jane Go To The Theatre type textbook. Oh no, it is about Dialogic Drama in Athens, The aesthetics of noh, Kathakali dance.
I don't even know half of those words and I have to read and understand all of it for discussion in class and in section with the TA. I am finally regretting not taking the Artaud class, mostly because it is centered on one idea. I can grasp one concept well, I can familiarize myself with several, I can only pretend to understand multiple in a week's time. And retain them enough to discuss or take a quiz, that's pushing it. Oh and then adding on top of all that with an unrelated lecture. Suicide.
So here I am, re-reading Chapter 2 and writing down notes that make no sense at all. I like to think I'm fairly intelligent but I also have 2 other classes, a show or two I'm working on and a part time job. Oh, not to mention the petty fight I've been having with my boyfriend all week, the six scripts in my backpack waiting to be read, my plans to go out of town next weekend the four Grad school applications I'm working on and the fact that I feel homesick on a daily basis. I know teachers have lives too but how long did it take them to read that textbook? Did you even read it all? Don't ever expect me to read it in anything less than half the time it took you. If you read it in 3 months, I should read it in 1 and a half. Makes sense? The actual assignment: 3 weeks? Come on!
It's an amazing book, I love the content, I am excited to be learning about how theatre is defined outside of western civilization but please remember I am NOT a robot, I'm an undergraduate.