As some of you may already know, Maria and I have grown to love the works of William Shakespeare on the stage, and we have participated in numerous Shakespearean productions in California, North Carolina and Virginia. Back home in Elk Grove, California, we joined the Shakespeare Oxford Society, dedicated to finding the true author of the works, and began our own research into the question of the authorship.
Ever since 1995, we have wondered why no alleged institution of higher learning has ever formulated a graduate-level program dedicated to a scholarly, reasoned, research-based approach to this grand 'mystery of history'. We love Shakespeare's works, but cannot match the work with the glover's son from Stratford, who evidently knew court etiquette, law, falconry, Italy and France, and translated numerous works from other languages to use in his plays before they were translated into English, among other things.
Well, Brunell University in west London has finally acquired the guts to begin such a program, and I am going to start my work there as a graduate student in September 2011. After two courses per semester, I will be done with my coursework on March 30, 2012, and will come home to write my final papers and my thesis and we go back to work at Lakeland Theatre Company.
Of course, Maria is going too, and we are now saving up as much money as we can to be able to eat while we are there! I can, as a student, get a part-time job up to 20 hours a week, and Maria will be applying for a work permit, but we don't know how that process will turn out, so she will keep busy with her genealogy work for her private clients (what better place to do that research?) and we'll get by, we hope.
We will keep the house here and are looking into several possible ways of not having to pay two house payments at the same time. Whether that involves a house-swap or renting the house here in Warrenton, we don't know yet, but we'll figure it out before we go in September.
We are looking to sell a number of our pieces of art and our museum quality baby grand piano so that we can live comfortably over the next several months: if you know of anybody who may be interested, please let us know ASAP! In the meantime, I have applied for scholarships, etc., and am waiting to hear from them, but have a loan from Sallie Mae in reserve that we will probably have to use also. If you hear of anybody giving scholarships to old white guys, please let me know!
We'll probably have a ride-it-to hell rummage sale in August, but in the meantime keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we begin a new adventure in our lives together
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