Hamlet, Act III Scene iii Line 87

she’s so full of love for her students. Her methods are flawed and she can be very intense at times, but she genuinely cares about the kids she works with. She started teaching to make a difference, and she still wants to make that difference in kids’ lives.

“Well, I was rather lucky, you know. I grew up in Arcadia Oaks, which is just an hour drive from Hollywood. Oh, I was performing and playacting from the moment I could walk, with musicals and playacting and all sorts of things. But where I really got my start was in 1962, and I was finally old enough to be in the enactment of the Megillah. I was only an extra of course, just one of the girls in pretty dresses trying to impress king Ahasherus, but everyone has to get their start somewhere, right? And ever since then, I was infatuated. Enamored. In. Love.” She poses, hands clapped over her heart.

“But don’t get me wrong, of course. Just because someone wasn’t born with a love for theatre doesn’t mean their passion is any less important. You want to be involved, my dear? Don’t wait -- create! You have the power to make a play come to life with just a backyard bedsheet and a few strategically placed lights, you, too, can make art.”

She nods thoughtfully. “You’re already off to a good start. An appreciation of theatre, whether available locally or otherwise, is far superior than thinking it can be replaced with sports.” Can her distaste be any more obvious? Probably not.

“Now, Professional recordings of both musicals and stage plays are all well and good, but you cannot dismiss the sheer magnificence of it all. One must embrace it fully, sitting in the darkness among hundreds or even thousands of strangers, watching these artists on stage become someone wholly separate from themselves. And if you cannot go to the theater, you must make theater.”

One has the feeling that she’s more than a little skilled in delivering monologues.

She very nearly loses her composure but instead simply shouts at him with wild gesticulations: “AND WHERE, pray tell, do you THINK you’re going to put it? The basketball team? Do you think we ought to let impressionable young children throw around balls instead of learning how to express themselves and empathize with experiences outside our own? As if they already don’t take things seriously. A lower budget will make these shows even more of a laughing stock, with cardboard sets, and —“

“Oh no I understand perfectly! Even I’m pleased to say Facebook is an awful website. There’s a few that have been and gone that I do miss but that will never be one of them even before they kept claiming copyright infringement on my own music samples,” he answers with a what can you do? expression.

“It’s like a trade site cross between ebay and a bit like what they do for turnips in Animal Crossing but a bit more moderation to make sure nobody cheats the system. It was quieter for a while but for some reason the Neopets resurge make everything more active again…”

Lenora understood most of those words individually. Web-site. Claims. Samples. Turnips...Animals? What was a Neopets? Never mind the fact that about ten years ago, everyone in her class was talking about Neopets, or that right now everyone was discussing a heterocrhomic cartoon cat with glasses and their five-star islands. She had more important things to worry about than those video games -- aside from Candy Crush, of course.

He really is trying not to smile at the “In my day” vibe but is polite enough to let the rant continue for it’s run, everyone has that phase over something.

“There are still swap meets, all online now of course, but they still exist! This might be a bit forward of me but I could pass on the details if you’d like?”

She’s already far too invested in how things were better back in the day to notice his amusement. “Oh, are there? They aren’t all on that face-book, are they? I can never get a handle on these social websites all the kids your age are interested in. You list things for this guy named Craig, and you have all these my-places, and none of it makes sense.”