I know that I get a bunch of traffic from high school students researching their Shakespeare homework.  Having been down this road before I know that if they think Shakespeare is hard, wait until the time comes to fill out those college applications.  Given the choice between memorizing Cymbeline, and filling out financial aid paperwork, I’ll take Cymbeline. The Scholarship Blog is one of many sites that hopes to help kids get into college by offering scholarship information, tips for essay writing, templates and other useful advice for making the application process as easy as possible.   Their blog is intriguing to me.  It appears to follow news in the scholarship and college admissions area.  For instance I see a story about academic dishonesty, affirmative action, and drop-out rates among Latino students.  My question is, who is the audience for this information?  High school students?  Not sure that they’re interested in such things.  The parents, maybe.  Educators, certainly.  But why would educators be following a blog that’s setup by a company offering scholarship tips?  What I do like about this site is that it really appears to be all about the information, and not about the quick buck.  Anybody who’s into web development and search engine optimization (SEO) these days can tell you that one of the big money items is in linking to college scholarship “deals”.  A friend of mine even runs a company that offers a directory of such links and he’s making a fortune.  But I had to go through this site and hunt around looking for affiliate links or other clues that they’re trying to drive you down paths that will make them money.  There are some Google AdSense ads, but they’re not annoying about it.  It’s actually a very nice site that’s heavily loaded with information.  Honestly, to the point of being pretty dry.  You really need to be interested in what you’re reading for this sort of stuff. The simple and sad fact is that college is insanely expensive and everybody knows it.  I’ve got 3 kids now and eventually they’re all going to be heading for college, I can only imagine what that’s going to cost me.  So when somebody comes along that looks like they’re offering legit, non-biased information and not simply trying to get me to click on the dancing monkey, I’ve got to put it in the “good stuff” folder.  Once you’re done with that paper on Romeo and Juliet, go bookmark it for this spring when you really need it.

I’ve never noticed this particular b log before, but Mad Madam Mim has just posted a metric boatload of Shakespeare links, documents and analysis.   Seems to be mostly Macbeth and Othello.  Have to keep an eye on that one.

Wow, it’s December already.  Got the shopping done?  For whatever gift giving holiday you celebrate? A favorite pasttime around the net is to produce as many “year end” lists as possible.  To the point of insanity, or at least nausea.  I want to play too. What sort of year end list can we make up?  Best Shakespeare movies?  Best Shakespeare books?  I love the idea of just doing “Best Plays”, since it shouldn’t be based on the year-end.  Jasper Fforde does a wonderful series of books (his Thursday Next series) where one of the storylines involves the book awards, and how for example Heathcliffe would always have to campaign for “Best Troubled Romantic Lead, Male” every year, even though his book was written…well, a long time ago.  Looking for ideas.  Or, maybe I’m just bored.

UPDATED December 2010 – Check out the latest Guide to Gifts for Shakespeare Geeks!
 

If you’re interested in Shakespeare adaptations on film, I have for you Duncan’s Shakespeare, a blog which focuses on exactly that.  He (they?) seem to be doing mostly modern adaptations, but maybe they’ll work backwards.  The blog was last updated in late October, so I’m hoping they keep it active.