I feel like a lot of my favorite web series have wrapped up or are on hiatus... But! I have at least one mainstay to see me through right now and that is:  From Mansfield with Love.  I mentioned it briefly here, but now I can do one better.  The creators just released their own trailer:

I hope this hooks you and that, if it does, you'll share your thoughts below :)

Currently watching...

Being that it's my passion, I feel a compulsion to every once in a while update you on the web series I'm following.  I'm really happy that there seems to be a pretty constant flurry of activity in this exploding format--new projects starting up, others finishing one season and pursuing funding for another, etc.  So in the midst of the many that I hear about, here are the series I've been watching over the last few months:

Title: Classic Alice
Creators: Kate Hackett
About: "It chronicles Alice Rackham's life -- lived according to classic literature."  See my review of Season 1 here.  Season 2 just wrapped and stories included: Pygmalion, "The Butterfly," Macbeth, "Rip Van Winkle," The Wind in the Willows, and A Christmas Carol.  Whew! Range.
Of all the adapted web series I've watched this one has been the most innovative and also--with funding--could be the most sustainable. They are currently campaigning for funding and would so appreciate your support!

Status: Finished Season 2, campaigning for Season 3

Title: In Earnest
Creators:  Taryn Cole, Carly Straight, and Rachel Pullen
About: "'In Earnest' is a modern, web series adaptation of Oscar Wilde's famous play, 'The Importance of Being Earnest.'"  This is a quite delightful rendition of this story set at an East Coast University.  I am amazed how seamlessly Wilde's 120 year old wit can be repeated word-for-word today.  Favorite performance is John Laurie as Algernon Moncrieff

Status: Current.  New videos air Wednesdays and Saturdays

Title: Elinor and Marianne take Barton
Creators: Emily Nabney and Olivia Cole
About: "'Elinor and Marianne Take Barton' is an updated online adaptation of Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, produced, filmed and created by students at the University of Warwick (England)." I'm aware there are a couple S&S adaptations going on currently; this has felt the most life-like to me.  It's also delightful to finally watch a web-series based off a British book created and performed by British people :D

Status: Current.  New videos air Friday (usually)

Title: From Mansfield with Love
Creators: Foot in the Door Theatre
About: "'From Mansfield With Love' is a modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park." Another British series!  The pretense under which we get these videos is, I think, a perfect set up.  Though I found neither Frances O'Conner (1999) nor Billie Piper (2007) convincing as Fanny Price, Holly Truslove seems to have struck a balance.

Status: Current.  New videos air Wednesday and Sundays

Other series I'm aware of, but haven't checked out yet:
March Family Letters
East and West
Carmilla
Green Gables Fables
The Misselthwaite Archives

Are there others you've been watching? Any of these look particularly interesting to you?  Any I should review? :)

Adaptation Week: Mansfield Park

The winner of the Wait and Hope 1000 Giveaway is my good friend and fellow blogger: Cami!  Congrats, Cami, and thanks for everyone who entered.

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Anyone who chats to me long enough is bound to discover I love adaptations.  I simply love classic stories retold well.  Adaptations serve to introduce some to a story for the first time, others get to relive it and rethink their prior assumptions.  What's more, they often prompt great discussion about characters, plot points, and the way in which we understand a narrative. Being that I love adaptation so much, I thought I'd take this week on my blog to hi-light a different adaptation that is new or currently going on.  So, welcome to Adaptation Week!

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To commemorate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, the BBC is re-airing a radio drama they recorded initially in 2003.  That's right, before Tennant flew the TARDIS, before Felicity Jones played Northanger Abbey's gullible heroine, and far before Cumberbatch sleuthed in a long overcoat - they all were in a production of Austen's third novel.  Mansfield Park is interesting in that it is the author's most controversial novel as it can be read as exceedingly moralistic or covertly subvertive.  Due to the fact that she sits in the canon between Elizabeth Bennet and Emma Woodhouse, Fanny Price seems a frail and prudish heroine by comparison - but, this of course depends on how she and the novel is interpreted.

The BBC will be airing 10, 15-minute episodes beginning today, May 12.  You can listen to these episodes within a week of their airing via iPlayer Radio.  The stellar cast includes:

Fanny Price: Felicity Jones  
Sir Thomas Bertram: Tim Pigott-Smith
Lady Bertram: Liza Sadovy 

Tom Bertram: David Tennant  
Edmund Bertram: Benedict Cumberbatch  
Maria Bertram: Kate Fleetwood  
Mrs. Norris: Julia McKenzie  
Mr. Rushworth: Toby Jones  
Henry Crawford: James Callis  
Mary Crawford: Susan Lynch  
Narrator: Amanda Root

Date time with Mansfield Park.

"There certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women who deserve them." - Jane Austen

So, I finished Jane Eyre today. It is such a sad yet beautiful story!

At one point, faced with a heart-wrenching decision to break her principles for the man she loves, she responds:

“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane and not mad-as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth-so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane-quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”

Ah so beautiful! I read this particular part last night at 1 AM and just broke down sobbing. I want to be like that! To choose against my emotions and pursue righteousness. It just moved me so deeply.

The book is wonderful. I was told everything from, "That is the saddest book--especially the ending" to "That ending is the most redemptive ending ever." I understand both positions now. The book is tragic, yet lovely.

Now I get to really look forward to the new adaptation coming out in March. It's going to be by Focus Features (Pride and Prejudice 2005) and the BBC :) Plus, Jane Eyre is going to be played by Mia Wasikowska. Most notably, she played Alice in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, but I first saw her in Defiance where she played opposite of Jamie Bell--who happens to be playing one of the characters in the new Jane Eyre. Needless to say, it should be pretty good. There is so much inner struggle and rich language in the writing that I don't think the novel really lends itself to film, but I will enjoy seeing what the imagery might have been like.

Oh! And reading this book solidifies the fact that I'm going to name one of my daughters "Jane" - first or middle name, I don't care. But between Jane Austen and Jane Eyre one of them has to be a "Jane." I was actually looking for similarities between the Austen novels and this one and there are some profound similarities to Mansfield Park which is almost my favorite of Jane Austen's. I told my mom though (while I was in the middle of the book), "This is so frustrating because I have no idea how it is going to turn out. If it were a Jane Austen novel, I would know exactly how it was going to end."

"And how would it end?" She asked.

"Everything would work out and she would marry the man she was in love with!" hahaha :)

And later on was funny too. I was watching Beauty and the Beast with my mom and sister when it suddenly struck me, "This is a typical Gothic Romance! Yikes! That's two in one day. Oh dear, that'll do my heart a lot of good..." Really, though, it isn't good for me. So tomorrow we're either reading non-fiction or a little bit of Fellowship of the Ring (for the book club).

Anyway... I hope you are having a splendid evening and stealing some extra time with family during the holidays :)

Sweet dreams!

Quotes of Jane (Part I)

Regarding the King Henry VI: "It was in this reign that Joan of Arc lived and made such a row among the English. They should not have burnt her--but they did." - The History of England

"But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them." - Mansfield Park

"A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment." - Pride and Prejudice (Oh how well she understood the female mind! haha)

"loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable... her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful..." - Pride and Prejudice

"All I want in a man is someone who rides bravely, dances beautifully, sings with vigor, reads passionately, and whose taste agrees in every point with my own." - Sense and Sensibility

"I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed a female who ever dared to be an authoress." - A sarcastic letter to a chauvinistic friend

"Jane Shore... had a play written about her, but it is a tragedy & therefore not worth reading." - The History of England

"...it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world." - Northanger Abbey

"A large income is the best recipe for happiness I have ever heard of." - Mansfield Park

The Lord is so good to me! The other day, as I was finishing Mansfield Park, Jesus told me to read some literary criticism of Jane Austen. I wanted to cry, "Really? You think so too?" =)
Well, duh, He's the one who crafted us around a dream of His heart. He's the one who knows the exact avenue to tap to infuse our hearts with a holy passion for His dreams. But when He opens up those doors into wider spaces of dreaming, I'm still taken aback! He is just so good!
He said I didn't need to read anything terribly heavy--just some materials to supplement my own readings, studies, and musings about Jane Austen. He said simply that if this is what I want to study, I need to accumulate as much foundational knowledge as possible. I'm sooo excited to dive into it. Last year, I wrote a paper on musical and non-musical characters in Jane Austen. I picked up a book called The Innocent Diversion: A Study of Music in Jane Austen's Life and Writing. It was so fun, but I intentionally skipped over the portions that related to novels I had not yet read. So, I'm going back and reading that.
Another topic that I find so intriguing is the role of the clergy in Jane Austen's novels. She was the daughter of a clergyman, yet her representations of clergy in her novels range from Mr. Collins to Mr. Henry Tilney and Dr. Grant to Mr. Edward Ferrars. Anyways... there are a lot of positive and negative representations, I'm excited to look at them. So I got a book from the library called Jane Austen and the Clergy. That one is going to be especially good =)
I also am getting a book that compiles her personal letters. From the quotes I've seen in my little Jane Austen journal, they should be very fun. I love her letters to her sister Cassandra.
And as if those aren't enough, one of my bestest friends got me a great birthday present. It's Jane's satirical History of England which she penned at only 16 years old. Oh goodie!

If you couldn't tell... I'm a little excited about this!
You can look forward to quotes, anecdotes, and morsels of things about "Jane."
This is going to be grand... I'm so glad He knows what's best for us =)

Ok. The library just informed me that my books are ready, so, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go read =)

I'm working on a response paper for my physics class and really needed a mental break from it, so here I am. I need 700 words for this open ended response to nuclear physics, and I have 504. I'm afraid the next 200 words may be quite a bit of "bs" but that's what they get for not even giving a prompt. Juuuust kidding. No, I try not to do that, even though English majors are notorious for being able to create bs. But I really don't know what to say about it. Nuclear energy is a good thing if we can use it safely... how many times can i say that to equal 700 words. hmmmm

Well, in happier news...

I am pleased to announce that yesterday I finished my quest to read all 6 of Jane Austen's superb novels. My final one, Mansfield Park, was a beautiful read. The Lord showed me quite a bit through that book actually... and best of all, yesterday, during all my excitement about having finished the books, I could hear the Lord say, "I'm so proud of you." I've been thinking about Chariots of Fire, and for the most part, i'm beginning to think that, "When I read, I feel God's pleasure..." and that is a glorious feeling.
This is the first quarter--the first time ever, really--that i've been in school but not in a literature class. But instead of getting sorry for myself, I decided that since that means my reading load is relatively light, I would take the quarter to read a few of the books I hear Him telling me to read. And as I've read, I can hear the power behind some of the words He is highlighting. I can hear His voice calling me deeper into understand His nature so that I can understand language. He cares about language and the more I learn about literature or communication--I see that so clearly. It's exhilarating. This is divine purpose. This is my destiny. And it is for now.

The only other thing I can think to share is that, thank goodness, today is my last day as a teenager.
This last decade (well, all of my life), but especially the last decade holds some very, very dark places for me. There are points that I don't even care to remember... times that He has cast into the sea of forgetfulness and that's where they can stay.
But tomorrow begins something entirely new! I fully expect the 20's to be the very best years of my life (just as I expect the 30's, 40's, etc... to be as well :) But I am so excited! I know Father has good plans! I know He has more good things for me this decade than I know what to do with. I have no idea where I may be 10 years from now, but just look at the possibilities:
- Marriage
- Kids
- BA
- MA
- (Ph.D. =)
- Teaching
- London
- Laughing
- Nieces and Nephews =)
- Sisters in law ???
- New friends
- Amazing times with Old Friends
- Weddings
- Travel
- Working
- Sunsets
- Walks
- Surprises
- And Physics Response Papers =|

Haha... speaking of, I should probably finish mine... But I hope you can take a minute to reflect on all the glorious things 10 more years of precious life may afford you =)

Bon soir!

"He knew not that he had a pre-engaged heart to attack." - Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

To provide some context, this line is about a man who is proposing to a woman who is already in love with another character, not that they were actually engaged--just that she could not be deterred. He is doing his utmost to persuade her but, unfortunately for him, her affections were sealed.
This line makes me fall in love with Jane Austen all over again. I am so in love with her prose that I have begun calling her simply "Jane."
"I'm going to spend some time with Jane..."
"Oh Jane is brilliant!"
Sacrilegious, I know! But, I adore her so much and this little line reminds me why!

But after re-reading this line half a dozen times today, I thought, "I want that to be said about my heart!"
When someone calls, I'm not planning on playing hard-to-get, but I do want to have a "pre-engaged heart."
Pastor Norm once said that you can't start courting until you're engaged.
I'm reminded of the beautiful yet nearly cliche line:
A girl's heart should be so lost in God that a man has to pursue Him to find her.
Amen amen!

I am so deeply in love with Him, but I want more. I want to get lost in the depths of His heart!
I want it to be said of my man, "He knew not that he had a pre-engaged heart to attack." :)

less than one page in to my last Jane Austen conquest--Mansfield Park--before I had to stop for this reflective quote:

"There are certainly not so many men of large fortune in the world, as there are pretty women who deserve them..."

hehe... i love it! She never ceases to amaze me!

more to come later... =)