"Ah, thank you. Thank you all for your continuous support. I could not have done this without you. Especially you, everyone in class. It has been a pleasure."

I'm not lying when I say that this year's production has truly been a pleasure to make. Even though I don't even really like the book itself, I found that this year, everyone was so great and mature about the production. I felt so proud!

This year, I was extremely prepared for the usual production comments-- the violent reactions, the complaints, and the like. After all, in past productions, there was the usual panic before the actual play date. I've always hated those parts. But this year, I was seriously surprised. Maybe it was the I-want-to-graduate-right-now thing or maybe it was something else. But really, this year, I had the best time practicing for the play. I realized that this class has grown. I was so happy when they treated the short preparation time with some version of being calm and collected instead of freaking out. The set, though rushed, actually seemed better than a lot of our other sets. The props team really outdid themselves, plus, they weren't really as stressed as before! Everyone has grown so much!

Now on to the book and Shakespeare himself. First of all, I do not like Shakespeare. He's a great author, I get that. But his style is simply not for me. However, I was surprised to find that he pulled of Julius Caesar very well. I could actually understand it this time! I expected him to write like he did in Hamlet or something. It's funny because Julius Caesar is pretty much non-fiction (sort of) but it became more interesting than some of Shakespeare's other fictional books.

Julius Caesar itself was a somewhat pleasant surprise. In the beginning, I found it very dragging and long. But in the end of our production, I realized that it was actually much more interesting than just learning about Caesar from a History book. Before, I could never remember anyone's names, except for Caesar! Now, I pretty much know all the conspirators, wives, and minor characters.

There is probably only one new thing I realized/discovered about myself thanks to our production of Julius Caesar. In all these years of productions, I noticed that I never really legitimately memorized my lines. Hypocritical, I know. But I noticed that I would just skim through and then ad-lib the rest. Not very responsible for me, but I'm hoping I won't have to memorize any lines again. I learned that despite this irresponsibility, I was still able to help make the play a success. However, it was a group effort, so technically it doesn't count. But SHHHHHH.