I haven’t really been up to much today except for going to class, doing homework, and programming a little bit for work, so I don’t really have anything interesting to blog about. So, I decided today would be a good day to catch up a bit on Daily Post topics that I was interested in writing about.

For those of you who have not been around for long enough to know what the Daily Post is, it is a pro­ject hosted by WordPress.com that encourages people to blog every single day in 2011. WordPress says they understand that it is not always easy to come up with topics to blog about, so they provide an optional topic that you can write about every day if you don’t have an idea of your own. I have not been consistently using Daily Post’s material, but whenever an intriguing topic pops up, I write about it.

The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Topic #285: Do you like surprises? Why or why not? Can you think of the best or worse surprise you’ve had in the last year?

I do not like surprises at all because I do not like being caught off guard. I like to plan ahead for things that will happen in my future, and even if they are good surprises, I do not like it when my regular plans are thrown off schedule because of something unexpected.

I don’t really keep track of all the times I’m surprised, and it usually does not happen very frequently because the people who interact with me often know that I am a type of person who likes to be informed, and they do their best to avoid making me feel uncomfortable.

The Daily Post at WordPress.com

Topic #290: Do you think Shakespeare existed? Or are there just too many plays and sonnets credited to him to be the work of one person? The new film Anonymous questions his prolificity and his existence. If you think these claims against history are a waste of time, why do you think they are periodically raised by so many people?

I’ve heard this argument a lot, and based on all the evidence, I can’t really form a solid opinion for or against either side.

However, I do have a strong opinion about claims like this in general, and I think they are a waste of time. I don’t really see the point of arguing about if the person credited to writing these novels really existed. I don’t think anything is going to change if we prove or disprove that Shakespeare was an existing man who fits the description of how everyone knows him. As far as I am concerned, Shakespeare’s writing is famous because of the actual writing, not because of the name of the author associated with the text. I don’t believe that any English curriculums will change just because they discover that Shakespeare is either not who he claims to be, or is a collection of multiple people using the same alias.