The next morning Rory came to English and found typed out pages laying on her desk and Tristan staring out the window.

Lorelei,

I have read through the passage and think that we should individually analyze the piece ourselves and then fuse our ideas together. As for modernizing, since we are the only group that was assigned this play I thought it might be interesting to use the characters in the passage and do a remake of what they would be like in our time and how they may go about presenting themselves. Attached I've given you my analysis of the passage and a tentative schedule so that you can tell me when you are available to work.

-Tristan Dugrey

No jokes, or teasing, Tristan's note was straightforward and the work he put into the rest of the package showed that he intended to spend as little time with her as possible. Sighing she stowed everything into her backpack and quietly waited for the day to end.

Act 1, Scene 1, Lines 180-251

Enter HELENA

HERMIA

God speed fair Helena! whither away?

HELENA

Call you me fair? that fair again unsay.
Demetrius loves your fair: O happy fair!
Your eyes are lode-stars; and your tongue's sweet air
More tuneable than lark to shepherd's ear,
When wheat is green, when hawthorn buds appear.
Sickness is catching: O, were favour so,
Yours would I catch, fair Hermia, ere I go;
My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody.
Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,
The rest I'd give to be to you translated.
O, teach me how you look, and with what art
You sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.

HERMIA

I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

HELENA

O that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

HERMIA

I give him curses, yet he gives me love.

HELENA

O that my prayers could such affection move!

HERMIA

The more I hate, the more he follows me.

HELENA

The more I love, the more he hateth me.

HERMIA

His folly, Helena, is no fault of mine.

HELENA

None, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!

HERMIA

Take comfort: he no more shall see my face;
Lysander and myself will fly this place.
Before the time I did Lysander see,
Seem'd Athens as a paradise to me:
O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,
That he hath turn'd a heaven unto a hell!

LYSANDER

Helen, to you our minds we will unfold:
To-morrow night, when Phoebe doth behold
Her silver visage in the watery glass,
Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,
A time that lovers' flights doth still conceal,
Through Athens' gates have we devised to steal.

HERMIA

And in the wood, where often you and I
Upon faint primrose-beds were wont to lie,
Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,
There my Lysander and myself shall meet;
And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,
To seek new friends and stranger companies.
Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us;
And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius!
Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight
From lovers' food till morrow deep midnight.

LYSANDER

I will, my Hermia.

Exit HERMIA

Helena, adieu:
As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!

Exit

HELENA

How happy some o'er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know:
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities:
Things base and vile, folding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity:
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind:
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgement taste;
Wings and no eyes figure unheedy haste:
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjured every where:
For ere Demetrius look'd on Hermia's eyne,
He hail'd down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight:
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense:
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again.

Exit

Girl loves guy, guy loves other girl, other girl already involved with another guy. Shakespeare must've had some kind of a portal into the future because Helena, Hermia, and Lysander's situation seems to reflect that of so many other people these days. I mean look at Helena, she comes off as a tad abrasive in her pursuit of Demetrius but her actions are pure enough. All she really wants is for the guy to have some acknowledgement regarding her existence instead of the oblivion and direct disregard he exudes towards her. As for Lysander and Hermia, their so caught up in their own little romance that they fail to really comfort their supposed friend. Helena proceeds to spill her heart out to the couple and Hermia does little to comfort her besides announcing that she had plans to elope with Lysander. Hermia appears to be selfish and has litte regard for those around her. Many say that Helena's soliloquy seems to be desperate, ill-advised and bitter but I honestly believe that she'd rather hurt herself than have Demetrius learn of the elopement of his beloved Hermia too late. Cupid is blind, he's reckless, spiteful but for Helena she'd rather find solace in spending just a small amount of time with Demetrius trying to stop Lysander and Hermia than having him hurt. The bible says something about how love is kind, never jealous but when love is unrequited, simply put, loves a bitch. It makes you crazy, full of jealousy, makes you cold but it also melts your insides and in the end it leaves you empty and alone.

Rory had read and re-read Tristan's analysis of the passage c few times but it was this last handwritten sheet she didn't understand. It didn't fit in with all the typed pages and after she had read it made her feel guilty. Like a child sneaking chocolate before dinner Rory knew it wasn't something she should've been reading but there was something about it that made her want to read it again, maybe because it was written so fluidly, maybe because it offered a different perspective on the passage, or maybe because it gave her a small glimpse behind the curtain Tristan always had drawn around up.

Settling down, she opened up towards the beginnings of her own analysis when she heard a knock at the door. "Who is it?" she heard her mom chirp as she yanked open the door.

"It's Dean. Is Rory home?" the tall brunette replied coming into the foyer.

"Sure thing Giganto, Rory, boy at the door!" Lorelei called walking past her room and towards the coffee machine.

"Hey Dean, whatcha doing here?" she smiled coming towards the front.

"Just wanted to drop by and give you some flowers;" he replied hading her some daisies, "and to tell you I love you."

"Oh, thanks, but can we talk actually?"

"What's wrong Rore?" he panicked.

"Oh nothing, it's just what I said yesterday, I just don't want to use the term loosely or anything."

"Oh, that's fine, I understand," he nodded giving her a kiss. "Night"

"Goodnight," she replied closing the door behind him.

"So, child of mine, why the 'I don't want to say I love you' only one day after you decided to drop the L-bomb?" Lorelei inquired from the kitchen table as Rory made her way to her room.

"Oh mom, when did things become so confusing. I mean Dean gets all mad cause I don't say it, and so I figure that I miss Dean, I'll say it to make him happy but when I said it I also said that I hate Tristan and now Tristan won't talk to me, which is horrible because we were assigned this English project together and you know what, now at school I have no one to talk to cause Tristan doesn't even look at me, not that I should care but still its lonely, I even tried to banter and he acts as if I'm no one." she exclaimed breathlessly dropping into a chair and placing her head upon the table.

"Well, Rore from you're little 5 second remake of why life currently sucks for you, I think this ordeal and your reservations on saying the L-word may lead back to a certain boy named Tristan, and not just English partner Tristan but maybe the one who gave you special attention."