Using Shakespeare For Timing...

As I already brought up elsewhere online, I memorized Mark Anthony's eulogy for Caesar in the play Julius Caesar about 20 years ago. And I found recently I can use it for timing. When the timing doesn't need to be perfect or precise of course.

But up the point where he says

“He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill.”

It takes about 30 seconds. And when I recite up till the lines

“Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.”

That's about one minute. Now I call those the two C words. Because those are the only times in the eulogy when he uses those words, coffers and coffin.

And, when I recite up to where he says

“Nay, press not so upon me. Stand far off.”

to the crowd, that's about two minutes.

I also just shared on this same post, on another website like I said, that someone there on that post brought up reciting the Ave Maria for timing. Well, I was recently inpatient. And I had to time things sometimes. And it was hard to find time by myself, and I thought it might be weird if people heard me reciting Shakespeare to myself. And, I find it hard to recite things to myself mentally if I never have or generally don't. But I did have to time things sometimes (and they took my wrist watch for security). So I did try out some Catholic prayers I was taught, just like that other poster recommended. I don't think I've prayed them in years. But I was already adept at reciting them mentally to myself. So I tried that.

Yes, so I think the Our Father is probably the longest prayer I know off-hand. There are some shorter ones like the Glory Be. And some ejaculations (Catholic very short prayers) I know.

Also, I used to them for longer time or to distract myself when I got bored. One thing I came up with was slowly saying the prayer and, then pausing on each word, mentally think what the definition of that word was, or what part of speech it was.

I didn't expect being inpatient like that so I didn't have time to prepare or bring some material I could use with me. So I did that. And it worked.